Albert Barbusci and Barry Sheehy, the men behind Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP) and Novaporte, the Sydney harbor container port project, have splashed out on a new website and what a glossy mix of stock photos and wild claims it is. Before we get into it, though, let’s take aRead 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

Happy New Year, spectators! I’m easing back into regular publication today with this one article. Full disclosure: I had expected to spend this week poring over documents released by the CBRM in response to my 2015 FOIPOP request. I knew I wouldn’t receive all 890 pages Privacy Commissioner Tricia RalphRead More

Canderel abandons SHIP? Has Canderel, the Montreal-based real estate development firm founded by Jonathan Wener, cut its ties with Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP), the firm with the “exclusive” contract to promote a Port of Sydney container terminal? Wener is no longer listed on the “leadership” page of the NovaporteRead More

Each week, I pick a subject and do my research and try to give some sort of coherent account of what I’ve learned but this week — I give up. I’ve been trying to make sense of the latest developments in the Sydney container port saga and I am utterlyRead More

Listening to Mayor Cecil Clarke’s year-end interview on CBC Information Morning made me feel like Dorothy waking up in Kansas at the end of The Wizard of Oz. Asked for highlights of 2019, Clarke pointed to the official opening of the second cruise ship berth,  which is actually scheduled toRead More

I’ve been paying pretty close attention to this drama I think of as the The Albert Barbusci Show, but I must have missed the episode where we asked Barbusci, our port promoter and the CEO of Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP), to identify a company with an untested method ofRead More

“Hopefully, [the feasibility study by Chinese construction giant CCCC] will be completed by July and we will be able to fast-track construction for opening for business in 2019,” — Port of Sydney CEO Marlene Usher, April 2016 “If all goes well, we’ll be putting a shovel into the ground inRead More

What better way to begin 2019 than by looking back at 2018 with CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke? Clarke appeared on CBC radio’s Information Morning Cape Breton on January 3 to reflect on the year just passed and the Spectator listened with interest. In particular, it listened to the discussion ofRead More

Mayor Cecil Clarke and the CBRM council will meet port promoter Albert Barbusci on Wednesday afternoon in what was supposed to have been a secret session between 1:30 PM and 3:30 PM at the Holiday Inn. Barbusci, of Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP), flew into Sydney Monday night, according toRead More