Antigon residents claim the county had “no legal authority” to file for amalgamation

Antigon residents have had their day in court fighting attempts by the city and county to merge.

More than 100 people gathered outside Antigon’s Supreme Court on Friday and entered the courtroom to support three residents in their case against the county.

Last October, both councils voted to request that the county government introduce special legislation to dissolve and consolidate the city under the existing name of the County Municipality of Antigonish.

“We firmly believe that the council had no legal authority to ask the province to write special legislation to consolidate, and we base that on the Municipal Act, which is very clear,” said plaintiff Anne-Marie Long after the hearing .

“We’ve always said we’re not against merger, but against your process. Give us the information and then let’s vote on it.”

On Friday, plaintiffs’ attorney Donald Macdonald argued that the Municipal Act provides only two options for the course of action. One involves filing a request with the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board, while the other involves a public vote where a request can then go to the Secretary of Municipal Affairs.

But Long said both options require a study, which has not been done.

Long and other members of the group Let Antigonish Decide have called for a public vote on the issue, but a plebiscite was at one point voted down by the city council.

The city voted 4-3 to merge, while the county voted 5-3. Two of the county councilors withdrew over concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

On Friday, county attorneys Rob Grant and John Shanks of Stewart McKelvey argued that municipalities have broad powers under current law and that the vote was legal.

They said that the fact that the request for special legislation is not in the current law does not mean it is illegal, and other municipalities have taken exactly this approach in two other cases.

The City of Windsor and the County of West Hants merged into the Regional Municipality of West Hants in 2020, while the City of Liverpool and the County of Queens County merged into the Queens Region in 1996.

Decision comes later

Long said the West Hants example doesn’t fit because the process there started when residents went to the UARB to request a merger and pushed for the move. It was a unique situation, she said, in which two of the three municipalities in that province wanted to join one region, but the law only allowed every municipality in a province to be involved.

In a press release Friday, the county said it “remains confident in its decision to file for consolidation with the City of Antigonish and looks forward to working with the city to move this process forward.”

Justice Timothy Gabriel has reserved his decision, which will be released at a later date.

No matter what happens in court, Long said their group is still calling on the county to refuse to introduce legislation that would allow the merger.

The county did not raise the issue during the spring legislature, and in March district director Owen McCarron said he wasn’t sure where that would leave things.