HRM Amalgamation Review

[Dmajackson]

I thought this was quite interesting ...

Tories want to review Halifax merger: source
By AMY SMITH Provincial Reporter
Fri. May 8 - 6:36 PM

Premier Rodney MacDonald wants to know whether HRM amalgamation is working.

He will announce Saturday plans for a review of the controversial 1996 municipal merger, according to a Progressive Conservative party source.

“It’s aimed at ending the debate,” the source told The Chronicle Herald Friday.

“This debate has to end so HRM can move forward. You can’t pre-suppose what the review will find, but it will review whether this is the best model.”

The Tory source said the review is not a reflection of the performance of Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly or regional councillors.

Mr. Kelly said he welcomes the review, saying he hopes it will encourage all party leaders to share their ideas on how to make the municipality stronger.

The mayor said he hopes the debate is much broader than just the notion of de-amalgamation.

“I have great confidence in this united municipality. I believe in our future and to potentially piecemeal it apart would be harmful to many and the cost implications, it cost us tens of millions to get here and we’re still paying some of those price elements,” he said Friday.

Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil said the premier should leave discussions about amalgamation and de-amalgamation to the municipalities.

“We’re in the worst economic crisis of my lifetime and the premier is more concerned about being the mayor than being the premier,” Mr. McNeil said Friday.

“He should focus on telling what he is going to do to move our province forward.”

NDP Leader Darrell Dexter said he doesn’t know why Mr. MacDonald has chosen to call for a review now, 13 years after the municipal merger and 10 years after the Tories formed government. As well, he said, the province recently gave Halifax its own charter.

Mr. Dexter said he is scratching his head over what the purpose and criteria of the review would be.

“When I talk to people throughout HRM, their priorities are the economy, jobs, health care and education,” said the NDP leader, who was a Dartmouth councillor from 1994 to 1996.

“Those are what I think our citizens are focused on now.”

In the 1990s, the Liberal government led by the late John Savage pitched amalgamation for two parts of the province – Halifax and the Sydney area – as a way to streamline municipal services and administrations and save the province millions of dollars.

In 1996, Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford and Halifax County merged into what is now known as the Halifax Regional Municipality. Opinions on its success are mixed.

One group, Citizens for Halifax, has been pushing for HRM to be split into two parts – one urban and the other rural.

Don Mills, a former board member, said he’s all for the review, which he says is long overdue. He said the current structure doesn’t suit the needs of urban or rural residents.

“We have a municipality over 5,000 square miles, a municipality that is the largest in Canada, bigger than P.E.I.,” he said.

“Effectively what we have is a province within a province and as a result of that we’ve lost our city.”

He said council is too big and the community interests are too diverse.

Mr. Mills, who is also a pollster, said he thinks any politician who supports such a review will gain a lot of support from voters.

“This is supported both by people living in the old parts of the county and people living in the more urban parts of the municipality,” he said.

“There’s no part that is a losing proposition for a party that says 'Yeah, let’s take a look at this and if it makes sense, let’s do it.’”

[DigitalNinja]

I think that this was needed a long time ago. Many places outside of the Halifac core don't get as much attention as they should. Bedford for example used to be nice when it was it's own place, the black street lights and everything added character to it. Now after replacing some of those with yellow, even that little thing mad the place not look as good. If they are going to complain about spending money during an economic crisis how about not calling an election during it. Also, the NDP would most likely just worsen the situation. Provinces that they have been in power in the past for example. BC. Tend to not do as well.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by DigitalNinja

I think that this was needed a long time ago. Many places outside of the Halifac core don't get as much attention as they should. Bedford for example used to be nice when it was it's own place, the black street lights and everything added character to it. Now after replacing some of those with yellow, even that little thing mad the place not look as good. If they are going to complain about spending money during an economic crisis how about not calling an election during it. Also, the NDP would most likely just worsen the situation. Provinces that they have been in power in the past for example. BC. Tend to not do as well.

Halifax core doesn't get the attention it needs eithier.

[Barrington south]

Originally Posted by DigitalNinja

I think that this was needed a long time ago. Many places outside of the Halifac core don't get as much attention as they should. Bedford for example used to be nice when it was it's own place, the black street lights and everything added character to it. Now after replacing some of those with yellow, even that little thing mad the place not look as good. If they are going to complain about spending money during an economic crisis how about not calling an election during it. Also, the NDP would most likely just worsen the situation. Provinces that they have been in power in the past for example. BC. Tend to not do as well.

