Communications Writing about Island Employment’s travails this week, I had reason to visit the website of the Nova Scotia Career Development Association (NSCDA) and found myself perusing their catalog of training courses for their employees — or “practitioners” as they’re called. I ended up down a rather deep rabbit holeRead More

In late August The New Yorker featured a fascinating, slightly awestruck examination of “the Costa Rica Model” of “health care that understands its community,” by American surgeon and professor of public health Atul Gawande. Gawande, nominated by President Biden to serve as assistant administrator of the US Aid and DevelopmentRead More

The Spectator‘s coverage this spring was varied, to say the least. From Albert Barbusci’s nuclear waste deal, to the workings of the Verschuren Centre to the province’s third wave of COVID with a variety of stops in between, including a feature I count among my all-time favorites — the oneRead More

The last three months of 2021 found me, as always, following CBRM happenings — particularly around waterfront development and cruise news — but also looking further afield at stories with local angles or implications. In particular, I got interested in how some Saint Lucians were responding to the arrival ofRead More

A recent celebrant on CTV’s local Mass for Shut-ins began his homily with this line: If you go out into the garage and stay there all day, it doesn’t make you a car. Similarly if you go to church every Sunday, it doesn’t make you a Christian. That statement threwRead More

Toll Road Hypocrisy alert: I literally just read an email from Amazon telling me I can expect delivery of my order on December 17. I try really hard to avoid using Amazon — I just checked my order history and this is the first time I’ve placed one since 2019Read More

Here’s an item from last week’s CBRM council session on affordable housing that I really wanted to follow up on:  Deputy Mayor (and District 2 Councilor) Earlene MacMullin proposed the municipality look into the possibility of turning the Northside General Hospital, scheduled for closure and demolition, into affordable housing —Read More

We have committed the fatal sin in public policy of becoming cynical and arrogant with respect to decisions affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people. We have trivialized the likelihood that deterrence might fail, thus providing easy moral cover for ignoring the consequences. We have learned to liveRead More

This week has found me unable to focus entirely on any one story, so no deep dives. Instead, I’m going to touch briefly on some issues I’ve been following and which I hope to write about in more detail soon.   Labor relations First, give me credit, please, for notRead More

Monday’s special CBRM council session on affordable housing was so full of information that I find myself forced to choose one part to write about today, for fear of overwhelming you with facts and figures. It started with a presentation by Paul LaFleche, the deputy minister of Municipal Affairs andRead More