Richard Starr had already got me thinking about how centralized power is in Nova Scotia before Auditor General Kim Adair drove the point home for me on Tuesday. Starr has been tracking this province’s anti-democratic tendencies for some time now via his Starr’s Point blog, and back in early November,Read More

Membertou First Nation goes to the polls to elect a new chief and council on Thursday, October 22. There are only two candidates for chief — incumbent, Terrance Paul, who has held the office for 36 consecutive years, and challenger Edwin LaPorte — but there are 66 candidates vying forRead More

Respect to District 2 Councilor Earlene MacMullin for trying to get some accountability and transparency on the Port of Sydney file during last night’s general committee meeting. On one level, she succeeded: I’ve been puzzled as to when, exactly, council tapped Mayor Cecil Clarke to head that file and lastRead More

The CBRM has an environmental assessment of a property owned by local businessman Jerry Nickerson on which it hopes to construct a second cruise ship berth. We know the assessment exists, as Nancy King points out in the Cape Breton Post, because Mayor Cecil Clarke has referred to it, asRead More

Here we are in 2017, and all around us we see signs of turmoil, angst and politicians running afoul of basic ethical principles! I was going to write about Justin Trudeau’s marvelous tropical Christmas vacation, but I have decided to tackle that topic next month instead, since I think thatRead More

It’s a facet of a healthy democracy that never fails to impress me: the final handshake. Two candidates who have fought a long, hard campaign shake hands — one graciously accepting defeat, the other graciously acknowledging victory. And then there’s what happened in the CBRM on Saturday night. As reportedRead More

Newly re-elected CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke has promised “100 More Positive Changes for CBRM” and I, for one, am willing to trust that he will deliver — trust, but verify. I’m a little concerned that his immediate, post-election description of his plans included no reference to these positive changes. HeRead More

Last March, a CBRM citizen decided he (or she, I’m not sure, so I’m just going to refer to him/her as “The Citizen”) wanted to know more about the expenses of Mayor Cecil Clarke, Port CEO Marlene Usher, CBRM Chief Administrative Officer Michael Merritt, the mayor’s executive assistant Mark BettensRead More

Dear Editor, After reading through the financial wasteland of the CBRM one simple fact became abundantly clear, both mayoral candidates have failed to address the elephant in the the room. That of course being our massively over-sized municipal government. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the real reason we have extremelyRead More

Cecil Clarke, incumbent mayor of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, kicked off his campaign for re-election at the Cambridge Suites Hotel last Friday with two CBRM employees at his side (see Tom Ayers’ account in the LocalXpress). In what may be a Nova Scotian first, there were more promises inRead More