Dear Premier Houston: We would like to bring your attention to the West Mabou Beach Provincial Park controversy and our concerns in that regard. West Mabou Beach is an ecologically sensitive area that forms part of the mere 5% of Nova Scotian coastline that is legally protected. We are adamantlyRead More

Editor’s Note: The subject line of this email was simply “Donkin Mine”   I am a retired psychiatrist who got to treat one of the men for PTSD who had brought out dead from the Westray mine disaster in ‘92. After the explosion the manager of that mine described itRead...

Growing up in South Bar, wedged between the larger centers of Sydney and New Waterford, you quickly learn that to get anything done for “The Bar” you have to work hard, organize and make a lot of noise to get any kind of action from local politicians who focus onRead More

Editor’s Note: I received my copy of this open letter, released by the Health for All Network on 12 October 2022, from Dr. Monika Dutt, a public health physician in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland & Labrador whom I’ve interviewed in these pages previously and who stated, in an accompanying pressRead More

Why do we in Sydney have to settle for second best? We have consultations on projects but recommendations are ignored without much, if any, published analysis. Outrageously exaggerated costs are often quoted to justify inaction. Take the costs of installing buried power lines on Charlotte Street. I have not seenRead More

With the highest child poverty in the country, the highest unemployment ever, the highest property taxes in the country, infrastructure that is falling apart, our healthcare in a crisis, roads that are unsafe to drive on, cost of living the highest in 30 years, home ownership that is completely outRead More

Editor’s Note: Joe Noseworthy’s high school graduation photo popped up in his social media feed last month as his own daughter was graduating from high school prompting this delightful reflection on New Waterford in the ’80s.   Thirty years this week since this pic was taken! It amazes me, theRead More

Dear Editor, You know what’s wrong with Cape Breton Island? It’s not the seniors, who have been accused of not wanting economic development and jobs here. It’s not the unions, who have been accused of wanting their unions on every construction development. It’s not the high residential taxes or highRead More

One of my first memories is walking hand in hand with a giant down the South Bar sandbar road to the ocean. He wasn’t really a giant, he was my great grandfather, a veteran of the First and Second World Wars and a retired miner who didn’t say much andRead More

You claim that the Cape Breton Spectator has ambitious goals. Yet, you publish articles like this week’s “Where’s Cecil?,” which strikes me as the kind of gossipy story that one might find in a supermarket rag. Despite his status as a former mayor, Cecil Clarke is now a private citizenRead More