You will notice the total is now $8.3 million, that's because it is now 26 June 2023 and I have come back to update the table.

I originally wrote that the presentation hadn't explained the seven phases of the development but that--obviously--was incorrect. I apologize for the error.

I actually had to look this spelling up – my first instinct was to go with free-er but that looked wrong as did freeer. I found some good advice online:

If you think there should be three e’s in a row, write only two.

Source: Jakub Marian

Of the latter, 12,151 or 2.48% are from Nova Scotia which is roughly in keeping with Nova Scotia’s share of the general population (3%).

That should be "unbearably" smug and the fact that it is not explains to you why I never remain unbearably smug for long.

I originally wrote "lease" but that was my misunderstanding of the proposition--the municipality is contemplating selling the property to Doucet.

I originally stated that these cars had performed as expected in Lac-Mégantic which, as evidenced by the quote from the TSB report, was clearly not the case. My apologies for the error.

I originally identified John MacKinnon as "John MacIntyre," a mistake nobody of Scottish descent should make. Thanks to the reader who spotted it and apologies to the Deputy CAO.

Boudreau is clearly one of those people who had his understanding of the word "ironic" forever compromised by Alannis Morisette.

An earlier version of this article had these dates wrong! Thanks to the reader who pointed it out.

The company also distinguished itself by putting the artists’ names on their cards and some of those cards, particularly those by the artist Sarah Boynton, became quite well-known. I sure know this one:

The Spectator does not know if this is true and did not have time to fact check it.

I can't actually find the name of the company listed in any of the references to the book online, but I swear that's what it was called.

I know this is sophomoric of me, but I keep thinking this would be a better name for a company involved in capturing the methane emitted by cows.

Stonepeak itself makes a big deal of ESG on it website but then adds, in the fine print:

"While Stonepeak believes ESG factors can enhance long-term value, Stonepeak does not pursue an ESG-based investment strategy or limit its investments to those that meet specific ESG criteria or standards (except with respect to products or strategies that are explicitly designated as doing so in their offering documents or other applicable governing documents). Any such considerations do not qualify Stonepeak’s objectives to maximize risk-adjusted returns."

As one of those kids, I would just like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize to the author.

Sam's Club is a members-only chain operated by Walmart and named for Sam Walton, the retail giant's founder.

I have since discovered that the Audubon Society that certifies golf courses has no connection to the National Audubon Society, which protects bird habitat.

The way I initially wrote this made it sound like I'd read the full 14,000-word article, which I did not. I read the section that was annotated, but it still took a chunk of time.

Wikipedia provided me this handy list of DSM's acquisitions between 2011 and 2012:

2011: Martek (nutritional products derived from microalgae and fermentation technology).

2011: Vitatene (natural carotenoids derived from fermentation of Blakeslea trispora fungus).

2012: Verenium's food enzymes and oilseed processing business.

2012: Kensey Nash (biomedical regenerative medicine).

2012: Ocean Nutrition Canada (fish-oil derived nutritional products).

2012: Cargill’s cultures and enzymes business.

2012: Fortitech (customized nutrient premixes).

2013: Unitech (micronutrient premixes and macronutrient blends).

2013: Andre Pectin (food hydrocolloids).

2013: Tortuga (nutritional supplements for pasture raised cattle).

Paleodemography is the field of enquiry that attempts to identify demographic parameters from past populations (usually skeletal samples) derived from archaeological contexts, and then to make interpretations regarding the health and well-being of those populations. (Definition via Cambridge University Press)

The budget for this study was $50,000. I researched this story by going through old newspaper clippings, so I must have taken the $200,000 figure from a news story. I'm leaving it in, for now, but I will try to verify it.

In fact, the same month.

I initially wrote "he" and "him" in reference to Colford, who obviously prefers "they" and "them," the pronouns Verschuren used during the podcast. My apologies for the error!

Apologies to early readers of this article who saw 0.10% instead of 11%!

I say that TOTALLY by way of boast.

I had written this as "0.30mcg" originally which must have led to real confusion. My apologies for the error (and thanks to the reader who spotted it!)

For the record, they probably mean more help from the federal government, because the feds have been doing all the heavy lifting throughout this pandemic.

As David Macdonald, chief economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, noted in a report called “Still Picking up the Tab,”:

“Nova Scotians have received the equivalent of $8,800 in direct COVID-19 measures. Of this total, 92% was federal money and 8% was coming from the provincial government. Individual support amounted to the largest group of measures in the province, worth $3,490 a person. This was almost entirely federal money, with the CERB providing $1.8 billion and the CRB providing $560 million in support of jobless Nova Scotians.The second highest level of support went to businesses, worth $3,130 a person. This was almost all federal money coming from CEWS, which provided $1.9 billion in support, and the CEBA loan forgiveness program, which amounted to $334 million. The provincial contribution to support business was 2% of the total.”

I was going to say something snarky about yet another sponsor plastering its name all over a sporting event but Wikipedia informed me that “Brier” was the name of a brand of tobacco sold by the event's first sponsor, the Macdonald Tobacco Company.

The championship has also been called the Labatts Brier and the Nokia Brier.

So, never mind...

InterVISTAS defines a person year as "a full-time equivalent of employment to account for part-time and seasonal employment."

As noted above, she is now a former employee of ACOA.

KC Irving actually commuted posthumously between New Brunswick and Bermuda: he died in Saint John in 1992 and was flown to Bermuda for burial only to be dug up 12 years later and flown back to Bouctouche. How, I ask, can you satirize that?

What if we sell the rights to Simon's cannabis company, Aphira, which just completed a merger with another Canadian company, Tilray, to form "the world's largest cannabis company?" The merged company will operate as Tilray. If Centre 200 becomes the Tilray Centre will its nickname be "The Joint?"

Council approved a 2021 capital budget that earmarked $600,000 to replace the boards and glass at Centre 200 to comply with Canada Hockey League regulations.

This money is all to come from government – neither the league nor the franchise owner is expected to contribute.

After this article was published, I heard from Usher herself, who informed me that she has not been employed with ACOA "for over a year," that they were not paying half her salary "for the last 2 years of the interchange," that the Port pays her salary and that is is "well below" $200,000 and "has always been well under that amount even under ACOA."

You can read more here:

https://capebretonspectator.com/2021/03/24/usher-port-salary-acoa/

The categories are:

Public transit

Wastewater

Drinking water

Solid waste management

Community energy systems

Local roads and bridges

Capacity building

Highways

Local and regional airports

Short-line rail

Short-sea shipping

Disaster mitigation

Broadband and connectivity

Brownfield redevelopment

Culture Tourism Sport

Recreation

I've been advised the "policy advisor" term is Delaney's, the actual position is closer to "community engagement coordinator."

I want to focus on Manitok for a moment because it was not only an oil and gas company – it was an oil and gas company with an ugly legacy in Alberta.

In February 2018 -- eight months after MacLeod's tenure on the board ended -- Manitok and its subsidiaries "defaulted on their loan payments and went into receivership" sending "tens of millions" of dollars' worth of environmental liabilities to the Orphan Well Association, Alberta's "non-profit agency responsible for cleaning up the environmental messes left behind by bankrupt oil and gas companies."

