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

CBRM Council held a relatively brief meeting on Tuesday morning that included a presentation from the municipal Water Utility on a proposed water rate hike. CBRM’s Water Utility, according to this handy description provided by the Utility and Review Board (UARB) back in 2017, is: …comprised of seven distinct areas,Read 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

CBRM council voted last night to hire a consultant to conduct a Utility and Review Board (UARB)-mandated district boundary review and make recommendations about district and council size. Planning and Development Director Michael Ruus had been asked, during a special council meeting on January 25, to prepare an Issue PaperRead More

Innkeeping In terms of sheer words per minute, I think Episode 11 of Annette Verschuren’s Bet On Me podcast — “The Power of Place: The connection between culture and economy with Zita Cobb, Innkeeper of Fogo Island Inn” — has to be the winner. Because man, can Zita Cobb talk.Read More

It’s that time again — district boundary review season! According to section 369 of the Municipal Government Act: (1) In the year 1999, and in the years 2006 and every eighth year thereafter the council shall conduct a study of the number and boundaries of polling districts in the municipality,Read More

On Monday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal dismissed the Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s bid to reverse a UARB ruling overturning a CBRM Council decision that green lighted the development of a 211-site, lakeside RV park in Big Pond Centre. That was a lot to pack into a single sentence,Read More

I FOIPOPed all correspondence between the CBRM planning department and Chris Skidmore — the Calgary-based developer who wants to establish an RV Park in Big Pond Centre — because I thought the planning department seemed to be rather decidedly in Skidmore’s corner on this project and I wanted to knowRead More

Thin Blue Island Researching this week’s stories on the Cape Breton Regional Police Service (CBRPS) I ran across a (lengthy) profile of the service which included this amazing paragraph: Although only a small Island, Cape Breton’s beauty, hospitality and culture has made it one of the top vacation destinations worldwide.Read More

Extra! Extra! I think Tim Bousquet of the Halifax Examiner may just have done the children of South Africa a solid. Want to know how? You’ll have to read his amazing story: “John Risley’s South African Adventure.” And yes, the article is behind a paywall, but think about it: TimRead More