This week, the FOIPOP findings are just going to be a jumping off point for a check-in with everybody’s favorite Northside shipyard — the one operated by Canadian Maritime Engineering on the property formerly known as Archibald’s Wharf. I’ve covered the controversial sale of that property in detail — thisRead More

I have now received almost all the port-related documents the Privacy Commissioner told the CBRM to release to me. All that seems to be missing are the documents the municipality has never produced, not even for the commissioner herself. On the one hand, this is great, full stop. The CBRMRead More

The feasibility of developing a terminal for the world’s largest container ships in Sydney harbor is something you’d think the proponents would probably want to determine relatively early on in the process and yet, by 2014 — after the $38 million dredging of the harbor — the port team hadRead More

I’ve been bellyaching for years about how little information we were ever given about Mayor Cecil Clarke’s travel in support of the port project. His expense reports were notoriously shy on detail, as illustrated by this 2018 entry in which he doesn’t even reveal the city in which his “PortRead More

Armored Car Reading about the acting chief of the Cape Breton Regional Police Services (CBRPS), Robert Walsh, ordering up a new, armored, emergency response SUV sparked so many questions for me, beginning with: where is the actual chief of police? The radio silence surrounding the status of Chief Peter McIsaac,Read More

Remember CBRM’s sister city, the Chinese port city of Dalian? I don’t blame you if you’ve forgotten, the relationship never really amounted to much and we basically stopped talking about it after our sister city (population: 6 million) sentenced a Canadian to death in 2019. But back in December 2015,Read More

Trainspotter Looking for illustrations for my rail-related articles this week, I ran across something great: a trove of train photos by a photographer named Roger Puta. I didn’t have time to learn anything more about him on Wednesday, I just snaffled up those lovely photos of a CN engine inRead More

By a strange confluence of events, I had already decided to cover the subject of rail this week before I read the Scotia Rail Development Society editorial in Saturday’s paper. The editorial simply served to spur me on (no pun intended). Barry Sheehy and Albert Barbusci of Sydney Harbour InvestmentRead More

There are few things more discouraging than directing all your journalistic efforts to separating fact from fiction, only to discover that a wide swath of the public prefers the fiction. How else to explain the opinion piece by Jim Guy and Mary C. MacPherson in the Saturday edition of theRead More

You know the story: back in July 2015 I submitted an access to information request to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality asking for all port-related communications between Mayor Cecil Clarke, CAO Michael Merritt, the mayor’s communications staff (basically, Christina Lamey) and port promoters Albert Barbusci and Barry Sheehy from 1Read More