The mixed-income housing development proposed for the former Tartan Downs racetrack in Sydney will contain 55% “affordable housing” units — meaning 240 of the 430 units will be rented at 80% of market rent. Kent MacIntyre of the Urban Neighborhood Development Association (UNDA), the organization overseeing the project, is usingRead More

Welcome to Part II of what has turned into a two-part series based on the first half of a two-hour CBRM council budget workshop. Just me, working my magic, folks. Those rising Nova Scotia house prices described in Part I led to a 10.8% overall increase in residential assessments acrossRead More

I didn’t really expect the 2021 Child and Family Poverty report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) to cheer me on a grey day, but I also didn’t expect it to be quite as bleak as it is. The report, by Dr. Lesley Frank, Laura Fisher and Dr.Read More

Did you catch local restaurateur Danny Ellis’ bellyaching tour of local media outlets this summer? Ellis, who operates four CBRM eateries (two of which — the Portside on the Sydney waterfront and the Boardwalk Tap Room & Eatery in what used to be the meeting room in the Civic CentreRead More

I spent so much time on The Codfathers this week, I didn’t really have much left over to cover other issues but there are a few things I’d like to touch on, however briefly:   Affordable Housing I heard Catherine Leviten-Reid on CBC Information Morning Cape Breton today discussing aRead More

Christmas is nigh and the good and the generous have been hard at work throughout our communities, making sure that each and every family awakens to everything it takes to make the day a joyful one. They’ll have food and toys and clothing and all will be fine — forRead More

Daily briefing Dr. Robert Strang announced 32 new cases of COVID-19, bringing Nova Scotia’s total to 549. Nine patients are in hospital, four of whom are in ICU. Strang was asked if he was encouraged by the low hospitalization numbers and he said he was and that the “many” ofRead More

So you have to stay home from work. What that will look like for you, financially, depends on a number of factors. As I write this, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has just announced a whopping $82 billion aid package — $27 billion in emergency aid and $55 billion inRead More

As kids, we weren’t very impressed by our mother’s “war stories” of walking six miles to school after feeding the chickens and having a big bowl of porridge (she hated it so much we were never forced to eat it). She didn’t talk too much about her life as aRead More