Victoria-The Lakes was created in 1867 (you better not be lying to me, Wikipedia) as simply “Victoria” and comprised all of Victoria County. It apparently remained like this until 1993, when it “gained the area north of the southern border of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.” In  2003, it Read More

I‘m not even going to pretend that I pay serious attention to the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is held annually in Davos, Switzerland and which attracts thousands of the world’s rich and famous — including political, business and cultural leaders — to the tiny ski resort to carry outRead More

The Spectator’s Ethicist, Rachel Haliburton, provides convincing — and sometimes counter-intuitive — arguments as to why making the rich pay their fair share of taxes benefits us all. (Read Reason #1, Reason #2,Reason #3 and Reason #4. For proof the Ethicist is in tune with the current Zeitgeist, read about US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’sRead More

The Spectator’s Ethicist, Rachel Haliburton, provides convincing — and sometimes counter-intuitive — arguments as to why making the rich pay their fair share of taxes benefits us all. (Read Reason #1, Reason #2 and Reason #3. And for proof the Ethicist is in tune with the current Zeitgeist, read about US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’sRead More

The Spectator’s Ethicist, Rachel Haliburton, provides convincing — and sometimes counter-intuitive — arguments as to why making the rich pay their fair share of taxes benefits us all.(Read Reason #1 and Reason #2)   As faithful readers of the Ethicist column in the Cape Breton Spectator will know, for theRead More

There are two ways to look at CBRM Council’s decision, taken during Monday’s General Committee meeting, to increase the mayor and councilors’ salaries to compensate for the federal government’s decision (contained in that gripping bestseller Budget 2017: Building a Strong Middle Class) to eliminate a tax break that allowed themRead More

Last month. I wrote about taxation, and observed that determining what levels of taxation are fair – and deciding who should pay the most taxes and who should pay the least – will always be substantially ethical decisions, and can never be solely economic or practical ones. While voices onRead More

Dear Premier McNeil: I am writing with regard to the issue of the Nova Scotia government’s distribution of the Federal Equalization Transfers,  public concern over which has now reached a critical level here on Cape Breton Island, and in other non-metropolitan areas of the province. I was part of aRead...

“Unconstitutional and illegal” So declared 2,000 passionate and angry Cape Bretoners, in their eighth bid to get the British government to reverse its decision to annex Cape Breton to Nova Scotia in 1820. In light of Senator Dan Christmas’ recent speech re-opening the issue of Cape Breton provincehood, I thinkRead More