[15:19] Good morning, everyone,

[15:22] and welcome to our budget committee meeting of Wednesday, March 19th. It's so great to see everybody here in the gallery full. We'll call them meeting to order. And our land acknowledgment that the Halifax Regional Municipality is located in Megmagi, the ancestral and the traditional lands of the Megmaw people. The municipality acknowledges the peace and friendship treaties signed in this territory and recognizes that we are all treaty people.

[15:51] We will ask now for an approval of the minutes of February 12th and 19th of 2025,

[16:00] Councillor

[16:01] Harding. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye, raising your hand,

[16:11] as carried.

[16:13] Approval of the order of business and approval of the additions and deletions. Mr. Clerk, do we

[16:17] have any additions or deletions? There are no proposed changes to this agenda today from the clerk's

[16:22] office. Thank you. A call for declaration of conflict of interest.

[16:30] Seeing none, we can now move on to public participation.

[16:34] I'm

[16:39] not going to back in the comment.

[16:42] One of the best parts of the meeting and public participation, please keep your comments

[16:48] respectful on topic and directed to the chair.

[16:53] The clerk will announce when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is complete

[16:57] for all speakers.

[16:59] Any member of the public who is registered with the clerk's office on this matter is

[17:05] given five minutes to address the topic. When I call your name, you can come up to

[17:09] the microphone. After everyone on the list has been given an opportunity to speak, we

[17:13] will call three times. If there are any additional speakers, our first speaker, however, is

[17:21] Philip Frazier. The second is Duncan Robinson. And the third is Wendy Wilson. Mr. Frazier, welcome.

[17:29] down

[17:35] until I'm not looking down at you.

[17:38] Let me sit down, it'll be a little bit more contrast.

[17:40] And can I just before I start, I just have one comment

[17:44] before I get my five minutes, and it's really,

[17:46] it's about affordability and housing affordability.

[17:50] And again, excuse me, my name is Philip Fraser.

[17:54] Excuse me, sir, could you please start again?

[17:57] Thank you.

[17:58] My name is Philip Fraser, and I'm in the President's CEO

[18:01] of Kill and Apparentment Read.

[18:04] I'll save my last, I'll save what I was going to save to the very end.

[18:08] I'm here today to express my concern regarding the 2025-26 budget.

[18:13] And the impact on property tax increases on rental housing providers and residents.

[18:19] So today what you have in front of you is a budget of $1.3 billion.

[18:23] Five years ago, you approved a budget of $787 million.

[18:27] The last year was $1 billion, $1 billion, $1.3 billion, which is about a $260 million increase.

[18:37] From my point of view, as I look out, in terms of my properties, then I got 5,600 units in the city.

[18:44] I've got about 1,000 apartment and

[18:47] manufacturing home sites, and about 225,000 square feet of commercial.

[18:53] My five year change in my property taxes expenses is 24.8%.

[18:59] It's gone from $8.2 million in 2020 to what's estimated to be in this year, is $12,446,000.

[19:09] My water expense has gone from $2.9 million to $3.9 million, a change of 25% in the last five years.

[19:16] And my garbage collection has gone from $748,000 to $1,380,000,

[19:22] a 37% increase, and just to sort of add a little bit more color in detail to this,

[19:29] I've owned a property over in Dartmouth for 23 years, probably all familiar with it, like front.

[19:36] In January of 2022, I decided to put one of the programs of CMHC financing to make it affordable.

[19:45] And in return, I committed to 40% of that project over there to be affordable to be 30% below the average medium rent for the next 10 years.

[19:56] It's a 296 unit complex, it's 37 buildings, they used to be military housing.

[20:02] In 2020, my assessed value was 25 million point eight.

[20:06] In 21, it was 26.6, 22, 28.6, 23, 30.2, 24, 30, 30 million, 0.1.

[20:18] So where is this going?

[20:20] What do you think it is this year?

[20:24] $49 million, a 63% increase.

[20:30] My tax expense will go from $334,000 to $548,000.

[20:37] on the most affordable rents I have in the city.

[20:42] So when I look at it and I look at this budget, the first thing that sort of comes to my mind and finally I took the time to go through it, and I do have to compliment everybody as a counselor, the amount of energy it takes to read these budgets and to understand them completely.

[21:00] But then it finally breaks down, there's 126,000 single family units in HRM.

[21:07] In the two to three unit complex, there's 8,000 properties or 17,000 dwellings,

[21:13] 2,460 apartment buildings, or 72,000 of it where I'm going is the cap.

[21:20] 18, 17, 18 years ago, I thought it was a stupid idea.

[21:24] All it's done is basically bridge the gap and ship the burden from single family over two apartments and commercial.

[21:32] Today, we see that the value under the cap is $42 billion from the single family.

[21:40] Two to three units, $3.4 billion, the apartments, $13 billion.

[21:45] And when you look at the cap, and you see it, the delta, which have always been

[21:51] interested to find out what it is in terms of the assessment values from the PDSC of HRM is $105 billion this year.

[22:01] Under the cap is $63.6 billion, the total residential is $87 billion, so that delta is $23.4 billion.

[22:12] Equates to $261 million that you could potentially take from single-family homes on terms of property tax.

[22:21] Because your budget, 82% of it comes from property taxes, and 2024, it was $240 million.

[22:29] So, the average assessed value, $338, according to your budget, $3757 the average tax bill.

[22:38] Not paying, that delta works out to $1821 a year.

[22:47] So in that, I got 30 seconds, all those homes, you got about 10% every year that rolls and

[22:53] comes up to the market, where I live, basically I, because I'm there for 28 years in single

[22:58] family home, the new neighbors, ethnic store, double.

[23:04] So the bottom line is, well, I can't even get to my conclusions except it's not fair.

[23:10] The tax burden basically has been shifted over to the apartments in the commercial.

[23:16] And I just don't understand it.

[23:19] Thank you, Mr. Frazier.

[23:20] Mr. Frazier, if you would, Councilor Austin has a question for you.

[23:26] Thank you, Mr. Frazier. Don't go away. I got a question for you. Thank you. Thank you for

[23:34] coming in and sharing today. I mean, I know it takes time under your day to come and present.

[23:40] I was curious on the cap piece that you've talked about. This Council 2019, we passed a motion

[23:52] basically saying we'd like to get rid of the cap, phase it out, and the Nova Scotia Federation

[23:56] of Municipalities has been active on that. I haven't had a chance with someone like

[24:01] you right in front of me to ask, are you folks actively lobbying the province on this issue

[24:08] because this is one that municipalities and the province would love to change, but we have

[24:12] consistently not been able to get any political traction to do so. I'm just wondering

[24:17] through whether it's yourself or investment properties, what that has looked like on the private sector side.

[24:25] We've raised it, I know we have with politicians at the provincial level.

[24:29] But the reality is, it's like two parts, right?

[24:32] You control one part, they control the other.

[24:35] The whole idea of what assessments are.

[24:38] When you look at it, it's just a random sort of model they produce based on something else that's sort of next door.

[24:43] The reality is you have a budget that you want to spend, where do you get your revenue?

[24:49] You get it from, basically, property tax.

[24:52] You can move that mill rate.

[24:54] You already have three different mill rates for single-family homes.

[24:57] Urban, less urban, and then the rural.

[25:00] You could be doing all kinds of things with your, basically, mill rate.

[25:05] But the fact is that you have a system in place today that rewards people that live long-term in a residence.

[25:13] And it punishes people that are trying to move in young people, new Canadians.

[25:18] And they pay way out of, fortunately way more taxes than the people have been around.

[25:23] It's just a bad tax.

[25:24] And then you shift this burden to the opponents.

[25:28] And then you sit there and you say, why are rents going up?

[25:31] They're going up because of the expense side.

[25:34] And the biggest expense I have is government.

[25:37] And then when you add the provincial government and the federal government, it's basically,

[25:42] what's left? So it is a bad tax, you could be doing something where you do, you bring it up

[25:48] $500 or 25% a year for the next few years. But how is it that it's fair, even from a single

[25:54] family point of view, let alone the sector that I'm involved in, which is my livelihood, which is

[26:00] the apartment business?

[26:03] And lobby them. I mean, affordability can be dealt with quite quickly.

[26:07] We don't talk about minimal wage, why not?

[26:11] The easiest way to push people up from that affordability crisis is increase minimal

[26:17] wage from $15 to $20.

[26:20] Now I know the provincial government, I've been in there and I've talked to this provincial

[26:23] government, I've talked to the new New Brunswick government, and it's like, why don't you

[26:28] do it?

[26:28] It's not your money, it's industry.

[26:32] Why don't you take minimal wage and go from $15 to $20?

[26:35] $15 gives you $30,000 a year, $20 gives you $40,000 a year, $25 middle wage gives you $50,000.

[26:43] That incremental $10,000 for all the people in Nova Scotia, there's 33,000 people that are on minimal wage.

[26:52] And there's another 13 to 16 at 1650, 50,000 people, which means by default it's 25,000 people in Metro.

[26:59] move the minimal wage, put that up in terms of discussion as elected officials to talk to the provincial government.

[27:07] Now, the premier is listening a bit.

[27:09] It's going to go to 1650, you know, talks about the biggest lift, it's got to be bigger.

[27:14] Why not?

[27:17] Thank you.

[27:17] Also, Austin, one more question, Mr. Frazier from Mayor Fillmore.

[27:23] Thank you, Mr. Frazier, and I, the conversation about minimum wage and

[27:27] and the assessment cap is extremely important.

[27:30] It's a distraction, however, from what the people around these tables can have an impact

[27:34] on, so I want to bring us back to the tax rate.

[27:37] You had a very thorough list of the cost of garbage collection, the cost of taxes and a number

[27:45] of other costs that have all increased rather dramatically in the last years, assessments

[27:49] and so forth.

[27:51] I would imagine you could add to that the cost of maintaining your housing stock as well.

[27:56] all the wages have gone up, materials, supply chain, all that, everything's more expensive.

[28:02] Who's paying for that?

[28:06] What do you mean?

[28:07] I'm paying for it.

[28:08] We are.

[28:08] The customers are paying.

[28:10] The tenants are paying.

[28:11] Yeah.

[28:11] Right?

[28:11] So every time.

[28:13] Okay.

[28:13] Last year we had a tax rate of .77.

[28:16] This year it's about the budget that we're presented a few, a couple of months ago was .792.

[28:23] That's a 3% increase in the tax rate that was presented to this council.

[28:27] That's going to go right on the rent, right?

[28:30] I mean, again, you say that.

[28:32] What I pay is a buck 11 because you don't add all the other sort of fixed charges through it.

[28:38] Like, all I see is the final bill.

[28:40] And it's a lot larger than that .77 to .79.

[28:43] You see what I'm asking you?

[28:44] Yeah.

[28:45] When the tax rate goes up, do the rents go up?

[28:48] They'll go up based on, and right now, because we've got to put it, we just get 5%.

[28:53] But again, if you set there and said, why do you have to spend this other $260,000, $260,000, $260,000,000 this year?

[29:01] And when I look at your budget, I mean, if I was sitting in one of these seats here,

[29:07] I would want to know the baseline in terms of the actual wages.

[29:11] Like if you've got a billion dollar budget, how much of it is going to wages?

[29:15] You've got 5, you've got 40, 800 people working here, all of it, most of it is essential services,

[29:21] the police, the fire, parks, the bus drivers.

[29:26] I get all that, but I mean, essentially, it's probably $100,000 times $5,000.

[29:31] That's 500 million.

[29:33] Where's the rest of the money going to be spent?

[29:35] I mean, wages are the simplest thing to get your head around, but you've got to know it collectively.

[29:39] You're in under the hood, and that's the work that the people around these tables are going to have to work on.

[29:44] But I think the important thing I want you to articulate is, when the tax rate goes up,

[29:50] what happens to the people in your rental units?

[29:52] Keep adding to our cost.

[29:56] When I started this, all expenses for running an apartment building was $2,000.

[30:00] $1,000 a unit. Every expense combined. Today, I mean, my average tax bill is between $3,000 to $4,000 per unit across the country.

[30:09] My rents have not gone up seven times. Like you're squeezing down.

[30:13] Just a few minutes. Let me ask a very specific question. You said at the Ex-military housing over in Dartmouth that you told the story of how the assessment has gone up dramatically and all that.

[30:25] When your tax bill goes up in those most affordable units in HRM, what happens to the rent

[30:32] in those most affordable units?

[30:34] I see it.

[30:34] I've got 40 percent committed that I cannot raise it now after this is after the fact.

[30:39] So I'll have to eat that and the rest of it is in terms of the terms they probably go closer to market.

[30:44] Does it mean that you're squeezing the balloon there?

[30:47] You can't raise the rent there because they're limited that the rent must go up elsewhere?

[30:53] Like overall, yes, when you talk about 18,000 units across the country.

[30:59] Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much for sort of getting into debate as opposed to public participation, but let's continue. Thank you, Mr. Frazier. And next, we will welcome Duncan Robertson.

[31:18] Welcome, Duncan.

[31:19] Okay.

[31:28] Freedom.

[31:29] Chairdeal, gamut and members of the Budget Committee.

[31:31] Thank you for allowing me to join you today to speak on Health Act Regiolamia's Budget for 2025-26.

[31:37] My name is Duncan Robertson.

[31:39] I'm the Director of Legislative Affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business here in Nova Scotia, and I'm based in Health Act.

[31:45] As you may know, CFIB is Canada's largest non-for-profit organization devoted solely to the means, or to represent small businesses.

[31:52] We represent over 100,000 small and medium sized businesses across Canada, 4,200 of which

[31:58] are here in Nova Scotia, and over 1,450 are based here in the municipality.

[32:02] Over the past few years, CFIB has had a particular focus on the going on of municipal governments

[32:07] across the land to Canada, particularly surrounding taxation, red tape, permitting, and the impact

[32:12] of public construction on small businesses.

[32:16] Over the course of budget deliberations has been heartening to see mayor and council focus

[32:20] focus on finding ways to keep the current tax rate flat

[32:23] through finding efficiencies, such as those proposed

[32:25] during the February 26th Budget Committee meeting.

[32:29] Property taxes are a serious concern for our members.

[32:32] When asked which municipal issues have the largest impact

[32:34] on their business, six and 10 of our members cite

[32:36] property taxes as their top concern.

[32:39] This comes as no surprise when seven and 10

[32:41] of our members across Nova Scotia saw an increase

[32:43] the occupancy costs in the form of higher property taxes

[32:46] or rent during 2024.

[32:48] As you continue your deliberations, we ask that you keep the municipality's small businesses in mind.

[32:53] Beginning in 2020, small businesses experienced the impact of the pandemic, followed by high inflation environments,

[33:00] and now face the ongoing tariff situation, and which has caused exceptional uncertainty for 7-10 small businesses.

[33:06] These events have resulted in many small businesses operating on thin margins and limiting their ability to absorb increased costs.

[33:12] In fact, when surveyed six and 10 of our members in Nova Scotia have the head to increase their

[33:16] prices to keep up with rising occupancy costs.

[33:19] Therefore it's important to keep in mind that increases in commercial rates to not just

[33:23] impact businesses but also their consumers in terms of the prices they see.

[33:28] To address this concern we asked the council to do its utmost to freeze or ideally lower

[33:31] the commercial property tax rate.

[33:34] We also asked the council to be mindful of the tax gap or the difference in the tax rate

[33:38] between a commercial and residential property of the same value.

[33:41] During 2024, 2025, depending on where the business was located, commercial properties

[33:46] were paying a rate up to five and a half times higher than their residential counterparts.

[33:50] So we asked that council focus on reducing that tax gap going forward.

[33:54] In addition to property taxation, another area that we focus on is of course red tape.

[33:59] Now, while the HRM has had a strong history in reducing red tape and was a past golden scissors

[34:03] recipient during CFIVE's red tape ordinance week in 2019, there is always more work

[34:08] to do. In the 2024 iteration of CFIB's Atlantic Municipal Report, the HRM received a

[34:14] 7 out of 10 tied for the highest score on red tape reduction. However, the municipality

[34:19] lost marks for not having a public red tape feedback portal in place. As budget deliberations

[34:26] near their end and you consider the budget adjustment list, we ask the council consider establishing

[34:30] a public feedback portal, a cost effective tool where small businesses can identify areas

[34:35] or instances of red tape, and allows the municipality to track these concerns in real time.

[34:39] We recommend that the HRM engage the provincial office of regulatory efficiency to replicate

[34:44] the current tool being used by the province.

[34:47] Finally with the ongoing economic uncertainty and impact of tariffs, the municipality must

[34:51] review fees that charge small businesses with the aim to reduce or eliminate when possible.

[34:57] Now more than ever, it's crucial that all orders of government be mindful of the cost pressures

[35:01] that place on small businesses.

[35:03] One such fee council could consider removing is the fee for sidewalk patio applications.

[35:09] In addition to the costs of parts and labor, small businesses in the hospitality sector

[35:12] must also pay around $1,000 to get their sidewalk patio application processed by the municipality,

[35:18] which is an amount higher than major cities such as Toronto, Calgary, and Edmonton.

[35:22] While we approach the warmer months, we ask that council eliminate this tax on summer and

[35:27] let small businesses in the hospitality sector take full advantage of the tourism season.

[35:30] by temporarily expanding their footprint and welcoming tourists and locals alike.

[35:35] In 2020, HRM Council stepped up by waiving sidewalk padiophies at a cost of only $40,000,

[35:41] or an equivalent to 0.005% of the city's overall budget for that year.

[35:47] We asked that you step up again for the misspal these small businesses in the hospitality sector,

[35:51] but to not simply waive these fees eliminate them.

[35:54] With that, we hope our members' views and recommendations will provide your committee

[35:57] with the necessary insights as you consider feedback from the public on budget 2025, 2026.

[36:04] I'm happy to answer any questions. Should you help them?

[36:10] Thank you very much. I don't see any

[36:11] questions for you. Thank you, Duncan. Our next speaker is Wendy Wilson. And after Wendy is Lou

[36:19] Campbell and then Sue Keller,

[36:25] Wendy Wilson. Welcome. Yes, good morning, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity

[36:31] to be able to speak in front of you this morning.

[36:34] I'm here to support the just action food plan.

[36:38] I will give you just a little bit of information,

[36:40] some background in terms of how I am connected

[36:43] to this program.

[36:45] Myself, along with four other African Nova Scotians,

[36:48] we're asked about three years ago to take part

[36:51] in an African Nova Scotian and Black Food Sovereignty

[36:54] Working Group.

[36:55] And as a result, we started working on a plan,

[37:00] similar to Toronto's black food sovereignty plan. We used that as a model. And what we did is

[37:08] created recommendations. And then those recommendations went through as part of the larger

[37:14] just food action plan for African Nova Scotia and black communities as well as indigenous communities

[37:21] as well. And so what we ended up doing is hiring a black food coordinator for the City of Halifax,

[37:29] which I work in the Black food sovereignty communities across Canada quite often I traveled

[37:35] to speak at some of these conferences that are held in different provinces. I've been

[37:41] welcomed into Indigenous communities and I have to say that when I speak I speak so

[37:46] proudly about being able to talk about a city that I live in and that I'm from and very

[37:52] well connected to that we have a we have a food plan. And we have a food plan that is

[37:58] targeted towards and has an emphasis towards those who are most food insecure. So black

[38:06] and indigenous people in this country are the most food insecure communities across

[38:10] the country. I'm primarily an educator. I've been a public education for the last 20 years.

[38:16] I worked in classrooms for 20 years. I've worked at the Department of Education. I currently

[38:20] They work at the Nova Scotia Teachers Union as an executive staff officer.

[38:23] I know education and I know the impact of food on children in education and their learning

[38:28] day.

[38:29] And so, we were able to, through this work that we're doing with the Black Food Coordinator,

[38:34] we were able to create this position and then create programming and initiatives in community,

[38:39] in indigenous communities, and in particular the program that I'm working with with the African

[38:44] Nova Scotian and Black Food Sovereignty Working Group that now is an advisory to the position

[38:50] of the food coordinator in creating programming.

[38:53] One of the programs that we created was called the Blended Forward Program.

[38:57] You, I think, got a QR code or were sent the link.

[39:01] You can watch the video if you haven't seen it yet.

[39:05] But what it is is a meal prep program and it's the beginning stages

[39:08] of really giving people sovereignty and the skills that they need

[39:12] and the capacity that they need in order to feed themselves.

[39:15] And so it was a Blended Forward Program.

[39:17] everyone got a free ninja blender at the end. We had a registered

[39:21] dietician who just happens to be part of the advisory group,

[39:24] Nakeda Paris and Cheyenne Jones, the black food coordinator.

[39:29] Those two wrote the curriculum. We came up with the idea.

[39:32] They wrote the curriculum and delivered it to community.

[39:36] Two communities, one in Halifax, one in darkness,

[39:38] over a four week period, and it was so successful.

[39:41] I tell you how successful this program was.

[39:43] It was so successful. I had so many people angry with me,

[39:46] not speaking to me, upset that they didn't get into the blend if for a program.

[39:52] And so we now have people across the province asking if we will deliver this curriculum

[39:57] in communities to help people become more self-sufficient, to be able to feed themselves,

[40:04] to be able to meal prep.

[40:05] And we were very strategic about who was in the program.

[40:10] We wanted credible messengers.

[40:11] We wanted people that would go out and share the information.

[40:14] And so therefore, it's a play on the words blended forward.

[40:17] It is a blending program that taught people how to make soups and juices and just all the

[40:25] tricks that a person would need in order to take very little money and to be able to come

[40:30] up with a very highly nutritious meal.

[40:33] It was very popular and I think it was popular because it was being created and delivered by

[40:38] people in community.

[40:39] So the advisory group took part in the program as well and were able to blend

[40:44] it forward and to teach other people what we learned in the program when we're talking

[40:48] about food we're really talking about social justice right and if we're talking about

[40:53] social justice we're going to be looking at the impact that food has on people every

[40:57] single day and I realize that as an educator that this is one of the first and foremost it's

[41:05] the most important thing that we can do is to not only fight racism which I fought on my

[41:10] life living in Nova Scotia, but to be able to give people what they need, students what

[41:16] they need, individuals what they need, in order to be healthy in order to fight racism.

