This is, after all, the playbook of all privatization advocates everywhere: starve a public good, wait for it to malfunction, and then claim the free market is required to fix the problem—Mitchell Thompson, Jacobin, January 2023 The current health system does not have a ‘management’ problem; it has an ‘economics’Read More

In late August The New Yorker featured a fascinating, slightly awestruck examination of “the Costa Rica Model” of “health care that understands its community,” by American surgeon and professor of public health Atul Gawande. Gawande, nominated by President Biden to serve as assistant administrator of the US Aid and DevelopmentRead More

Cape Breton East was formerly known as Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg and before that as Cape Breton West (seriously — West has become East, please don’t ask me how). The district has gone back and forth between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives but has been held by the Tories since 2006, whenRead More

Cape Breton Centre-Whitney Pier was previously just Cape Breton Centre and, you will no doubt be surprised to learn, contained much less of the Sydney neighborhood known as Whitney Pier than it now does. Cape Breton Centre has been all over the map, politically, having elected New Democrats, Liberals, ToriesRead More

Wikipedia informs me that in 1933, “the district of Cape Breton was divided into five electoral districts, one of which was named Cape Breton East. In 2001, the district name was changed to Glace Bay. In 2003, the district lost a small area at its southern tip to Cape BretonRead More

Northside-Westmount — formerly Cape Breton North — has mostly gone back and forth between the Liberals and Tories with the exception of the 1978 general election when Len Arsenault briefly turned it NDP orange. The riding produced a Liberal Premier, Russell MacLellan, before turning into what I think I canRead More

In 2012, the provincial electoral boundaries commission took 79% of Cape Breton Nova and 59% of Cape Breton South and created Sydney-Whitney Pier. The 2019 commission lopped off the Pier and added some Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg territory and — voila! — Sydney-Membertou was born. I’m going to do some electoral genealogyRead More

Victoria-The Lakes was created in 1867 (you better not be lying to me, Wikipedia) as simply “Victoria” and comprised all of Victoria County. It apparently remained like this until 1993, when it “gained the area north of the southern border of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.” In  2003, it Read More

In Praise of US Healthcare? All the things happening in this world — ALL THE THINGS — and I spend my morning worrying about Adrian White’s op-ed in Wednesday’s Cape Breton Post. What is wrong with me? It’s not like President-elect Joe Biden — to whom White directs a barrageRead More

First of all, thank you to the candidates who took the time to respond to our questions — Michelle Dockrill, Lois Foster, Jodi McDavid and Kenzie MacNeil. As promised, we extended the deadline to Thursday at 5:00 PM for those candidates who had not yet replied, and here are theRead More