Progress Report notes that the OWA, which is nominally funded by a levy on oil producers, is now majority funded by public money (in addition to provincial funding, in April 2020, the feds announced $1.7 billion in orphan-well cleanup funding).

But wait, there's still one more twist in this story! Having dumped the environmental liabilities on the public, the president and CEO of Manitok, Mass Geremia, then formed a new company -- Persist Oil and Gas -- and bought Manitok's primary assets from the receiver in November 2018.

Check out the list of resources included in the tender document:

CBRM Viability Study

CBRM Integrated Community Sustainability Plan

CBRM Municipal Planning Strategy

Cape Breton – Unama’ki Economic & Population Growth Plan

CBRM Land-Use By-law

CBRM Land-Use By-law Maps

North End Planning Strategy

North End Land Use By-law

Subdivision By-law

Downtown Sydney Urban Core Plan

Sydney Harbourfront Conceptual Visions & Design

Glace Bay & Area Revitalization Plan

Louisbourg Tourism & Community Spatial Planning & Design Initiative

CBRM Retail Market Analysis

Cape Breton Housing Strategy for Seasonal Workers

CBRM Recreation Master Plan

CBRM Active Transportation Plan

CBRM Municipal Climate Change Action Plan

LAE confirmed for me that some of these owners owned multiple properties. The department did not deign to tell me how many properties.

An acre is 43,560 square feet.

McIsaac is not the first Nova Scotian police chief to receive a PTSD diagnosis: Halifax Police Chief Jean-Michel Blais received one in 2012, shortly after he'd been hired as chief. Blais became the self-described "poster boy" for the condition when he went public in 2015, tracing it to his previous career as an RCMP officer who'd served three UN tours in Haiti.

Ironically, given the reason people speak out is generally to reduce stigma and encourage others to do the same, Blais was later accused of hypocrisy in his response to the PTSD diagnoses of his fellow officers, three of whom filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. A board of inquiry was appointed to look into the matter in 2018 but a commission spokesperson told me on Monday it has been "dealing with preliminary issues" and has yet to hold a hearing. Blais retired in 2019.)

This expression popped into my head and I had to look it up to make sure I hadn't invented this use of “hairpin,” but it was, in fact, a slang word for “person” in use circa 1880-1910.

I have no idea where I originally heard it. Perhaps in an earlier incarnation?

I'm afraid this article may have become a little hard to follow – my “context” completely outstrips the actual content of the article.

I suggest leaving a trail of bread crumbs behind you as you read...

At the very least, it would surely be the last one with an oil refinery AND a coal gasification plant.

I should specify, the Port of Sydney Development Corporation originally had responsibility for overseeing development of the entire harbor, but in 2017, just as the public board of directors was taking over from the interim board (made up of the mayor, the CAO and three councilors), the PSDC's mandate was scaled back to include just the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion and the Marine Terminal.

There's another reference to Drewry elsewhere in these documents that made me laugh out loud -- Barbusci reads an article by Drewry analyst Neil Davidson and decides to reach out to him.

I've also reached out to Davidson on a number of occasions for his thoughts on Nova Scotia's port projects.

I made those up, but here are some companies Innovacorp is actually financing:

LeadSift

Proposify

DUGO

Cacheflo

Swept

Let's pick on Swept, which is out to solve the problem of high employee turnover in the janitorial industry. If you guessed it does this by paying janitors more money you SO do not understand the tech industry. No, swept is a:

“SaaS solution that aims to help janitorial companies build stronger businesses through cleaner engagement and communication. The company helps cleaning companies focus on their cleaners so their cleaners can focus on their customers.”

Sandpiper is actually a catch-all term for a wide variety of wading and shore birds -- Birds of Nova Scotia lists the Least, White-rumped, Broad-billed, Stilt, Curlew, Purple, Baird's, Buff-breasted, Pectoral, Semipalmated and Western Sandpiper as native to this province. (And that doesn't include related species like the Woodcock, Godwit, Dowitcher, Shank, Tatler and more.) Perhaps Sandpiper is preparing for the day it manages a whole flock of funds.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a green building rating system designed by the US Green Building Council.

I assume this should have been "embarked."

Okay, stop is a game played on the podcast Lovett or Leave It. The host, Jon Lovett, and his guests watch video clips which they interrupt at will to provide editorial content. I've modified it for print.

(I have since soured on this podcast, but I intend to keep "Okay, stop!" -- updated 25 January 2021)

Here's the clause as it appeared in the CBRM/McKeil lease:

17.b) The Landlord [CBRM] shall indemnify and save the Tenant [McKeil} harmless from any environmental contaminant, pollutant or toxic substance disclosed in the Phase I and Phase II Environmental Reports existing as at the Commencement date of this Lease, and shall further indemnify the Tenant with respect to any claims, actions, suits, fines, sanctions, remediation orders or demands of any kind whatsoever with respect to any such contaminant, pollutant or toxic substance on or in the Demised Premises as at the Commencement date and contained in the aforementioned reports. It is understood and agreed that the Landlord shall bear sole responsibility and expense for the clean-up, remediation and/or removal of any such contaminant, pollutant or toxic substance if ordered by a governmental authority having jurisdiction to do so and shall be further responsible for any consequential damages claimed by any third party with respect thereto.

I'm thinking...the equally controversial Archibald's Wharf sale?

Of course, there is a strong possibility they had other reasons to be in the cities listed. For instance, they had another business venture, Blue Zen Memorial Parks, Inc, which, in 2014, was pursuing a copper mining deal in Arizona

And Sheehy lived part time in Savannah, which could certainly explain travel there..

In my ignorance, I didn't understand the significance of the “ECNS” after Clarke's name.

It turns out it is the Executive Council of Nova Scotia designation, “an honour bestowed by the Lieutenant Governor. Under the Executive Council Act, the Lieutenant Governor can appoint members and former members of the House of Assembly as honorary members of the Executive Council.

The honor was bestowed on Clarke in 2009.

There was another familiar face in this mix.

The Sea Wall repairs became possible when Clarke pledged municipal funding and secured federal funding from Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, which he then used to leverage provincial funding from Darrell Dexter's provincial NDP government.

ECBC was headed at the time by acting CEO Marlene Usher.

The Cape Breton Post reported in July 2015 that Barbusci and Sheehy had, at that point, been working on the port file for about 16 months.

Christina Lamey, formerly the spokesperson for Mayor Clarke, told me in an email that Sheehy had approached Clarke about promoting the port.

I cannot believe I missed this -- Mayor McDougall's biggest single contribution was $20,000 from Annette Verschuren!

I didn't have time for a "deep dive" but I should have done better than this. Apologies to my readers.

The CBC's Tom Ayers didn't miss it though:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cape-breton-regional-municipality-october-2020-election-donations-1.5875678?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

This represents two-thirds of the UN General Assembly.

Meanwhile, Air Canada has been doing what it can to boost business despite the pandemic. As the Globe and Mail's Robert Fife and Eric Atkins revealed this month, the airline hires social media influencers to "promote vacation travel even as federal guidelines urge people to stay home."

I think that story pairs well with this January 7 Global News report that Canadian passengers on 20 flights (operated by Air Canada, Westjet, Sunwing and Air Transat) were potentially exposed to COVID-19, returning from “popular vacation destinations” over the holidays. This prompted then-Transport Minister Marc Garneau to say:

"I feel that it is totally unhelpful and counterproductive for airlines to try to encourage international travel."

