Awards season (I) I first met Rob Csernyik in April 2019. We had coffee at Dr. Luke’s and he interviewed me for a J-Source article he was writing about the Cape Breton journalism scene. We went back and forth by email for months afterward because J-Source is serious to theRead More

Editor’s Note: I am doing a deep dive into the CBRM’s 2021-22 budget this week and dragging you with me. This is Part 1 of 3. You’ll find Part 2 here and Part 3 here. I’ve been remiss in not covering the $157 million operating budget the CBRM has approvedRead...

Editor’s Note: I am doing a deep dive into the CBRM’s 2021-22 budget this week and dragging you with me. This is Part 2 of 3. You’ll find Part 1 here and Part 3 here.   The CBRM Engineering and Public Works Department has budgeted $17.5 million for roads and underground infrastructureRead...

Editor’s Note: I am doing a deep dive into the CBRM’s 2021-22 budget this week and dragging you with me. This is Part 3 of 3. You’ll find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.   The CBRM’s capital budget for 2021-22 (the subject of this three-part extravaganza I haveRead...

Editor’s Note: This open letter from the Cape Breton West Chapter of the Council of Canadians to the prime minister is dated 11 May 2021.   Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, We are writing to implore the Government of Canada to ask the World Trade Organization (WTO) to hold an emergencyRead More

Editor’s Note: This week, instead of gardening tips, the Spectator is featuring one of Michelle Smith’s feature articles. This one was first published on 17 May 2017.   It’s fair to say that a user-friendly discussion of the dairy industry in Canada would be in order right about now. WithRead More

Tattoo news This week’s story about Mildred Brown’s tattoos raised many questions for me, but one of the first that occurred was: how unusual was it for a working-class woman to have tattoos in 1929? Brown had not one but five, all professionally done. It’s a subject I hope toRead More

It’s been “over a year” since CBRM council has had an opportunity to speak directly to port promoter Albert Barbusci of Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP) and over five years since his “company” (it consists of two people, Barbusci and Barry Sheehy) officially began leading the campaign to establish aRead More

Were it not for the long-dead woman at its center, this story, about a researcher being denied access to items by Quebec’s Musée de la civilisation, might not have been an obvious Spectator story. But the items Jamie Jelinski, “an interdisciplinary scholar whose work focuses on the history of Canadian visualRead More

“There was no shortage of resources to avoid the tragedy of a Famine. … Instead, the government pursued the objective of economic, social and agrarian reform as a long-term aim, although the price paid for this ultimately elusive goal was privation, disease, emigration, mortality and an enduring legacy of disenchantment.”–Read More