The mayor of the CBRM is, on the one hand, just one vote out of 13 on all matters that come before council, and as I’ve noted before in these pages, the position is barely defined in the province’s Municipal Government Act (MGA) which states: “mayor” means the council memberRead More

District 12 covers part of Sydney (chiefly the Whitney Pier area) and all or part of South Bar, Lingan Road, Grand Lake Road and Victoria Mines. It is totally shaped like a bat: Since time immemorial, by which I mean, since amalgamation, the district has been represented chiefly by JimRead More

Nova Scotia’s long-term care facilities are closed to visitors, casinos are closed, public schools are closed and as of tomorrow restaurants will be restricted to take-out only and “drinking establishments” will also close. Why? To try to stop the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndromeRead More

The term ‘utopia’ — the way we use it today, to refer to an ideal but unattainable state — comes from the book of the same name, written by Sir (Saint) Thomas More in 1516. The form is political critique disguised as fantasy disguised as travelogue. More casts himself asRead More

On 7 November 2011, Pope Benedict XVI was presented with the first printed copy of the revised English edition of the Roman Missal by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. I have admitted to not being very happy with the translation and as the years have gone by I still hearRead More

You may have noticed that some American billionaires are actually anxious to give away some of those billions to help those who fall, well, billions short of having a half-decent chance at something even close to the good life. Are the guys with the big bucks “bucking for the finals”Read More

So I am 67 years old and have lived most of my life on Cape Breton Island. I have seen many politicians come and go. I have heard promises of better times ahead many times over the years. I have heard many political parties blame the others for past mistakes.Read More

First, the good news: The Statistics Canada graph appeared in a Bloomberg story that attributed the reduction in child poverty directly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s child benefit program, which was worth $25 billion to Canadian families in 2017 up from $19 billion in 2015. Statistics Canada itself says: InRead More

The signs of Christmas are everywhere and I’m not referring to the lights, the decorations or the concerts. No, actually, I’m thinking more along the lines of the Salvation Army Christmas Kettle Campaign, the CBC’s Light Up A Life Campaign for Feed Nova Scotia, the Christmas Daddies Telethon — thoseRead More

Perhaps one of Charles Dickens’ most famous lines was Oliver Twist’s “Please sir, I want some more.” First published in monthly installments from February 1837 to April 1839, Oliver Twist was pretty much an attack on Britain’s Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. As G.K. Chesterton wrote in an introductionRead More