[41:21] And so food is everything, and I would really like to see this added to the budget for

[41:27] this year.

[41:28] It's very little money for a really great impact.

[41:34] Thank you so very much.

[41:35] We have two questions coming from counselors if you're open to that.

[41:41] Councilor Hinch.

[41:44] Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Wendy for that presentation. I greatly

[41:48] appreciate it. I have been in a few meetings lately with the with regards to the blended

[41:54] forward program and I do believe it's an awesome program that we have in our community. So I

[41:59] want to thank you for that. Going forward, I know you guys have you're at a limit right

[42:07] now. But going forward, what does it look like in the end if we continue on with the budget?

[42:14] What would it look like to our community, what we can do to initiate and make this more

[42:21] greater than what it already is?

[42:26] Because of our position as advisory and also the

[42:29] food coordinator, what we've done is we built partnerships with folks. You're going to hear from

[42:33] some folks likely later on today in support of the Just Food Action Plan. And so we're not

[42:39] Not necessarily asking for a handout, we're asking for, you know, funds to be able to get started, and so that we are able to continue this work on our own, we're not completely dependent on the city, we just need to start up money in order to grow the position of the Black Food Coordinator to give her and ask the advisory capacity to gain these funds on our own, we want to be sovereign, we don't want to be dependent, but this little bit of money, I think it was around about $12,000 that it took to run to

[43:08] complete programs and not a lot of money but very great impacts. People are

[43:15] asking for it. The programs are going to be delivered in community but what

[43:18] community now has to do is they have to somehow find the money themselves to

[43:22] pay for the program. We want to be able to have a spin on the different programs

[43:26] and different communities depending on what community needs are and so we're not

[43:30] just going in community and telling them what they need. We have a base

[43:34] foundational curriculum and then we go and work with community in order to give

[43:38] them and can tell the programming in in order to max the needs of the

[43:45] community. So what people what what it is it's it's putting food immediately and

[43:50] skills and capacity immediately in people's hands. Thank you. Can I ask one more?

[43:57] So again and I guess that I've already had consultations with folks with

[44:02] with regard to this program, but what it really does, I mean, it really puts it in the

[44:09] hands of African Nova Scotians indigenous, where we would normally not look for it, where

[44:15] we would normally have difficulty getting it.

[44:18] So I, and this program is one that I only know of with regards to African Nova Scotians and

[44:25] indigenous.

[44:26] So I thank you for your presentation today, and I will be supporting this.

[44:31] Thank you.

[44:34] Councilor White has a question.

[44:42] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Wendy.

[44:45] I have a question. Is the Black Food Coordinator and HRM employee? Or who's that?

[44:54] Well, she's actually, so she's an employee of the one, the one north and economic society.

[45:00] That's who she's being hosted by, but obviously the funding is coming from. Okay, so it's a bit of funding to do that. I guess what I'm wondering is, like, this is obviously fantastic work. By doing this work, are we able to encourage funding from other orders of government? Like, does, does doing this bring in more so that it. What's, like I mentioned, what the black food coordinator and the advisory is able to do is to

[45:29] great gain, support and collaboration with other organizations, government organizations,

[45:36] grants.

[45:37] We need someone in that position to even be able to grow.

[45:41] The capacity to apply for grants, so this is not just the city initiative.

[45:45] We're looking to take this initiative to be honest with you.

[45:48] We're looking to be a beacon and to be able to model this program in other communities

[45:52] across the province as well, but our focus is on the HRM currently.

[45:55] And so, yes, we're looking for other funders where that's what the role of the black food

[46:00] coordinator is to do is to find other funding and to collaborative partners to continue

[46:07] not just this program but to grow the program into a black food hub.

[46:12] Okay, so if we didn't fund this, would that still happen?

[46:17] Well, we definitely need the funding for the black food coordinator because we need someone

[46:22] in the pay position to be able to do that because the advisory is very limited in what we can do,

[46:27] we work a couple hours, two hours a month, advise in the position. So we do, we need the position,

[46:33] but we also need that seed money in order to grow as well. So we need that money for programming

[46:38] and initiatives. People are looking forward to this. We have to find other means if you're not able

[46:43] to support this. We really have to hit the payment because this is something, when people got phone calls

[46:48] that they were in the program, some people cried.

[46:51] This is about their health.

[46:52] This is people who had pre-existing conditions,

[46:56] people who might suffer from diabetes,

[46:58] and want to learn how to treat themselves holistically.

[47:04] Many of the folks that are in the program

[47:05] never had direct engagement with the registered

[47:09] dietician before, so this was the first as well.

[47:12] And so we're building, we're not just looking at

[47:14] funding the program through the city,

[47:16] we're looking at having the city as one of our partners to be honest with you in order to grow

[47:21] this and so we do need the the budget to be fully funded in order to do that. Thank you very

[47:28] much Wendy. We have three more councillors with questions for you and Councillor Morse.

[47:37] Thank you chair and thank you Wendy for coming in this morning. I'm wondering if you could say a

[47:41] little bit more about the experience of the participants when they get their blenders and what a

[47:46] difference this makes to them just so we could understand that a little bit better.

[47:50] Are these working parents and maybe it allows them to do a lot more in a shorter time

[47:55] or are they able to change their diets as a result?

[47:58] I'd just like to understand why this is such a hot commodity to have these blenders and

[48:03] the program to go along with it.

[48:05] Yeah so it is a program that participants told us what they wanted so prior to creating

[48:11] the program, we're actually able to go into community and do in community engagement,

[48:17] to surveys, found out what they wanted.

[48:19] So this is very tailored to community, black community, and them telling us what they

[48:23] wanted.

[48:24] And so delivering the programs, what they really needed is the educational piece, the skills

[48:29] and capacity that they needed in order to not only feed themselves, but also to be able

[48:33] to teach, to blend it forward, to teach other people as well.

[48:36] So the participants in the program were intergenerational, and this is how we wanted it.

[48:40] We wanted to introduce there was a mother auntie and a daughter that was involved in one

[48:48] of our programs at North Grove and so what this also offered beyond the food and the nutrition

[48:55] part is it offered fellowship to community members, people being able to get out and chat

[49:01] with each other and also if there was a cultural aspect as well because we really were

[49:06] highly focused on the African Nova Scotian community, so there was a cultural piece as well.

[49:11] So it was holistic, intergenerational.

[49:14] We really selected people based on their ability to be able to blend this information forward

[49:22] and not just keep it to themselves.

[49:23] So people that we knew as community would be key in disseminating this information to others.

[49:30] And we kept it very simplistic as well, so that people were able to digest information.

[49:35] and learn a new skill, and learn about food, and learn about how all you need is a blender.

[49:42] All you need is some access to fruits and vegetables, and that really could be something

[49:49] that anyone can participate in, right?

[49:51] You just need electricity.

[49:53] You could carry that blender around with you, right, and the nutritional value that's packed

[49:58] in these blending or blended recipes that were created by a registered dietitian who

[50:03] who just so happened to be my grade three student many, many moons ago, and now she's

[50:09] we're working collaboratively in community to help feed people, and not just feed people.

[50:15] There's, you know, what they need nutritionally, but also feed people's souls, right?

[50:21] We're working, we're working all, in terms of holistically, we're working on all of these

[50:27] part, the spiritual part, the fellowship part, the, you know, collaboration piece, the

[50:32] food knowledge piece, the wisdom that goes with it.

[50:36] The program really was curtailed for a specific community, and that's what we would do when

[50:42] we go into different communities.

[50:43] We would engage and find out what community wants and allow them to help develop the program

[50:49] as well.

[50:50] Great.

[50:51] Thank you very much.

[50:51] Thanks.

[50:53] Councillor Gile.

[50:54] Thank you, manager.

[50:55] Sure. Thank you, Wendy. I did witness in the video. It's very inspiring. I just have

[51:04] a few inquiries here. So I believe that you mentioned that you do have a registered

[51:10] dietitian on board, so that's great. And yes, it is a social deterrent of health, proper

[51:17] food and everything. I do smoothies myself. One of the things I want to know is the stake

[51:25] called a participation. So do you have a buy-in with local vendors, local businesses,

[51:30] like maybe framers, where you get your products itself?

[51:37] So this is something that just got started with a very limited budget. So this is where

[51:40] we are right now. This is where we are. We're making the connections where the advisory

[51:45] as well as the food coordinator is meeting with our partners in supportive feed and over

[51:50] We've got some great stuff going on there as well, good food.

[51:55] People are also coming to us because they're interested in this knowledge hub that we do

[51:59] have in terms of what community needs and what works in community.

[52:04] And I find what always works in community is what it's community people that are creating

[52:09] the program for community as opposed to people from outside of community coming in community

[52:14] thinking that they know better and they can do better.

[52:16] We are a very competent group of folks, Rodney Small, who is the executive director of

[52:22] the one.

[52:23] We have Cheyenne Jones, who is a Black food coordinator, Nikaia Perris, who I mentioned

[52:28] former student of mine, who is now a registered dietitian and works in food security and policy

[52:33] for the province.

[52:36] And we have Daniel Jackson as well, who does programming through, oh, she's a social worker,

[52:43] she does programming through, oh, she has this linked to community.

[52:46] So, we're not just looking for the city to fund, we're looking for money for grassroots

[52:54] seed money in order to develop the position as Black food coordinator and to have some

[52:59] money for program and initiatives as well.

[53:01] It's very important, it's not a lot of money, but it really has a huge impact.

[53:06] Okay.

[53:07] And I also like the holistic intergenerational approach to your program too as well.

[53:13] Thank you.

[53:17] We came with the knowledge and the curriculum and then we placed it in the hands of community

[53:21] to direct us in terms of what they need it.

[53:24] That's why the program was so successful.

[53:26] Thank you.

[53:27] Councillor Hurtling.

[53:29] Hi.

[53:29] Thank you very much and thank you so much for showing up today.

[53:32] I think that this program, you know, or I think that food security is an important issue

[53:36] and I think that it should be addressed.

[53:40] I think the challenge for counselors like me is the lane in which we are operating, which

[53:46] is a municipal one.

[53:50] I do know and that ultimately nutrition, there are all, there are nutrition, public health.

[54:01] These things are all, like they fall under the province's mandate, like currently the community

[54:07] food and access literacy grant is open right now. I feel like this is very much outside

[54:14] of the municipal scope. So I'm wondering when you talk about like that you are engaging

[54:22] provincial partners who are nutritionists, who are those things. I'm wondering if you could

[54:27] kind of speak to that relationship a little bit more. And then again specifically about

[54:31] the blended forward? So am I understanding that we bought blenders and gave them to, that

[54:40] was the program? Can you can you speak a little bit more about the blended forward program

[54:46] specifically? We we bought blenders. Okay so it was a it was a five week nutritional program

[54:53] right where we want to be able to give people the skills that they need and also the equipment

[54:57] and tools that they need. That's why they got the blenders. So we wanted to be gave them

[55:01] at the end of the program. People were given the blenders to take home to continue to work to

[55:06] blend it for. I mean the blenders weren't expensive. They were a ninja blender, an excellent blender

[55:12] that's able to crush ice and do all kinds of amazing things. And so they had the tool. So what we

[55:16] wanted to do, we didn't want to give talk theory and talk about the nutrition and how this is done

[55:22] And then not be able to give people the practical tools

[55:25] and the means and the avenue to be able to blend it forward

[55:29] and continue to do that.

[55:31] So it was actually, it was very important

[55:34] that they did have not only the skills,

[55:36] the recipes, the experience of blending it,

[55:39] the knowledge from the registered dietician,

[55:41] but they also needed the tool to be able

[55:42] to take home to do that.

[55:44] Right.

[55:45] So can you speak a little bit more

[55:46] about the provinces role in this?

[55:48] And then also because I was the blended forward program

[55:52] was that attached to any other community garden or anything like that?

[55:57] So it's attached to the bigger just food action planet, right?

[56:00] We were one component of that, right?

[56:03] There's the indigenous food sovereignty working group and then there was the African Nova

[56:08] Scotia and black food sovereignty working group.

[56:10] We were just one component of the bigger just food action plan, the strategic plan for

[56:16] the city.

[56:17] And so what we're doing, we're in advisory.

[56:19] We've been doing this, working with the help to curtail the path of the black food coordinator and advise this position.

[56:27] So we work, well, we work more than two, we're supposed to be two hours a month, but because we're this is community and we're very committed to this.

[56:36] We work overtime trying to create programs in community and trying to work with other funders as well.

[56:43] Provincial funders, we're looking for federal money.

[56:47] the land infrastructure, fund that was the national program.

[56:51] This is also, this is something that I feel very proud about when I am in other spaces to be able to talk that my city,

[56:57] the city that I come from, Halifax, we care about social justice and we care about people being able to be fed as well

[57:05] and have the knowledge to be able to feed themselves.

[57:08] So what we're doing is removing beyond food security, food security out the door.

[57:13] I'm a food secure person.

[57:14] I have a great job, I've got a vehicle, I'm educated, I can chop the flyers, but if the

[57:20] transport truck stop coming in, if I'm not able to access food from the grocery store,

[57:24] I'm no longer, our food security is very vulnerable for all of us.

[57:28] So what we want to be able to do is give people the skills we want to grow this program,

[57:32] the blended forwards only one part of it, it's just getting started.

[57:35] We also want to be able to teach people how to grow the food through a planter program

[57:39] and connect to and build partnerships and support

[57:42] with community gardens.

[57:44] This is what we need this money for

[57:45] to be able to do this.

[57:47] This money is very important to see money

[57:49] to be able to grow this position.

[57:52] Okay, thank you.

[57:55] Thank you, we have another counselor with a question

[57:58] and we're gonna try to be succinct.

[58:02] We've got a long day and lots of speakers, thank you.

[58:05] Thank you, Madam Chair.

[58:07] Ms. Wilson, thank you very much for your passion

[58:09] in the work, and everybody in the advisory board that you do for a community.

[58:13] Quick question, though.

[58:14] You mentioned a number of times you need that start up money, that seed money.

[58:18] What's that dollar amount that you need?

[58:25] From the just food action plan in here, it might be able to on a broader, specifically for

[58:30] your group.

[58:31] So for our group, we're looking at about $120,000, I believe should be able to, that we're looking

[58:37] to find the position again, and then we're looking for money to run the black, the blended

[58:42] and for a program in other communities in the HRM.

[58:46] And also we're looking to grow this program

[58:49] with teaching people how to grow in these cosmic planters.

[58:53] It's like a self-watering container

[58:54] that's almost cooked proof.

[58:56] And so we would need about that kind of money.

[58:59] And then next year when we're standing up here

[59:01] having a conversation, we're gonna talk to you about

[59:03] the funding that we landed for maybe federally,

[59:08] maybe provincially, maybe through our partners in support

[59:10] that we're growing these relationships currently right now.

[59:14] We're growing these relationships.

[59:16] Thank you, Ms. Wilson.

[59:17] I appreciate it.

[59:17] Madam Chair.

[59:19] Thank you very much.

[59:20] Ms. Wilson, appreciate you answering all of our questions.

[59:24] Our next speaker is Lou Campbell, and after Lou will be Sue Keller, who will be joining us

[59:31] by Zoom.

[59:34] Welcome, Lou.

[59:37] I've spoken at many of these meetings, and I've tried a variety of approaches for what to

[59:42] say and how to be here, I've taken hours to research, I've agonized over getting it just right,

[59:49] I've spoken from experience and what I've witnessed, all to try to mold myself to the vibe of

[59:54] what this room seems to demand, and it's never worked.

[1:00:00] So today I'm going to try something a little different. I've emailed you all the facts in advance, so don't worry. I do know them.

[1:00:09] But today in this room I bring you in offering from the past and something to think about as you make your budgeting decisions. I'm an actor and an artist. I come from four generations of actors and artists. My grandfather Douglas Campbell was my introduction to social justice, and he used to read to me a poem by William Blake that has always stuck with me.

[1:00:29] William Blake was also an artist in a revolutionary thinker.

[1:00:33] This poem was written in 1796.

[1:00:36] It is a battle cry against state violence,

[1:00:39] the same state violence that continues today over 200 years later.

[1:00:43] It has changed form, it changes shape, but it continues.

[1:00:47] Make no mistake.

[1:00:49] Funding an armored vehicle and 14 RCMP positions over food programs

[1:00:54] when food insecurity is rampant

[1:00:56] and community alternatives to policing, not funding community alternatives to policing when two people have been killed by police on mental health calls in the past month is violence against community, it is state violence.

[1:01:10] And just as William Blake did in 1796, we will stand to fight it.

[1:01:18] Oh, for a voice like thunder and a tongue to drown the throat of war.

[1:01:27] When the senses are shaken and the soul is driven to madness, who can stand?

[1:01:34] When the souls of the oppressed fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?

[1:01:43] When the whirlwind of fury comes from the throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance

[1:01:49] drive the nations together, who can stand?

[1:01:53] When sin claps his broad wings over the battle, and sails rejoicing in the flood of death,

[1:02:00] when souls are torn to everlasting life, and themes of hell rejoice upon the slain, oh,

[1:02:06] who can stand?

[1:02:10] Oh, who hath caused this,

[1:02:17] who can answer at the throne of God?

[1:02:21] The

[1:02:25] kings and the nobles of the land have done it.

[1:02:29] Here it not heaven, thy ministers have done it.

[1:02:35] The decisions that you make in this room will be your legacy.

[1:02:41] They will affect future generations to come.

[1:02:45] We're watching history does not forget who here can stand.

[1:02:53] Ask yourself why you are grilling someone who is suggesting a food program

[1:02:58] and not giving that same energy to police.

[1:03:02] Why are you not going over their budgets

[1:03:03] with a fine tooth comb?

[1:03:05] Why is an armored vehicle even on this list?

[1:03:08] I'm glad it's on this list for the chopping block,

[1:03:10] that's for sure.

[1:03:12] Make the right call.

[1:03:15] Make the right call.

[1:03:18] I don't know how else to say it.

[1:03:21] Thank you.

[1:03:25] Thank you very much.

[1:03:28] Our next speaker is Sue Keller by Zoom.

[1:03:31] Mr. Clerk.

[1:03:37] Can you hear me? Welcome. Thank you and we can see you. Thank you. Thank you.

[1:03:44] Hi, my name is Sue Kelliger. I'm the Director of Community Partnerships Innovation and Advocacy

[1:03:50] with Feed Nova Scotia, and I'm really grateful to be here and have the opportunity to speak on

[1:03:56] behalf of Feed Nova Scotia. I'll start by saying we're really concerned about the proposal in front

[1:04:02] to council today and the impact that prioritising flatlining property taxes over crucial community

[1:04:09] services will have in the year ahead. We understand that property taxes are the main source

[1:04:16] of revenue for you as a municipality, and to achieve the tax options presented to you means

[1:04:22] service cuts. We are concerned about the impact of those cuts on folks across Halifax who need

[1:04:28] at the most. This report before you has only been available since Friday of last week,

[1:04:35] and it's 119 pages long, so it's challenging to read and digest in a meaningful way.

[1:04:41] But from what we understand, it includes a recommendation to prioritise funding,

[1:04:47] 14 more or CNP officers at a cost of over a million dollars. There are no details available

[1:04:53] about what those positions would be, or why they would be a priority over social and community

[1:05:00] programming. And at the same time, essential community services and supports, including the

[1:05:07] just-food gap funding are not listed, and therefore are absent for your consideration.

[1:05:14] Halifax is in multiple crises right now, including a food insecurity crisis, and all of the data that

[1:05:21] that we have indicates that things are getting worse.

[1:05:25] Food bank uses up 43% since 2022,

[1:05:29] and up 17% in the last year alone.

[1:05:33] The social harms of food insecurity are devastating,

[1:05:36] and we know that food banks are not the answer.

[1:05:40] Hansel has committed to detasking the police,

[1:05:43] and we would argue that this doesn't mean more officers

[1:05:47] or armored vehicles in Halifax,

[1:05:49] but instead means investing in funding and support for programs and services that bring

[1:05:55] people together and build resilience connected and strong communities.

[1:06:00] The Just Food Action Plan, unanimously approved by Council, is leading edge social policy championed

[1:06:07] by the municipality.

[1:06:08] It's progressive, it's a vision focused on system level change and shaped by thousands of

[1:06:14] voices from across HRM. And as Wendy mentioned, it does have a reputation across and beyond

[1:06:21] the province as HRM being a regional food policy and programming lead. I want to highlight

[1:06:29] some key components of just food and the value they bring to the table. The Halifax Food

[1:06:34] Council creates critical space for champions coming together to take collective action towards

[1:06:41] common goals, which otherwise may not be happening. Collaboration between the municipality and the

[1:06:46] mobile food markets helps to bring affordable quality food right into communities that need it

[1:06:52] the most. The emergency food truck is a critical component of the EMO response during events

[1:06:58] and is a resource and partner with Second Harvest to reduce food waste and connect communities to food

[1:07:05] in other times, ongoing collaborations between the EAC, one north end, the

[1:07:11] Mid-Mornative Friendship Center and Nova Scotia Health Public Health highlights

[1:07:15] the need and the benefits of equitable governance within our food system.

[1:07:21] And our partnership, Feed Nova Scotia's partnership with Just Food, has been

[1:07:25] focused on piloting dignified alternatives to food banks and our

[1:07:30] Our collaborations to provide low barrier grants to community organisations have provided

[1:07:35] opportunities for us to learn from each other, share resources and increase capacity for

[1:07:41] community-based food action across the region.

[1:07:45] You and your colleagues at Regional Council are vital partners in this work, and the provision

[1:07:50] of adequate core funding is key to enable these relationships to grow and to leverage this

[1:07:56] funding to increase the collective impact scope and outreach of the Just Food Action

[1:08:01] Plan. The gap in the 2025-26 HREM funding for the strategy will mean potential loss of

[1:08:09] essential positions, programming and momentum in community, and further delay our collective

[1:08:16] capacity to realise significant change for your residents. We are asking the Council reconsider

[1:08:23] it's priorities and some the current gap in just food funding for 2025-26 and the report

[1:08:31] before you states that the tax impact of this funding is 0.03% or $1.16 to the average tax bill

[1:08:41] and that's an investment that can be leveraged into social and economic benefits across HRN,

[1:08:47] prioritizing your most vulnerable residents and supporting the organizations that serve them.

