Editor’s Note: I thought I’d revisit a few stories I’ve covered this year to see how things have been coming along.   Blowin’ in the wind Capitalize Albany Corporation (which does not, sadly, exist purely to stamp out lowercase spellings of the New York State capital but is the city’sRead More

I was unfamiliar, until very recently, with the work of Mahone Bay-based “journalist and author” Quentin Casey, who seems to specialize in a type of “journalism” (I call it “Capitalist Hagiography”) that gives me hives. Casey writes fawning portraits of rich businessmen (they all seem to be men) under headlinesRead...

Say you’re a former advertising executive turned “port developer” and February 2022 finds you in the seventh year of your exclusive contract to turn the Port of Sydney into a transshipment hub for ultra-large container vessels (ULCVs) with pretty much nothing to show for yourself. Initial deals with the ChineseRead More

A number of spectators have pointed me toward the latest Bridging Finance developments and, given the recent Novaporte announcement, this seems as good a time as any to do a check-in. Bridging, in case you’ve forgotten, was the Toronto-based private debt lender that loaned Membertou Corporate $6.8 million to investRead More

McKenna & Co I was going to call Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) a many-headed hydra but that’s the wrong metaphor, it is decidedly more of an octopus, with tentacles everywhere in everything—railroads, ports, real estate, nuclear power—but just one head, as the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation reported back in 2013:Read More

Yesterday, in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz signed what was initially billed as an “historic accord” but quickly downgraded to a “non-binding agreement” to encourage the production of green hydrogen in Eastern Canada for shipment to Germany, starting in 2025. Per the GlobeRead More

Bridging burning There’s a big update this week on Bridging Finance, the private debt lender that extended Membertou a $6.8 million loan in January 2020 to invest in Novaporte, promoter Albert Barbusci’s proposed Sydney harbor container terminal project (and that took what Barbusci termed a small equity stake of itsRead More

Toll Road Hypocrisy alert: I literally just read an email from Amazon telling me I can expect delivery of my order on December 17. I try really hard to avoid using Amazon — I just checked my order history and this is the first time I’ve placed one since 2019Read More

In the days leading up to the provincial election, all the usual suspects sharpened their pencils, marshaled their tired little troop of “facts” and wrote the editor of the Cape Breton Post in support of Albert Barbusci’s Novaporte project. Port Fest ’21 was kicked off at the end of JulyRead More

Bridging Update In case you’re wondering what’s happening with Bridging Finance Inc (BFI), the private debt firm that lent Membertou First Nation $6.8 million to buy a stake in Albert Barbusci’s Novaporte container terminal project, here’s the latest: David Sharpe, the founder and former CEO of BFI, who was firedRead More