On the same day last week—July 8—600,000 liters of gasoline spilled out of a storage tank in Sydney’s North End and Rogers Communications showed us why Canada needs not more “competition” in the telecoms sector but a publicly owned internet provider (yes, I went there). I say this off theRead More

Editor’s Note: I am doing a deep dive into the CBRM’s 2021-22 budget this week and dragging you with me. This is Part 1 of 3. You’ll find Part 2 here and Part 3 here. I’ve been remiss in not covering the $157 million operating budget the CBRM has approvedRead...

During the CBRM’s first virtual council meeting on Friday, March 27, council discussed some big infrastructure projects for which federal and provincial funding has been secured. The first project is a wastewater treatment infrastructure project under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) worth a strangely precise $97,895,574. The projectRead...

As regular readers of the Spectator know, I have an affinity for document-based research — emails, letters, court records, consultants’ reports, council minutes, issue papers, doctoral theses — I am never happier than when up to my elbows in print. But sometimes when you have an issue that you want veryRead More

Writing about wastewater earlier this year, I raised the possibility that CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke might not be worried about meeting a December 2020 deadline associated with new federal wastewater regulations because he’s already announced he won’t be seeking a third term — which means he will bid us farewellRead More

I (finally) received an answer from the CBRM in response to my wastewater questions. You can read my original story here, but the gist is that when Canada’s new Wastewater System Effluent Regulations (WSER) came into effect on 1 January 2015, municipalities operating water treatment systems that didn’t meet themRead...

This was supposed to be a follow-up to last week’s article on wastewater in which I would present the response of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) to concerns about its readiness to meet federal Wastewater System Effluent Regulations (WSER). But what with vacations and long weekends and short workweeks,Read...

Today, we’re going to talk about the Canadian federal government’s Wastewater System Effluent Regulations (WSER), soon to be a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. (That’s not true but it gave you hope for a moment, didn’t it? You thought, “Great, I’ll just wait for the movie.”Read More