HRM requests for legislative changes disregarded by province for years

The provincial government has shown that it can move decisively to change the way a municipality like Halifax Regional Municipality conducts its business but the wheels turn much slower when that municipality wants the province to amend legislation to grant it additional authority.

“I think the issue is that if they (province) see a benefit for themselves, then they’ll act,” said Halifax regional councillor Pam Lovelace (Hammonds Plains) before introducing a legislative update from the fall 2023 sitting of the legislature at council.

“Many of the legislative requests, there is conflict with Bill 329 or Bill 225,” Lovelace said in an interview before council met Tuesday. 

“Even though we’ve asked for more enabling legislation, the province has actually moved to restrict what we can and cannot do by removing community consultation, by removing our community planning advisories etc.,” Lovelace said.

In the fall sitting, the majority Progressive Conservative government passed 12 government bills, including several pieces of legislation directly related to Halifax Regional Municipality.

Ministerial powers

Bill 329, passed in November, amended the HRM charter and the Housing in the Halifax Regional Municipality Act, endorsing legislative changes that have wide-ranging implications for development decisions in HRM as well as the potential for significant impacts on municipal finances. 

The bill effectively gave the provincial housing minister broad authority to make decisions on development in HRM without a recommendation from the executive panel on housing (HRM housing task force) or the municipality. 

Those new powers include giving the minister authority to make an order designating any or all of the municipality as a special planning area, to approve or amend development agreements and the authority to amend or repeal land-use bylaws, subdivision bylaws and municipal planning strategies in special planning areas.

A year earlier, the government passed Bill 225, granting the housing minister power to nullify any HRM bylaw or portion of a bylaw that the minister deems would impact housing or development.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Lovelace said it was timely to bring forward a compilation of all the requests that Halifax council had put forward to the province over many years.

“The main reason that I brought this forward is to talk about the relevance of all these items,” Lovelace said.

“There was a memo council received a couple of weeks ago regarding the restrictions placed on Halifax council and the municipality with regard as to what it is our advisory committees can do, our regional watershed board, community planning and economic development standing committee,” Lovelace said.

“So, my question really is to consider, with all of these legislative requests that have gone to the province over the years, are they actually still relevant, should we be going through these line by line?”

20 requests

Lovelace referenced a Nov. 14 staff report that listed 20 outstanding legislative requests from HRM to the province, the oldest dating back to 2008.

They included a 2015 request to have the province consider increasing non-monetary penalties for crosswalk violations, a 2019 ask to double summary offence parking fines in different categories and a 2017 request that the province amend the Motor Vehicle Act to prohibit people from opening their vehicle doors until it is reasonably safe to do so.

Other requests were a 2021 ask to strengthen the provincial zero emission vehicle mandate to better align with HRM targets, a 2022 request that the chief administrative officer of HRM and staff establish the necessary framework, including legislation, for a traffic photo enforcement program, a 2022 ask that that the province delegate the authority to set speed limits below 50 kilometres an hour to the HRM Traffic Authority and a 2023 request that the province amend the HRM charter to enable HRM to consider a Mi’kmaw council seat.

Service exchange

“I am conscious, Mr. Mayor, of the fact that we have the Service Exchange Agreement right now and perhaps it may be best to wait,” Lovelace said of approaching the provincial government.

CAO Cathie O’Toole said several of the items have come up through service exchange discussions between municipal and provincial staff.

“With respect to whether or not there’s merit in reviewing the list of requests to see if items should come off, any of the items that are on this list are ones that have been approved by council, supported by council, so it would really be up to members of council to identify opportunities if there are items here that the position of council may have changed,” O’Toole said.

“I am certainly not aware of any at this point in time.”

O’Toole said HRM will “continue to pursue” the outstanding requests with the province.

“Just because something doesn’t get done in one particular sitting of the legislature doesn’t mean that it won’t come forward in future sittings. … It depends on what’s on the legislative setting for that agenda.”

Redundancies

Lovelace suggested there could be an opportunity to reduce redundancy between the orders of government.

“I’m thinking about the reduction of the traffic speed, for example,” she said. “HRM is sending our traffic engineers to do the assessment, we then go to the province and explain to them that this is what the municipality would like to do, the province then does their own assessment. 

It just seems really redundant and a waste of time and taxpayer money.”

O’Toole said there are discussions underway with the province on photo enforcement radar.

Coun. David Hendsbee (Preston-Chezzetcook-Eastern Shore), a former MLA, said councillors should contact MLAs to show them that legislative amendment requests are eagerly awaited.

“I would encourage all members of council, if you have a friendly colleague in the government, use your persuasion,” Hendsbee said.

Mayor Mike Savage said there are some things on the list that all political parties have at some point in time supported.

“When opposition parties become government, sometimes priorities change or get swept aside by things that are deemed more important,” Savage said.

Lovelace concluded that “it’s difficult to have a collaborative relationship with the province when they are so oppressive and restrictive to what it is that we can and cannot do.”