First the good news: the Port of Sydney has been noticed! Granted, UK-based Affinity Research LLP thinks Novaporte is in North Sydney, but close enough. The bad news? Fotios Katsoulas, an analyst specializing in shipping data, has his doubts about the viability of the project, at least in the shortRead More

In July 2011, Elaine Power wrote a scathing account of food banks in The Globe and Mail, declaring “they have become a serious obstacle in the fight against poverty” and “it was time to close them down.” Power, at the time an associate professor in the School of Kinesiology andRead More

A gentleman of my acquaintance can’t watch CTV’s Steve Murphy deliver the news without yelling at the television screen. I have a similar relationship with The Cape Breton Post. I don’t necessarily yell, often I simply ask it questions, questions I think its reporters should ask but don’t. Take thatRead More

CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke was beside himself when Sydney-Victoria MP Mark Eyking suggested the federal government’s one-third share of the funding for our second berth could hinge on the CBRM installing a permanent board of directors for the Port of Sydney Development Corporation (PSDC, until they come up with aRead More

Has Our SHIP Come In? My thanks to Tim Bousquet of the Halifax Examiner who has been trawling (not trolling) the NS Registry of Joint Stock Companies on a regular basis for new listings and found this one. Note the date of registration: I have contacted the registry in anRead More

I’m a bit obsessed with the port — and sadly, I don’t mean the fortified wine — which is why this week’s issue contains so many port-related stories. But somebody has to do something other than cheerlead. Somebody has to don the skunk suit and turn up at the gardenRead More

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house….Oh wait! We don’t have a house! Start that again: ‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the rental, we were all really sick, both physical and mental. Our flooded houses stood empty on streets that were bare, in hopesRead More

We’ve been hearing a lot about the rules of international business lately—much of it from a career politician who has never worked in the private sector. Do you know what’s big in the world of international business since Enron? Madoff? The 2008 financial crisis? Governance. I’ll let those anti-development, bleedingRead More

Crows fascinate me. Try as I might not to anthropomorphize them, I catch myself thinking of them as sly or wise or watchful or mocking, depending upon whether they’re emptying my bird feeder, dancing on my roof, poking around my recycling or crapping on my head as I walk down NorthRead More

Not having been affected by the rain storm that hit the Cape Breton Regional Municipality this past Thanksgiving, I had the luxury of learning about the difference between “overland flooding” and “sewer backup” weeks later, over a beer with a friend whose basement had flooded. The woman sent by hisRead More