[1:08:55] Great timing. Thank you, Sue. Our next three speakers are Sue Yutek, Peter Polly, and Don Mills.

[1:09:05] Welcome, Sue Yutek.

[1:09:12] Sit, I'm still recovering from St. Patrick's Day.

[1:09:17] So good morning, Council, my name is Sue Yutek, and I'm the Executive Director for the

[1:09:21] Scrooge Area Business Association. I'm also this chair, this year's chair for the Helifax Bids,

[1:09:27] which is a coalition of nine business improvement districts as stretching as far as Porter Lake.

[1:09:32] And we account for 23% of your commercial assessment here in HRM.

[1:09:38] So as you deliberate today, I'd like to make a few comments on behalf of our association and its members.

[1:09:43] One public safety, we fully can support the police budget if it contains officers on the streets of our downtowns.

[1:09:50] Currently on spring garden, we are having a noticeable police present and it's paying off in space.

[1:09:55] safety concerns amongst our members remains very high. Proactive community

[1:10:00] police has long been proven to be the most effective way to both prevent crime,

[1:10:04] while providing an excellent training ground for police to know and understand the

[1:10:08] complex issues in our downtown districts. Spring Garden and downtown Halifax are

[1:10:14] the only two areas in our region without a community and policing office.

[1:10:18] This is a key piece of infrastructure that is needed. It means that an officer has

[1:10:22] have to make a report, it has to go back to Godigan Street each and every day.

[1:10:26] We lose valuable time on the street.

[1:10:28] If we had a community policing office, that presence would be there in the spring garden

[1:10:32] area.

[1:10:33] While the central library is very lukewarm to this idea, both Paul McKinnon and I feel that

[1:10:40] this small portion could be set aside at the library for this function.

[1:10:46] The original plans for the library, I think Councillor Hensby would remember, and anyone

[1:10:51] else that's still the holdover. We actually had a community policing office, that was part

[1:10:56] of the plan. And so I'd like council to move forward and with the police this year,

[1:11:02] to look at the seriousness of getting a community policing office in the library. The library

[1:11:08] itself has issues, and I think having an office in that space can go a long way for safety

[1:11:14] for all around. Ground floor commercial space. We support Councillor Cuddle's motion to

[1:11:18] have the provincial government rescind its recent amendment to the municipal charter minimum

[1:11:23] planning requirements. This amendment allows for a reduction in the percentage for commercial

[1:11:27] space at ground floor level that if the commercial the construction starts before April 27.

[1:11:34] This commercial space is essential in providing amenities that cater to densification of

[1:11:38] our downtowns and main streets. Reducing commercial space will reduce our capacity to fund programs

[1:11:43] that drive events, marketing, maintenance, and beautification efforts.

[1:11:47] As I'll remind council today, BIDs, the business improvement districts are funded through a levy that's collected through the commercial portion.

[1:11:55] We don't get any portion of residential assessment.

[1:12:00] Marketing and beautification, as you strive to get folks out of the car, this will have the opposite effect.

[1:12:05] The commercial tax rate, the BIDs have seen successive tax rate increases over the last three years.

[1:12:12] on top of the assessment lift.

[1:12:14] We're asking that you not raise the commercial tax rate

[1:12:17] this year above what you've already received

[1:12:19] from the assess value from the province.

[1:12:22] We're still recovering from COVID, sea balloons,

[1:12:24] and we're now in the middle of a trade war,

[1:12:26] which is affecting small businesses.

[1:12:29] Mental health and wellness.

[1:12:31] We are seeing firsthand the effects of a lack

[1:12:33] of mental health support system.

[1:12:35] Please keep the pressure on the provincial,

[1:12:37] on the province, to get the appropriate supports in place

[1:12:40] so we can have healthy downtowns and main streets.

[1:12:43] And finally, I don't even want to bring this up,

[1:12:46] but we are hearing whispers of a hiking parking fairs.

[1:12:50] Again, the timing could not be worse.

[1:12:52] Both the downtown and Springgarden spend thousands of dollars

[1:12:55] each year on promotions of parking

[1:12:57] in order to combat the misconception

[1:12:58] that there is no parking downtown.

[1:13:02] Currently, I think we all recognize it's not an ideal transit system

[1:13:06] at this point, and it forces people to have to bring their car

[1:13:10] are into work, whether they want to or not.

[1:13:12] Another rate increase at the meter is a deterrent, not a visit to the downtown.

[1:13:18] So since I have a little time left, I just want to say, take that hat off, sue taxpayer.

[1:13:24] We've seen as taxpayers an enormous increase in our residential property tax assessment.

[1:13:29] You know, a lot of people forget that as an example, I am a single female living in a house that each year

[1:13:37] the expenses get to the point that every year I'm going, this is it, it's a year to sell

[1:13:42] the house. The fact is, right now, and we've heard from speaker after speaker, the

[1:13:47] affordability crisis says that I might as well move outside of Halifax because there is

[1:13:53] nothing affordable. So, by this continued assessment increases, increases, you're taking

[1:14:01] someone like me that should be downsizing a house, but there is nowhere for me to go.

[1:14:06] So thank you, I think we all say, you know, within our means, we already know there's a water height coming up, there's a power height coming up, there's a property tax coming up.

[1:14:16] I am certainly not getting a 7% tax raise this year. So thank you.

[1:14:23] Thank you, Sue. Our next speaker is Peter Polly.

[1:14:34] I had submitted a PDF. I was wondering if it could be brought up before the timer started.

[1:14:47] Yeah, it's admitted to the clerk and they confirmed that it would be presented to council's correspondence

[1:14:52] They have a copy of it. They have it and they said it would be ready for the presentation

[1:15:03] The correspondence has been circulated all members of council. They have it in front of them. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you council and to Mayor Fillmore for letting me come to express some brief comments here today. My name is Peter Polly. I'm with polycorp properties. We've been quite active in the real estate residential development sector in Halifax for the last 20 years. So I want to make three points here today with only five minutes to do so.

[1:15:33] But the first page of my PDF has a couple snippets from the HRM staff report on the budget cuts and one of the lines says if budget committee seeks long term cost saving staff should be given direction before the budget closes or the start of the 2025-26 fiscal year in order to have sufficient time to implement proposed service changes for the 2026-27 budget.

[1:15:58] I take quite a bit of exception to a comment like that because it indicates an assumption

[1:16:03] that spending levels can continue to increase, renovate it, and without regard for the level

[1:16:08] of property taxes required to fund such spending. I would have thought that there would have been a

[1:16:13] standing or operating assumption that programs would be reviewed on an ongoing basis with budget,

[1:16:19] i.e. cost considerations always top of mind. But if this is not the case, which is what the report

[1:16:24] that Council needs to explicitly direct staff to do so now for the 2026, 2027 budget year.

[1:16:32] Furthermore, I question why this exercise would be pushed out for a full operational year,

[1:16:38] and why mid-year changes cannot be considered to minimize spending in the 2025, 2026 budget year.

[1:16:45] I strongly suggest that two council, that staff be directed to find mid-year changes in program and

[1:16:51] that can be made instead of deferring such a review to simply push the exercise out to a future date.

[1:17:00] Second line of comments has to do with the statement in the staff report.

[1:17:07] Atrium property taxes are already the most affordable.

[1:17:10] Our atrium property tax are amongst the most affordable in Canada relative to other cities.

[1:17:16] So I would direct Council to a number of exhibits that I found in the last few days to rebut such a statement which seems to essentially dismiss concerns over property tax levels in the municipality.

[1:17:33] page 2 is compiled by a real estate information

[1:17:39] at a glomerator called Zucasa, it's color coded and you'll

[1:17:44] note that Halifax is in the amber color which indicates that it's at the mid

[1:17:49] to mid price level for property taxes. Page 3 is compiled by the Canadian

[1:17:56] in real estate association, same thing.

[1:17:59] HREM is a colored amber indicating mid-level property taxes in a cross-key and a comparison.

[1:18:09] So neither of those would suggest, would support the statement made in the staff report and

[1:18:15] would actually be counter to that information.

[1:18:18] Page four, and there's a lot to take in there.

[1:18:21] One doesn't need to study it very hard to determine that all of those

[1:18:27] borrow lines indicate that HRM is at the top end of both property tax on the commercial and the residential levels across the country.

[1:18:38] Page five and this one I like the best because it's completely opposite to the position of the staff report.

[1:18:46] It indicates that Halifax has the fourth highest level of taxation on multi-unit residential housing,

[1:18:53] which is the industry that I am in.

[1:18:55] So back to the mayor's question earlier, we'll increase property taxes cause upward pressure on rents.

[1:19:03] Yes, definitely for sure.

[1:19:06] We are not active in the industrial sector, but very concerning from an employment perspective that

[1:19:13] Halifax has the uninviable title of having the highest industrial tax per square foot across the country.

[1:19:21] So where the state became from that Halifax has very affordable property taxes, I have no idea

[1:19:26] because nothing seems to support that based on a fairly cursory search that I've done last few days.

[1:19:33] So I just want to switch gears for a minute to the my page 6, which is a graph that shows

[1:19:40] those the staff levels at HREM and how they've grown over the last five years.

[1:19:46] There was a development moratorium brought in in 2004.

[1:19:50] A lot of people might remember it.

[1:19:52] A lot of staff reports and effort went into that at the time.

[1:19:56] Justifying how smart growth would contribute to a more efficiently operated city.

[1:20:03] In the last five years, 70 to 80% of the growth has been in the multi-unit residential buildings.

[1:20:08] The typical building is a concrete sprinkler, so it's beyond me how the number of staff in

[1:20:16] HREM continues to rise essentially proportionate to the change in population when these buildings

[1:20:23] are so much more efficient to service in terms of fire, police, security, recreation.

[1:20:31] So your time is up, would you just like to have a closing statement quickly?

[1:20:35] So I would suggest that HREM needs to operate smarter more efficiently and review staffing levels across the forward to try to minimize property tax levels.

[1:20:46] Thank you very much, sir. Our next speaker is Don Mills.

[1:20:57] After Don Mills is Don Bartol.

[1:21:01] Oh, sorry.

[1:21:02] Sorry Morning Council. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for the service to our city. It's a tough job for sure.

[1:21:13] I'm a business owner, a property owner. My partner's I built a new building in Windmill Road during the height of the pandemic as a sign of confidence in this economy.

[1:21:26] and so we own a 30,000 square foot commercial building in Dartmouth.

[1:21:37] I guess I want to start with the new Council members because you might not know this and Peter Foley talked about this a little bit, but we are not a low cost property tax regime.

[1:21:53] I mean, that is false.

[1:21:57] My former counsel used to tell me all the time that I had really low taxes.

[1:22:01] Well, you know, here's one consideration that I want.

[1:22:03] When you do the numbers that Peter showed you included all the rural areas.

[1:22:09] If you exclude the rural areas from the calculation, our residential taxes that for the urban

[1:22:17] area are number one, the highs in the country according to Altist Group, which do an annual

[1:22:22] benchmark property tax study. Number one, at 125, which is a tax rate. So we're

[1:22:29] already at the highest level. And on the commercial side, we're number two. So

[1:22:34] let's have a reality check. We are not at low cost environment. And on top of

[1:22:40] that, we live in the highest tax jurisdiction in the country. We have the

[1:22:44] highest marginal taxes, we have the lowest tax relief on the low side.

[1:22:54] It's a very expensive place to do business.

[1:22:56] And I'll tell you, coming through the pandemic, coming through the inflation period, looking

[1:23:02] at tariffs as a business person, I shudder at what's coming.

[1:23:07] None of you around the table lost your job during the pandemic.

[1:23:11] None of you lost salary during the pandemic. On the private side, people lost jobs and income and they're still trying to catch up from that period.

[1:23:22] And the tax rates that you put on, residents and businesses, add to that cost.

[1:23:28] Now, you know, I know you have, I've heard the presentations. There's lots of good things that you can support. I get it. It's a hard job.

[1:23:36] But I want to just give you a couple of examples of things that I think need to be done.

[1:23:42] You need to have and the mayor has advocated for this an audit of the operations.

[1:23:47] It's the only way you're going to find real true structural savings.

[1:23:52] You're not going to do it around this table.

[1:23:54] None of you have the detailed knowledge to be able to do that.

[1:23:58] You need to go and get some expert advice on doing this.

[1:24:01] Let me give you just one example that I've known personally.

[1:24:04] You know, the transit system is a mess in this region, that's a mess.

[1:24:08] You can spend as much money as you want.

[1:24:11] I don't think it's going to make any difference, frankly.

[1:24:14] But I had a presentation to the former mayor and the CEO about assessiboss.

[1:24:21] Assessiboss is a terrible service, just asked for users.

[1:24:25] My mother had disability and it was almost unusable.

[1:24:29] Now, with Jerry Post, the advocate for disability for the province and Joanne for Bernard, we met

[1:24:37] with the mayor and CEO, and we said, why don't you outsource that?

[1:24:42] Do you know how much it costs per ride today, or at least two years ago, three years ago?

[1:24:46] $37 per ride, that does not count the cost of the capital of the buses.

[1:24:52] How do you explain that as an efficiency?

[1:24:55] If you outsource that to the private sector, that number would come down.

[1:24:59] You wouldn't have to spend all the capital on the buses, right?

[1:25:03] And there are some accessible cabs now available.

[1:25:06] But you know why, you know what they told us at that time, you know why it couldn't happen?

[1:25:10] Because you had negotiated a contract with the transit union that prevented you from outsourcing.

[1:25:17] So, in other words, you're going to spend forever paying several million dollars extra a year

[1:25:24] For a service that is not well considered by users, does that make any sense?

[1:25:30] So in my final moment, you're probably not going to make much difference this year.

[1:25:35] I hope that you do.

[1:25:37] The cost is outrageously high.

[1:25:40] But the fact of the matter is the only way that can make a difference going forth is doing

[1:25:44] a full review of your operations, finding the structural opportunities, and start thinking

[1:25:48] about outsourcing things that don't need to be done by the municipality.

[1:25:53] and I'll leave it there. Thank you.

[1:25:56] Thank you, Mr. Mills.

[1:25:58] If you will, Mr. Mills, Councillor Austin has a question for you.

[1:26:03] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank you, Mr. Mills.

[1:26:05] Just a question, reference the Alters report.

[1:26:10] That's tax rates, not the tax bill, like the out-of-pocket, right?

[1:26:14] Because I think that's probably where some of the discrepancy is coming from in terms of

[1:26:19] a percentage of assess value that is taxed in a jurisdiction.

[1:26:25] And it's the best way to compare tax rates across the country.

[1:26:29] They do it on the 11th largest cities, which Halifax is one of them.

[1:26:33] So it's available.

[1:26:35] Please have a look at it.

[1:26:38] Halifax has been trending on the high end for some time.

[1:26:43] Do you realize that in the last three years, in the last three years,

[1:26:49] the compounded tax increase. The last three years alone is 17.7 percent.

[1:26:57] You know, that's

[1:26:58] well above inflation. And by the way, one other point, our population is grown in the last

[1:27:02] five years, 18 percent. Where do we get the dividend of growth, the sharing of the cost of

[1:27:09] our cost of government? It hasn't happened. We spend 20 years in the first part of the

[1:27:14] malgamation with no population growth, no new taxpayers contributing to the tax bill.

[1:27:19] So, now we have 18% more, and we still can't make it work.

[1:27:23] How does, what's going on, it's not right.

[1:27:30] Thank you, Mr. Mills.

[1:27:32] Members of council and members of the public, we're going to take a short break, and we'll come back promptly at 11 a.m.

[1:27:38] Thank you.

[1:42:06] Well, everyone, maybe I'll give you guys a one 30 second warning that it is 11 o'clock. Well, welcome, everybody back.

[1:43:43] Thank you, everyone. Well, continue with our public participation.

[1:43:54] So, the next speaker on our list was Don Bureau, but it seems that that person is not available. So, next on our list is Pam Glou, Dorsche.

[1:44:07] And hereby Zoom, I believe.

[1:44:11] Thank you, Mr. Clark.

[1:44:24] My computer's a little slow. So, hi, everybody.

[1:44:30] I've been asked to...

[1:44:32] Oh, yeah.

[1:44:33] Welcome, Pam. Sorry, I was just waiting a second to make sure we had you on the screen.

[1:44:36] Thank you.

[1:44:37] Perfect. Are you good?

[1:44:40] Yes. Also.

[1:44:41] Okay, wonderful.

[1:44:43] First, hi everybody. I've been asked.

[1:44:45] And I recognize I only have about five minutes to speak to actually talk about the funding

[1:44:52] for just food action plan that HRM has been kind of spearheading with the Friendship

[1:44:58] Center and all kinds of things.

[1:45:01] I really wanted to talk about the impact this particular project has had with the in my own community.

[1:45:11] We've seen a dramatic increase of people who are coming in through the doors the last few years, of course, since COVID, around food security issues. And this particular project has allowed us to actually strengthen our food sovereignty opportunities. And it has helped us really take the approach around truth.

[1:45:29] reconciliation and building ongoing partnerships, not just within HRM, but even outside of HRM.

[1:45:37] So, we've been able to work with on the way, the Union of Nova Scotia Nigma around the food,

[1:45:44] traditional food security pieces, so it could be moose hunting, it could be preparation,

[1:45:48] it could be eels, it could be fiddle heads, so really building that traditional knowledge for our

[1:45:54] community here in the urban context which has truly made a huge impact. I also want to raise the

[1:46:01] importance of this right now. We are in precedent at times. We're on shore of our neighbor to the

[1:46:08] south. There's the threat of tariffs and we all know that the most impact will be felt on the most

[1:46:16] marginalized communities. So, community members who are already struggling to pay their rent to

[1:46:23] find appropriate foods and this project will allow us to actually help combat some of those pieces.

[1:46:30] It's going to happen very quickly when it does and it will be those individuals that will be impacted

[1:46:36] dramatically. And this project has brought community together in such a way that it is actually

[1:46:43] building around healthy communities, and I think that shouldn't be lost in this opportunity

[1:46:48] that HRM has to actually continue to support.

[1:46:52] The network that has been developed as well has been, I think, one of the most amazing

[1:46:58] group of individuals that have come together to actually address food sovereignty and food

[1:47:03] issues, food security.

[1:47:04] And I really want to stress that in order to have healthy communities, people can't be worried

[1:47:12] about where their next meal is coming from. The impact that this has had on my own community

[1:47:17] is actually has decreased opportunities for people who are making choices. Do I pay my rent or

[1:47:25] do I feed my family? So we're actually helping keep people housed as well and I don't want to lose

[1:47:30] those really important pieces. I know somebody said to me, well this is a really small part

[1:47:36] It of the needs of the community, and it is, but it is probably one of the biggest

[1:47:43] mechanisms that actually allow our communities to actually be together in healthy ways.

[1:47:49] Not only are we keeping belly's bowl, we're keeping little kids out of, you know, emergencies

[1:47:54] for being sick because they're eating healthy.

[1:47:58] We're increasing knowledge and education around food security and how to actually prepare

[1:48:03] your own meals, having the opportunity to actually understand the processing of traditional

[1:48:11] meats and how that can work and how you can actually store that for long-term use.

[1:48:17] So actually learning and being able to plan long-term on these things.

[1:48:22] Working within HRM has been amazing.

[1:48:25] We know now that we're going to be able to actually be planting in 2025 around our own community

[1:48:31] gardens, and this will actually play a big piece even in the New Friendship Center because

[1:48:36] part of what we're doing there as well is actually making sure food sovereignty is part

[1:48:41] of that landscape that we're actually developing.

[1:48:44] So this is really working well to actually support us in ways that other funding just won't

[1:48:51] do, and it has helped us create the network to support not just community members but staff

[1:48:59] as well to actually help carry out these projects.

[1:49:03] And I just, I really want to stress, like, this is keeping little bellies full.

[1:49:08] This is keeping kids out of health care systems, and I don't want to lose that.

[1:49:15] And I'm really hoping that HRM, that this is truly considered really true, important

[1:49:23] piece of what a healthy community is.

[1:49:27] I'm a believer that healthy community is not just about buildings, it is about the people

[1:49:33] that are in it and how we actually interact with each other.

[1:49:37] And this has been a great leverage piece for us to actually work together.

[1:49:42] And I think that if HRM is able to actually continue with this project, I think there's

[1:49:47] going to be even bigger impacts as we develop it and we move it forward.

[1:49:52] So I just I want to want it to thank everybody and I know I have a short time here, but this truly has been an amazing project and has truly made a difference.

[1:50:02] Thank you, Pam. Your time is up. You can have one quick closing sentence outside.

[1:50:07] Yeah, no, that's great. I just want to thank you all for taking the time and letting me have this conversation today. So thank you.

[1:50:14] Thank you very much. Our next three speakers are first Ron Lubbitt and then

[1:50:21] Pakistan Romana and then Joe Nickerson. Welcome Mr. Lubbitt.

[1:50:30] Okay, okay. I'm sorry, great. Look, thanks for having me today Ron Lubbitt, my

[1:50:37] passionate entrepreneur and born and raised halagonian. I started off at the age of

[1:50:43] 21 started a company called Source Security.

[1:50:45] I was doing physical guarding for concerts, festivals,

[1:50:48] I actually recognized a few people that had exit

[1:50:51] from the Pope for no years ago.

[1:50:52] I won't mention names here at Council.

[1:50:54] But we did concerts like the Rolling Stones,

[1:50:57] Big Shows, had lots of fun.

[1:50:58] And I exited that company in 2017 after almost going bankrupt

[1:51:01] a few years earlier, and was lucky to set myself up financially

[1:51:05] for my family's future.

[1:51:08] So I'm one of the lucky Canadians.

[1:51:10] And this gave me a different focus for chapter two in business, more based on purpose, scale, and impact.

[1:51:17] I was looking at what sector to enter, and of course, I was looking at housing.

