Don’t ever say I haven’t done my bit for transparency on the cruise file. I made an access to information (ATIP) request to Parks Canada to find out how much the Fortress of Louisbourg, the Alexander Graham Bell Museum and the Cape Breton Highlands National Park have made from cruiseRead More

First, the good news. The cruise ship most seen in Sydney during the 2016 season, Holland America Line’s Veendam, got an A grade from the Friends of the Earth in their 2016 Cruise Ship Report Card. The bad news? Our second-most frequent visitor, the Veendam’s sister ship Rotterdam, got aRead More

I happened to be in Quebec last week as I was reading about the cruise ship industry in general and the incidence of “mysterious disappearances” in particular. One case really caught my eye because the woman in question—a 70-year-old from Baton Rouge, Louisiana named Sarah Tessier Powell—was last seen onRead More

I’ll say it again: we need to talk about the cruise industry. We need to talk about its actual impact on our local economy, its environmental impact on our coastal waters,  its questionable labor practices and its crime problem. And we have to do it right now, before we pumpRead More

My first reaction to the 2014 Sydney Cruise Market Assessment Report was: why are we talking about spending $20 million on a second berth and not talking about our ground transportation problem? (My second reaction was—how do people who cannot actually write get into the report-writing business? Why would youRead More

  Halifax Examiner publisher Tim Bousquet and CBC Newfoundland commentator Drew Brown are both saying things of interest to Cape Bretoners today. Bousquet’s Morning File responds to the Cape Breton Post‘s front-page love letter to our “one millionth” cruise ship passenger (an apparently nice lady from Florida who seems to haveRead More