Air Canada is not the only airline to accept wage subsidies, of course. According to that same CBC story, as of 6 December 2020, other airlines receiving monies under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) and Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) programs were:

Air Transat: $106 million under CEWS

Chorus Aviation (Jazz Aviation and Voyageur Airways regional airlines): $96.8 million under CEWS

Global Crossing Airlines: $40,000 under CEBA

WestJet: Didn't provide funding program or amount

Sunwing & Porter: unknown amounts under CEWS

I submitted my FOIPOP on 3 July 2015, a couple of months after Whalley's resignation (he left the CBRM on 28 May 2015).

This does not explain why his name was redacted.

This was apparently not a great time to join Hi-Rise Capital, according to this Globe and Mail article.

It's actually a sub-podcast of a “tech pessimist” podcast called Trashfuture, but the Bones episodes are for patreon supporters only.

I was not familiar with the term “railfan” but it is one of a number of terms for a railway enthusiast, along with rail buff, train buff, trainspotter or – my new favorite – ferroequinologist.

SHIP announced on 14 January 2020 that it had expanded its partnership consortium to include Membertou and Bridging Finance Inc.

Membertou Chief Terry Paul told the Cape Breton Post they had purchased a 22.5% stake in SHIP.

But the Quebec business registry entry for SHIP, updated as of August 2020, lists only Albert Barbusci as a shareholder.

And Sydney Harbour Investment Partners LP, the vehicle established for the port project, lists only Sheehy and Barbusci as partners.

Federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt

Or consider what Hatch had to say on the subject of rail bridges, which number 41 on the disused section of the line:

"The section of track running from Port Hawkesbury to Sydney has been out of service since 2014 and no detailed bridge capacity rating information is available...[I]nspections from 2015 indicate substantial corrosion of principal structural members in a number of steel bridges and general deterioration of concrete on all of the structures. In order to establish exactly what work is required for each structure, it would first be necessary to carry out detailed bridge inspections followed by corroded ratings of all bridges. This is beyond the scope of the current report."

They budget $14 million for structural work on the Grand Narrows swing bridge intended to allow it to operate to Class 1 specifications (with trains traveling at 10MPH). They suggest pulling the swing span open and closed using tug boats, but warn this is “not advisable for regular use given the higher risk of damage.”

Basically, Hatch had a dilemma: it is the job of a consultant to give its client (in this case the Port of Sydney) what it wants, and what the Port wanted was a palatable price tag for refurbishing the rail line.

But consultants have to retain some shred of credibility, so Hatch gave the Port its palatable figure, but added so many caveats that -- as I say in the article -- were the actual cost to be quadruple the estimate, it was covered .

I've since discovered that Public Health is going to give first doses to 1,950 people.

I should note that the Membertou Wellness Centre had been built, but had yet to open when this report was completed.

By 15-feet, to make it NHL sized, 85' x 200'. Why an ice surface built in 1996 wasn't NHL-size – it was 85’ x 185’ -- is a mystery TRACE leaves unexplored. But I think it's worth noting the Whitney Pier Arena, a much older facility, has an NHL-sized ice surface -- and a $6,000 monthly power bill. And yes, it's very cold inside the Whitney Pier Arena, but still.

Recommendation 1 – Use the CCPA-NS social policy framework to develop a comprehensive, robust Poverty Eradication Plan for Nova Scotia.

Recommendation 2 – Create a Child and Youth Advocate Office to protect and promote the rights of Nova Scotia children and youth.

Recommendation 3 - The employment supports and Income Assistance (ESIA) must be reformed to meet the principles of income adequacy, social inclusion and respect for human dignity. The EISA's benefit level should be set to a recognized standard/poverty measure and include regular cost of living of living increases taking into account housing, rental inflation and food inflation in particular.

Recommendation 4 – The Nova Scotia Child Benefit should be further increased to include more families and indexed to inflation, as part of a poverty eradication strategy.

Recommendation 5 – Support First Nations in Nova Scotia to assume self-governance over child and family services to ensure they are able to meet their cultural, historical and geographical needs and circumstances.

Recommendation 6 – In order to eradicate poverty in communities that have particularly high poverty rates, employ an inter sectional lens to invest in proactive strategies in collaboration with the affected communities.

Recommendation 7 – Fund and build a high quality, early learning and childcare system that is child-centred, play-based, seamless (all day, all year) affordable and accessible.

Recommendation 8 – Invest in public and social infrastructure, including extended universal health care (mental health care, pharmacare, long-term care, home-care). Strengthen inclusive public education, make post-secondary education more affordable, and invest to ensure essential costs are available and affordable (eg. food and internet).

Recommendation 9 – Enact a full moratorium on all evictions during the state of emergency, and permanent rent control, in addition to developing longer term policies to maintain rental quality and affordability, which must include significant and sustained investment to build affordable, social, non-profit and co-operative housing.

Recommendation 10 - The minimum wage should be increased to $15 in the next year with a plan to make it a living wage. Recommendation 11: Amend the Nova Scotia Labour Standards Code to better protect workers in the province and improve the lives of working families, including providing at least 10 paid sick days.

Recommendation 11 - Amend the Nova Scotia Labour Standards Code to better protect workers in the province and improve the lives of working families, including providing at least 10 paid sick days.

The others are:

The Grand Narrows Waterfront

Dominion Italian Hall

Saint Joseph's Catholic Parish Church, Albert Bridge

The Remora Communiqué

Issued by No Spectator Left, December 2020

1

I heard the voice

Of the Remora speak –

Slowly, all in silence,

To wake me from my sleep.

2

I heard the voice

Of its silence say,

‘A Plague Ship has been

Stopped today.’

3

‘Did you even know

You were at sea?

Did you ever stop

To think of me?’

4

‘Know you’d left

The world behind,

Or what on Earth

You hoped to find?’

5

‘Have you heard the whales

Now have to yell?

You think they’re singing –

You can’t tell!’

6

‘It was the droning on & on

Of your Dread-Nought Destroyer

That made me sound my calm alarm

In the ear of your Employer.’

7

‘The Strain & Refrain

From onboard seemed familiar,

An updated version of

“Long Live Caligula!”’

8

‘I stopped his progress, ah

The hutzpah of karma!

Rome outweighed

By the scales of Remora... ’

9

‘Mark Antony

I scuppered too,

Underthrown before

He knew…’

10

‘But today, you thought,

What need to worry?

What voodoo-glue can now undo

Your ship’s world-beating hurry!’

11

‘So I downsized, to fill the role

I was unborn to play:

Remember, as the Show Goes On,

You recast me this way!’

12

‘You even gave new me a name

(With hollow ring, it’s true):

Corona-Virus, The Sick Crown,

Sitting right with you…’

13

‘If you should miss this hint now –

Heaven knows, I tried! –

The next ring at the doorbell?

No more Mr. Nice Guy!’

14

‘For tho’ the story of l’il ole me

Is soon & simply told

(N.B., I’m only as little

As you made the world),

15

Perchance in the Grand Scheme

There’s ‘small’ & then there’s small,

And your friend the atom

May do for us all!’