Downtown Halifax is the clear loser when it comes to HRM....a mere fraction of the tax $ raised are actually spent on downtown, bedford has got it made in the shade in comparison...if you want some hard statistics that will shine some light on the way the Halifax core is being seriously neglegted...contact the downtown Halifax business commission, I'm sure they will happily provide you will some facts

[spaustin]

Originally Posted by DigitalNinja

Also, the NDP would most likely just worsen the situation. Provinces that they have been in power in the past for example. BC. Tend to not do as well.

Yeah poor BC with that down and out city of Vancouver, that hole known as Victoria and all those pennyless mountain resort towns. Granted BC's forestry sector has been hurting which has put a lot of small rural communities in the interior and northern coast in rough shape, but that's a familiar story for one-industry towns across the country and has arisen in the last few years under the Liberal government (again not their fault since it's US tariffs that did it). The old the NDP screwed up Ontario under Rae, but the NDP has governed Saskatchewan and Manitoba just fine argument is so tired. In a country as large and diverse as Canada, referencing other provinces is a pretty poor way to make a decision about local parties.

Anyway, I would love to see HRM broken up. The rural areas aren't happy and neither is the core. We should redraw the boundaries so that urban and suburban are one municipality and the rural areas are another (or let the rural areas join Guysborough and Lunenburg Counties). Nobody seems happy with the status-quo and I think the unweildlyness of HRM explains a large part of the political dysfunction and poor governance and the increasingly "I shouldn't pay for services that others are using" mentality. Unfortunately, I don't think anything is going to happen. If the Conservatives get re-elected a study will be done that will make a few token recommendations and conclude that deamalgamation would be too costly. Wake me again when they actually promise to do something.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by spaustin

Yeah poor BC with that down and out city of Vancouver, that hole known as Victoria and all those pennyless mountain resort towns. Granted BC's forestry sector has been hurting which has put a lot of small rural communities in the interior and northern coast in rough shape, but that's a familiar story for one-industry towns across the country and has arisen in the last few years under the Liberal government (again not their fault since it's US tariffs that did it). The old the NDP screwed up Ontario under Rae, but the NDP has governed Saskatchewan and Manitoba just fine argument is so tired. In a country as large and diverse as Canada, referencing other provinces is a pretty poor way to make a decision about local parties.

Anyway, I would love to see HRM broken up. The rural areas aren't happy and neither is the core. We should redraw the boundaries so that urban and suburban are one municipality and the rural areas are another (or let the rural areas join Guysborough and Lunenburg Counties). Nobody seems happy with the status-quo and I think the unweildlyness of HRM explains a large part of the political dysfunction and poor governance and the increasingly "I shouldn't pay for services that others are using" mentality. Unfortunately, I don't think anything is going to happen. If the Conservatives get re-elected a study will be done that will make a few token recommendations and conclude that deamalgamation would be too costly. Wake me again when they actually promise to do something.

I don't think the NDP did all of a great job in Saskatchewan. They seem to be a lot better off under a Conservative government.

There economy is much better then it was under the NDP and when the NDP were in power they were losing people like crazy now there gaining population.

[Waye Mason]

Saskatchewan became a have province when the NDP were in power, try not to revise history too much, eh?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Waye Mason

Saskatchewan became a have province when the NDP were in power, try not to revise history too much, eh?

Just think how much sooner that could have happened under a different govt.

[Waye Mason]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Just think how much sooner that could have happened under a different govt.

You mean if Grant Divine had never been the Conservative Premier of Saskatchewan who gave people grants (grants!) to put a back deck on their homes? Probably a lot faster!

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by Waye Mason

Saskatchewan became a have province when the NDP were in power, try not to revise history too much, eh?

Yeah at the very end of there days in power when they moved there policies to the right to compete with Alberta.

[spaustin]

Saskatchewan was the first province in the country to put its fiscal house in order and balance its budget under Romanow, an NDP premier. Moving on though. So the global economy melted down in approximately Sept 2008, therefore the blame goes to:

Liberals in Ontario
Liberals in Quebec
Liberals in NB
Liberals in PEI
Liberals in British Columbia
Conservatives in Saskatchewan (the Sask Party being the heir to the disgraced Saskatchewan PCs)
Conservatives in Nova Scotia
Conservatives in Newfoundland
Conservatives in Alberta
Conservatives in the federal government
NDP in Manitoba

So we seem to have an even split. The Liberals have ruined half the country, the Tories the other half and the NDP just Manitoba..... Obviously I'm being silly, but this argument is silly.

[Nilan8888]

Nonsense.

It's Obama's fault.