[1:51:21] I saw a lot of the red tape in complexity with development, and I looked at existing housing,

[1:51:26] what I'll call work force housing, or no, and actually occurring affordable housing.

[1:51:30] And I looked, there was four major players in the space. There was unfortunately, but they were their slum lords.

[1:51:35] non-profits that were having challenges getting capital and scaling, public

[1:51:42] publicly traded companies and institutions and entrepreneurs and family offices

[1:51:47] that were mostly chasing market rents. And so I thought wow there was a big

[1:51:52] opportunity to come in and revolutionize how housing and people interacted with

[1:51:57] one another. And so my company VDEP was born in 2018 and we're a certified

[1:52:02] by B-Corp, so we are certified to do good in the world.

[1:52:06] So we started in late 2018, buying some very challenging buildings, some of the stuff

[1:52:11] on Dawn Street, and Evans, which were condemned by police, we acquired those as our starting

[1:52:14] properties.

[1:52:15] It wasn't an easy process.

[1:52:17] Today, we have over 2,800 units between Winnipeg and Atlanta, Canada.

[1:52:22] And our average rents are $925, including heat and water.

[1:52:26] This success comes from a few different aspects of our business.

[1:52:29] One, at 2,800 units, we don't have property managers,

[1:52:33] releasing agents.

[1:52:35] We've created a new model that allows the customers

[1:52:36] to manage the buildings, almost like Uber drivers.

[1:52:39] So our customers that work somewhere

[1:52:40] in the Canadian economy, they manage these buildings

[1:52:43] and we pay them through a rent credit.

[1:52:46] And that allows us to be a low-cost operator,

[1:52:48] have more people doing less work.

[1:52:49] It doesn't put bread on the table, but it helps them get ahead.

[1:52:52] The second innovative thing we do is we build what's

[1:52:55] called community contractors.

[1:52:57] This is where we look to our customers

[1:52:59] versus say, what are your skill sets?

[1:53:01] Can we put you to work through paint,

[1:53:03] cock mud, those types of things?

[1:53:05] And we approve them and train them as community contractors.

[1:53:07] We have lots of folks that do work at the asset level.

[1:53:10] We save 35%.

[1:53:12] They have a sense of pride and ownership.

[1:53:14] And they behave differently.

[1:53:15] And it allows them to put money in their pockets.

[1:53:19] And the last is treating customers as customer.

[1:53:22] When I entered the space, it was 10 versus landlord.

[1:53:25] And still is.

[1:53:26] And sometimes when I'm in meetings in Toronto,

[1:53:28] I don't want to use the word customer, people don't know what I'm talking about.

[1:53:32] These are customers that pay rent, they're customers.

[1:53:35] Residents may be used mostly, it's tenants, and so our business is a little different.

[1:53:39] We look at what else can we do for the customers, and so we sell our customers products and services

[1:53:46] like telehealth through their phones, this healthcare is a challenge, so we have a deal with

[1:53:49] telehealth.

[1:53:49] We sell Bluetooth locks or Amazon.

[1:53:52] Our model, so innovative that we're actually doing work with none of it housing in the

[1:53:58] who activated customers. So, you know, now's the challenge is unsustainable costs like taxes.

[1:54:07] And so, for our business and Phil mentioned this, you know, he mentioned 40% affordable.

[1:54:12] Most of our units are 60 to 80% long-term affordability all done through the federal government

[1:54:17] and CMHC programs. And we wouldn't be where we are today if we didn't have that in place.

[1:54:21] Although, we are at conflict with 30% in some cases, 30% tax increases in our portfolio.

[1:54:28] And it's a major problem.

[1:54:30] It's really inhibiting our affordability.

[1:54:32] And so we are at odds that just doesn't work.

[1:54:35] When rent caps came into play inflation,

[1:54:38] was that hand and rental, sorry, interest rate hikes,

[1:54:43] we went to the province, we own the 500 block

[1:54:46] and different neighborhoods and throw it at your end.

[1:54:50] And we went to them and said, let's do a pilot.

[1:54:52] We need capital here for CAPEX

[1:54:53] and we'll deliver long-term affordability.

[1:54:55] And we did.

[1:54:56] We did a pilot with the province, but again, we are having a hard time even delivering

[1:55:01] on that because of the tax increases which were not budgeted.

[1:55:05] So we're forced to sell units.

[1:55:07] We're now into agreements to sell 425 of our 20-hundred units because we cannot sustain

[1:55:12] it through taxes.

[1:55:15] And so, you know, what we're asking is HRM to create a tax relief program and send a five

[1:55:19] of landlords to commit the long-term affordability.

[1:55:23] Non-profits receive a 50% tax break, not because of their low rents, but because they are in registered nonprofit.

[1:55:30] And I think we have to be flexible.

[1:55:32] We have to be stubborn on vision and flexible on execution anytime like this.

[1:55:39] Thank you very much.

[1:55:41] Yes, your time is up.

[1:55:43] Excuse me, sorry, Mr. Lubick, but Deputy Mayor Mancini has a question for you if you're okay with that.

[1:55:49] Yeah.

[1:55:50] It's wrong.

[1:55:51] Good to see you.

[1:55:52] I hope things are well.

[1:55:53] I know Ron's has property in the Dr.

[1:55:55] Smith North area and E Stark with area and thank you for those properties because they

[1:56:01] are that affordable housing unit.

[1:56:04] You know, you're speaking of rent caps and assessments and property cap and the previous

[1:56:09] speakers that were also landowners that spoke to that also, you've never been shy to sit

[1:56:15] down in front of politicians.

[1:56:18] And so my question is similar to Councillor Austin to a previous speaker is, what's your

[1:56:23] conversation with the province because a lot of the stuff you're talking about, again,

[1:56:26] is not us.

[1:56:27] So, have you had those conversations with the premier?

[1:56:29] Have you had the conversations with the minister of housing and if so, what's the response

[1:56:35] you're getting from them?

[1:56:37] Great question, Tony, and good to see you as well.

[1:56:40] And I'd say that's everyone's problem, you know, because when I first started this with

[1:56:43] Mike Savage and our past premier, it's not us, it's not us, there was a lot of it.

[1:56:47] right both sides that's not so I will say this time I went to the federal

[1:56:50] government I had I had breakfast with Danny said he's the head of policy for

[1:56:55] the federal government so what can we do and we've since we had a call with our

[1:56:59] mayor today had a policy and said let's be very strategic on this and and let's

[1:57:05] all get together in one room and see how we saw the problem and in that call where

[1:57:10] I had you know talked about or and certainly Danny saying can we use some of the

[1:57:14] accelerator funds to start a program to reduce taxes for those who are committing to long-term

[1:57:20] affordability. No, Brainer. I mean, you think about an innovative move like that that

[1:57:27] would really put Halifax first and really put us on the map as far as being bold to solve

[1:57:32] long-term affordability challenges for landlords that want to keep rents lower for long-term.

[1:57:39] And so, you know, that was certainly the conversation. And I think a pilot like that, if there were

[1:57:44] a rebate or part of the budget that was put aside that was funded through the federal

[1:57:48] government through the accelerator program, I think we're in the money.

[1:57:51] You know, I think that seems to be win-win and a no-brainer approach, and so I haven't

[1:57:56] talked to the problems, but I just went right to the federal government in this.

[1:58:00] Just a follow-up question on that, so your definition of affordable housing.

[1:58:07] Great question.

[1:58:08] I think that that question always comes back to the customer.

[1:58:11] So my definition is for our customer is our average rents are $925.

[1:58:16] So my definition of affordability is different than others.

[1:58:19] It's what can my customer afford?

[1:58:22] And so, you know, even with, I go back to the pandemic

[1:58:26] and when inflation hit, I mean, we were raising rents much above what we had ever

[1:58:31] done before on unit terms.

[1:58:32] We didn't want to do that, but we had to stay alive.

[1:58:34] And then we had to do an innovative deal with the province, which did work.

[1:58:37] you know if you drive by the 500 block you'll see a big a large mural there

[1:58:43] those properties look very different that was with the help of the province we

[1:58:46] had to create a new vision for a community to turn it around and so yeah I

[1:58:52] think it is time that everybody says we're in this you know this isn't just a

[1:58:56] municipal problem it's not it's not a public sector problem it's it's everyone's

[1:59:00] problem and I think we have to work together and solve this together versus

[1:59:05] it's your problem, it's your problem.

[1:59:07] It's interesting to comment about using the term customer.

[1:59:10] When I first got elected in 2016,

[1:59:12] I started referring to residents as customer.

[1:59:15] And I took a lot of heat because we're not customers.

[1:59:17] We're residents, we're taxpayers.

[1:59:19] But the point that's being missed is you take care

[1:59:21] of a customer, you understand what the customer needs

[1:59:23] and you address those needs.

[1:59:24] That's when you and I come from that private sector.

[1:59:26] So I understand that.

[1:59:27] Thank you for your time, ma'am.

[1:59:30] Thank you.

[1:59:31] One more, Councillor has a question.

[1:59:33] if you're alright with that? Councilor Hartley. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you so

[1:59:38] much for coming today. I really appreciate the innovation, obviously, your enthusiasm.

[1:59:45] For what it's worth, like, Councillors like me were taken notes, right? Like, the rate cap is

[1:59:50] highly problematic. You know, where is our return? Like, where's the dividend of growth? I think

[1:59:56] that's another thing that we've heard.

[1:59:58] I appreciate you speaking to the concepts.

[2:00:00] That's a long-term affordability. You're saying 925? Is that for a bachelor or one bedroom? What is that? Our average will be two bedroom, including heat, hot water. So, so our, just to be clear, more than a lot of nonprofits. Yeah, that's, and I am very interested in picking up your idea. Like I think that there is value in merit there, and I appreciate you so much coming, coming forward today. So, when you say long term, what does that mean?

[2:00:27] Well, our mandate is to have long-term affordable commitments.

[2:00:32] That's a company private mandate.

[2:00:33] But we've done affordability commitments with CMHC

[2:00:37] that really locks and loads that.

[2:00:38] I mean, there's your federal programs and Phil had mentioned that earlier.

[2:00:41] So Vita would be the largest private lender and utilization of CMHC

[2:00:50] MLI select program in the country.

[2:00:51] And so we're very dedicated to that program.

[2:00:54] and we've used it, and it's been very successful.

[2:00:57] But again, it doesn't work with the budgets

[2:01:00] were never set to have 25, 30% tax increases, right?

[2:01:04] And so those are our odds.

[2:01:05] And again, I'll just repeat, we are selling 425 units

[2:01:10] because we cannot sustain the tax increases.

[2:01:12] I don't have public capital,

[2:01:14] and I don't have free capital like nonprofits.

[2:01:17] So we are stuck in the middle trying to make this work,

[2:01:19] and we're doing our damage.

[2:01:21] That's great.

[2:01:22] Thank you so much.

[2:01:23] I really appreciate your time and I hope to see more of you. Thank you.

[2:01:27] We have two more buzzed in, so you get to stay and answer a few more if that's all right.

[2:01:34] Councillor Young. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ron.

[2:01:40] It's really interesting to hear this. Councillor Haraldon mentioned about the long term low

[2:01:48] rights, so she kind of took my question away. I just want to add to it. So is it, um, is there any

[2:01:54] possibility for the customer to get to buy into at least the own during that period of time?

[2:02:04] In our model? Yes. Yeah, so, so, uh, no, not currently, although I will say we invested in a

[2:02:10] company called Addy Invest and they're out of Vancouver and what they do is they let customers,

[2:02:17] you know individuals and neighborhoods invest a dollar into a project and so

[2:02:22] we're an owner of that company, small owner, it was just an innovative housing

[2:02:26] company at Ivanku, we haven't plugged into our model just yet and you know we

[2:02:31] are trying to tackle that problem in a different way so we we have a 55

[2:02:37] modular development in Kentville, so 55 units of affordable net zero home

[2:02:42] ownership and we'll help finance those units off-roam

[2:02:49] balancing with customers, helping them with deposits,

[2:02:51] et cetera, but we haven't, it just doesn't work like

[2:02:53] that from an ownership standpoint because they're not

[2:02:56] condos.

[2:02:56] These are rental units.

[2:02:58] OK.

[2:02:58] May I follow up with your turnover rate or how long do

[2:03:04] they usually stay, your customers?

[2:03:07] So our turnover rates were 30% in this asset class, pre-pandemic

[2:03:12] they went down to sub 10. The training back, you know, 17, 15 to 17. I would say the new

[2:03:20] migration has caused this new, not caused, but there's been a new customer that moves around

[2:03:24] a lot faster, which, you know, that does make units available faster, versus the long-term

[2:03:29] halagony in customer that we've had customers have been there for 20 years, some of our places.

[2:03:34] Yeah. Okay, thank you. Yeah. May your phone wars next.

[2:03:40] Thanks very much, Ron, for taking time to come and talk to us about your very important

[2:03:43] to work today, three short snappers for you, who pays in your ecosystem for a tax increase?

[2:03:51] Will you be forced to sell off more property to cover new tax increases?

[2:03:57] And if the property is your force to sell, what becomes of them?

[2:04:00] Do they revert to market rent or what happens to them?

[2:04:02] So great question, great decision.

[2:04:04] Mrs. So first question was, who pays for a tax increase?

[2:04:09] Yes, so who pays is the customer?

[2:04:10] And actually, I'll just expand on that.

[2:04:12] But the one of the things that I think that is interesting here is the customers, when

[2:04:18] we entered the asset class, didn't understand that everything impacts a customer.

[2:04:22] So even when, you know, we've heard of, like, a corn is a group and, you know, they came

[2:04:27] to some of our properties and said, okay, you know, like, you seem to be a great person

[2:04:30] and doing good things, so we'll back off.

[2:04:32] And I said, well, we should be working together because the customer pays for inflationary

[2:04:36] costs.

[2:04:37] It is always the customer.

[2:04:42] In one other piece I was going to say is we've also moved to what I'll call a co-state

[2:04:46] holder environment.

[2:04:47] And so when you're a customer, you get a video that says, let us tell you how this works.

[2:04:52] If you pay around on time and people don't have to chase you around, we save costs.

[2:04:56] If you recycle and we don't get fined by the municipality, we'd have garbage costs which

[2:05:00] increase.

[2:05:01] If you tell us about pest issues and you utilize less utility, you and the customers pay less

[2:05:07] rent.

[2:05:08] because the operating costs come down. That is mind-blowing. Mind-blowing because there's a friction between tenant and landlord.

[2:05:14] And so we're big on customer onboarding, and yes, the customers get passed off the expenses of the business, and of course taxes is there.

[2:05:22] And I mentioned earlier, you know, when the pandemic hit, we were starting to put rents up all much higher than 925.

[2:05:29] You know, one better than getting up to 1100. I'm uncomfortable when I see that. And our team's saying, we don't do it, we're out.

[2:05:34] But, and now, to your second question, Andy, we're selling, you know, the units we're

[2:05:40] selling there because it's off brand, I'm not going, and I'm not saying that there's

[2:05:43] not a customer for it, but to put a two-bedroom to $2,000 is off brand for us, and it doesn't

[2:05:49] align with what we're trying to do.

[2:05:50] So we will sell that to customers who will have to put those brands up.

[2:05:54] They just will have to, but it's the only financial way to make it successful.

[2:05:58] So, the units that are at average in the 900 range will, we've heard, to market when you're

[2:06:03] forced to sell them by increased tax rates.

[2:06:04] It's correct, they'll all be gone, yeah.

[2:06:06] And look, we had to move quickly.

[2:06:09] I'm a private business owner.

[2:06:10] I'm not gonna sacrifice my family

[2:06:11] for what we're doing here.

[2:06:14] And so yes, that was charge one.

[2:06:16] We would like to have an innovative program

[2:06:19] like non-profits.

[2:06:21] Kelona has some very aggressive programs too for developers.

[2:06:24] But like non-profits who receive a 50% tax break,

[2:06:28] if we're stubborn on vision and flexible on execution,

[2:06:32] it should work.

[2:06:32] And I think if there was a slice of the budget, if it was $10 million, which would be less than a percentage,

[2:06:38] funded by the federal government, no brainer, no brainer.

[2:06:41] And we should be leading the path here in Halifax for the country on how to solve affordable housing.

[2:06:47] And it is a game of inches.

[2:06:49] And it's just going to take, there's not one silver bullet.

[2:06:52] You have to move at this thing at all sides, right?

[2:06:54] So yeah, thanks for your question.

[2:06:56] Thank you.

[2:06:57] Two more Councillors haven't buzzed in.

[2:07:00] Councillor Hinch.

[2:07:01] Thank you Madam Chair. Ron, I just want to know, is any of your stock based on income levels?

[2:07:13] So when you say stock based on income levels, sorry. So rent based on income levels.

[2:07:23] I mean, part of our screening process is to ask customers what their current income levels are.

[2:07:30] We do want them to be successful. If someone has an income level of $1,000 and the rent is

[2:07:36] $925 we know that we are not setting them up for success. So so we ask our customers in advance during

[2:07:43] an application process what their income levels are. Are you part of the subsidy programs at the

[2:07:48] process? We would have I probably lost sight. Yes, we would we have

[2:07:54] We have customers that are certainly subsidized by the government and we have some direct programs.

[2:08:00] I believe with government, we certainly have deals with ICANN's abs and add some house

[2:08:04] other nonprofits for sure, but we are not directly connected.

[2:08:08] These would just be things that happen.

[2:08:10] Yeah.

[2:08:11] Thank you.

[2:08:12] Yeah.

[2:08:13] Kelsa Hartling, you have one more chance.

[2:08:16] Thank you so much and then I promise I'll let you go.

[2:08:19] But you've just been so great.

[2:08:23] I'm just wondering if you would tell us about your experience with bylaws and building

[2:08:29] in HRM.

[2:08:31] If you could speak to whether there have been any challenges setbacks or whether you

[2:08:37] see opportunities that we have not yet explored or alternatively, if you want to perhaps comment

[2:08:43] on the way the development has rolled out in the last couple of years.

[2:08:46] So before you answer that, sir, I guess it is better to take that offline, because we're on

[2:08:53] budgets, and that's planning and development. Well, I would only in so far as perhaps it affects

[2:09:00] your bottom line. Yeah, and I would say for the most part, and this was part of the design of our

[2:09:06] business model, we buy buildings, we don't go into a unit to renovate unless someone's toilets broken.

[2:09:12] Okay. Right. Okay. So we don't really run into lot of problems, and that was done by design,

[2:09:16] mine only because when I had the security company and I would get a call from a compliance

[2:09:20] officer to say the word security is 0.1 inches or 0.1 centimeters, 2 wide and I had to redo

[2:09:25] all my uniforms that pissed me off.

[2:09:28] And so I try to stay out of the compliance.

[2:09:32] And so we do very light touch with the properties, which is also allowed us to scale so quickly.

[2:09:39] And I haven't had those talent challenges, but I've stayed intentionally out of the way

[2:09:43] that stuff.

[2:09:44] Okay.

[2:09:44] Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

[2:09:48] Thank you, Mr. Love. It was a great sales pitch.

[2:09:52] As well. Our next speaker is Paxton Romana.

[2:09:59] Romana? My apologies if I mispronounced.

[2:10:04] No, you're right. Can you? Oh, thank you. Sorry, I didn't realize you were right there on Zoom.

[2:10:12] No worries. Can you hear me? All right. Yes, we can hear you and we can see you and thank you.

[2:10:17] You have five minutes, please.

[2:10:19] Percy?

[2:10:20] Good morning.

[2:10:21] My name is Paxton.

[2:10:22] I'm a resident of District 8.

[2:10:24] I'm addressing you virtually today

[2:10:26] to encourage you to consider as counsel

[2:10:28] what would make HRM better.

[2:10:30] Even in communities that want more traffic cops,

[2:10:34] which I don't think would make any community safer

[2:10:36] as many have said before me,

[2:10:39] having a tank or having a tank present

[2:10:45] doesn't communicate, communicate, communicate, safety.

[2:10:48] It creates a military state, and it's a steep downfall.

[2:10:55] And there, sorry, bear with me.

[2:10:58] I have my notes on my computer, and it's not there yet.

[2:11:01] It tells your constituents that you're

[2:11:03] going to treat them as if you were at war with them by a police.

[2:11:07] And it doesn't matter if you see armored vehicles or as just

[2:11:12] trucks, the community has said no. They have consistently said no. Every public consultation

[2:11:18] I've been privileged enough to participate in has said no to any funding towards a tank.

[2:11:24] Yet, it's already, you tell us it's already been acquired. But why was it when it's always

[2:11:30] been opposed? Why are we continuing to overfund the police and cutting any prevention efforts

[2:11:35] it's like the use advocate program in community that intervention programs, why are we spending

[2:11:42] so much on commitment to violence and intimidation when the police force has a documented history

[2:11:47] of murdering our neighbors, our neighbors who most often just need it help and care.

[2:11:53] We don't even have a policy to set a standard of conduct for operating this, not that any

[2:11:58] policy has kept least from killing people. From killing people the most basic rule of community safety.

[2:12:05] This massive weapon is also an OHS repressed and I think most people would consider the risk of

[2:12:11] a back injury and OHS concern. One that increases when funding for snow plows and salted sidewalks

[2:12:17] gets cut or misused for tanks. The fact that this was framed as an OHS concern should also feel

[2:12:23] disrespectful to you. This was an expense that the public has said no to, that council

[2:12:28] has said no to. This was a rare moment of clarity when we agreed that a tank or increased

[2:12:34] weaponry for police would be used to embolden police brutality specifically in anti-black racism.

[2:12:40] We didn't solve racism since 2020 and police violence still disproportionately effects by

[2:12:47] pop communities. Over 100 officers were present at a peaceful demonstration put on by the

[2:12:54] MIGMAL Rights Association last week. A demonstration against violence committed by police against the

[2:12:59] MIGMAL community. I can't imagine what could have happened if a tank had been there. Nonetheless,

[2:13:05] their overwhelming presence was a very clear indication that racism is alive and well within the

[2:13:10] police force. You've been seeing so many numbers thrown at you for weeks. I've been present for a

[2:13:16] a lot of these meetings, I watch these on YouTube,

[2:13:19] and reading through the bell,

[2:13:20] I almost went cross-eyed and I read for a living.