16

‘Fat Man’s little boy

For purpose trained fit:

The crack that splits open

The hull of the ship!’

17

‘Yes, that’s the thing (you’ll see too late),

It All cracks from inside:

Nothing in the world left ‘out’

Now you’ve grown worldwide.’

18

‘So while we’ve a moment –

And if not now, when? –

Pray, pay me best attention:

We may not meet again.’

19

‘And it’s hard to imagine

But sadly safe to say, you

May yet remember me

Fondly one day!’

20

‘For it’s not just the overlooked

Pit of the Bomb, the

Abyss that’s grown tired from

Yawning so long,’

21

‘There’s now – just in case! –

As the Atomic Clock ticks,

A new kid on the Doomsday Block,

A spare Apocalypse!’

22

‘And with two caps melting

The Dunce is warming to his task,

Facing down his Mother,

Preparing Her Death-Mask.’

23

‘But what does Her life matter

(& who’ll be left to grieve?),

The Old Girl in the Chokehold

Croaking “I Can’t Breathe!”’

24

‘O you wring your hands & ring your bells

While skies & forests fall,

But “capitalism will adapt!” no doubt:

It has to, after all!’

25

‘The trusty greenwashed reset button,

Point missed without fail –

“Sustainable development”…

Of the Fairy Tale!’

26

‘And to “listen to the science”

Isn’t all you need to do:

If you want to really heal thyself,

Listen to my silence too!’

27

‘It really is a killer,

The racket y’all make:

What kind of f** bully

Wants to make his Mother Quake?’

28

‘It is what it is,

Boys will be boys,

In their noisome

Kingdom of Noise?’

29

‘Well, until my little finger

Touched the spinning top,

Ripped you from the driver’s seat

Of the Roaring Chariot.’

30

‘But I cannot now take the helm

Lay in a course that’s true,

Back to safely grounded land –

That’s up to all the Crew.’

31

‘For in this emergency,

All hands on the (burning) deck:

Check your destiny’s manifest, there

Are no passengers left!’

32

‘It’s time to call a midnight strike,

Make love to Mutiny –

Go overboard, throw overboard

This plaguey, illthy Bounty!’

33

‘What exactly should you do? You

Crave a detailed scheme?

I’m not a power-point, you know,

Just your own fever-dream!’

34

I started when the silence stopped,

So badly missed its voice:

Left all alone, onboard to make

The choice that is no choice –

35

To put away so many

Very foolish things,

While we can still remember

What being human means,

36

Remember that the question

‘To be or not to be?’

Isn’t just a question

Of or for humanity,

37

Though it wouldn’t be an issue

Without the threats we pose,

The constant hammering it takes

To crucify Life’s Rose,

38

To pulverize the Earth that is

Our only common wealth,

To tame and tag, gas & gag

The good wild life of health.

39

I cried, ‘my God, I have to rush,

Right now alert the crew;

Not those who know they slave & serve –

The rest, without a clue,

40

Who buckle up,

Enjoy the ride,

Let those “in the

Know” decide

41

Their fate: “Awake!,” I’d cry,

“Discern!, deride

The course laid in

For Omnicide!”’

42

But my voice would

Not be the Dream’s,

And I must wake

To what It means –

43

So first things first,

Some silence, pray:

High Time to issue

The Remora Communiqué…

Dalkey is an affluent Dublin suburb.

Amortization is an accounting technique used to periodically lower the book value of a loan or intangible asset over a set period of time. In relation to a loan, amortization focuses on spreading out loan payments over time. When applied to an asset, amortization is similar to depreciation. -- Investopedia

Literally, a visit "to the threshold" or tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, it is a visit all bishops must make periodically to Rome.

Full disclosure: I've known Shauna for 10 years. I do not call her "Walters" in person and it feels weird to do so in print, but my style guide insists on it.

The original version of this article said 11 councilors were re-elected. Apologies for the error!

I sent an email to Canderel asking this question, will update when I receive a response.

Port developer Albert Barbusci insists on NOVAPORTE(TM) and NOVAZONE(TM), for what it's worth.

Port developer Albert Barbusci insists on NOVAPORTE(TM) and NOVAZONE(TM), for what it's worth.

The literary stickler in me feels compelled to note that Sam-I-Am was the one pushing the green eggs and ham in the Dr. Seuss classic of the same name, not the one being asked if he like them.

But a Dr. Seuss reference never goes amiss.

This is not actually how federal equalization works, despite what Alberta Premier Jason Kenney seems to think.

I referred to Wall as "Rebecca Hall" in the first version of this item which is not forgivable, given her name is easily verified (and I've gotten it right before) so all I can do is apologize, which I do!

I had a typo in the original version -- 2019 instead of 2020. Apologies for that! (And thanks to the eagle-eyed reader who corrected it. While I'm at it, thanks to another eagle-eyed reader who noticed I'd spelled "Boisdale" wrong in another article!)

The original agreement, for two years, was signed in 2015. In 2016, before the original had even expired, council voted to extend it another five.

Anchor point: An advantageous location, usually a barrier to fire spread, from which to start building a fire line. An anchor point is used to reduce the chance of firefighters being flanked by fire.

Flanks of a Fire: The parts of a fire's perimeter that are roughly parallel to the main direction of spread.

Source: USDA Forest Service

This is not true! I ran across a description of a 1957 concert in Vancouver shortly after I published F&C. Serves me right for believing what I read on a random Elvis website. The Spectator regrets the error.

This was updated from the original article which said "business" declined by "about 10%."

This was updated from the original article, which said "firm" instead of "bar."

Department of Municipal Affairs spokesperson Krista Higdon told me -- on July 22 -- that this is not a committee of council and is therefore not required to meet in public. She added there were "procedures in place whereby councillors may add items to the agenda."

Which is true, but the procedure in place in the CBRM is that the item must be approved by the agenda "working group."

Doerry identifies this “someone” as “notorious Holocaust denier Gerard Menuhin - a son of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin.”

For those of you unfamiliar with The New Yorker's style and are wondering about those two dots over the second “e” in “reemerging,” I direct you to this 2012 piece by Mary Norris:

“Those two dots, often mistaken for an umlaut, are actually a diaeresis (pronounced “die heiresses”; it’s from the Greek for “divide”). The difference is that an umlaut is a German thing that alters the pronunciation of a vowel (Brünnhilde), and often changes the meaning of a word: schon (adv.), already; schön (adj.), beautiful. In the case of a diphthong, the umlaut goes over the first vowel. And it is crucial. A diaeresis goes over the second vowel and indicates that it forms a separate syllable. Most of the English-speaking world finds the diaeresis inessential. Even Fowler, of Fowler’s “Modern English Usage,” says that the diaeresis 'is in English an obsolescent symbol.'”

This isn't really germane to the discussion of the train station, but I thought it worth noting that Donovan has a habit of allowing his company's registration to be revoked for non-payment then having it reinstated.

The NS Joint Stocks Registry shows that 3046975 NOVA SCOTIA LIMITED has been revoked for non-payment five times since 2000, including in October 2018 and October 2019.

Two other companies associated with the registration – Falcon Contracting and Falcon Realty – have also been revoked for non-payment, the former in 2014, the latter in 2018. Neither has been reinstated.

