Wildfires Working on CBRM council stories for the Wednesday edition as wildfires raged on the mainland—and not just on the mainland but in the provincial capital—was a strange experience. I knew I had nothing to add to the coverage of the fires, that’s not the kind of coverage I doRead...

I am not on the Port of Sydney’s media list, so did not receive the press release headlined: Port of Sydney to Host U.S. and Atlantic Canadian Ports During Port Days I actually knew the Port of Sydney would be welcoming the North Atlantic Ports Association (NAPA) and the IndependentRead More

Tailor-made A few years back, I bought a winter coat at Gala Re on Charlotte Street in Sydney. I love this coat—it’s mostly green wool with bits of blue and brown and every bit as warm as my puffer jacket. In style, it’s very 1960s—the early, more formal part ofRead...

Who has seen the wind? I didn’t get the invite to Novaporte’s “transformational” announcement at Membertou on Thursday (note to self: ask Tim Bousquet if “transformational” and “transformative” have become the new “innovative”—applied to everything from sewage treatment plants to wind marshaling ports). Looking at this photo I have toRead More

Student housing The “collective enterprise” UTILE (L’Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant) was established in 2013 “with the objective of developing a social economy student housing model specific to Quebec inspired by best practices in non-profit student housing around the world.” In 2016, working with the the ChantierRead More

Words with Mayors In my coverage of CBRM council this week, I made a crack about the mayor—who was elected as Amanda McDougall and has been referred to for the past two years as Amanda McDougall—suddenly being referenced in the meeting agenda as Mayor Amanda T. McDougall-Merrill. I was actuallyRead More

Port of Sydney CEO Marlene Usher and Port board chair James Kerr proposed to CBRM council last night that the Port move from the governance structure on the left (a not-for-profit company with the CBRM as its sole shareholder) to the one on the right: When I read this priorRead More

Buy buy Writing about Destination Cape Breton and the Cape Breton Partnership these past couple of weeks has been like returning to earlier, simpler times when publicly funded agencies and their dubious achievements occupied a lot of my brain space. But it all feels a little darker these days. TourismRead More

The arrival of the first cruise ship of the season — the Seven Seas Navigator — in Sydney on Sunday set me to thinking about all things cruise again, so I tried to compose a snapshot of the industry, particularly as it relates to the Port of Sydney, and that’sRead More

Editor’s Note: On April 28, The CBC’s Tom Ayers reported that the CBRM will actually pay $3.8 million for the Nickerson property. The $2.5 million budgeted for 2022-23 represents the outstanding balance. The Spectator apologizes for the error.   Did you happen to catch the price tag on the land theRead More