The pier, dear Premier Stephen McNeil officially opened Sydney’s new $20 million docking pier Thursday amid a gathering of politicians from all levels and stripes. McNeil said he’s confident the cruise industry will bounce back and that the new infrastructure, to be called Liberty Pier, will also help attract otherRead More

It’s toady time! I confess: I find Anthony Marlowe — CEO of MCI, savior of the Sydney Call Centre — fascinating. So much so that whenever things are slow, or I’m in need of distraction, I tune in to his Twitter stream to see what he’s been getting up to.Read More

Managing expectations Students of local municipal politics! Given that CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke seems to be pretty obviously running for a third term (despite announcing on election night in 2016 that he would do no such thing) I invite you to compare and contrast the following items: Exhibit A ARead More

The cruise industry has been hard hit by COVID-19, which is bad news for any port that has put all its eggs in that particular basket, like the Port of Sydney which counts on the industry for up to 85% of its revenues and has funneled $20 million in publicRead More

One of the best hours I spent this week was listening to my favorite podcasters dissecting the recent attempt by a ragtag group of mercenaries to overthrow the Venezuelan government — a saga that sounded like a James Ellroy novel come to life. (Seriously, if you’ve read Ellroy’s American Tabloid,Read...

I’ve speculated about it going over budget and falling behind schedule, but it never occurred to me that a virus — more specifically, a novel coronavirus called COVID-19 — would pose the biggest threat to the timely opening of the CBRM’s $20 million second cruise ship berth, but here weRead More

Ad nauseum Thanks to Tim Bousquet at the Halifax Examiner for pointing me to this article by David Roth (the one who used to write for Deadspin, not the one who sang “Jump”). It’s called “The infinite scroll” and it is an elegant though depressing exploration of the modern onlineRead More

The voyage is apparently over for One Ocean Expeditions (OOE). The Polar cruise specialist founded by Westmount native Andrew Prossin, which had been canceling this season’s voyages one by one, has sent a letter to passengers stating it “will enter a formal process of business re-structure in accordance with CanadianRead More

One Ocean Expeditions (OOE), the Squamish, BC-based cruise line founded by Westmount native Andrew Prossin in 2007, has canceled eight of this season’s cruises, leaving angry customers — some of whom have paid as much as (or more than) $20,000 for their tickets —  in its wake. I’ve heard recentlyRead More

The Port of Sydney has posted its audited financials and a Community Update. I think of it as “Fact vs. Fiction.” The audited financials deal in fact and show how much money the port made in fiscal 2019 and how much it spent:   As of 31 March 2019, theRead More