Except for my mother, who writes for me and who is, obviously, family.

I apparently use "Oscar" as a catch-all term for awards ceremonies.

You have to see the full shopping list (I've highlighted the MCDV program):

• 12 nuclear submarines ($7-$8 billion)
• 6 frigates ($3.5 billion)
• 30-50 antisubmarine helicopters to replace the Sea Kings ($1.8 billion)
• North Warning System and upgrades to arctic airfields to accommodate CF-18 fighter jets ($600 million)
• A $75-million network of sensitive listening devices to detect submarines passing through the narrow passages of the Canadian Arctic.
• A flotilla of 30 minor warships, including Canada’s first batch of minesweepers since the early 1960s. Cost: $600 million.
• Six maritime long-range patrol aircraft to supplement Canada’s 18 Aurora antisubmarine aircraft — at $300 million.
• Upgrading of dated Tracker short-range antisubmarine aircraft at an as yet undetermined cost.
• Ten to 13 CF-18 fighters, likely used aircraft purchased from the U.S. navy.
• A northern training centre in the high Arctic for troops, and extra support for the Canadian Rangers
• Unspecified funds for research on space-based surveillance systems.

It was the first such paper in 16 years, the last one having been the much more mundanely titled “Defence in the 1970s.”

Here's the full list of Kingston-class vessels:

HMCS Kingston (700)

HMCS Glace Bay (701)

HMCS Nanaimo (702)

HMCS Edmonton (703)

HMCS Shawinigan (704)

HMCS Whitehorse (705)

HMCS Yellowknife (706)

HMCS Goose Bay (707)

HMCS Moncton (708)

HMCS Saskatoon (709)

HMCS Brandon (710)

HMCS Summerside (711)

The process of decreasing or eliminating a remnant magnetic field. It is named after the gauss, a unit of magnetism, which in turn was named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. Due to magnetic hysteresis, it is generally not possible to reduce a magnetic field completely to zero, so degaussing typically induces a very small "known" field referred to as bias. Degaussing was originally applied to reduce ships' magnetic signatures during World War II. (Wikipedia)

Being in Nova Scotia, my first thought was to contact PEI's Holland College, home of the Atlantic Police Academy, for a reaction to police brutality and some information on their training procedures, but as of publication, I had received no response.

Newspapers will continue to be managed under a voluntary stewardship program.

I promise, I know the actual expression is “toe the line,” I'm playing on words.

Council actually approved this motion for first reading, but the motion passed references only telephone and internet voting.

I wrote "two feet" originally which was very wrong and I apologize for any confusion I might have caused. (Two METERS, six feet.)

If you offer people $40 million during a pandemic and they only take $20 million, does that mean they're all fine because the federal government has them covered (which the premier said was why uptake was lower than expected) or does it mean the program was poorly designed?

As of noon (the most recent update I received) Lands and Forestry was reporting three "significant" wildfires:

"On Monday, May 25, ground and air crews and volunteer fire departments responded to a wildfire near Frankville, Antigonish Co. An incident command centre has now been established with 17 provincial wildfire crew, a helicopter and 31 volunteer firefighters on scene today, May 26. The wildfire is estimated to be about 200 hectares in size and is about 40 per cent contained. It is considered to be out of control.

"Wildfire crews on the ground and in the air continue working today with multiple volunteer fire departments in responding to a fire near Alton Road in the Springfield area of Kings County. This wildfire is still estimated to be about 120 hectares and is currently considered out of control.

"In the southern end of the province near Argyle, Yarmouth Co., Department of Lands and Forestry personnel are back on the scene of a wildfire estimated to be about 30 to 50 hectares, considered under control.

"Currently no fires are near residential areas and no structures have been lost."

McKenna, premier of New Brunswick from 1987-1997 and Chrétien, prime minister from 1993-2003, know each other, of course.

James Kenny, reviewing journalist Philip Lee's 2005 biography of McKenna (Frank: The Life and Politics of Frank McKenna) noted in the Canadian Historical Review https://muse.jhu.edu/article/184009/pdf that the book:

“...ends with the story of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien trying to convince McKenna, by then retired from politics and enjoying a successful career as corporate lawyer, to run in the 2000 federal election. Despite the promise of a cabinet post from which, Chrétien hinted, McKenna would be well positioned to take over as prime minister, the former premier declined.”

I have corrected this article to reflect the fact that Erin Bromage is a he, not a she as I had originally assumed. (Will I ever learn that lesson about assuming?)

Thanks to a reader in Washington State for taking the time to correct me and pointing me to Dr. Bromage's bio:

https://www.umassd.edu/directory/ebromage/

This paragraph has been updated with the latest specifications on the Trident fleet.

This CUPE release dated April 11, 2020), explains the new protocol for masking in long-term-care.

That is his name.

The province doesn't name the facilities, but here are some of the announcements I was able to find from the facilities themselves:

On May 1, GEM Health Care group announced that the resident and "all staff" at the Admiral Long Term Care Centre in Dartmouth who had previously tested positive for COVID-19 were now testing negative.

On May 3, Ocean View in Dartmouth announced that of the three staff who had tested positive, one had returned to work and the other two were nearing the end of their self-isolation periods. The facility had one resident who had tested positive, but that resident has recovered and returned to their regular quarters.

On May 5, Shannex announced that two residents "receiving care in our Designated Care/Cohorting Areas (DCAs) after testing positive for COVID-19 are now considered recovered and they have returned home." Shannex did not name the facility (or facilities) involved, but it had announced on April 16 that two residents at Harbourstone Enhanced Care in Sydney had tested positive and been placed in DCAs.

Cumberland

For completed tests, I have added total positive and total negative results rather than simply listing the number of total tests completed by the lab in a 24-hour period as some of these may have been inconclusive, requiring that they be repeated.

In later briefings, Strang uses the figure 48 hours. (I actually went back and watched the March 31 briefing to be sure I'd heard 14 days correctly and I did.)

This is, in fact, the case. The CBC reports:

"The cube can produce 10 to 15 results from either nasal or throat swabs each day, and its short turnaround time means a patient can wait for those results."

The minutes were posted and this is all I have to add:

Moved by Councillor Bruckschwaiger, seconded by Councillor Jim MacLeod, to support the $134,000.00 funding request and approve a CBRM contribution up to $67,000.00 towards the Homeless and Vulnerable Citizen Support Services projects as presented, based on matching funding from the Province of Nova Scotia. Discussion: The CFO noted that CBRM’s contribution would be funded from the Municipal Grants (Sustainability) Program. Motion Carried

I revised this paragraph after listening to Strang's comments again. It seems the province is planning a more substantial testing mobile testing unit, but it does not yet exist.

As Joan Baxter explained in Part IV of her Fool's Gold series, the site targeted by the Black Point Aggregate Project:

"...wasn’t just any old piece of land. It was a parcel of coastal area about 12km from the town of Canso, boasting spectacular granite cliffs and hidden beaches on Chedabucto Bay, including locations identified on maps as Black Point and Fogerty Head. A piece of land immortalized by Stan Rogers, the folk legend who died in a fiery plane crash in 1983, viii in his 1976 song “Fogarty’s Cove.”

