Is Halifax losing self-determination?

This version of the Post’s interview with Austin and Kent appeared in print. Looking for the long-form version of this article? Click here.

Anyone following local politics in the past year may have found themselves suffering from a bit of vertigo. Headlines and press conferences have abounded around confusing debates between the Province of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Regional Municipality about all manner of topics: road congestion, development plans, and mayoral systems, to name a few. Recent provincial pronouncements have raised questions about just who makes decisions for Halifax.

In Canada, municipalities are “creatures of the province” that have their authority established by provincial statutes. Statutes can change. So, where does that leave us in the neighbourhood? Is the Province more involved in municipal business?

“Yes, overwhelmingly so,” Dartmouth Centre (District 5) Coun. Sam Austin told the Post during an hour-long joint interview with Coun. Becky Kent of Dartmouth South - Woodside - Eastern Passage (District 3). Austin and Kent represent the northern and southern parts, respectively, of the Pleasant-Woodside neighbourhood.

“This [provincial interference] is different. It’s not just Nova Scotia. It’s across the country,” Austin explained. “At the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Conference, the topic on everybody’s lips was provincial governments interfering in municipal affairs.”

Kent agreed. “What we’re seeing now is that they’re expanding their space of what they — certainly the Premier [Tim Houston] — are feeling they can start to interfere with, which is contradictory to HRM’s charter,” she said. “Our charter is very specific about what we should be doing, and we take that very, very seriously. And to have that interference is concerning.”

Kent also noted that higher levels of authority, such as provinces, increasingly act with a “bravado” visible in the United States.

More locally, Austin and Kent said interference manifests in the Province making decisions directly related to HRM without consulting or even contacting the municipality. “Oftentimes, over the last number of years, we’ve found out about legislation that’s going to impact us on the day it was announced in the House — with no chance to offer any meaningful feedback or anything to it,” Austin said. “Legislation isn’t done with municipalities. It’s done to us.”

While some legislation can seem far removed from the life of the neighbourhood, some of it directly impacts our rapidly growing area, especially as it relates to development and infrastructure. For example, on August 11, the Province unilaterally rejected Halifax’s proposed Regional Development Plan.

“To have that just, ‘Nope, we don’t accept it.’ And then simply silence on why? That’s shameful to me,” Kent said. “I feel like they’re setting us up to fail.”

Then, on October 3, the Province designated HRM “an interim planning area,” with “new minimum planning requirements for HRM take effect immediately.” In other words, the Province would now have much more to say about what projects will move forward in Halifax. Similarly, the Province has weighed in on construction of bike lanes and active transit corridors — one of which is planned to connect the Dartmouth Harbourfront Trail to the Shearwater Flyer Trail.

This kind of involvement from the Province — whose leaders are politically affiliated — can reshape the dynamics of municipal conversations that would otherwise be dominated by non-partisan wheeling and dealing, the councillors said.

“Council’s made up of 16 councillors who represent as rural as rural can be, to as urban as urban can be,” Austin said. “We have to broker.” He cited the Province’s call to scrap the Morris Street Bike Lane project as one with no discussion or brokering. “Just, ‘You’re not doing it.’ And that’s the end.”

Kent, who was the MLA for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage from 2007 to 2013, said that this kind of involvement from the Province is anomalous. “I think this Premier is different than any we’ve had in a long time,” she said.

The two councillors spoke of the collegiality they feel with their peers on the Halifax Regional Council, especially those serving the wider Dartmouth area, even if they disagree strongly about which course is best for the city.

“With bike lanes, I don’t think we’ve disagreed or felt the need to interject or involve ourselves [with the other’s district], but we both pay attention to what’s happening with each other,” Kent said, highlighting the relational approach the councillors say they take on contentious issues in which disagreement emerges from debate over what people actually want to see in their backyards.

“What I have a much harder time with,” Austin added, “with provincial politics, is you wonder: Is the motivation what is for the common good? What is the best decision for the province, for the city? Or is it more caught up in a partisan, political kind of space that’s more about short-term politics and advantage over opponents?”

According to Kent, these questions emerge from the very different way that provincial politics work. “What I learned very quickly when I was part of government, is cabinet really is a closed door,” she explained. “Cabinet ministers do not speak about anything that’s going on in their decision making.”

She said leaders on the provincial level can’t do what municipal councillors do: “talk to each other in a way that is actually going to get some decisions sorted out, or at least an understanding of what you’re going into at council. It just doesn’t happen. In the political world you are not as connected to the grassroots things that are happening in communities.”

Austin and Kent both spoke to the cynicism and frustration that can emerge in constituents — and themselves — as these kinds of grassroots issues get caught up in larger partisan debates in higher levels of government. In spite of this cynicism, and the tension between Halifax and the Province in recent months, both shared some positivity about the path ahead.

For her part, Kent finds optimism in carrying out her charge to serve her constituents. “You really are in touch with the community. You have the capacity to go to the events, go to the places that people gather,” she said. “We’re in the community all the time. Our workspace is our district. Every single inch of our district is our office. It’s constant for us.” Federal and provincial leaders just aren’t as connected to their work and its impacts, she explained.

Both said they found the mood in council recently improved, with the Premier stating that possible change to a “strong mayor” system was off the table for the fall. Such a change would concentrate political power in the mayor’s seat (and, thus, diminish power of other councillors). Houston raised the issue when addressing the Morris Street Bike Lane project, and Mayor Andy Fillmore had publicly stated his view that the city should switch to a strong mayor system. The possibility generated negative feedback in the media, including from Austin, until it was rescinded.

“That was very much an example of listening to municipal folks across the province,” Austin said.

“I would agree,” Kent added. “I’m holding out hope. That part will depend on how well Andy does and whether or not he’s supported through our council on some of the things that he wants to do.”

In other words, where things go from here might just depend on old-fashioned municipal brokering. c

Editor’s note: A long-form version of the interview is available here. Austin and Kent’s offices support the PWNA and The South Dartmouth Post, but neither councillor saw either version of this story in advance.