[2:13:23] And it's so easy for these to just become numbers

[2:13:26] even when you're trying to put intention

[2:13:28] into your work as a thoughtful person,

[2:13:31] but as community members,

[2:13:33] as people who can see just how much your constituents

[2:13:35] are struggling with the cost of living,

[2:13:38] with the epidemic of homicide,

[2:13:40] with the housing crisis, with the mental health crisis,

[2:13:42] I encourage you to remember how impactful these things are and to consider what serving

[2:13:47] your community with care means.

[2:13:50] Would you rather be a governing body that's connected to your community that listens

[2:13:53] to the core needs of your community and that cares for youth growing up here in the future

[2:13:58] of HRM?

[2:14:00] Or would you rather choose this commitment to intimidation and to violence and to continue

[2:14:04] to not prioritize things like preventive cancer screenings or firefighters, PPE for search

[2:14:09] rescue teams use advocacy programs and accessibility efforts. I encourage you to really consider

[2:14:16] what it means to show up for your community with care when you're considering this budget.

[2:14:21] Thank you for your time.

[2:14:24] Thank you very much, Paxton.

[2:14:27] Our next speaker is Joe Nickerson and then Robert Summerby Murray and then Matthew Hans-Bartiger.

[2:14:37] Welcome, Joe. Morning. I'm a long-winded speaker, so I'm going to read from

[2:14:42] notes to keep me on time. So good morning council members. My name is Joe

[2:14:47] Nickerson and I'm a partner at Sidewalk Red. We at Sidewalk Red are a

[2:14:52] Halifax based apartment developer focused on rebuilding neighborhoods in

[2:14:55] downtown Dartmouth and Halifax. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

[2:15:00] I want to address the proposed property tax increase for 2025-26, and explain why rising real-state taxes will undermine the very growth that Halifax needs to thrive. I'll also present a specific development example that will require council support to generate future tax revenue, and which will be critical to funding the infrastructure needs to sustain Halifax's growth. So Halifax is at a turning point. The city is experiencing increasing

[2:15:29] increasing demand for housing, driven by population growth and a thriving economy, but

[2:15:34] to keep pace with this growth and make Halifax more affordable and accessible, we need

[2:15:39] to incentivize development, not discourage it.

[2:15:42] We need to incentivize housing and grow our tax base.

[2:15:47] We understand that property taxes are vital revenue source for HRM, and there's no question

[2:15:52] about that.

[2:15:53] But the solution isn't taxing the existing stock more heavily.

[2:15:56] The smarter path is actually increasing the overall tax revenue by growing the tax

[2:16:00] base through new development and infrastructure investment.

[2:16:04] The best way to achieve this is to green light new building construction and create an

[2:16:09] environment that attracts investment.

[2:16:12] Higher taxes will deter investment and slow growth.

[2:16:15] Increasing property taxes sends the wrong signal to developers and investors.

[2:16:20] Raising taxes now will cause developers to pause or cancel projects.

[2:16:23] The result, fewer new buildings, less housing supply and ultimately a reduced long-terms tax revenue.

[2:16:31] Maintaining competitive tax rates will stimulate new construction, expand the tax base,

[2:16:36] and generate more revenue without burdening existing property owners.

[2:16:40] More housing supply will lower rents, directly improving affordability for Halifax residents.

[2:16:47] And now there's an economic impact to all of this, and there's also some lessons that we can learn

[2:16:52] from some of today's headlines, which are more centered around trade and

[2:16:56] tariff headlines. But I think there's some direct correlation to speak to. So

[2:17:01] rising property taxes work in very much the same way as a tariff. When

[2:17:06] tariffs rise, businesses pass their higher costs onto consumers through

[2:17:11] increased prices. We've heard people talk a lot about that today. The same will

[2:17:15] happen with property taxes. Higher taxes will either drive up rents or make new

[2:17:20] projects less feasible, leading to fewer housing units, slower growth, and reduced tax revenue.

[2:17:30] Halifax needs forward-thinking leadership. This isn't about short-term gains,

[2:17:34] it's about positioning Halifax for long-term success. Forward-thinking cities are incentivizing

[2:17:39] developments today through property tax reductions, streamlined approvals, and support for innovative

[2:17:45] building methods. If Halifax becomes a more attractive place for development than other Canadian

[2:17:51] in U.S. cities. Investment will flow here. Now for the real, for a real-life example of

[2:17:58] this playing out today in our city, we have a project that could change the way that

[2:18:03] we build new housing across our province. What we're doing is we're proposing a 12-story

[2:18:09] mass timber project in downtown Dartmouth. That would create 180 new residential units.

[2:18:15] It would be an innovative new form of low-cost building materials and its modular nature

[2:18:21] would allow us to build housing faster.

[2:18:23] This is a clear, sorry, this project would generate millions in future tax revenue and

[2:18:31] position Halifax as a leader in a new form of sustainable construction, yet HRM staff

[2:18:36] are opposing the project due to a very rigid center plan rule which restricts us on a 12-story

[2:18:44] mass timber building to 10 stories. Alternatively, the current zoning allows us to build a 31-story

[2:18:51] pencil tower on the exact same site, but they will not allow us to build a 12-story

[2:18:56] mass timber project. So something isn't working in the rigidity in the form of the current

[2:19:05] center plan policy. Council can fix this by incentivizing sustainable and innovative construction,

[2:19:10] green-lighting projects that align with long-term economic and environmental goals and to close

[2:19:18] the solution is right in front of you.

[2:19:20] If council reduces property taxes and provides incentives for new housing development

[2:19:25] in Halifax, you will ultimately see more tax revenue through expanded tax-based, more housing

[2:19:30] supply and lower rents, increase private sector investment and job creation, and a more

[2:19:34] competitive and forward-thinking urban economy.

[2:19:36] The opportunity is clear.

[2:19:39] Halifax can adapt, adopt, a progressive growth strategy that attracts investment and expands

[2:19:44] the tax base, or it can risk losing out to cities with more competitive tax and development

[2:19:49] policies.

[2:19:50] I urge Council.

[2:19:50] Sir, your time is up, but you'd have one closing statement there.

[2:19:54] Okay.

[2:19:54] I urge Council to think differently, act boldly, and position Halifax as a leader in sustainable

[2:19:59] urban growth.

[2:20:00] Thank you for your time.

[2:20:01] Thank you, Joe.

[2:20:03] Deputy Mayor Mancini has a question for you.

[2:20:06] Ajo, thanks for the presentation.

[2:20:08] So, you've set a couple of times green light new development,

[2:20:14] streamline approvals, and you talked about your proposed

[2:20:17] project downtown, direct with the Councilor of Austin's area.

[2:20:20] And then you mentioned incentive for new housing

[2:20:22] a couple of times.

[2:20:23] So, I'm not sure if I'm clear, what's your incentive

[2:20:27] for new housing?

[2:20:28] Can you explain that to me?

[2:20:29] A variety of different ways you could go about

[2:20:31] incentivizing new housing but reducing costs is the major driver cost factor into all of the

[2:20:37] pro-formas that we run when we're considering building a new housing. Property tax is the largest

[2:20:41] component of that cost and it's directly correlated to the finished value of those buildings which drive

[2:20:47] financing. So property tax is the largest cost and that is the largest impact in terms of a direct

[2:20:54] incentive but it could be in other forms there's HAF funds but I think this is the the largest one

[2:21:01] impacting us right now, which is directly green lighting new projects or halting new projects

[2:21:06] is the cost incurred through property taxes.

[2:21:09] And is your experience that we're not processing or your years in term green lighting?

[2:21:14] That's not happening now?

[2:21:15] It hasn't changed over projects you've done years ago?

[2:21:19] Well, so certain things are not happening with more of the innovative projects that we're

[2:21:23] doing.

[2:21:23] So we're doing multiple office to residential conversions in the city right now.

[2:21:28] It's producing between the projects we have active and on the go it'll be 300 new housing units in the city

[2:21:34] We started that program in 2021

[2:21:36] So we're delivered we've already delivered 81 units. We're about to deliver 173 in July

[2:21:44] We've been promised and led to believe that there was lots of incentives coming through HAF around the programming today

[2:21:49] We've accepted zero dollars on that

[2:21:53] There's just, I think there's a lot of promises and potential incentives out there, but a lot

[2:21:59] of these aren't coming to pass, and I think the more controllable one that directly impacts

[2:22:03] rents and costs of a project are the property taxes that we're going to face going forward,

[2:22:10] and it's directly being passed down to the end consumer.

[2:22:15] Thank you, Joe.

[2:22:16] I appreciate it, Matt.

[2:22:17] Thank you.

[2:22:18] Joe, we have another Councilor with a question, Councilor Steele.

[2:22:21] Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation, Joe.

[2:22:25] You mentioned the 12-story modular housing you're looking at.

[2:22:29] Can you characterize the type of housing this would be?

[2:22:33] Would it be affordable housing?

[2:22:36] Would it be high-end?

[2:22:37] It's downtown Dartmouth, so expect it's fairly expensive.

[2:22:40] Can you speak to that a bit?

[2:22:42] Yeah, so we know Ron from before,

[2:22:45] and we love the model that he's running.

[2:22:46] our model is very different is new construction, completely new development, so it would be market housing on all of our sites.

[2:22:55] We don't, we're building completely new products, we're facing new construction costs as a result all those new buildings are getting taxed as, you know, a valued new building would.

[2:23:06] But we are not, we just simply don't have the model to run affordable housing if we did with our current model.

[2:23:14] So like Ron said, we would be out of business.

[2:23:16] It's just not something that we're set up for.

[2:23:19] Easier to achieve when you're buying old housing stock

[2:23:22] and your costs are relatively low,

[2:23:24] different when you're facing new construction costs today

[2:23:28] and all the fees that go along with that

[2:23:30] and trying to then achieve sustainable rents

[2:23:33] with no form of government subsidy attached to what we're doing.

[2:23:36] Okay, I have a follow on.

[2:23:39] So you also mentioned disappointment about not being able

[2:23:43] to access any funding through the Housing Accelerator Fund. Can you explain a bit more about that?

[2:23:49] Because what appealed to me about your presentation was that you said grow your tax space, HRM.

[2:23:56] I want to bill more and I want you to be able to collect more off more properties. So explain to me

[2:24:01] your comment about the Housing Accelerator Fund, your disappointment, your perhaps expectation of

[2:24:07] something and how that didn't happen.

[2:24:10] It's not necessarily like a critique of exactly what's happened today.

[2:24:14] If there was an incentive and it was followed through,

[2:24:18] it would allow us to do more of these projects.

[2:24:20] The fact that we don't have an incentive

[2:24:22] and we can't model that into a new development project

[2:24:25] means that we don't look for that

[2:24:27] or it doesn't make financial sense or we pull back

[2:24:31] from more of these conversion type of buildings

[2:24:33] and we switch to another model that doesn't make sense.

[2:24:36] So, the incentive piece is something that if it were there and presented and followed through on would allow us to look at more conversion buildings that would allow us to add more housing stock in a different way.

[2:24:49] It is different from new construction, which is bottlenecked around formatting, construction cranes and trades.

[2:24:56] So this works off of a different trade pool, but we can't go into projects that don't pencil out because there is no incentive attached to them.

[2:25:07] And then hope that that incentive is going to be realized later on and finish and see it not be not happened.

[2:25:14] Thank you. Hope is not a plan. Yes, thanks.

[2:25:17] Thank you.

[2:25:18] It's

[2:25:22] modular and that it's pre-fab or fabricated off site and constructed and it is.

[2:25:30] Thank you.

[2:25:31] We're going to stay on the budget questions, but I want to get comfortable.

[2:25:34] We have two more that I'm buzzed in.

[2:25:37] If you're okay with that, our next is Mayor Philmore.

[2:25:42] Thanks, Joe.

[2:25:42] I think what I heard you say is that incentives come in many different forms.

[2:25:46] They could be housing accelerated fund money.

[2:25:48] It could be a permit fee reduction.

[2:25:51] It could even be a shorter approval time over which you don't have to, you know, you're

[2:25:55] carrying costs for the financing is are less.

[2:25:59] But the biggest one is is a property tax.

[2:26:01] So all of those inputs into your pro forma when you're planning a project will then yield a

[2:26:06] bottom line and yield determine whether or not you're going to build the homes that you

[2:26:09] would like to build that that about right.

[2:26:11] And so the biggest input is taxes.

[2:26:13] So the way that we do respond to the housing crisis and the housing, we have an affordability

[2:26:19] affordable housing crisis, but we have a housing crisis in all ends of the spectrum in HRM right now, with only, I think less than a month of stock on the MLS right now.

[2:26:27] We should have about six months at any given time, we have about a month. So we have a housing crisis right across the board.

[2:26:32] So in order to build more homes, the largest input into your pro forma is the tax rate. So keeping that competitive is going to allow you to build more homes, is that right?

[2:26:43] Certainly allow us to green light more projects and I can say for a fact it will also attract

[2:26:47] outside investment that is currently looking at Halifax as an investment opportunity,

[2:26:52] seeing good rents, but also doing the same performance that we are, and if their performance

[2:26:57] are not penciling out because we are running higher property taxes compared to Calgary or

[2:27:02] Edmonton or another market that compares to us, those investment dollars are going to

[2:27:07] those markets, which means your tax base is not growing because those

[2:27:12] funds are not here. They're not growing on the biggest base that you could

[2:27:15] attract, which is new construction with highest value. And that's directly

[2:27:20] impacting the business model of HRM. Trying to increase property taxes on

[2:27:26] existing stock is hurting your existing stock and deterring your future

[2:27:31] investment, which is killing your potential for future tax dollars that you need

[2:27:36] to grow this in. Thank you. Councillor White.

[2:27:43] Thank you Madam Chair. I was curious about your

[2:27:45] Mass Timber project. Sounds like 10 stories doesn't work out for you economically. What's the reason

[2:27:53] that the two story gap? So there's a bunch of features in it and I can relate it back to budget.

[2:27:59] Yes, please. Thank you. You saw my face. Okay. Sometimes it will take me for my mouth. Okay.

[2:28:06] So the mass timber component, it's an innovative approach, it doesn't conflict with the existing concrete construction industry, which involves different trades and form workers, and those people are becoming tapped.

[2:28:21] So it brings in a new form of delivering housing that doesn't tie into the same trade pool, which will ultimately result in new units faster.

[2:28:29] But in order to do something like that, there's a risk in new construction, there's a cost

[2:28:34] of this new material, there's actually a plant in these hands being proposed, it would

[2:28:39] create hundreds of jobs, it would actually be a direct source for that in Nova Scotia,

[2:28:44] but that's going to take some years to build.

[2:28:45] But if we get this project greenlit and prove that this is a viable way of building housing

[2:28:51] here, that will support that plant, that will create jobs, that will create a source here,

[2:28:56] but right now we have to order that from Europe and so there's a cost attached to that.

[2:29:01] So the increased cost of doing this type of building means that we need some increased

[2:29:06] density from what we would otherwise do in a ten-story concrete building.

[2:29:10] And we have to wait whatever we do relative to building a 31-story pencil tower which we

[2:29:15] are approved to do under center plan zoning.

[2:29:18] So all of these things become a financial approach and it all factors into every input

[2:29:24] down to rents, down to cost, everything, and we have to move forward with the most

[2:29:29] viable approach. What we've worked on is a model that would allow 12 stories

[2:29:36] would make that project viable. It creates 180 units of housing. If we are stuck at

[2:29:41] 10, we get 150 units of housing. That would support a lower form, less risky way of

[2:29:45] building it in concrete. But it would be a new approach to building that hasn't

[2:29:51] been seen in Atlantic Canada but is super prevalent on the west coast and it also is in keeping with many of the

[2:30:00] It's here, but if there was an offsetting incentive to incentivize that, that could allow some of those cost inputs to be reduced and maybe it becomes more viable. Okay, something to consider. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're done. All good. Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Somerville Murray. I think I just saw him leave, though. Okay. Next is Matthew Hansberger.

[2:30:29] I

[2:30:40] have to start despite the massive amount of time I spend with my son he refers to the mayor as his hero

[2:30:46] So I just have to say hi on behalf of my five-year-old son to the mayor

[2:30:49] It's very disappointing in my household. Very disappointing in my household. My name is Matt Hansberger

[2:30:54] I'm the owner of Royal Apagia Atlantic. We are a real estate brokerage

[2:31:00] We do approximately eight to ten thousand transactions a year about 55% of those are here in HRM

[2:31:06] We represent either buyers and sellers and those transactions, and I was just thinking

[2:31:11] it was important to come give a little more context to the housing pressures that exist

[2:31:16] out here so that you can make decisions about how to govern yourselves with respect to

[2:31:21] budget. I believe very much what Joe was just talking about and some of the previous speakers

[2:31:25] were about tax increases not being the only way in which we could increase the revenue opportunities

[2:31:32] for the municipality here, but also to continue to grow the tax base.

[2:31:37] And I think a look into some of the underlying numbers of the housing market is important

[2:31:41] to understand that.

[2:31:43] I'm going to correct something that the mayor said.

[2:31:45] As of the end of February, we actually do have two months of inventory here in HRM, but

[2:31:51] going below just the HRM broad number is important to look at.

[2:31:55] We've done a good job in the downtown core of building inventory, Halifax Central, actually

[2:32:00] I'm referring to MLS districts now, not the districts that you would all refer to,

[2:32:05] but Halifax Central has four and a half months, Halifax South has three point four months,

[2:32:10] when you get into some of the other parts of the peninsula, Halifax West has less than one

[2:32:15] month, point seven months, and Halifax North has about a month and a half.

[2:32:21] It's when you get outside of the central part of the HRM area that you start to see some

[2:32:27] some of the challenges for people who are looking to afford housing and housing affordability

[2:32:31] is something that I think is really an important thing to consider.

[2:32:36] If you go over to Dartmouth, for example, and you go to what we refer to as the Creighton

[2:32:41] Park Albro Lake area, there is, as of December of last year, .3 months of inventory, that

[2:32:49] represents two houses on the market.

[2:32:52] There are two dwellings that you could buy in that area.

[2:32:54] Forrest Hills, which tends to be a very affordable part of our city as well, at the end of February had four houses available on the market for potential people who wanted to buy representing 0.3 months of supply.

[2:33:09] If you go back and look 10 years ago at some of these areas, I'll relate for example, sorry, Forrest Hills for example would have had 98 homes on the market.

[2:33:18] We would have had much more affordability if we could continue to increase inventory.

[2:33:25] Sacville is another good example.

[2:33:27] Right now there are 14 homes for sale representing half a month of inventory ten years ago.

[2:33:32] There were 231 houses.

[2:33:34] Housing affordability can't get solved unless we continue to increase supply in the areas

[2:33:39] that we need to increase supply.

[2:33:42] For people who are looking to own, like Councillor Young was talking about with his rent to own,

[2:33:47] We need to find more supply in those areas where people want to live.

[2:33:52] I recognize that we have some attention towards density to improve a lot of the other challenges we have in the municipality here with respect to infrastructure, transportation, things like that.

[2:34:02] But people who are coming here, they want to buy homes that are affordable, that allow them to still get to work, but aren't necessarily apartments in the downtown core.

[2:34:12] I read an interesting study at the beginning of this year about the pattern of immigration

[2:34:15] as well and how people settle once they get to the country that they're looking to get

[2:34:20] to.

[2:34:22] It's a longitudinal study from sort of the late 90s into the early 2000s where they followed

[2:34:27] a group of immigrants in Canada here within six months of arriving in Canada, about 20 percent,

[2:34:33] 19.9 percent are homeowners.

[2:34:36] That rises within the first four years to 51%.

[2:34:40] So if you think of the pattern of immigration that we've had here from other parts of the world into HRM,

[2:34:46] we are about to unlock a lot of those immigrants interest in buying homes as well.

[2:34:54] The renting now, they're going to want to buy over the next little while.

[2:34:57] And we need to focus on making more availability in the areas that they are looking to buy in,

[2:35:03] which are probably the affordable areas close to downtown but not necessarily right downtown.

[2:35:10] We still have a lot of housing demand despite the fact that we've seen MLS sales drop pretty

[2:35:16] dramatically from June of 2021. Interest rates certainly has impacted that but the cost of living

[2:35:21] and even the cost of property taxes impacted that as well. We've seen assessments rise dramatically

[2:35:27] the raising of property taxes by way of rates I think is a mistake I think it's

[2:35:35] something that we need to continue to consider given that we have lots of

[2:35:39] people who are going to be looking to enter the home ownership phase of their

[2:35:42] career. They're housing career. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have a question

[2:35:50] from Councillor Perdi. Thank you. Thank you for coming here today and we've

[2:35:56] I heard this morning, a lot about the impact of the assessed value of properties, increasing substantially, resulting in like 20 to 30 percent increases in property taxes.

[2:36:13] And, and also the cap I've heard is preventing homeowners from, you know, selling maybe they want to downsize or move to a different part of the city.

[2:36:24] but I mean their their cap would be taken off their new home and I mean the yeah the impact to

[2:36:36] their tax bill obviously is going to be much higher in a new home even if it's a smaller home

[2:36:44] and a less expensive home because of that so I'm wondering it's part of the real estate association

[2:36:49] and have you kind of following up on some questions

[2:36:52] from my colleagues, have you approached the province

[2:36:56] with these issues, how have you done that,

[2:37:00] what has the response been, do you see any way forward

[2:37:03] to modify these policies that seem to be set in stone?

[2:37:10] Where do you see this going?

[2:37:12] Yeah, certainly.

[2:37:13] I've been a part of our provincial association

[2:37:15] for years, including being the past year.

[2:37:17] I know that there is a provincial, you know, action committee, as well as a federal action

[2:37:22] committee as well that advocates for home owners on behalf of the real-through association

[2:37:28] as well, and, you know, understanding the impact of tax and the impact that it has on affordability

[2:37:35] is key to what we do every day in our business, right?