Streptomycin, an actinomycete (a microbe considered an intermediary between bacteria and fungi), was discovered by Selman Waksman, a soil microbiologist at Rutgers University, and his assistant, Albert Schatz, in 1943.

“Waksman had found in his previous studies of the microbiological affect of the soil that actinomycetes could exert a very peculiar effect on certain soil bacteria which resulted in their growth being inhibited. So he then turned his attention from studying the soil to specifically looking at the sensitivity of the TB organism to various actinomycetes...

“The first clinical treatments of TB with streptomycin were carried out at the Mayo Clinic in the winter of 1944/45. November 20th 1944 was the day on which streptomycin was first administered to a human being for the treatment of tuberculosis. This was just a few weeks after the first patient had been treated with PAS. The patient was discharged from the sanatorium on July 13th 1947 with a diagnosis of apparently arrested pulmonary tuberculosis.

“There were however some serious limitations to the use of streptomycin. These included the fact that it needed to be painfully injected, and after long term therapy the development of resistance took place. There was also a particular toxicity of the drug which led to a loss of hearing or the sense of balance in some patients.”

Source: TBFACTS.ORG

“The Age of Sanatoria in Canada [which began in 1896 with the construction of the first institution in Muskoka, Ontario] peaked in 1953 with the highest number of in-patient beds for the treatment of TB in Canadian history. In-patient treatment was then believed to be the only way to manage the disease in the first half of the 20th Century, and by 1938, Canada had 61 sanatoria and special tuberculosis units in hospitals with close to 9,000 beds....

“From 9,000 beds in 1938, the bed complement rose to a peak of 19,000 beds in 1953. In the same period, the number of sanatoria and special tuberculosis units in hospitals grew from 61 to 101. Patients’ average length of stay in hospital was prolonged at the time, reaching a peak of just over a year in the mid-1950s...

Many patients, though, stayed at the "San" for 3-5 years and some even longer.”

Source: Canada's Role in Fighting Tuberculosis

This line was added post-publication. Drake said he wanted to emphasize the fact that Donkin's owners had much to learn from Cape Breton's mining history.

On 30 March 2020, Kameron Collieries announced the permanent closure of the Donkin Mine, citing the "adverse geologic conditions in the mine."

UPDATE: During the March 26 COVID-19 update, Dr. Strang said that if community spread is identified in a particular community, public health is looking at ways they could "aggressively test" within a small geographic area.

UPDATE: On March 26, Dr. Brendan Carr, president and CEO of the NSHA, said that ICU beds in the province were running at about 50% occupancy while the province's 2,000 acute inpatient beds had been at 100% occupancy but this had been reduced to 70%.

A spectator has just informed me that the Vienna State Opera is also offering free streaming of HD performances.

And Thrillist has compiled a list that includes symphony orchestra and Broadway performances.

Here's the technical description of what will happen, as found in Cairo Resources interim financial statement:

On September 30, 2019, the Company entered into arm’s length amalgamation agreement (the “Definitive Agreement”) in respect of a proposed business combination (the “Proposed Transaction”) that would result in the reverse takeover of Cairo by Swarmio Inc. (“Swarmio”). It is anticipated that the Proposed Transaction will constitute Cairo’s “Qualifying Transaction” pursuant to Policy 2.4 of the TSX Venture Exchange (the “Exchange). Following the completion of the Proposed Transaction, the resulting entity (the “Resulting Issuer”) will hold all of the assets and continue the business of Swarmio.

Pursuant to the Definitive Agreement, Cairo and Swarmio will complete a three-cornered amalgamation under the federal laws of Canada whereby a newly formed wholly-owned Canadian federal subsidiary of Cairo will amalgamate with Swarmio (the “Amalgamation”) and the shareholders of Swarmio will receive common shares of Cairo (the “Cairo Shares”) in exchange for their Swarmio Shares, resulting in a reverse takeover of Cairo by Swarmio. It is anticipated that the Resulting Issuer will continue the business of Swarmio under the name “Swarmio Media Inc.” (the “Name Change”).

Stanbury is a director of SJS Public Relations where he helps “transformative companies grow through the explosive power of positive, strategically targeted and consistently delivered media visibility.”

Actually, no. I like baking competitions. I've never actually watched an entire episode in the Real Housewives franchise.

The story behind the Mile One Centre's name is a good one – and could serve as a cautionary tale about naming rights. According to Wikipedia:

“Though the centre's name is often assumed to be a generic name based solely on the building's location, Mile One Centre is in fact among the many North American sports venues that have raised funds by selling their naming rights.

In the case of Mile One, brewing company Molson initially acquired the naming rights for 10 years (2001-2011), as well as other privileges such as being the venue's exclusive beer supplier, for $1.5 million.

Molson then resold the naming rights to Danny Williams, then-owner of Cable Atlantic (and later premier of Newfoundland and Labrador), for $600,000. Before the centre opened, however, Williams sold Cable Atlantic to Rogers Communications in order to pursue politics, but retained the naming rights personally. Ultimately Williams chose to name the centre based on the venue's geography.

"Mile One" is a trademark owned by the Williams family's charitable foundation, not the city, meaning that the centre can only use the "Mile One" name so long as it has the family's permission to do so. This implies that if and when Williams's rights expire and are not renewed, the centre might be forced to find a new name, regardless of whether or not a new sponsor is found.”

Sec. 22(2)(a) & (e) - municipal property & contract negotiations (Central Fire Station; Expropriation Second Berth; Centre 200)

"I'm Canadian and this is an interesting place" could also be used to justify an interest in the Montreal Canadiens. Just sayin'...

If you're interested in more detail about Simon's personal wealth, check out this 2013 New York Times article, in which business reporter Gretchen Morgenson paints him as the poster boy for out-sized executive compensation.

This subject actually connects to the series of articles I've been writing about trams, believe it or not, as you will discover next week in Part III.

If I were asked to judge a snowman contest I would put a lot of weight on the talent competition.

The article is behind a paywall, but you can access it with a joint Spectator/Examiner subscription.

That would be John Savage whose son is now the mayor of Halifax – really, there is something to this “hereditary” theory of Nova Scotia government, isn't there?

If you thought I was going to say "organs," you are an even bigger conspiracy theorist than I am.

This number left me so bemused I originally wrote $50 billion.

One day, we will discover how to spin a turbine with pure chutzpah.

A kilowatt hour is the amount of energy you would use if you kept a 1,000 watt appliance running for an hour.

In another nice bit of foreshadowing, though, even with the Great Depression setting in, the city found money to hire a Montreal consultant to advise it on the decision.

Frank Sinatra played Juarez. This has nothing to do with my streetcar story, but I love this song.

I can hear Dartmouth residents working up their "What's changed?" jokes from here.

Selley pronounces it “Pick-Two.”

I have no business using sports metaphors and will stop immediately.

He is also described as having "an infectious personality" which in 2020 makes him sound like a novel coronovirus.

This is in the bio of longtime CBC journalist Don Newman, Rubicon's executive vice president.

By which I mean, “in place of a conclusion.”

This, according to the Grammarist, is not a word:

Learnings is a pluralization of an erroneous form of learning as a singular noun. Said singular noun (e.g., a learning) does not exist, at least according to most dictionaries.

