Was Darrell Dexter right?

Metro/Jeff HarperThen Premier Darrell Dexter answers questions in this file photo. Perhaps Darrell Dexter was right. I mean the circa-2009 Darrell Dexter who — flushed with electoral victory and oozing political hubris — unleashed his freshly anointed pocket-calculator brigade on the question whether to keep propping up the Yarmouth-Portland ferry. The number of passengers had […]

State of the union

“SOMEONE TO SEE YOU.” Mike Hachey didn’t have time. Not today. He was in the process of sorting through paperwork dregs from last week’s Atlantic Lottery commercial shoot, planning a Canada Games event wrap-up, juggling planned/hoped-for/maybe pitches for future projects and overseeing – from the afar of Halifax – renovations at his company’s Moncton office. […]

Nova Scotia Power, Arthur and the review: the unasked questions

Last week, the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board laid out the parameters of the first phase of its planned review of Nova Scotia Power’s “state of preparedness and response” to hurricane-turned-post-tropical storm Arthur. While the review is welcome, it is also clear the scope of at least this phase of the review, its tight […]

NSP and the convention centre: failures to communicate

What we have here, suggested Nova Scotia Power President and CEO Bob Hanf, is a failure to communicate. Lack of manpower? Don’t worry. Storm-unhardened infrastructure? Be happy. Despite close to a week to prepare for the Hurricane Arthur that had whooshed into a post-tropical shell of itself by the time it made landfall, NSP’s communications […]

Revolution rising

As the poor keep getting poorer, global uprisings get closer and closer. You have been warned. I’m a university professor. I make better than your average income. Although ours is not a union shop, our salaries reflect the successes of traditionally strong faculty unions at bigger institutions around us. I’ve also been teaching for […]

Serendipity

Gerry Pond’s career has been marked by a series of serendipitous moments, but there’s much more than chance to the incredible success of the Atlantic angel behind a billion dollars worth of recent technology deals. “Will you be my best man?” Gerry Pond’s friend asked. It was the spring of 1966. Pond was 21. He’d […]

Dress codes: days of future past

When I was in high school — in the days when tablets were not computers but the stone on which the Ten Commandments were etched, and before the discovery of trans, either fat or gender — we had a dress code. Boys were required to wear shirts buttoned to the collars, ties tied tight. No […]

Gerardo Hernández: guilty as charged? Alan Gross: innocent as claimed?

It should be easier to make a deal. A 65-year-old American USAID subcontractor named Alan Gross is serving 15 years in a Cuban prison for smuggling sophisticated telecommunications equipment into Cuba. Cuban officials say they’re prepared to discuss his fate without pre-conditions as a “humanitarian” gesture. But it is also clear they want to exchange […]

Danny Next

Danny Williams built a successful law practice, created a cable television empire, remade a province, launched a successful professional hockey franchise and now he wants to found his own new town on the edge of his St. John’s hometown. Along the way, Danny Williams has learned a few lessons. About business. About politics. About himself. He […]

The world’s ‘poorest’ president teaches rich lessons

Pop quiz: Who is José Mujica and why should you care? If the answer doesn’t trip off your tongue, I sympathize. Until recently, I had no idea. I discovered him, in fact, serendipitously and circuitously. My most recent book, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five, unravels the tale of a […]