District 4 voting guide: Should Trish Purdy be replaced?

  In official Halifax Regional Municipality jargon, the geographic description for District 4 is “Cole Harbour – Preston – Westphal – Cherry Brook.” A disjointed name for one of the most disjointed voting areas in the October 19 election. If you have a mental map of this region east of Dartmouth, some landmarks probably don’t fit inside the district’s political borders like you think they would. How about Portland Hills? That’s Cole Harbour, surely that’s District 4! Nope, that’s part of District 3 which is otherwise mostly Eastern Passage. Mount Edward, the unofficial Cole Harbour bike arterial that really should have protected bike lanes by now, that must be District 4! Surprise! That’s part of District 6 and North Dartmouth.

Cole Harbour used to be a small farming village and produced the majority of food for the city of Halifax. In 1952, the Macdonald Bridge opened, and with the new automobile access to Cole Harbour the trend of turning farmland into suburban homes started. As a result of a generation or two of suburbanization, once-fertile farmland is single-family homes, most of which use their land to grow grass as their primary crop. Growing this inedible crop is expediting climate change, but a healthy lawn has social significance, which is reinforced by municipal ordinances, which is in direct contravention of municipal strategies. Fun!

One could be forgiven for assuming Cole Harbour Place sits at the centre of the district, but it sits on the western edge instead. The district runs south to Colby Village and runs north up the Forrest Hills Parkway before ballooning out to the east as far as East Preston. In the most recent boundary review, North and East Preston were moved from District 2 to District 4. It’s unclear how this boundary shift will change the political dynamics in the race to become District 4’s councillor. The map—and therefore the electorate—was different when Trish Purdy won the district in the 2020 election. One of her challengers this time around, Nicole Johnson, ran against David Hendsbee last election in District 2.

To try and determine which candidates in the election are equipped to face the complex challenges facing the city in the four years to come, The Coast sent out a substantial questionnaire to see what each candidate knows about the issues facing the city. The Coast followed up with more detailed questions to test the policy chops of each candidate.

The information we get this way provides a solid, equitable base for our voting guides—useful in every district, but especially important in this district that’s changed so much since 2020. Although we can bring in other info sources as needed, we’re understandably biased to rely on the questionnaire’s consistency when forming opinions about the candidates. Which brings us to the candidate who best tackled our questions among the four competing for District 4.

Nicole Johnson’s answers to The Coast’s candidate questionnaire were strong, demonstrating an understanding of the Halifax Regional Municipality’s fiscal crunch. She is also broadly supportive of the HRM’s strategic plans. Explaining why the Infrastructure Asset Management Administrative Order is important legislation for the city, she wrote: “In order for city planning to be successful, there has to be a concentrated, intentional effort to ensure that all city council members and our many city employees are working in tandem to support residents of HRM.”

Johnson’s answers also discussed the Housing Accelerator Fund Bylaw changes. She explained that if the city really wants to encourage the conversion of single-family homes into four homes, it needs to be as easy as possible. She wants to ensure that “as of right” development can and does evolve into a faster “as of right now,” if you will.

She also has a good understanding of transportation issues, and good transportation policy ideas. For example, she’d like to find a way to give people rebates for doing things the city wants them to, like using Park & Ride facilities to shift car commutes to car-and-bus commutes.

Some candidates, in filling out the questionnaire, got creative with what they’d want to see in the upcoming Suburban Plan and Rural Plan. Johnson did this with her responses, and offered exciting policy proposals about food and returning a bit of Cole Harbour’s lost legacy to the modern day. In the longer-term Rural Plan, she wants to see what the city can do to encourage more agriculture in the Prestons. In the shorter-term Suburban Plan, Johnson wants to see if there are ways for the city to both encourage local food growing and ease the fiscal burden of being alive to the HRM’s population.

