The numbers connected to our cruise industry are as slippery as a quarterdeck in a Nor’easter (okay, I promise, no more nautical similes). It starts as the season opens and the Port of Sydney trumpets (in the Cape Breton Post, which has never met an economic impact number it didn’tRead More

I recently received a batch of documents from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) as a result of an access to information request about the Ben Eoin Marina. (Those of you who like your source material straight up will find it here.) I didn’t learn much that was new becauseRead More

Last March, a CBRM citizen decided he (or she, I’m not sure, so I’m just going to refer to him/her as “The Citizen”) wanted to know more about the expenses of Mayor Cecil Clarke, Port CEO Marlene Usher, CBRM Chief Administrative Officer Michael Merritt, the mayor’s executive assistant Mark BettensRead More

Port of Sydney Development Corporation CEO Marlene Usher began her “port update” to the Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce on Monday by assuring the roughly 85 people in attendance that the timing of the talk — smack in the middle of a municipal election campaign — was “purely byRead More

Port of Sydney CEO Marlene Usher will speak on Monday, September 26, at a Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon (tickets $35). Her subject? What else, the Port of Sydney Project. Here’s the description from the chamber’s web site: The newly dredged harbour for the Port of Sydney isRead More

The great $37 million Sydney harbor dredge was completed between October 2011 and January 2012. Over 4 million cubic meters of sedimentary material was removed from a 9-kilometer stretch of harbor channel in less than four months using trailing suction hopper dredge technology as opposed to traditional “clam bucket” dredgeRead More

Albert Barbusci of Harbor Port Development Partners (HPDP) likes to write his name. More specifically, he likes to write his name on documents, preferably with some attendant ceremony. That those documents should be meaningful or open to public scrutiny or of some use in court would be nice, but notRead More

My quest to determine what exactly is up with Business Cape Breton (BCB, formerly the Cape Breton Small Business Centre, formerly the Cape Breton County Economic Development Authority) began in June when CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke surprised his council with the news that the municipality was leaving the Cape BretonRead More

Big news, fellow citizens of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality – no, Rodney MacDonald has not been re-elected premier, although you could be forgiven for thinking that, given the front page of today’s Cape Breton Post (11 February 2016):   The real news is tucked into the lower left handRead More

Guys, I’ve figured out what’s wrong with the Cape Breton Regional Municipality: it’s the Council. There’s one exception: District 6 Councillor Ray Paruch. He tries to bring more transparency to proceedings but it’s like trying to make Lady Gaga wear pants. It all became clear to me at the PortRead More