Any port in a storm? Lisa Raitt was a guest on Canadaland’s OPPO podcast this week (OPPO is sort of like Crossfire for millennials, pitting left-of-center reporter/pundit Justin Ling against right-of-center reporter/pundit Jen Gerson to discuss Canadian politics.) You can listen to what Raitt had to say about why sheRead More

The executive of the Port of Sydney Development Corporation (PSDC) board has quit and I have to thank them for making that information public because if they hadn’t told us, we probably wouldn’t have noticed until next year’s AGM. The executive — chair Lucia MacIsaac, vice-chair John Khattar, treasurer JohnRead More

Chief Paul responds… The press release Albert Barbusci issued last week announcing his plan to establish a waste plastic-to-fuels plant in his “logistics park” in Edwardsville included the following quote from Membertou Chief Terry Paul: As active partners in SHIP, the reduced carbon footprint of our facilities is key toRead More

I know I said I was going to hang this week’s content on “recent developments” in stories I’d already covered but this story is an exception: I’m hanging this one on the fact that there have been no recent developments in a story I’ve covered extensively (some might say obsessively)Read More

On 9 August 2019, the Nunavut sheriff’s office, acting on a statement of claim and warrant from the Federal Court in Halifax, “arrested” the Royal Canadian Geographic Society (RCGS) Resolute — a cruise ship operated by One Ocean Expeditions (OOE). The incident was made public on August 19, by CBCRead More

Sea change A spectator (you know who you are) pointed me to this item from the tender for architectural and engineering services for the new Marconi Campus on the Sydney waterfront (before, I might add, it was also picked up on by the Cape Breton Post): Climate risks include increasedRead More

It’s not like I had high hopes for that “viability” study Grant Thornton has just completed for the CBRM — frankly, I viewed it as a $219,000 hoop we had to jump through to get the province to recognize our difficult financial situation —  but I hadn’t expected to findRead More

Editor’s Note: Given that the mayor of our municipality has spent much of his time in office — and thousands of public dollars — promoting a Port of Sydney container terminal, the Spectator feels all Nova Scotia port news is of interest to its readers. So when Halifax-based reporter RickRead More

On 13 May 2016, I submitted an access to information and privacy (ATIP) request to ACOA asking for information pertaining to the 2012 sale of the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club (RCBYC) and adjacent lands to Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation (ECBC). The request was transferred to Public Services and ProcurementRead More

FOIPOP blues Since the dawn of the age of Big Data — hell, since the dawn of the age of Excel spreadsheets — tracking and collating information has become much easier for us humans. Data entry is boring but not difficult, and once entered (whether into a database or aRead More