If Johnson, like most non-incumbent candidates, is lacking a bit of expertise in how to use municipal jurisdiction to achieve her goals, that’s far from a deal breaker because the city has professional staff to help smooth out those inexperience wrinkles in the staff report process. In sports it’s common to label rookies with a lot of potential as “raw,” which means they have the raw strength or speed for their sport in abundance, but lack a little refinement. Johnson’s thought process is likely to result in policy suggestions like breaks on property tax for people with food gardens or naturalized lawns, which might mean her early proposals don’t survive first contact with the machinations of the HRM’s bureaucracy. But Johnson’s demonstrating ample raw potential to become a solid legislator for HRM’s future.

Nicole Johnson’s Facebook page can be found here.

Unfortunately, Joe Colley does not appear to have the policy chops required for councillors who will be expected to govern in these unprecedented times. For example, in his response to our question about why the Infrastructure Asset Management Administrative Order enacted in June of this year is an important policy, he wrote: “I really don’t think it’s required because if councillors are voted in to make major decisions on behalf of their constituents, the June AO was not required.” However, councillors making decisions for their constituents without due regard for the needs of the HRM as a whole is what made the city need this new policy in the first place.

Joe Colley does not have a website, but his contact info can be found here.

In the campaign’s early days, Aalders put forward some policy positions relating to the potential designation of Bisset Park as a managed encampment. These were not great policy positions, largely because Aalders did not know the nuances of municipal governance and process. It’s an easy mistake for a rookie to make. And like any rookie showing potential, Aalders tried to correct the mistake by learning and updating his policy positions. If social media is to be believed, Aalders has been doing the same type of learning when other opportunities present themselves, like visiting the picket lines during the library strike.

But The Coast cannot say for sure, as Aalders did not submit a response to The Coast’s candidate questionnaire. If you would like The Coast to try and figure out if Aalders is demonstrating his potential as a councillor, please ask him to complete the questionnaire.

James Aalders’ website can be found here: https://www.voteforaalders.ca/

While incumbency is often an advantage, and so too is being kind, likeable and empathetic, Trish Purdy has spent the better part of the past four years demonstrating why she isn’t really cut out to be a councillor. Early in her tenure, on committees she could be found reading whatever emails developers put in front of her to lobby municipal staff on developers’ behalf. Purdy has been steadily improving from her early mistakes, but has not made the progress expected from a councillor at the end of a full term.

Earlier this year, the residents of Colby Village Drive complained to Purdy that the traffic islands the city had installed were making the road more dangerous: One resident said that cars were driving so fast on Colby, that a driver hit the traffic island and their car flipped into a front yard. This led Purdy to rally the community, assemble signatures for a petition and put forward a motion at council to get the islands removed. While an admirable level of political organizing, it is hard to overstate how foolish a cause it is to organize around. The danger to the residents of Colby Village Drive does not come from the traffic islands but from dangerous driving, as encouraged by the rest of Colby Village Drive’s design. But Purdy is a huge fan of municipal transportation policies encouraging danger and congestion, because she’s not a big fan of Halifax’s Integrated Mobility Plan. Evidence be damned; she just doesn’t think it’s a good idea.

A more damning indictment of Purdy is that four years into the job, she still doesn’t really seem to understand the processes of municipal government. For example, in early September of this year, Purdy pulled an item off the consent agenda because she was worried the council was approving almost a billion dollars in spending without debate. But as the report very explicitly lays out on page one, the city was actually just doing a municipal “expression of interest” in federal transit funding. This expression of interest is the political version of a kid’s wishlist for Santa, and includes everything the city would buy with that sweet, sweet federal transit money. Anyone who read and understood the report would know that. If Purdy did one, she did not do the other. She also did not submit answers to The Coast’s candidate questionnaire, so it’s impossible to say for sure if Purdy has improved drastically in the past 20 days.

Trish Purdy’s Facebook page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/TrishDistrict4

Analysis

It’s unclear how much advantage Purdy’s incumbency will give her. In the 2020 election, Purdy was a rookie whose likeability helped her win in a field of 12 when there was no incumbent to contend with. Since then, not only has the map of the district changed, but it does not seem like she’s spent much time building up a local base beyond organizing the residents of Colby Village Drive.

As it stands, Nicole Johnson is a strong candidate and James Aalders is shaping up to be as well. However, from the policy side, Johnson has the edge due to the advantage of filling out the questionnaire.