This was a new one on me. According to Wikipedia:

Patient capital is another name for long term capital. With patient capital, the investor is willing to make a financial investment in a business with no expectation of turning a quick profit. Instead, the investor is willing to forgo an immediate return in anticipation of more substantial returns down the road.

Shouldn't it be “kilometrage?”

Is that a word? I can't find a definition from a respectable source.

Fun Fact:

That's almost the median employment income for workers in the CBRM according to 2016 Census figures The median income was $26,986.

I feel the need to point out that in the report, this sentence – the only one in the whole report dealing with climate change -- breaks after “rising sea...” on page 8 for two pages of pictures before continuing on page 10.

Archibald's Wharf is included in this list of boardwalks that are “very well used” but the CBRM would later sell it to a ship repair company. Problem solved?

I found myself wondering here if the authors' conversations with “forestry experts” might have touched on the potential closure of Northern Pulp?

We actually have an example of a local GMF-funded project that does a much better job meeting these criteria – in fact,it's highlighted in the fund's annual report for 2018-2019 as “Nova Scotia's longest, scenic, paved bike path.” It's the 10-km multi-use trail linking Sydney, Glace Bay and CBU, part of the CBRM's Active Transit plan. The project received an FCM grant of $100,000 and a loan of $1 million.

How we got from a plan that was supposed to involve using “waste heat” from Centre 200 to heat other buildings to a plan that doesn't include Centre 200 at all is beyond the scope of this article, but is probably a fascinating story. In dismissing the building as a potential candidate, the Ramboll report says only:

“Low energy demand compared to distance to the central network. Heat recovery opportunity not considered suitable for connection to the network.”

This is the seniors' high rise.

I have passed this building hundreds of times since moving home to Cape Breton without noticing the sign out front that says, “Vista Heights.”

According to Wikipedia, “boodle” is:

“...a slang term for money derived from the Dutch word 'boedel' meaning property or estate.”

Its use is apparently widespread among “English-speaking South Africans.” How it became equally widespread in my Canadian family of Scottish/Irish descent I cannot tell you – but it did.

I knew someone was looking into something because I was -- for the first time ever! -- a "third-party" whose permission had to be asked by the municipal clerk before some documents could be released.

My contribution was a few emails to CBRM spokesperson Jillian Moore and Municipal Clerk Deborah Campbell-Ryan asking questions about the role of the regional solicitor in the in camera compensation discussions.

In other words, a “world class” facility which you can tell, because nobody ever feels the need to call it a “world-class' facility.

Formerly the Nova Scotia Waterfront Development Corporation Limited (WDCL), a provincial crown corporation originally responsible for land development, primarily around Halifax Harbour. It was renamed Develop Nova Scotia and given responsibility for “designing and managing the implementation strategy for Rural High Speed Internet across the province in connection with the Nova Scotia Internet Funding Trust.”

The government press release explained the design competition process as follows:

“The design competition, which is the first of its magnitude for the province, is expected to last six months and will take place in two stages. In summer 2020, during the final stage of the competition, the field will be narrowed to three design teams before a qualified jury selects the winning team. The conceptual designs of all finalists will be on public display for feedback which will be provided to the winning design team.”

There is no better way to proclaim to the world that you are a backwater than by insisting your facilities are “world class.”

“Not only did we HAVE dinosaurs, we elected one to council!”

The jokes really write themselves.

Per Wikipedia:

The Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (also DOSCO) **was a Canadian coal mining and steel manufacturing company.

Incorporated in 1928 and operational by 1930, DOSCO was predated by the British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO), which was a merger of the Dominion Coal Company, the Dominion Iron and Steel Company and the Nova Scotia Steel Company. DOSCO was one of the largest private employers in Canada during the 1930s-1950s. In 1957, DOSCO was purchased as a subsidiary of A.V. Roe Canada Ltd. and was later assumed in 1962 by Hawker Siddeley Canada. The company was dissolved in 1968 after the majority of its coal mining and steel mill industrial assets in Industrial Cape Breton were expropriated and nationalized by the federal and provincial governments.

Devco was the Cape Breton Development Corporation, a Canadian crown corporation founded in 1967 to oversee the phase out Cape Breton's coal mines while developing new economic opportunities for the coal-dependent communities. It ceased operations in 2009, when it was folded into Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation (ECBC) which was itself folded into the Atantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) in 2014.

An RCGS press release announcing the discovery named these partners:

“The Government of Canada’s search for the lost Franklin ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, has been led by Parks Canada and augmented by Canadian leaders in exploration, assembled through the auspices of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, including The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, One Ocean Expeditions, Shell Canada and the Arctic Research Foundation. The latter had a dedicated research platform, the RV Martin Bergmann, involved in the search. All participants carried the RCGS expedition flag.”

The Arctic Research Foundation was established by Research in Motion co-founder Jim Balsillie.

With Prossin not talking and publicly available information about the situation limited to court filings by creditors, Mora's Facebook site is the best source of information about OOE (and yes, all the usual caveats about social media apply, but Mora seems to be doing his best to vet and organize information).

From Kubski's LinkedIn profile:

Vice President of International Business Development Company Name Sun Redrock Group Dates Employed Aug 2008 – Feb 2011 Employment Duration 2 yrs 7 mos

Sun Media has become one of the leading private media, marketing and investment companies in mainland China. The company operates six major segments under separate brands: Sun Media Group, Sun Thinktank Creative, Redrock Capital, Redrock land, Soluxe and Sun Culture Foundation, a charitable foundation which promotes philanthropy and corporate social responsibility in China.

You'd almost think I was impressed by this, wouldn't you? I couldn't care less about Harper's Franklin expedition if you paid me – although I do delight in stories like this one from APTN explaining that the Inuit always had a pretty good idea where the ships were:

https://aptnnews.ca/2014/09/11/pmo-downplays-rich-inuit-link-discovered-franklin-ship/

From the [Cape Breton Post, 8 December 2015](https://www.capebretonpost.com/news/local/chinese-company-signs-agreement-to-build-sydney-container-terminal-10651/):

“The time frame would involve design and simulation work in 2016, followed by two years of construction, with the terminal going into operation in 2019, [Albert] Barbusci said, adding that he doesn’t see that as being aggressive.”

Galway Gold v. Colombia

Investment: Ownership of the Reina de Oro and Coloro gold mines located in the Vetas mining district in northern Colombia.

Summary: Claims arising out of the Colombian Constitutional Court's decision to ban mining operations in the páramos, a range of high-altitude wetlands that serve as a primary source of the country’s water supply. According to a press release, Toronto-based Galway is seeking "among other relief, recovery of the Company’s costs incurred in the acquisition and development of its investment in the Reina de Oro mining project, as well as the loss of value suffered."

Red Eagle v. Colombia

Investment: Ownership of the 352-hectare Vetas gold mine.

Summary: Claims arising out of the Colombian Constitutional Court's decision to ban mining operations in the páramos, a range of high-altitude wetlands that serve as a primary source of the country’s water supply.

Eco Oro v. Colombia

Investment: Mining rights held under a concession contract, comprising the Angostura gold and silver deposit in the Santurbán region of northeastern Colombia.