[someone123]

Every part of the HRM has complaints but the simple fact is that the ratio of taxes collected to money paid out for services varies tremendously by district, and the biggest losers are the downtown and South End.

The city has more services, yes, but they're much cheaper to provide - consider snow removal for one apartment building compared to 50 houses in Kingswood.

Amalgamation provided the HRM with an opportunity to engage in better regional planning. To some degree I think that has improved since the early 90s but poor governance is a serious problem. I don't even seriously think that councillors or whoever else are against investing in the core, I think they are just not organized enough to pull it off. Even projects like the Bedford ferry and CWGs have been horribly, horribly botched. Whether you wanted them or not it's clear that they were not undertaken in an even remotely efficient way.

[Haliguy]

Well BC just decided they didn't want to go back to the days of the NDP.

[sdm]

Originally Posted by Haliguy

Well BC just decided they didn't want to go back to the days of the NDP.

Good for them, bout time. Hopefully we won't go in the opposite direction as them

[phrenic]

In a few years when people look back on the NDP provincial government, the common thought among most people other than Liberal and Tory hacks is going to be "oh, so that's what we were supposed to be afraid of?"

[Barrington south]

Originally Posted by phrenic

In a few years when people look back on the NDP provincial government, the common thought among most people other than Liberal and Tory hacks is going to be "oh, so that's what we were supposed to be afraid of?"

Uhhh, there's a major difference between fearing the NDP and despising them

[Barrington south]

Originally Posted by Nilan8888

Nonsense.

It's Obama's fault.

I heard an economist on the CBC saying according to research, after every major spike in oil prices, that had been maintained for a couple of years or more, there has been a major recession to follow...he went on to say that most world economies where retracting or stagnant 9 months before the wall street meltdown...so according to him, the combination of massive job losses to developing countries, coupled with trillions of dollars leaving most countries for oil, caused the mess we are now in....now this runs contrary to what the vast majority of people "in the know" believe.... so is the current theory a case of "easy answers....for simple minds"...after all America would not have had so much toxic debt, had they not been spending fortunes on energy, while losing hundreds of thousands of high paying manufacturing jobs to china.....if this is the case, then Obama's pending spree, is the very worst thing that could be done...now I'm not saying that this is exactly what happened, however I thought it was a very interesting and possible scenario,however, even if it where correct, I'm sure all the Lefties will still blame everything on the perils of capitalism

[Waye Mason]

Originally Posted by Barrington south

I heard an economist on the CBC saying according to research, after every major spike in oil prices, that had been maintained for a couple of years or more, there has been a major recession to follow...he went on to say that most world economies where retracting or stagnant 9 months before the wall street meltdown...so according to him, the combination of massive job losses to developing countries, coupled with trillions of dollars leaving most countries for oil, caused the mess we are now in....now this runs contrary to what the vast majority of people "in the know" believe.... so is the current theory a case of "easy answers....for simple minds"...after all America would not have had so much toxic debt, had they not been spending fortunes on energy, while losing hundreds of thousands of high paying manufacturing jobs to china.....if this is the case, then Obama's pending spree, is the very worst thing that could be done...now I'm not saying that this is exactly what happened, however I thought it was a very interesting and possible scenario,however, even if it where correct, I'm sure all the Lefties will still blame everything on the perils of capitalism

The gaping hole in this analysis is that countries with stricter bank regulations have suffered less.

The US financial market froze. Toxic assets triggered it, but the unregulated derivatives market had a lot to do with it too.

Reasonable regulation of the banking industry is necessary and a positive contributor to stability and trust in the market.

I don't think wanting to impose Canadian style regulation on US banks is precisely leftie, do you? Just reasonable.

[Barrington south]

Originally Posted by Waye Mason

Reasonable regulation of the banking industry is necessary and a positive contributor to stability and trust in the market.

I don't think wanting to impose Canadian style regulation on US banks is precisely leftie, do you? Just reasonable.

I agree, .... and I think the Canadian model of banking is now the envy of the western world....and I don't consider them to be lefty at all, more conservative in there policies.... and in times previous it was to the chagrin of analysts and some investors


...but the thrust of my piece is that the energy crisis bled America dry,and finished the job that all the job loses had started.... hence the ever more risky measures taken by banks and investment bankers to make their quarterly earnings and get those juicy bonus's .....do you think America would have had so much bad debt without all that energy money leaving the country every day?....


ohhh and what is your responce to the part where I said that most economies in the developed world had ground to a halt 9 months before the financial market freezing, lending drying up and in general all hell breaking loose?