[2:37:40] You know, a 30% jump in the tax bill that you have to pay on a property that you're going

[2:37:46] to hopefully acquire prices to put people out of the market right and when you have that

[2:37:52] layered on top of an area where there's only four homes for sale if that is the area in which

[2:37:58] you can sort of afford to live you are going to compete competing for those homes. I have been in

[2:38:03] the business for 20 years and until 2021 it was very rare to see you know multiple offers on a single

[2:38:10] home and even today in a much slower environment than we saw in the peak of the pandemic, one

[2:38:17] out of every three homes through the MLS system had sold with at or above the list price

[2:38:23] that it was at. At that number peaked in 2021 at 92 percent of home selling out or above

[2:38:28] the list price here in HRM. So, you know, there's just so many ways in which affordability is

[2:38:34] being impacted here, and we can only, in this room, control a couple of those levers.

[2:38:40] We absolutely as an associate, a trade association are advocating to, you know, federal and

[2:38:46] provincial governments to make sure that they are aware of the things that are negatively

[2:38:50] impacting affordability, that they could control as well.

[2:38:55] Thank you.

[2:38:56] If you have two more buzzed in to ask your questions, Mayor Fillmore.

[2:39:04] Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[2:39:06] Thank you very much for making time today in my regards to your son.

[2:39:09] Very kind.

[2:39:11] I wanted to ask you, sticking with, again,

[2:39:15] sticking with the things that are within the control of the council.

[2:39:19] What, in your experiences, the impact of rising taxes on rents,

[2:39:24] on the ability to purchase a home and the ability to attract builders to build new homes in HR.

[2:39:31] Obviously, the higher the tax rate and the higher the assessments as well,

[2:39:36] the more difficult it becomes for people to purchase homes, right?

[2:39:44] We do some construction as well in our business and we've seen the rents in our buildings.

[2:39:51] because we rent at market rent, they've risen fairly significantly over the last five

[2:39:56] or six years. And we've sort of seen that that's been obviously a trend across the

[2:40:01] municipality here. Property tax is one of the biggest inputs that we have into our

[2:40:06] carrying costs for the buildings that we have as well. And so that has, you know, factored

[2:40:12] into the decision making that we've had in terms of what rents we're going to charge to tenants.

[2:40:18] When it comes to, let's call it the dream of home ownership, taxes is a significant impact

[2:40:25] that people have.

[2:40:26] So, I understand the D-transfer tax is not a significant portion relative to the annual

[2:40:34] property tax that people pay of the budget here, but it is impactful as well.

[2:40:40] And again, not the other way of this group here, but in a lot of cases there are homeowners

[2:40:47] who have entered the province here or property owners who have entered the province with a new

[2:40:53] D transfer tax that's layered over top of the one that even this fallity has here. So there

[2:40:58] have been negative impacts there in that respect.

[2:41:03] Higher taxes makes it harder for anyone to afford

[2:41:05] anything, right? And so I would just continue to think that the better way for us to look at this is

[2:41:11] to try and approach the developer partners in town here to, you know, be building the

[2:41:17] type of housing stock that will kind of serve both needs. It will provide more affordable

[2:41:23] housing by reducing the demand on the four specific homes and forest hills, for example,

[2:41:29] or the the 14 that are in all the soccer belt right now. So if we're building the right type

[2:41:34] of stuff, it reduces the demand there and you don't see this supply demand curve or the

[2:41:40] supply demand pressure forcing up prices, but alternatively, it broadens the tax base

[2:41:45] by having new homeowners come in, who are recurrently renting downtown, putting pressure

[2:41:50] on, you know, Phil's buildings that, you know, he's got there, and you know, part of the

[2:41:56] reason that you would see ranks being driven up as well, the supply demand in there, but

[2:42:00] I understand it's complaining about property tax as well.

[2:42:02] So, certainly, my thought is to broaden the tax base, broaden the property tax burden

[2:42:09] and on to more people who are about to become

[2:42:12] really interested in becoming homeowners

[2:42:14] is a much better strategy than simply raising the rate

[2:42:17] on the current group that's right now.

[2:42:19] Oh, quick follow up, Madam Chair, if I could.

[2:42:21] Oh, be quick.

[2:42:22] Oh, be quick, thank you.

[2:42:23] So the assessment cab, the D transfer attacks,

[2:42:26] the assessments themselves are on the purview of the province,

[2:42:29] we control the tax rate.

[2:42:31] What advice would you give this group in this budget process

[2:42:35] to help maintain access to housing and health tax?

[2:42:37] I think that tax rate should be at worst maintained and if anything, the more that you can look

[2:42:44] to lower that with, you know, and I empathize with a lot of the programming that I've heard

[2:42:49] about today, that in some cases was for the first time I've heard about, and in many other

[2:42:53] cases, I'm aware it's part of the municipality's burden as well, but you know, the idea of raising

[2:43:00] tax rates is counterproductive to helping more people achieve the dream of home ownership

[2:43:07] or even affordable housing.

[2:43:09] Thank you.

[2:43:11] Thank you very much.

[2:43:12] Thank you, Matthew.

[2:43:14] So that completes calling the list of registered speakers.

[2:43:18] So we could maybe have a show of hands from the gallery.

[2:43:21] We'll call three times in the gallery those that would like to speak.

[2:43:25] One, two, three, four, five.

[2:43:27] I guess we're going to break for lunch and we'll continue after lunch.

[2:43:31] Thank you.

[2:43:33] So we will be back at one o'clock.

[2:43:34] Yeah.

[3:41:08] Good afternoon, everyone.

[3:41:13] Impressive council is back in the seat and it's one o'clock. Well done. We're continuing with the public participation. And okay.

[3:41:31] So we have our next three speakers on the list. Frank Hempel, then Sue, and then Nancy Hunter. Welcome, Frank. Hi, my name is Frank Hempel. I live in district 8. I'm here.

[3:41:46] to ask key folks to reject the proposed increases to the HRP budget, to the RCMP budget.

[3:41:52] It's something that I have spoken about before. There's a lot of folks who have put information

[3:41:56] forward citing the defunding the police to find the way forward report. There's a lot of people

[3:42:02] who have put information into your hands, and I hope that you ask, like, act on it.

[3:42:08] Something that I think is important to consider is that basically everyone who has come here today

[3:42:11] is saying we can't do these tax increases, we can't make it work, we can't do any of that,

[3:42:16] and I think it's important to consider in connection to funding the police budget and connection

[3:42:20] to funding the RCMP and understand that there's only a finite amount of money coming in.

[3:42:25] We don't want to be increasing taxes. That's not working for folks. And so it's the question

[3:42:29] of what you do with the money that you have. And so I think it is important that you consider what

[3:42:33] has been put on the table today. Food programming is crime prevention. Food programming is building

[3:42:40] safe communities, food programming is essential. Firefighters are also essential. Their health is

[3:42:46] essential. And so to see the position, the proposal that they have put forward about increased

[3:42:51] screening for the race that they like incur ads, firefighters, and to see that not being met with

[3:42:56] more. Oh, that makes so much sense. You put your lives on the line constantly. We want to support you.

[3:43:02] We want to support you. It's wild that that isn't being seen in the same way. But then when police

[3:43:08] come in, they say we need to tank, it's very quick to be taken up in that way and I know

[3:43:11] that's an oversimplification and there's a lot of pieces that go into it but something that

[3:43:15] I'm also seeing in this meeting is a lot of folks who say hi. I'm an association of businesses,

[3:43:20] I am a landlord for like thousands of people but there's not a lot of community members who are

[3:43:25] coming forward because it's not a super accessible process and I think it's really important to be

[3:43:30] considering the voices that aren't in the room today, the voices who can't be in the room today,

[3:43:34] the voices who are not asked to be in the room ever in these phases, thinking about the

[3:43:39] folks who are unhoused, thinking about folks who are marginalized in any way, and the

[3:43:43] way that we are all collectively saying we don't feel safer with police in our community.

[3:43:47] That's not a way to increase community safety, it's not a way to build community, it's not

[3:43:52] a way to build resilient communities, it's not the solution.

[3:43:55] And so when you think about having this finite amount of money and spending it on policing

[3:44:02] is that it looks like an intentional devaluing of community

[3:44:05] and knowing that the consequences are worse conditions,

[3:44:10] which is where crime thrives and so understanding that,

[3:44:13] it really looks like this choice to fund police over community

[3:44:18] is saying we know the choice that we're making,

[3:44:20] we know crime will go up and we don't want to be holding that.

[3:44:23] We want someone to clean up the mess,

[3:44:25] we don't want to engage or support our community.

[3:44:27] And so I'm asking you to think about this

[3:44:29] and to think of what it would look like to meaningfully fund community. And even for just one

[3:44:34] moment, one year in time, to listen to the Defunding Police Report, to find the way forward,

[3:44:39] the recommendations within that and to say, what if we start here and see what that looks like?

[3:44:44] What if we try with not funding them this year and see what we can fund instead to make our

[3:44:49] community safer, to make our communities more resilient, to make our communities more connected,

[3:44:53] and less afraid? And I know there's a lot of nuance that goes into that and five minutes can never

[3:44:58] summarize it but a lot of people

[3:45:00] People have been putting energy into trying to make you understand, and it is scary to think about defunding the police and what that could look like. But if you think about investing wisely, if you think about asking in a way that is fiscally responsible, if you think about saying, food programming has ripple effects in a beautiful, positive way, supporting firefighters, beautiful, positive ripple effects, what we plant right now, what we invest in, what we decide to fund, is significant. And the decision to continue funding the police in this way.

[3:45:29] in this overinflated way, even when there has been so much evidence, so many asks, so much,

[3:45:35] just creative imagination on what else we could do. It still seems like funding the police

[3:45:40] is the highest priority and that's not okay. Two people have died in police custody in the last

[3:45:45] month and that needs to be considered. It needs to be considered the way that people feel in

[3:45:50] communities when there is a high police presence. It needs to be considered that there was a reason

[3:45:54] that the tank was rejected in 2020 that everyone could understand, because there was community momentum behind it, and for just a moment, there was the ability to understand that police do not make us safer.

[3:46:05] So if we could use that creative imagination, if we could tap back into that, if we could understand, it's not about whatever the police, your politics about the police, it's about how we're choosing to invest in our communities,

[3:46:19] using to invest in safety, connection, collaboration, and understanding that everything we do has these ripple effects, and what are you willing to invest in now to see in the future?

[3:46:30] Thank you.

[3:46:33] Thank you, Frank. Our next speaker is Sue.

[3:46:41] Your councillor's name is Sue. I live in District 5, and I work in food security in District 7.

[3:46:47] I'd like to start off by saying I just wrote this today, very similar conclusions that the previous speaker drew,

[3:46:55] but I do not enjoy being here because I generally don't feel like my opinion when I come here and

[3:47:01] speak to you from a place of evidence. In fact, it's not listened to as much as the police

[3:47:05] department is or the landowners, the residential developers are. I will probably not get any

[3:47:10] follow-up questions, which is so fair. But I mean, it's not fair, but you know, I just don't feel

[3:47:15] listened to here, but I also can't like stand to sit when you're putting food against a million

[3:47:22] dollars in RCMP funding food against a tank and then kind of are leading to blame not increasing

[3:47:33] residential taxes as a reason to cut off these fundings. I just can't watch that happen.

[3:47:39] Firstly, we're here today because of previous decisions made by this council. I don't think we

[3:47:44] need to be discussing increasing residential tax. If we had not funded the $2 million to

[3:47:51] HRP for cameras or we looked at HRP budget a bit tighter. I don't think we would

[3:47:57] need to be here if we hadn't already bought F350s and already approved an

[3:48:02] armored rescue vehicle that once again the community does not want under OHS when

[3:48:08] we rejected cancer screenings and like when we're talking about proper

[3:48:12] equipment for firefighters. A lot of people here spoke in favor of the just food

[3:48:17] Good funding, and I'd like to say to the councillors who think that food is not their

[3:48:22] jurisdiction, food is your jurisdiction, because police do get called when people don't

[3:48:28] have enough food.

[3:48:28] Police get called when they don't have enough housing.

[3:48:31] A lot of people who are developers spoke to affordable housing, so you do understand some

[3:48:36] role of the councillor, safety is related to these things, and as someone who's coming

[3:48:43] from an organization that has only $300,000 in annual budget but able to serve like a

[3:48:49] thousand individual meals a week consistently and make connections with people through

[3:48:54] that, give people my phone number to call me if there's an emergency, get to know people,

[3:49:01] link them with employment, that is public safety and it costs so much less than the police

[3:49:08] ever well.

[3:49:10] So just putting the food on chopping block and then using residential taxes, I think

[3:49:15] will be unacceptable. And where RCMP's community officers, I don't know what that means. It just

[3:49:21] seems like they're attacking the word community. That does not build community. Food will build community.

[3:49:26] The community led crisis response will build community, I hope. So I'd like you to consider these

[3:49:34] before you make those decisions and I'd like you to think about the fact that your decisions

[3:49:37] up until now, where you did approve the HRP funding, even when really valid questions

[3:49:43] around the body-worn cameras were raised, you need to talk, think about all these decisions

[3:49:49] that you've met and go against the current of always approving RCMP and HRP budgets just

[3:49:55] because we equate them with safety because it's not. We've just learned that. I'm also

[3:50:01] concerned about some budget items that were proposed to not raise property taxes, such as

[3:50:05] cutting funding to trees. HRM, I believe, isn't a climate emergency. So, and we are making

[3:50:13] strategic budgeting plans around that climate emergency. So, I don't understand why we would move

[3:50:18] to cut funding to trees. I don't understand what decision is around that. I don't understand

[3:50:25] and why the HRM voted to be in climate emergency

[3:50:29] when they would make that decision.

[3:50:34] And yeah, I don't have much to say other than,

[3:50:39] don't fund the RCMP just for one year

[3:50:41] and see what it does the community.

[3:50:43] Fund Adjustment Program for just one year

[3:50:45] to see what community connections that it leads to.

[3:50:48] Fund the proper equipment for firefighters,

[3:50:52] fund the drop-in center.

[3:50:53] I don't see the money amount for that,

[3:50:54] but it seems like it will be valuable. Fund the coming to lead response just for one year.

[3:50:59] Do not fund the RCMP and the tank. Thank you. Thank you, Sue. If you don't mind,

[3:51:06] Councillor Kent does have a question for you. Councillor Kent. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[3:51:11] Thank you, Sue. So I just want to know a little bit more about your organization. I don't recall

[3:51:16] you saying what it is. I didn't note it just because it's not funded by the city or by the province at

[3:51:21] It's funded by students, it's called a loaded ladle.

[3:51:25] It's a, yeah, it's levied through a student's budget

[3:51:27] in the Atalhas University.

[3:51:30] I just am able to see working in a food program

[3:51:33] where we don't have to fight for our budget every year

[3:51:36] that we are able to create like a free lunch program,

[3:51:39] a free breakfast program.

[3:51:40] I mentioned in my speech last time here,

[3:51:43] we started a affordable food market

[3:51:45] where the average customer spends $10 for a week of groceries

[3:51:49] because it's heavily subsidized.

[3:51:52] These things happen because we have a group of people

[3:51:54] who are so passionate about community

[3:51:56] and who wants to make things happen with very little budget.

[3:52:00] I don't think that's paralleled

[3:52:02] in other budgets, such as the RCF and ACR.

[3:52:05] So back to my question, which is the organization,

[3:52:07] that is within the university

[3:52:09] and it's coming from funds from the university

[3:52:12] or from the students, directly from the students.

[3:52:16] Okay, and just to be clear,

[3:52:17] Are you supportive of the Community Crisis Diversion Pilot service?

[3:52:23] As long as it doesn't involve HRPs or the RCMP, yes.

[3:52:27] But I think it's a good step, even if it does.

[3:52:29] Okay, thank you very much, and the just food.

[3:52:32] Okay, thanks.

[3:52:33] Thanks for coming in.

[3:52:34] Thank you, Sue.

[3:52:36] Our next three speakers are Nancy Hunter, Brendan Marr, and then Joe Triff.

[3:52:42] So welcome, Nancy Hunter.

[3:52:50] I had no plans on speaking today, so please excuse my maybe a little bit of all over the

[3:52:57] place, but I've certainly been listening and paying attention.

[3:53:02] I live in District 12.

[3:53:04] I was going to joke and say, I'm a taxpayer because when you say that, people seem to

[3:53:09] pay attention more.

[3:53:12] I'm a property owner, maybe I'll even get more attention.

[3:53:16] I own my single home and I pay property taxes, I pay my property tax this morning.

[3:53:24] I have worked and I've lived in Halifax all my life.

[3:53:29] I've worked in for 35 years in some capacity or another through volunteer or paid in small

[3:53:36] underfunded community groups.

[3:53:39] I've worked in helping and addressing sexual assault, gender-based violence.

[3:53:43] I've worked on anti-racism, anti-poverty and helping with mental health.

[3:53:49] I have in one way or another been involved in knowing more about police through my work in many different ways,

[3:54:00] both in the harms from marginalized people that police cause, but I've also learned a lot about police governance,

[3:54:09] lack of governance, policy. I know a lot about the complaint system. I know a lot about

[3:54:17] the in-accountability systems. And I say all this because I'm often dismissed. I called my

[3:54:26] counselor the other day to talk about things here. And the first thing she did was a little

[3:54:31] bit of a growth. She's not here to answer for herself. So I don't know if that's actually fair,

[3:54:35] but I'm going to say it anyway. She kind of went, ah, you're against cops. And I'm like,

[3:54:42] well, there's a little more to it than that. And I'm a citizen of this city. And my father

[3:54:50] always called me an idealist, and I'm not. I'm a pragmatist. If we had been doing the things that

[3:54:55] I've been fighting for 35 years, a lot of people wouldn't be in the trouble they're in now,

[3:54:59] because a lot of them are on prevention, a lot of them are on health, a lot of them are on

[3:55:04] anti-poverty and that we find ourselves in a crisis. We're in a crisis that is growing.

[3:55:09] So those that have always not done well in our system or has been harmed by our system

[3:55:15] are harmed much worse. So when we talk about property taxes and we talk about numbers,

[3:55:23] you know, a property tax increase can really hurt some people and a lot of people, it doesn't

[3:55:29] affect their day-to-day all at all. So when we're talking about complicated things, we need to

[3:55:35] talk about the context and the impacts and who these things are impacting. But one place I am

[3:55:41] an idealist is in democracy. And I still, I have so many people say, oh Nancy, I wish I could do

[3:55:47] what you do. And I'm like, oh, I don't really do that much. But I do come here where most people don't.

[3:55:52] But I know thousands and thousands and thousands. Well, maybe I don't know thousands and thousands,

[3:55:57] but I know a lot of people in this city from all walks of life who agree with the things that I say,

[3:56:03] but don't do anything about it. And they're not here and they're not here in their suits,

[3:56:08] and they don't have power, and they don't like rub elbows with people in power.

[3:56:13] And I've always thought that governments are supposed to do the counterbalances

[3:56:19] that keep those people from suffering more. And I don't get the feeling from this council.

[3:56:26] And we're here and we're in pretty stark reality when we have very rich people in this room

[3:56:30] talking, and then we have a few people who are talking for the people who don't talk,

[3:56:35] who have the least.

[3:56:36] And we are debating things like food versus an overfunded police department that we don't

[3:56:45] even question.

[3:56:46] You know, I'm sitting here, there's firefighters behind me who are asking for cancer screening

[3:56:51] for a health and safety issue.

[3:56:54] and I think that's off the docket, you know, so I'm not just about against cops. I'm for all kinds

[3:57:03] of things and I think I speak for a lot of people who don't get hurt as much, who don't get seen,

[3:57:10] who don't get thought about, who have real, real challenges and I know it's not all your,

[3:57:16] I know it's not all your responsibility, but you're going to have to do something different because

[3:57:20] Because we have a province who really doesn't give a damn about anybody who is taking democratic

[3:57:25] power away, and this city's got to get more creative and more value-based because a lot

[3:57:32] of the people that are suffering in Nova Scotia live in this town.

[3:57:35] And so I just am here to speak for all of those people.

[3:57:40] Thank you.

[3:57:42] Thank you very much, Nancy.

[3:57:45] Your comment about the counselor that is absent reminded me of how I have been remiss.

[3:57:53] Counselor Coddle is representing HRM at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities board

[3:57:59] meeting in Montreal at the moment and of course nationally they're looking at some very significant

[3:58:05] issues and so she wanted to make sure that she represented HRM and so that is why she is

[3:58:10] not here.

[3:58:13] Yeah, great. Thank you.

[3:58:18] Our next speaker is Brendan Marr and then Joe Triff and

[3:58:22] then Matt Stricklin.

[3:58:37] Welcome, Brendan. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of Council

[3:58:41] and Mayor Philmore for allowing me the opportunity to speak today. On February 14th, Councilor

[3:58:50] Cleary made a motion to explore a cancer screening program. There's more detail on simplifying

[3:58:56] what he said. I sense that day a great deal of sincerity from all of you in

[3:59:03] council to do what's right for firefighters and you know if you remember it

[3:59:10] was it was a little emotional for me and a lot of people that were here that

[3:59:14] day hoping that we wouldn't need to continue going to the Canadian fall in

[3:59:20] firefighters like we were doing this year for the third year in a row for one of

[3:59:24] of our members of occupational cancer.

[3:59:26] I helped a member of the week before last

[3:59:28] were the cancer form.

[3:59:29] I talked to two members who are experiencing,

[3:59:33] they're having some skin cancers explored.

[3:59:38] And last night I was made aware of the report

[3:59:40] that was sent to council on March 6th.

[3:59:44] And I'll just, I wrote the last paragraph down.

[3:59:47] Based on available evidence,

[3:59:49] It is the, it is premature to provide funding for the creation of a cancer screening program

[3:59:57] for HIV firefighters at this time.

[4:00:00] HREFE and HRE will continue to engage with appropriate system partners to determine the most appropriate approach to provide early cancer screening for HRFE firefighters. This was like a punch in the stomach for me last night when I read this and I know the member that brought it to me made me aware of it was so, so disappointed after being so optimistic last month. I noticed this morning the date on this report

[4:00:29] was March 6th. I had my meeting for consultation on March 13th. This report was submitted before I

[4:00:38] had an opportunity to share the information that I've gathered over 10 years as vice president

[4:00:44] or president of this union. Being immersed in this is a high priority thing. The advocacy that we

[4:00:50] did to change the cancer coverages. And, you know, to be fair, I had a week where I was out of the

[4:00:59] office, I was on compassionate leave and we had two mediation processes so I was not in

[4:01:05] the fire station responding to helfax.ca emails and I did miss an email looking for a meeting.

