There’s a story going around Cape Breton that the province  is cheating the Cape Breton Regional Municipality out of hundreds of millions of dollars per year in federal equalization payments to which our island is Constitutionally entitled. The story is untrue. Among technocrats who understand how equalization works, and the much larger group with no patience for Cape Breton bellyaching, it elicits eye-rolling scorn. But the story rests on a set of facts that can be assembled, or misassembled, into an easily understood and rational-sounding complaint with enduring emotional power. At the moment, it has hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Cape Bretoners fit...

Kendra Eash published a funny poem in McSweeney's about how big companies use stock video and portentous but vague voice-overs to create feel-good ads about their corporate brands. Then a stock footage company with a sense of humour set the poem to, well, stock footage. Explained the company, "The minute we saw Kendra Eash’s brilliant 'This Is a Generic Brand Video' on McSweeney’s, we knew it was our moral imperative to make that generic brand video so. No surprise, we had all the footage." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is a case of commerce imitating art imitating commerce imitating emotion. H/T:...

On the eve of Stephen Harper's eighth anniversary in office, writer and statistics buff Alex Roberts has a must-read piece in the Ottawa Citizen, cleverly tagged, "Harper's Economic Index.*" It casts a jaundiced numerical eye at how well he has managed the economy, the thing pundits constantly tell us he's so good at. A few samples: Estimated amount spent on taxpayer-funded advertisements since 2009 touting the “Economic Action Plan” and the government’s economic record : $113,000,000 National unemployment rate in January, 2006: 6.6 National unemployment rate in December, 2013: 7.2 Number of consecutive annual federal budget deficits: 6 Number of consecutive annual federal budget surpluses under...

Assume for the moment that the Corporate Research Associates poll showing Stephen McNeil's Liberals with a 30-point lead is accurate (which I assume it is), and assume McNeil holds that lead until Tuesday (which remains to be seen). The next question is, how the heck did this happen? The NDP made serious mistakes (see here and here) but they did not run a horrible government (see here and here). Not everyone will agree, but there is a reasonable case that Dexter deserves another term, something of a tradition in Nova Scotia, as many have pointed out. The curious thing is that one detects little passion in...

In two posts earlier this month (here and here), I described six mistakes by which the NDP government brought itself to the brink of defeat. Darrell Dexter's government also did several big things right, in some cases defying popular sentiment to put the province on a sensible course. Here's the start of my "good things" list: 1.  A balanced budget I know, I know, they didn't balance it by much, and if you listen to the two guys hankering for Dexter's job, they didn't balance it at all. The opposition leaders base their skepticism on the fact that certain charges have been paid forward,...

Ashley McKenzie and Nelson MacDonald need help finishing their latest movie about New Waterford. Their first two shorts, "Rhonda's Party" (2010) and "When You Sleep" (2012), achieved exceptional success, screening to widespread praise at the Toronto International Film Festival and Cannes, as well as at festivals in Montreal, Stockholm, Whistler, and St. John's. Along the way, they picked up half a dozen industry awards, including the top prize in CBC's Short Film Faceoff. Despite these early triumphs, the pair have had to turn to crowdsourcing to raise the last few dollars needed to finish post-production on their latest film, "Stray," the...

Jon Stone writes: Thanks for sharing that wonderful video. It is inspiring to see what creative minds can do when faced with a challenge. There have been some astonishinglynegativecomments posted on various web sites with respect to the recent generosity of the Fountain family in creating the endowment for Dalhousie's performing arts program. The gist of much of the derogatory discussion was that there is no value in training people in performance skills. Well, here is one excellent example of the value of performers to society. I won't be surprised if this goes viral and breaks all records for fundraising for the Janeway. [Update]...

Newfoundland has always had way better tourism ads than Nova Scotia (or pretty much anywhere else on the planet for that matter). Now it turns out they have way better children's hospital ads, too. (Stay with this at least until the music starts, about five minutes in. Hilarious.) [Video link]. H/T Calvert's own Jenn Power....

"I’ve never considered myself a moron before," writes a hapless dishwasher owner in Portland Hills,  Dartmouth, "but my blind faith in Sears proves I should have my mittens tied together with a string, and I should only eat with spoons, as I could easily lose an eye if I tried a fork." The unnamed customer is so distraught over fruitless attempts to get the venerable appliance giant to furnish a working dish washer, he's offering to sell it for the price of the sushi takeout he and his wife ordered Friday night: $57.50. But after 4,300 hits to his viral-bound washer-for-sale...

...and doesn't like what it sees: [Video Link] Yoram Bauman, an environmental economist at the University of Washington, does double duty as a stand-up comic. He spoke to a convention of the American Economic Association this month in San Diego. H/T: Richard Stephenson...