Ever since reading Linda McQuaig on Connaught Labs — the “public” lab that McQuaig argues, convincingly, could have helped Canada fight the COVID-19 pandemic had it not been privatized by the Mulroney government in the ’80s — I’ve been thinking about the value of publicly owned businesses and looking atRead More

Editor’s Note: Sydney’s casino turned 25 this summer and to mark its quarter-century, Rob Csernyik has been taking an in-depth look at the promises — and realities — of casino gambling in Cape Breton. In this fourth and final piece, he contrasts the CBRM with a community (within its ownRead More

The Irvings The latest installment of Dynasties, the Canadaland Commons series on Canada’s wealthiest families, focuses on the Irvings and, as my sister said, “It’s the plot of Succession!” She’s right — only the Irving saga is weirder than the HBO series about an “American global-media family that is notRead More

(With apologies to Joe Flaherty and any reader unfamiliar with SCTV’s Count Floyd. Or maybe any reader familiar with SCTV’s Count Floyd.) I wasn’t planning to do anything special for Halloween this year, even though I’m actually publishing ON HALLOWEEN, but then I received the latest Nova Scotia Business IncRead More

Susan Leblanc, the NDP MLA for Dartmouth North, has introduced a bill that would see the provincial government guarantee personal, short-term, “micro-loans” for amounts up to $2,000 from credit unions. I spoke to Leblanc briefly, by phone, on Friday and she told me the guarantee would be similar to theRead More

The government of Nova Scotia is going to make sure everyone in the province has access to broadband internet. I know what you’re thinking — don’t tell Motorola. They think they solved that problem for us back in 2010, those crazy kids. They even used as a “case study” inRead More