I have been debating how to mark Open Government Week in Nova Scotia (May 7-11). Sitting in the graveyard behind St. Patrick’s Church in the rain with a 40-ouncer of Captain Morgan was my first idea, but I don’t like watery rum and frankly, I always knew the week wouldRead More

Highlights of this article: • Provincial government employees who were made aware of the security failure with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPOP) website told Halifax police that the site had been “hacked” and that nearly 10,000 files “were taken” — which clearly overstated the nature ofRead More

Here’s how we obtained the documents. First, a quick primer on search warrants. To get a search warrant, police have to go to a judge or Justice of the Peace and submit a document called an “Information To Obtain a Search Warrant,” or ITO. The ITO lays out the policeRead More

(Wide) Open data I’m still trying to digest all I’ve read about the great hacking-that-wasn’t of Nova Scotia’s freedom-of-information portal. There is a lot to digest. The story has legs and has bounded all over the planet, a textbook case of — take your pick — lax data protection, policeRead More

Nova Scotia, in case you missed the memo, is now in year two of a five-year “strategy” to boost trade with China. That it’s a strategy with “no budget, target or goal,” as the CBC reported in April 2016, has the advantage, from Premier Stephen McNeil’s perspective, of allowing him toRead More

FOIPOP Follies For the record: I received the response to my freedom of information/protection of privacy (FOIPOP) request to the NS Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (TIR) for an “unedited” copy of Neil MacNeil’s rail fees report. I got bupkis. There are a couple of additional emails not includedRead More

Exporting our ‘expertise’ So, this happened:   According to the article in the 23 October 2017 Cape Breton Post: Officials from the Cape Breton Partnership and the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities completed their first mission to Vietnam in June. The officials will be providing their expertise to counterparts in VietnamRead More

The agenda for Tuesday night’s Cape Breton Regional Council meeting included the proclamation, sponsored by Deputy Mayor Eldon MacDonald, of September 25-October 1 as Right to Know Week, the purpose of which is to “raise awareness of an individual’s right to access government information, while promoting freedom of information asRead More

Danny Ellis, who has signed a deal with the CBRM to rent property on the Sydney waterfront for a seasonal food and drink establishment, is a director of Business Cape Breton — the municipality’s designated economic development “entity.” According to his LinkedIn account, Ellis has been on the BCB boardRead More

The CBRM has an environmental assessment of a property owned by local businessman Jerry Nickerson on which it hopes to construct a second cruise ship berth. We know the assessment exists, as Nancy King points out in the Cape Breton Post, because Mayor Cecil Clarke has referred to it, asRead More