I watched Westmount native Doug Doucet, founder of Bedford-based Doucet Developments—and a suite of related companies—present his plans for waterfront development to CBRM council last night. Much of the presentation (which also featured Chris Baldwin, his chief financial officer) focused on Doucet himself and his companies and why it’s aRead More

The first thing I need to tell you about last night’s CBRM Council meeting was that it was blessedly short—just over half an hour. That’s because the agenda was light in recognition of the CBRM’s ongoing struggle with the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona. The second thing is that, due toRead More

There was—even cynical old me has to admit it—good news on the CBRM Central Library file during last night’s CBRM council meeting. In a memo to Council and staff, Mayor Amanda McDougall explained that the old Cape Breton County Courthouse in Sydney’s Wentworth Park (otherwise known as 70 Crescent Street)Read More

Yoga Mats Galore! Reading about the MV Zim Kingston shedding over 100 containers into the ocean off the coast of British Columbia put me in mind of the 1941 sinking that inspired Compton MacKenzie’s novel Whiskey Galore!  No, wait, that’s not strictly true — it put me in mind ofRead More

Last week, I wrote CBRM Communications & Information Officer Christina Lamey asking to see details of the CBRM’s bid for the 2023 Brier. As you may recall, council discussed the bid in camera during its regular monthly meeting on August 24, but Mayor Amanda McDougall, as she kicked all media,Read 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

CBRM council met this morning to discuss the results of its March 2021 closed-door, strategy-setting “workshops” at the Lakes Golf Club and Resort in Ben Eoin. Apparently, during the sessions, council articulated our vision: (I can’t wait until Tim Bousquet sees that — “vibrant” and “innovation” are two of hisRead More

People, I watched that June 3 meeting between the Port of Sydney and the CBRM council and those are two hours of my life I will never get back, so I have to write something about it and I think the best thing for me to do would be toRead More

It’s been “over a year” since CBRM council has had an opportunity to speak directly to port promoter Albert Barbusci of Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP) and over five years since his “company” (it consists of two people, Barbusci and Barry Sheehy) officially began leading the campaign to establish aRead More

Free Seeds! The Cape Breton Regional Library’s Seed Library is back by popular demand. The program offers free vegetable seeds to “encourage community members to start their own vegetable gardens and provide fresh, healthy food for their families and neighbours.”  It was launched in 2020 to great success: within two-and-a-halfRead...