u/Gatheado

I've got a 100 year old home in Ontario, Canada. The bottom few feet of the exterior walls are all built from this textured hollow cement block and I'm trying to figure out the best process and product to re-paint it with. Some of what I've read says it should be sealed, some sites say it needs to breathe. This is along a driveway so will get exposure to about a foot of snow in the winter. We haven't seen any leaking, but had the interior waterproofed with dimple mat when we replaced the basement slab a few years ago.

Anyone have some guidance on how to approach this?