[4:01:11] I got that meeting seven days after the report was submitted. Had I been consulted, looking

[4:01:17] at the content of the report that said best practices are not identified. For me, there

[4:01:26] our practices and then there is no practice. We have nothing right now. We have nothing to

[4:01:32] screen our firefighters for cancer when the provincial health care system which we

[4:01:36] all have acknowledged is where this should lie needs to take up the ball on this. We understand

[4:01:44] that there may be meetings coming and the province has not said no to taking care of firefighters

[4:01:50] but they've not said now. And we need now. We need to do this this year. We can't wait for another year to identify a best practice.

[4:02:00] I am 100% certain that this screening program will save a life of an HRFE firefighter.

[4:02:08] If not in the first year, within what we had talked about was maybe a four-year program where we started at ten years of service

[4:02:17] and a member got screened every second year,

[4:02:20] so we were screened twice in a four-year program.

[4:02:22] That with the proposal that we went out and got,

[4:02:27] would cost a little over $800 after taxes.

[4:02:30] For each member, if you look at our membership

[4:02:32] and the volunteers with 10 years of service,

[4:02:35] that bill would be roughly $200,000 a year.

[4:02:39] And I would suggest that we know,

[4:02:41] based on work safe Ontario studies,

[4:02:44] days. An early diagnosis and return to work costs an average of $35,000. A late-stage

[4:02:52] diagnosis where the person does not return to work and usually dies is over half a million

[4:02:57] to the work-safe system in Ontario. You combine that in Nova Scotia in Halifax with our

[4:03:05] collective agreement where we have a line of duty death benefit for the members and the families

[4:03:10] Mays receive compensation beyond the death.

[4:03:13] This is folks an opportunity to do the right thing, but it's not an expense.

[4:03:18] This is an investment that will save money.

[4:03:21] I urge someone before budget is done this year to bring a motion forward because nobody's

[4:03:27] voted no from council, nobody said no to us, but it was not in the chief's budget.

[4:03:32] We asked for it last year, we asked for it this year, and it wasn't in his budget.

[4:03:36] So I'm asking somebody from council, please make a motion and start screening program for our firefighters. Thank you.

[4:03:45] Thank you, Brennan. There is a couple of questions from councilors. First up is council for clarification. Yeah, thank you Madam Chair.

[4:03:53] Thank you. Thank you for speaking today again. And so you know when you hear words and you think you know what it means.

[4:04:00] I'm just wondering, can you clarify for me what is the difference between a screening program?

[4:04:07] And then, you know, firefighters taking the initiative to go to their doctor to get looked at

[4:04:13] regularly for this. I'm not understanding.

[4:04:17] We have some forms that have been developed in other municipalities and through the IFF,

[4:04:22] and they're essentially physicians guides to treating a patient with who's a firefighter.

[4:04:27] Firefighting is acknowledged by the IARC through World Health Organization as a category

[4:04:33] one carcinogen.

[4:04:34] What we hear back consistently from our members who appear young and healthy in without symptoms

[4:04:41] is that they're not in the demographic for this screening.

[4:04:46] The awareness in the medical community, the adoption of the risk factor of firefighting for

[4:04:51] physicians is not there.

[4:04:53] So our members go in and they ask for this and that blood test, this work that would

[4:04:58] An example our member Billy Marr who passed April 4th last year would be 47 years old this year

[4:05:04] Billy was on the poster for the Dartmouth General Hospital fundraiser for

[4:05:09] For the fit test for screening

[4:05:12] Billy still wouldn't be eligible for a fit test under the health care system because he's not 50

[4:05:18] Okay, and so he still would not be eligible to get that screening

[4:05:21] So we have, from the IFF, if we had been consulted before this report was filed, we have

[4:05:26] recommendations for all types of screening on different types of cancer.

[4:05:31] When it goes to the contracted health provider from the city, respectfully, I would not

[4:05:37] say that is where I would go shopping for this service.

[4:05:40] I would go to somebody that specialized, focused, and looked at firefighter cancers for decades.

[4:05:46] Like the IFF has an on-staff doc.

[4:05:49] We have a doctor on staff.

[4:05:50] we have a research division and we've worked on this stuff for decades and getting it out

[4:05:58] to the healthcare community. There are initiatives at the federal level. Nobody said no to us

[4:06:04] with the province but we've been trying to get this done for four years and we haven't.

[4:06:08] We can't wait any longer for someone else to do it and so we came to you.

[4:06:17] Okay. Thank you. Thanks for that.

[4:06:20] One more, Councilor Morse. Thank you.

[4:06:24] Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Brennan, for being here today and for all your advocacy

[4:06:28] on this. You mentioned this could be an investment for Council. Can you talk a little bit about

[4:06:36] where you see it as an investment if there's cost recovery in this preventative approach?

[4:06:43] The Helifax Professional Firefighters members are not in workers' compensation right now.

[4:06:47] We have our own, we went in 2008 and started our own job injury program.

[4:06:52] So we fund our job injury program and there are studies done in, there's a study in Ontario

[4:07:00] about the costs of these cancer claims.

[4:07:03] And so those costs identified in that study are to the workers comp system.

[4:07:08] So were we in workers comp as our volunteers are in, I believe, workers comp.

[4:07:15] This would be a savings to workers comp and perhaps something they would have the ability

[4:07:19] to use their things under their jurisdiction to mandate.

[4:07:26] The cost of the city is a line of duty death compensation benefit for our members.

[4:07:33] So if a member of the health professional firefighters is killed in the line of duty and that includes

[4:07:38] occupational cancers, 70% of that person's salary will go to their spouse.

[4:07:44] and so to speak for our member we lost last year was no longer married but has an eight-year-old

[4:07:53] son who will get 70% of his salary including future raises until age 25. So that one payment alone would

[4:08:03] have funded the program as we proposed I suggest seven or eight years and I don't think we're going to

[4:08:09] go seven or eight years without another one if we don't do something.

[4:08:12] Okay, thank you.

[4:08:14] Thank you, Vernon.

[4:08:15] Our next speaker is Joe Trif.

[4:08:19] Trif, Matt Strickland, and then the last one on the list is Rebecca Howtery.

[4:08:24] Welcome, Joe.

[4:08:25] Oh, thank you.

[4:08:27] I'm going to do my best to keep my anger and disgust for this report out of my response to you folks.

[4:08:34] Most of you know, Vernon and I were elected to union reps.

[4:08:38] We're elected by the firefighters that are doing the work that are going into these dangerous environments that are putting their lives at risk.

[4:08:47] We don't work in an office. When I finish this meeting, I'm going back to a fire station to get on a truck.

[4:08:52] There's a fire in Halvex today. I'll probably be there.

[4:08:56] The people that contributed to this report are so long removed from the dangers faced by firefighters, if ever.

[4:09:04] The language used that is premature.

[4:09:07] tell my family it's premature. Tell Billy Myers family it's premature for this

[4:09:12] screening. Billy died almost a year ago and he pleaded for many years to get

[4:09:18] screening. Once he was finally screened he had to stage four cancer. He was young

[4:09:24] previously healthy 46-year-old who's not going to get to see his kids grow up. His

[4:09:29] boys were eight and ten when he died. My kids are eight ten and twelve.

[4:09:36] Make no

[4:09:36] The cost of delaying the investment in screening people is our people.

[4:09:41] We have to backfill them when they're not at work, when they're sick.

[4:09:44] Brennan already spoke to the compensation to the families.

[4:09:48] The cost of screening is a fraction of the cost to the city when we lose somebody.

[4:09:55] And we acknowledge that the province sets the guidelines for various medical screening and tests,

[4:09:59] but they don't take into account the risks of the firefighting profession.

[4:10:03] Our access is largely based on the general population and age, not the risk factor with

[4:10:08] our job.

[4:10:10] We will continue to work with the province to find long-term solutions, but in the meantime,

[4:10:14] we are looking for HRM to step in and protect your investment, which is your people, by screening

[4:10:21] our firefighters for cancers.

[4:10:24] We don't know, I don't know, a single firefighter who feels it's premature and most of us are

[4:10:30] question why this doesn't already exist in each room.

[4:10:38] Thank you, Joe. Matt, you're up next

[4:10:42] and my sincere apologies. I put an R in your name instead of Stickland. Matt Stickland.

[4:10:54] Hello. Hello. This is on you. Okay. Excuse me. I missed something. Councillor Perty, did you have a

[4:11:00] question for the previous speaker? I did. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see it. Sorry, Matt.

[4:11:08] Thank you.

[4:11:09] Thanks for coming back, Joe.

[4:11:10] Yes, thank you.

[4:11:11] Sorry.

[4:11:13] This may have been said last month at one of our meetings,

[4:11:18] but do other municipalities in the province

[4:11:21] fund screening programs for their firefighters, do you know?

[4:11:25] No, we're the biggest in the province.

[4:11:29] The only other ones that are with the IFF,

[4:11:31] Yarmouth, Truro, and Sydney combined

[4:11:34] have less than 90 members between the three other locals.

[4:11:38] This is very common in BC and Ontario, and it's very successful at keeping people healthy and at work.

[4:11:46] Right, okay, thank you.

[4:11:47] Thank you.

[4:11:48] One more question.

[4:11:49] Councillor Hensby has buzzed in.

[4:11:51] Thank you.

[4:11:52] Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[4:11:54] You mentioned the other jurisdictions BC and Ontario.

[4:11:56] How is that paid for by the municipalities or by the province?

[4:12:00] I would have to dig into that response, Councillor.

[4:12:02] Okay, thank you.

[4:12:05] Thank you.

[4:12:07] Now you're up bad. Thank you for your patience.

[4:12:12] No problem. It's my favorite time of year and I'm going to sit because I hate public

[4:12:15] speaking and would be shaking like a leak if I was standing right there.

[4:12:18] Anyways, I also wasn't planning on speaking today even though my new boss does give me a

[4:12:23] lot more leeway than my old boss. But I just come to the realization as I'm listening

[4:12:27] to you guys talk is that we don't actually have a budget problem. We have a political

[4:12:31] problem. If I can summarize the public speaking that we've heard so far today, it's taxes

[4:12:36] is bad, public spending good. And if you look at the just food report that you see out

[4:12:40] there, you'll see a line item on the last couple pages about vermicompost. Now, I tried

[4:12:44] to join the vermicompost pilot. I learned about it. I learned about vermicompost because

[4:12:49] I researched it through my day job. I didn't get into the pilot. My counselor couldn't help

[4:12:53] me with it, 3-1-1 couldn't help me with it, but I ended up buying a vermicompost, and now

[4:12:57] I divert about 30 pounds of food waste from the city. I do that in my own home, and it

[4:13:02] gives me about a couple hundred dollars with a fertilizer that I don't need to spend. And

[4:13:05] I also get a lot more fertilizer than I could buy out of pocket.

[4:13:08] Fractions of fractions of a cent is saving you 30 pounds a year in food waste plus is

[4:13:16] putting a couple hundred dollars in my pocket through fertilizer that I'm not buying.

[4:13:21] Public spending you've heard from the firefighters just now saves us money.

[4:13:25] The problem is District 5, 7, 8, 9, half of 6 and half of 10 paid almost all the taxes and I don't pay enough.

[4:13:38] Most of you represent people who do not pay enough in taxes.

[4:13:43] This year, if the city cuts everything they want to cut, I think I'm going to save about $89.

[4:13:50] $89.89. That's why half a trip to the grocery store? Is that worth it? If you consider

[4:13:58] the amount, I would have to pay out of transportation. I live in rural Nova Scotia, right? I live

[4:14:03] in rural Halifax. My transportation budget is about $40,000 a year. My property tax bill

[4:14:09] is $2,500. If Mr. Gears back there gets a properly funded, properly resourced transit service,

[4:14:16] I'm talking road space, I'm talking resources, that's $30,000 or $40,000 out of my budget right

[4:14:23] away because I can take the bus. I don't need to spend $30,000 on a car, $70,000 on a car,

[4:14:29] newer use, whatever it is. I don't need that operating cost. I can't, I don't need to do that anymore.

[4:14:33] I can take the bus instead if it's reliable, if it's funded, if, if, if, if, if, right? And there's

[4:14:40] just a whole slew of that.

[4:14:42] So, but like the problem is, how are most of you

[4:14:45] going to tell most of your constituents?

[4:14:48] Because I'm one of the 90 somewhat people

[4:14:50] who are like very much helped by the property tax gap.

[4:14:54] 90% ish, I think, if I remember the report correctly.

[4:14:58] 90% of-

[4:15:00] Local family homeowners are seriously benefiting from this cap, and I'm one of them. But happy

[4:15:05] cities did a study in 2017, 2018, and if you take me and all my neighbors in the surrounding

[4:15:10] area, I can't remember what their scope was. If you take all of our property taxes that

[4:15:15] we pay, and in the same area, you just lack that into road costs, we are costing a city $1.5

[4:15:23] million dollars. Property taxes minus roads. That's it. I'm not talking waste

[4:15:29] collection which we also get. I'm not talking transit which we also kind of get.

[4:15:34] I'm not talking active transit which we also kind of get. Like we get so many

[4:15:38] public services and my taxes pay not enough for just the roads. Right? So I don't

[4:15:45] pay enough in taxes. Most people in the HRM I would argue don't pay enough in taxes.

[4:15:51] But how are you going to tell people that you can't?

[4:15:56] Really, realistically, that's political suicide.

[4:16:00] So, the problem is a political one.

[4:16:02] You are a business.

[4:16:03] You are a corporation.

[4:16:04] You need revenue.

[4:16:05] You need to spend that money in ways that saves me money, firm a composting, cancer screening, whatever.

[4:16:11] How do you do that?

[4:16:13] I don't know, but that's your problem.

[4:16:15] It's not a budget problem.

[4:16:17] It's a political one.

[4:16:18] how do you raise fees and revenues to generate the money you need to spend the

[4:16:24] public money you need to to make my budget go down in ways that are unpopular

[4:16:29] i.e. raising fees and taxes right like how do you do that I don't know but

[4:16:34] that's your problem you need revenue you can't raise taxes because it's political

[4:16:39] suicide so what do you do I don't know that's a good question that's what you're

[4:16:45] gonna be talking about for the next little while but I just wanted to let you

[4:16:48] know that your problem is not a financial one. You have the power to raise money. You need

[4:16:53] money. The more money you spend, the less money I have to spend out of pocket. How do you

[4:16:59] communicate that? Challengingly. But hey, you guys are leaders, right? So, lead on. I'm out of time.

[4:17:09] Thank you very much, Matt, an interesting perspective.

[4:17:15] Our next speaker is Rebecca Hartnery.

[4:17:27] Okay, I have nothing prepared, but the notes I've been writing as I've been sitting here.

[4:17:31] And it's going to be, I'm nothing prepared, except for the notes, is it not on?

[4:17:39] Okay.

[4:17:42] Yeah, I've definitely been taking a lot of notes sitting here, because again, just like

[4:17:46] last time that we all spoke, it is so clear that you're not listening to voices that

[4:17:55] actually matter, you're listening to the 1% of developers in the part of this meeting

[4:18:00] that was like a dragon stand episode, and you

[4:18:06] have a firefighter almost at tears.

[4:18:08] So I think the first thing I want to say is shame on you, Trish Birdie.

[4:18:12] Those questions were so incredibly inappropriate.

[4:18:14] it.

[4:18:17] Just wait, I have this does lead into something. Am I not allowed to say the name?

[4:18:21] Madam Chair, point of order. Point of order. Excuse me.

[4:18:27] So we're just going to continue with respectful language and I think shame on you appreciate

[4:18:34] that your comments. Please continue. If we're talking about taking initiative

[4:18:38] for your own health, how much money and I will find the answers and email it to you, but

[4:18:43] I've watched endless things where you've been talking to Don

[4:18:45] Consul of the Chief of Police, and you ask point link, how can we, how can we

[4:18:51] better fund your mental health care? How can we make sure that doctors are

[4:18:54] there for you? How can we make sure that you are taking care of because your job is

[4:18:59] hard, you're on the front lines, etc., etc., honestly blah blah blah. Then you say

[4:19:05] that a firefighter should take their own initiative to get cancer screening when

[4:19:10] when it is scientifically proven that they are at a higher risk of getting cancer.

[4:19:17] But then the next person comes up and they talk about how their friend died after pushing

[4:19:23] and pushing and begging and begging for screening.

[4:19:25] Is that not taking initiative?

[4:19:27] Is that taking initiative for your own health?

[4:19:30] Why are coughs not asked to find their own therapist?

[4:19:33] Why do you spill money into this?

[4:19:35] Also, if we're going to talk about taxes, there are 94 positions from last budget in

[4:19:41] the police, in the HRP, in the RCMP that are funded.

[4:19:44] That's over a million dollars or something like that.

[4:19:47] That weren't funded.

[4:19:48] That's just money sitting there.

[4:19:50] So why are you not looking into that?

[4:19:52] Where is the investigative stuff that you should be doing for your constituents?

[4:19:57] If there are 94 empty police salaries sitting there that could pay for cancer screening

[4:20:04] times 10, could pay for the food act, could pay for the alternatives to policing after

[4:20:10] we had two extremely tragic deaths here, and where you should have emergency meetings over

[4:20:17] how to detest the police for mental health care.

[4:20:20] this is absurd. I am on the verge of tears and I don't know I have like so much here and this is

[4:20:29] just honestly so messed up honestly shame on you all except for the few of you that I know that

[4:20:34] we'll vote against this tank and that's another thing this is a tank it doesn't really matter what

[4:20:39] we call it an armored rescue vehicle still not a single critical question asked to the police about

[4:20:45] that and when watching how they were saying that it differed from the F-350s, which I really

[4:20:51] appreciate you all bringing those questions forward, the only difference that the police said

[4:20:55] was the level of arming, which is the difference of like army level machine guns that we have never

[4:21:01] seen here in Halifax. Level 3 arming is perfectly capable in a truck. The only thing that's not

[4:21:08] there is a speaker so that they can yell outside the car in whatever they'll use the tank for.

[4:21:15] I also want to say that it has been brought up year after year that you want a policy for

[4:21:20] the tank before you approve it and the police had an entire month to do that.

[4:21:25] And when I read the bell, all I literally see is that they'll look to other municipalities

[4:21:33] to say how that policy is going to go.

[4:21:36] And then they say it's not going to be used in public gatherings, which I just don't believe

[4:21:39] and the police will always just pay the penalty and do what they want anyways.

[4:21:42] we see that all the time.

[4:21:46] Anyways, I'm up here because this is how I want you guys to vote.

[4:21:56] I want you to fund the community mediation pilot program, the community crisis diversion

[4:22:01] pilot service, just food program, youth advocate program, absolutely deplorable that you want

[4:22:07] to take away youth advocate program that has seen the need for increase, increase firefighters,

[4:22:13] 10 positions. I want you to make a motion because once again, nothing that you voted on

[4:22:19] already is set in stone until April 8th. You can change the budget. You can bring back

[4:22:23] that cancer screening and you should because it's seriously not okay. You're showing your

[4:22:27] cards right now. And please do not fund.

[4:22:31] Rebecca, you're at time if you'd just like to have one closing statement. That would be great.

[4:22:36] I have one closing statement.

[4:22:38] The more that you cut funding to social programs,

[4:22:41] the more the RCMP and HRP are gonna ask for more money,

[4:22:45] because you criminalize everything that you cut,

[4:22:47] and then the RCMP are misplaced and mistasked

[4:22:50] to deal with it.

[4:22:52] And it's like, it's shameful and it's like,

[4:22:56] it's unavoidable to, like, we all see you,

[4:22:59] and we know what you're doing.

[4:23:00] So.

[4:23:02] Thank you, Rebecca.

[4:23:02] Rebecca, that is the last speaker on this list, but I had only asked once before the

[4:23:08] restart at lunch. For the second time, is there anyone from the gallery that would

[4:23:12] like to speak?

[4:23:16] Excuse me for the third and final time, is there anyone from the gallery

[4:23:19] that would like to speak?

[4:23:24] Thank you very much, everyone. We need just two minutes to get

[4:23:28] set up for the next item on our agenda. So, don't go too far.

[4:23:36] Madam Chair, we have a request to go in camera maybe now is the time to do that.

[4:23:42] So with a request to go in camera before the motion is on the floor?

[4:23:46] We can do that.

[4:23:47] Yeah.

[4:23:49] The CAO.

[4:23:57] Thank you.

[4:23:58] Is there a motion to go in camera?

[4:23:59] Councillor Kent, seconded Councillor Perdi.

[4:24:02] So we'll come back then at 5-1 and we will be in camera.

[4:24:08] How's that?

[4:24:17] 5-2.

[5:42:06] Thank you all very much. We're ready to come back and continue. Before we start with our presentations,

[5:42:12] I would like to extend an explanation and an apology to the members of gallery. Very unceremoniously

[5:42:19] said at lunchtime that we would be coming back in camera. We would have had you come back at 1 o'clock

[5:42:25] and then we would have had you leave within moments. So because we did need to go to in camera for some

[5:42:31] inter-governmental advices, so that was the explanation, could have done that better at

[5:42:38] noon time when everyone was excused for lunch, so that's where we're at, and now we can move

[5:42:45] on to item 6, which is our bell, and before the staff presentation, our CAO has something to say.

[5:42:55] Thank you, Madam Chair, and we're not going to do a long speech

[5:43:01] and what we had thought would be a long presentation is going to be expedited in the interest of making up a little bit of time to try to move us forward.

[5:43:13] So just as a refresh, council sets the strategic direction and decides which programs and services are offered by the municipality and in most cases to what level we're offering those services, so service levels.

[5:43:29] Under the charter, under Section 35B, the CAO must ensure that annual operating and capital budgets are prepared.

