Finally we are seeing common sense being applied in the Council Chambers of City Hall. Darren Bruckschwaiger, Earlene MacMullin, Cyril MacDonald and Gordon MacDonald are using the God-given common sense that the CBRM taxpayers cannot afford higher taxes whether in the form of raising taxes or lifting the CAP. NowRead More

Full disclosure: I thought 2021 was going to be vastly different from 2020 but instead, it unfolded like we’d given 2020 a 12-month extension on its contract. The COVID pandemic continued to loom large in everyone’s lives although, as you’ll see, I modified my response to it. I spent muchRead More

The Cape Breton Spectator would be a shadow of itself were it not for the work of its regular contributors, each of whom writes with such clarity and focus and passion that reading, editing and formatting their work counts among the best parts of my job. I can’t thank themRead More

CBRM council seems to have righted a three-year-old wrong during its July 6 meeting by declining to extend a waterfront pre-development agreement with Martin Chernin’s Harbour Royale Development Ltd (HRDL) — an agreement that included a new central library. As Mayor Amanda McDougall explained to council, this does not precludeRead More

I am absolutely furious that the CBRM council has once again decided a new library is not important enough, despite the present structure being aged and decrepit and inadequate to the community’s needs. The Public Library system is a vital, democratizing tool, providing access to services and information to allRead More

I read with interest this past weekend Craig Boudreau’s “thoughts” — shared via Facebook but probably coming soon to an op-ed page near you — about the proposed new CBRM central library. Boudreau, who is vice chair of the Cape Breton Regional Chamber of Commerce, owns multiple office buildings andRead More

Can you believe 2019 is almost over? I can’t — and do you know who else probably can’t? Martin Chernin of Harbour Royale Development Limited (HRDL) and Albert Barbusci of Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP). Why is that, you ask? Well, because each of them faces a big deadline forRead More

Dorian I begin with a shout-out to those of you who have yet to get your power back and are…unable to read this. Yeah, that didn’t really make much sense, did it? I want to be very cautious writing about Nova Scotia’s Dorian experience, given the Bahamas’ Dorian experience, whichRead More

I just watched last week’s CBRM general committee debate over funding for the new central library and heard Mayor Cecil Clarke declare the project “dead” because the federal government has not come through with its share of the funding (either for a programming and internal operations study or for theRead More

CBRM Council met for 18 hours last night (okay, not 18 hours, but it felt like 18 hours, I don’t know how they do it). Here are some quick hits from the agenda:   Library Once again, I was left wondering what exactly is the relationship between businessman Martin Chernin’sRead More