. . . . . . . That schools in the Cape Breton-Victoria School District will close is obvious. Enrolment here has dropped 22 percent over eight years, with no end to the decline in sight, while costs have risen 25 percent over the same period. That Holy Angels High tops the list of candidates for closure is equally obvious. The geriatric Catholic order that owns the school wants to unload it, and has offered it to the board for $750,000. The board estimates it would need another $8 to $10 million in repairs, while newer schools nearby have lots of space. The prospect of closure has provoked the...

17 November, 2010

A source I trust tells me the consultant's report on gambling Labour Minister Marilyn More won't release truly is substandard. Let's assume that's the case, and More was right to reject it after many attempts to get the contractor to fulfill the his obligations. Barring public access to the report is still the wrong thing to do. In effect, Minister More is saying interested Nova Scotians aren't sophisticated enough to understand or evaluate the report. It might cause them "anxiety" and "confusion." Such matters should presumably be left to their betters—people like More, and the Gambling Corp. honchos who talked her...

25 April, 2010

When you bring $145 million a year into the treasury of a province as deeply in hock as Nova Scotia, you swing a big bat. So when a consultant hired by the banished Tory government delivered a cost-benefit analysis of gambling in Nova Scotia to the newly elected NDP government, it stands to reason that the big bat wielders at the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation*, the agency that administers the provincial government's addiction to gambling revenue, had first dibs on reviewing it. [caption id="attachment_5075" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Marilyn More"][/caption] Whatever the report said about the human toll exacted by provincially sponsored gambling, we...

23 April, 2010