Summary: Claims arising out of the National Mining Agency’s decision (2016) that deprived the claimant of its mining rights in respect of 50% of the concession area (a gold and silver deposit) held by it since the mid-1990s. The relevant area was found to fall within the Santurbán Páramo, an environmental conservation zone. The Mining Agency’s actions followed the decision of Colombia’s Constitutional Court that broadened restrictions on mining in high-mountain ecosystems known as páramos (sources of the country’s freshwater supply), striking down legal provisions that had stabilised the rights of mining projects in those areas negotiated before 2010.

Can you tell I'm running out of reportorial steam? I can't be bothered to work out what guy on which podcast. Luckily, this is nothing a few days off won't cure.

May I just say that bringing “a large house cat” into a discussion about what it's like to eat a 12-pound donair is a really terrible idea?

I've updated this story since it was originally published with the answers to these follow-up questions.

Recharge:

Water added to a groundwater aquifer. For example, when rainwater seeps into the ground. Recharge may occur naturally through precipitation or surface water or artificially through injection wells or by spreading water over groundwater reservoirs. See also infiltration.

I found this definition in a very helpful glossary of Groundwater-related terms on the website of the US-based Groundwater Foundation.

https://www.groundwater.org/get-informed/basics/glossary.html#content_1bb17d7c230efa9059e2d2b95a46ed21_item_7665376

One who studies the interrelationships of geologic materials and processes with water, especially groundwater.

I found this definition in a very helpful glossary of Groundwater-related terms on the website of the US-based Groundwater Foundation.

https://www.groundwater.org/get-informed/basics/glossary.html#content_1bb17d7c230efa9059e2d2b95a46ed21_item_7665376

One who studies the interrelationships of geologic materials and processes with water, especially groundwater.

I found this definition in a very helpful glossary of Groundwater-related terms on the website of the US-based Groundwater Foundation:

https://www.groundwater.org/get-informed/basics/glossary.html#content_1bb17d7c230efa9059e2d2b95a46ed21_item_7665376

I can see the advantage to this, from a hydrologist's point of view, but I fear that if we allow people to continue to believe climate change is not man-made then we'll find it very difficult to convince them to support any changes to the way we do things.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, glacial till is:

“...unsorted material deposited directly by glacial ice and showing no stratification. Till is sometimes called boulder clay because it is composed of clay, boulders of intermediate sizes, or a mixture of these...Although difficult to distinguish by appearance, there are two types of till, basal and ablation. Basal till was carried in the base of the glacier and commonly laid down under it. Ablation till was carried on or near the surface of the glacier and was let down as the glacier melted.”

I do not understand this hydrogeological mania for giving everything more than one name. As a layperson, it is starting to make me quite cross.

The part of me that still believes that one day, I will be cool.

Selminco Inc operated two coal waste-bank reclamation projects in Cape Breton: one at the Summit waste bank in New Waterford and the other at the Princess waste bank in Sydney Mines.

Source: 1984 Nova Scotia DNR Report

https://novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/pubs/is/is08/is08_Chapter06.pdf

“Gael Tech, an operating subsidiary of Guildcraft Inc of Toronto, is establishing a plant on the Princess Mine dump at Sydney Mines. The objective is to recover fine coal from the fine tailing of the former wash plant by employing spherical agglomeration and special screening techniques.”

Source:1984 Nova Scotia DNR Report

https://novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/pubs/is/is08/is08_Chapter06.pdf

There should, obviously, be a photo accompanying this item but I somehow never thought to pull over and take one. I actually meant to do it this week, but I forgot. File this under: “Bad Reporter.” (But not under “Fake News” because the signs were really there – I swear.)

Ding! Ding! Ding!

That bell signals the author's success in working into her article a word she has been trying to employ in print for a very long time.

What were they discussing about Centre 200? When do we get to find out?

There's some eye-popping evidence (most of it American) out there about police chases. Back in 2015, Zachary Crockett of the Priceonomics blog wrote:

“High-speed police chase data, like most police data, faces a dilemma: while individual departments collect figures and numbers, they are not mandated to report them to any state or federal agency. As such, no comprehensive historical repository of high-speed police chases exists.

“The most accurate figures that can be found come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which tracks all reported vehicular accidents in the U.S. In 1982, amid mounting concerns about fatal police pursuit crashes, NHTSA launched the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a national database which tracks, among other incidents, deaths resulting from high-speed police chases.

“According to their data, 10,642 people have been killed in these chases over the past 32 years — some 332 deaths each year.

“In 2004, researchers analyzed 7,430 of these deaths, and published a disturbing revelation: while the majority of those killed are occupants in the chased vehicles, innocent bystanders make up nearly one third of all deaths resulting from high-speed police chases. The police officers who initiate these chases make up less than 1% of all fatalities.”

Crockett also noted that:

“An analysis done by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, in conjunction with the National Institute of Justice, revealed that 91% of all reported police chases are initiated over non-violent crimes. Simple traffic violations  (e.g. rolling a stop sign, or driving with a busted taillight) account for nearly half of these.”

cohort:

A group of individuals having a statistical factor (such as age or class membership) in common in a demographic study.

Authors of the study:

Dena Zeraatkar, MSc; Mi Ah Han, MD, PhD; Gordon H. Guyatt, MD, MSc; Robin W.M. Vernooij, PhD; Regina El Dib, PhD; Kevin Cheung, MD, MSc; Kirolos Milio, BSc; Max Zworth, BASc; Jessica J. Bartoszko, HBSc; Claudia Valli, MSc; Montserrat Rabassa, PhD; Yung Lee, BHSc; Joanna Zajac, PhD; Anna Prokop-Dorner, PhD; Calvin Lo, BHSc; Malgorzata M. Bala, PhD; Pablo Alonso-Coello, MD, PhD; Steven E. Hanna, PhD; Bradley C. Johnston, PhD

Ziobrowski doesn't source this information, which is a shame, because it seems to contradict what the Institute itself said in a statement to Cruise Industry News back in May 2019 when the lease on the Akidemik Sergey Vavilov was canceled and Prossin blamed the situation on Russia (leading to headlines about the ships being "seized"  and "commandeered" by the Russians):

“The vessels have been properly maintained and are available in Kaliningrad,” the IO RAS [the Russian acronym for the Institute] said in its statement. “Terragelida Ship Management Ltd. duly fulfils its commitments assumed within the framework of the contract with IO RAS.

“The ships are time-chartered and the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of Russian Academy of Sciences, the owner of the vessels, is not to be blame for cancellation of cruises, as announced by the One Ocean Expeditions.”

The agency said the vessels are ready to begin cruise operations immediately.

The $1,000 charge for "training" in the Mayor's Q1 2019 expense reports was the registration fee for the annual Federation of Canadian Municipalities Conference (held in Quebec City from May 30 to June 2) which was later refunded because he couldn't attend.

I presume she means “makes a change” or “drives change” or “brings change,” otherwise it sounds like she's heading for a career in retail – or toll booths.

By a strange coincidence, Radio Canada sports reporter Martin Leclerc has written on precisely the same topic – the militarization of sports – today and quoted many of the same sources.

Imagine-toi!

Astore, who has a blog called Bracing Views, is also a frequent contributor to Tom Dispatch, where the post I'm quoting appeared in August 2018.

I would seriously like to know the going “market value” of right-wing, octogenarian hockey commentators who dress like Victorian chesterfields.