[5:43:38] After they're approved, it's the CAO's responsibility to administer the budgets and report back to council, you know, throughout the year on projections and how money's being spent.

[5:43:51] So, there is opportunity all the time for us to be reviewing what we're doing, finding

[5:44:00] nips and tucks, innovation, new ways to do things that happens on an ongoing basis.

[5:44:06] I wanted to highlight that throughout the budget process since we've tabled, there are 25 proposed

[5:44:14] adjustments that have been identified through the budget adjustment list process.

[5:44:20] These changes could collectively amount to a budget reduction of over $26 million.

[5:44:27] And of course, we're at the point in the process where Council can choose to vote on budget

[5:44:33] adjustment list items separately, can choose to group some of them together, and can also still

[5:44:40] raise new things that haven't been discussed yet to date. So I don't want any council member

[5:44:47] to feel that just because something hasn't been discussed today, it can't be brought forward

[5:44:53] now. And I want to just thank all of the members of the public who came out to speak throughout

[5:44:59] the button.

[5:45:08] Thank you for your thoughtful deliberations throughout this process today. I know we've got a little bit further to go, but I think the discussions have been excellent, so I'm going to turn things over to finance, and they're just going to give a quick recap of where we're at.

[5:45:29] Thank you, Madam CEO, and Jerry has a comment as well before you start their day.

[5:45:41] Sorry, thank you, Madam Chair.

[5:45:44] Just before we turn it over today, and not to believe the debate here, but

[5:45:52] just one of the things I wanted to bring up and I just think it's important because, you know, facts matter.

[5:45:58] But just with regards to a couple of points that were brought up this morning about affordability

[5:46:05] And I know benchmark studies are very subjective, but I think it's important to know that the studies that was brought up this morning by some members of the public with respect to, you know, how we benchmark those studies in terms of total tax burden would include the mandatory contributions that we pay by the provincial government that are downloaded onto us.

[5:46:30] So out of the analysis, if you took the 200 million dollars out of that, we would then benchmark very close to the bottom.

[5:46:39] That's why we use the Calgary survey because it's an Apple's Apples comparison, untax burden.

[5:46:46] The other thing I'll point out is in those surveys with Altus Sends who cast, I believe.

[5:46:55] We have the highest read lines on property taxes because we don't receive any provincial subsidies.

[5:47:01] So like a city like Toronto, I think their tax, every line's on taxes is somewhere in the 50%.

[5:47:08] They receive quite a bit of funding from the provincial government, which would go into their tax burden number for those.

[5:47:15] So not to belagre the debate, but I think that was important that that got brought up the council before we get going here.

[5:47:24] Thank you.

[5:47:26] Before we begin the presentation,

[5:47:28] there's a question from Councillor Perty.

[5:47:30] Thank you.

[5:47:31] So I just wanted to request the full presentation,

[5:47:35] not every deuce version.

[5:47:37] Just this is a big hefty.

[5:47:38] There's a lot of information here

[5:47:39] and I don't want to feel like we're rushing through

[5:47:42] just to get through the time

[5:47:43] because we had a big day today.

[5:47:45] Yeah, we're going to be here another day anyway.

[5:47:47] So if we can get the full presentation,

[5:47:48] I'd really appreciate that.

[5:47:50] Thank you.

[5:47:50] Thank you, Councillor Perty.

[5:47:53] I'm sure that's great with you guys, too, right?

[5:47:57] Yes, thank you.

[5:47:58] So Dave Harvey, Director of Financial Management and Operations.

[5:48:00] And I'm joined here today by Tyler Higgins, our Manager of Budget Reserves and Daniel Freeman,

[5:48:05] one of our Senior Financial Consultants.

[5:48:07] So we'll just start with when we say the presentation of light,

[5:48:14] the areas I'm going to be touching a little bit less on than we intended were more some of the color around it.

[5:48:19] So not the actual important pieces of the presentation that I think are going to be very important for you to hear here in total and then be able to look at for discussion.

[5:48:29] So we'll get started.

[5:48:33] So we're here to discuss the budget adjustment list, just a quick recap of where we are in the process.

[5:48:39] So we've gone through and approved our capital budget and all of our individual business unit budgets.

[5:48:44] So we're now here at the budget adjustment list.

[5:48:47] This is your opportunity to make adjustments to those budgets as they have been approved prior to the final budget ratification that comes forward on April 8th or plan to come forward in April 8th.

[5:48:57] So this is really your opportunity to approve any modifications to that budget as you see fit.

[5:49:02] And we've got compiled the list of items on the bowel that are here for your consideration.

[5:49:06] So

[5:49:10] as a starting point, our proposed 2526 budget is now based at $69.7 million increase.

[5:49:18] So currently that would mean a tax rate increase of 0.022.

[5:49:23] That's a 7.6% increase to the average residential bill, which would equate to about $189 or just under $16 a month.

[5:49:32] The key pressures that are building this are related to compensation and

[5:49:36] positions which have averaged about $44 million dollars.

[5:49:38] The increase required in capital renewal is about $19 million, and then we have some contracts and

[5:49:43] inflation pressures that have driven us another $1 million dollars.

[5:49:52] So as Kathy mentioned, we have 25 items that are included on the ballot.

[5:49:56] $8.4 million of these are over budget items, so these will increase your taxes.

[5:50:02] We have a further 33.2 million items under budget, so these are items that you could bring forward that would decrease the tax burden that would be putting forward.

[5:50:11] Of note, the other savings ballot item, ballot 23, is based on the mayor's motion from our fiscal presentation,

[5:50:19] where we were asked to come back with the staff's recommendations for additional cuts.

[5:50:23] And so there's actually 30 additional items that are within that.

[5:50:27] So of that 25, we actually have about 50 different items on our ballot that you are going to be looking at.

[5:50:38] So as we said, our beginning position is at 7.6%.

[5:50:42] that would equate to a tax rate of 0.792 for that $189.

[5:50:47] If we were to take the bow in total, so all the overs, all the unders that are included in there,

[5:50:52] we would actually see a fall in the average tax bill to 4.1%,

[5:50:57] and the residential rate would actually decrease from 0.77 to 0.765.

[5:51:02] And the impact on the average tax bill would be fall from $189 down to $97.60.

[5:51:14] So these are the items listed on the ballot that have the financial impacts.

[5:51:18] Again, as you can see, I want to highlight ballot item 23.

[5:51:21] That's the FTE review and savings that are outlined.

[5:51:24] So that's $11.2 million of additional savings.

[5:51:27] That's those 30 items that we mentioned that were came forward as part of the in response to the mayor's motion.

[5:51:37] We also have a number of ballot items that don't have financial impacts.

[5:51:40] These are things that, for various reasons, would not have an impact on this yours budget.

[5:51:47] The drop in center funding and after hours individualized mobile engagement team,

[5:51:51] we're still recommending that go forward. The funding there is actually available in the reserve.

[5:51:56] That group had gotten reserve funding through the year and we're can utilize those funds to fund

[5:52:00] this in next year's budget, so that would be going forward but would have no impact on our tax rate.

[5:52:05] The collision data reporting, the cancer screening and the insurance company once,

[5:52:09] As noted in the briefing notes, currently none of those have funding implications as built into the bell that we've presented for you today.

[5:52:24] Now for bell 23, the 30 additional items, we have a number of items that are operating reductions and we've actually categorized these as ongoing or one time.

[5:52:33] On going items or items that would, if you get that decrease, this year that decrease will continue next year, so it won't come back as a one-time decrease in your budget, that you'd have to tax for next year, that decrease will continue.

[5:52:46] Your one-time savings are ones that we may take the saving in this fiscal year. When we get to next year's budget, we will have to replace those funds, and that would require a tax increase next year to make up for those lost funds.

[5:53:01] And actually, in looking at that, so total reductions there are about $5.6 million, total

[5:53:06] ongoing reductions would equal about $3 million.

[5:53:11] We also had some capital reductions that were identified.

[5:53:15] The majority of these are deferrals of capital projects and all of these capital projects

[5:53:20] were funded from capital renewal.

[5:53:21] So what we're able to do is, some of these we defer out a year or two, there's a couple

[5:53:25] items based on their briefing notes that aren't deferrals, such as our corporate fleet project,

[5:53:29] which is just a reduction.

[5:53:31] But all of these are one-time cost or one-time savings because as they come from our capital

[5:53:35] renewal, there will be other capital projects that will either come forward to take that

[5:53:39] funding next year, or we'd actually have to do these projects next year when that deferral

[5:53:43] is done.

[5:53:44] So again, that's a one-time savings of about $4.9 million that we could see.

[5:53:53] And finally, we have our deeper reductions.

[5:53:56] These are items that are really service changes that we've identified that Council could make

[5:54:00] a decision on whether or not they wanted more information on or wanted to bring forward.

[5:54:03] We haven't included any of these items in the ballot at this point in time because we felt there were items that as their service changes

[5:54:10] Council needed to make those decisions and decide whether or not they wanted to go forward but those are not

[5:54:15] So there's an additional 13.1 million dollars in there about just under 10.1 or just under 11 million dollars

[5:54:21] Sorry, would be considered ongoing savings so that items that if you made those changes they would continue on and out years

[5:54:28] And you wouldn't have to increase taxes for in the next year

[5:54:31] I do want to acknowledge with this table in the report there wasn't error in the table that's table 3.

[5:54:38] It was showing a reduction of $13.9 million as opposed to $13.1 as we see here on the slide.

[5:54:43] That was an order version of the table. The table included in attachment B is correct, so that table matches what we see here.

[5:54:50] I just wanted to bring that table into attention and apologize for any confusion that may have caused.

[5:54:59] When looking at the FTEs, we did identify that there are 9.5 FTEs that could be either deferred or removed from this year's budget.

[5:55:07] That would actually bring about an additional savings of $706,000.

[5:55:12] The reason that the FTE reductions are not more significant is really when we are doing our budget and I think it came out earlier this morning that there's significant vacancies through this organization, we actually account for those vacancies when we're doing our budget.

[5:55:27] So we've actually built in $23.6 million of a credit into our budget, so that's $23.6 million that we will not tax for this year because we acknowledge that there are vacancies.

[5:55:37] So that's already built into our budget, that's that 7.6% that numbers in there.

[5:55:42] That's why when we did a review of the vacancies and of the FDE positions, we didn't identify a larger amount that we could actually save this year as a result of any position changes that could come forward.

[5:55:51] We did find 9.5 FTEs and worth about $706,000 that you can take a savings this year.

[5:56:03] And we did just want to flash up vacancies by business unit.

[5:56:07] I won't go through this all, but 87% of our vacations are in what we call our course services

[5:56:13] so our operations and public safety.

[5:56:15] And of those positions, approximately 50% of our current vacant positions are, they're

[5:56:20] currently in some form of recruitment.

[5:56:22] So somewhere within our hiring process, they've already been moving forward.

[5:56:26] That's why, again, we didn't feel there were significant savings to be had from vacant

[5:56:31] positions through this budget, they've already been factored in.

[5:56:38] And just wanted to quickly flush up chart, compares our staffing versus population growth.

[5:56:45] Municipal FTEs, they're pretty consistently around just under 1% of the total population,

[5:56:50] of the municipality.

[5:56:52] as the municipality grows, those positions have grown in tandem with that as we're providing

[5:56:57] new services or services to a growing population. We have to have additional staff to provide

[5:57:02] those services. So we do acknowledge there are issues with attracting and retaining employees

[5:57:08] over as we continue to grow the number of employees that are there.

[5:57:15] So now we want to actually look at the, we did identify three scenarios for tax changes

[5:57:20] is based on all the options on the bell.

[5:57:22] So these are additional or initial starting points

[5:57:25] for the discussion.

[5:57:26] These are ones that staff have come up with,

[5:57:27] but it's really up to council whether or not

[5:57:29] they want to take any of them or none of them.

[5:57:31] You have the option to do individual items

[5:57:33] or you can group them yourselves.

[5:57:34] We just group these together as a starting point

[5:57:37] for the conversation.

[5:57:39] So option one would provide you with a flat tax rate.

[5:57:43] So the tax rate impact for here,

[5:57:46] it would be a slight decrease of 0.003.

[5:57:48] your average tax bill impact would be $107.

[5:57:52] We also identified an option that would only use sustainable reductions.

[5:57:57] So this is option two.

[5:57:59] You do get a slight increase to the rate of 0.018.

[5:58:02] It's $175 and 46 cents for your average tax bill increase.

[5:58:07] And then we also took that same option two with the sustainable cuts and

[5:58:11] identified a few items from the bell that we'd be able to fund with those sustainable cuts

[5:58:17] to keep you at that 7.6% increase that we're currently at.

[5:58:21] So again, that would have a rate impact of 0.02 to increase,

[5:58:25] and you'd be at $189 average tax bill increase.

[5:58:32] Looking a little closer at option one,

[5:58:34] our flat tax rate increase.

[5:58:36] In order to achieve this,

[5:58:38] what you would have to do is not approve any of the over items

[5:58:41] that are currently on the ballot.

[5:58:43] It also have to utilize the $10 million

[5:58:45] from the central library reserve,

[5:58:47] and use that to decrease our taxes for the year.

[5:58:51] You'd have to use the operating capital and FTE reductions that we identified in those tables.

[5:58:56] And you'd have to use all the unders on the bow, excluding the ARV and the operating portion of the trees as well as the cat and the D transfer tax cut.

[5:59:08] So this would provide you with a total reduction of $23 million and that would use one time funding that would be approximate increase of 2.4% next year.

[5:59:17] So we did that one time funding would have to be made up for next year's budget

[5:59:21] That's going to be 2.4% before we even talked about any of the compensation increases the

[5:59:27] Contrash will increase is the inflationary increases that we see every year

[5:59:30] So that would be your starting point for next year's budget would order to be at 2.4% increase

[5:59:38] Looking at the we also have a table here just to show you the individual bowel items that you would need to include

[5:59:44] With that and we have that motion is well listed as one of the alternatives within the budget

[5:59:51] Moving on to our Sustainable Reductions option, so option two.

[5:59:55] As you can see, we've again listed out the bell items that we'd have to do.

[5:59:59] So, this is for...

[6:00:00] There are no cases on our permanent cuts. So these were ones that you will save you money this year, but they'll also save you money in the next year and the out years. So it's a cut now that doesn't come back and increase taxes in the future. So we're trying to avoid short-term taxes, but it could mean reducing or scaling back on services if council wants to go that way.

[6:00:22] And finally, option three. It's those same sustainable cuts, but we've also included a few of the increases. That would allow you to fund the community crisis diversion pilot, the drop in center,

[6:00:33] the RCMP staffing, the youth advocate program,

[6:00:37] the operating at 10 buses, as we talked about,

[6:00:42] human resources partner for transit,

[6:00:45] or the human resources business partner for transit as well.

[6:00:47] All of those could now be funded

[6:00:48] without having an increase to the tax rate

[6:00:50] that we're currently seeing that 7.6% increase.

[6:00:54] So once again, these are just the starting point

[6:00:57] for the discussion.

[6:00:58] Council can take any of these options,

[6:01:00] or you can take none of them,

[6:01:01] and you can make your own individual items.

[6:01:03] you can do your own groupings. This is just our way of helping you start that discussion.

[6:01:10] Just quickly on fiscal sustainability. So the kind of some of the guidelines we use for

[6:01:15] looking at which cuts are sustainable or not. General approach around here is you want to maintain

[6:01:21] one-time funding for one-time costs. So if you're using one-time funding, you don't want to fund

[6:01:26] ongoing expenses. Those are just going to result in a tax increase in the next year. If you have

[6:01:31] recurring costs, you can fund them from recurring revenues.

[6:01:35] Tax increases, ideally you want them to mirror inflation when you can in certain cases.

[6:01:41] We use inflation as a proxy of what your tax increase should be, but if you have other

[6:01:45] costs here, if your compensation is going on more than inflation, that's not going to work.

[6:01:50] But it's generally, or it's our rule of thumb of where you want to be in an average year.

[6:01:56] We also want to make sure we're building up our reserves to fund future projects and

[6:02:00] to have in case of a rainy day or for use in emergencies.

[6:02:03] We saw that in the last couple of years.

[6:02:05] We've had a lot of significant storms that hit our region.

[6:02:08] And we've had to rely on our reserve funds to actually make those expenses that have come out of there.

[6:02:13] So we want to be able to have those funds available whenever there's an emergency and we need those funds.

[6:02:19] And finally, last piece on fiscal sustainability.

[6:02:22] You always want to be looking more in just the current fiscal year.

[6:02:25] You want to be looked at the out years, the impacts you're going to have on those because the decisions you make today have long reaching the implications and you want to make sure that the decisions you're making today are going to result in tax increases down the road that are increasingly unsustainable.

[6:02:44] So some future budget implications and this is where we start taking some of that longer view look.

[6:02:51] So next year we're expecting or we're going to be facing $45 to $60 million increases and that's not including any of those one time funding things that may be done so that's going to be your base that's probably in the range of 60% already.

[6:03:08] Expecting increases before any bell changes, that's our compensation costs, they're going

[6:03:12] to continue to increase.

[6:03:13] We have a lot of collective agreements coming due in the next year or so.

[6:03:16] Those are going to drive up your costs.

[6:03:19] Our debt costs continue to rise as our capital plan continues to grow.

[6:03:23] So as those capital projects come due, we're going out to take debt to fund a lot of those.

[6:03:28] We've pushed a lot of our capital onto debt funding in order to maintain our tax rates

[6:03:32] rates in the current year in previous years, so those debt costs are coming at us and

[6:03:37] it's something we need to be aware of because we'll show it on a slider in a bit, but those

[6:03:41] costs are going to have a significant impact on your tax increases required in out years.

[6:03:47] We also have some pro-rated costs here, so costs, if we know something's not going to start

[6:03:51] to midway through this year, we'll only budget for half that, you're going to get that full

[6:03:55] year cost in the next year's budget, so those costs are going to come.

[6:03:58] And our capital plan is still going to require significant funding as we look to do our

[6:04:04] maintenance on capital and our keeping our roads and everything going.

[6:04:08] That's going to require significant funding as well.

[6:04:11] So all of these things are going to result in that $45 to $60 million increase and again

[6:04:15] that's before we talk about anything that we're having to make up for for this year.

[6:04:21] Now looking at the debt, these are our debt servicing costs.

[6:04:24] So this is what we have to tax for each year.

[6:04:27] And you can see right now this year, 2025, we are in a bit of a dip, we took a little

[6:04:32] bit of a smaller debenture this year than we planned, so we're down at about $43 million.

[6:04:36] But we do expect that to climb significantly over the next several years.

[6:04:40] So as long as those projects are done and those projects are getting completed, we're having

[6:04:44] to take that debt and these are the costs that are going to be coming as a result of that.

[6:04:48] So that number is going to continue to rise and we're going to have to continue to tax

[6:04:52] that every year.

[6:04:53] So we want it to flag that because those are significant costs that are coming your way.

[6:04:56] we want to make sure we're not doing things now that might impact our taxes on top of this growth

[6:05:03] in those out years.

[6:05:14] So just looking at the ballot itself, the process for today.

[6:05:18] So we have indexed the ballot. Every ballot item has a number and that you can find your ballot

[6:05:23] on attachment A. So you'll see every item there has a ballot number. Ball 23 is our other savings.

[6:05:29] That's got some about 30 items included in that one. So there is a bit of a subheading for each one

[6:05:34] those, but we've identified each one with a specific number, so for ease of discussion

[6:05:38] today.

[6:05:43] So the process for today, anything that's decided on today, we're going to be keeping

[6:05:47] track of that. So our starting point is that 7.6% for a post budget. Whenever there's a

[6:05:53] motion made to add a single battle item, bundle item or whatever, one decade's approved,

[6:05:59] Tyler and Dan are going to be doing the calculations, keep us up to date on what we are actually looking

[6:06:03] have for a tax impact as we go. So we're going to be doing that live for any decisions that you

[6:06:09] make so you don't always know exactly where you are in terms of what the impact we're going to be

[6:06:13] doing on our final tax bill is.

[6:06:17] And we just wanted to finish with looking at our tax bill. So when

[6:06:21] we, the reason we have a couple people here doing these calculations is these are all the different

[6:06:25] rates that we actually have to keep track of as we're doing these calculations. So we've got 26 different

[6:06:30] rates, any change we make on the expense side will impact each of these rates.

[6:06:35] So we have to make sure we're properly counting for that and what that's going to be so

[6:06:39] we can give you the proper tax implication as we go forward.

[6:06:41] So just wanted to flag that, let everyone, help everyone understand the level of complexity

[6:06:46] that is our tax bill and wanted to make sure everyone here was ready for that debate.

[6:06:51] So I think that's the end of our presentation.

[6:06:54] I know it's a little bit of abbreviated, but hoping we got the information you need, we're

[6:06:58] here for any questions to have and let's go.

[6:07:09] So you're ready? Thank you very much for

[6:07:13] the presentation. Councillor Austin, I know that you buzzed in first. Council, Cleary

[6:07:19] has something. Would you allow that? Thank you so much, Councillor Cleary.

[6:07:25] Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you, Budget Committee. And also thanks to our staff.

[6:07:33] I'll

[6:07:33] the hard work you put in for months and months and months putting this together and presenting

[6:07:37] it to us.

[6:07:38] And of course thanks to our residents who sent us information over the last number of

[6:07:43] months on all kinds of topics and the special thanks to all the residents who showed up at

[6:07:47] our various budget meetings to present their views in person, very much appreciated.

[6:07:52] We have certainly, from my point of view, the most transparent, comprehensive and exhaustive

[6:07:58] budgeting process that I've ever seen or I'm aware of, especially when you compare

[6:08:02] us to the other orders of government. You don't see this from the province or the feds.

[6:08:07] They do it all behind doors with cabinet, and then it's presented, and it's a fate of complete.

[6:08:12] And I don't know if it was actually von Bismarck who said, you know, you should never see laws and

[6:08:15] sausages made in public. But I hope halagony still have healthy respect for our sausages and our budget

[6:08:22] process after this. And I will talk about the budget globally later, but specifically what I want

[6:08:28] want to do now because of the motion I brought earlier for the budget adjustment list but

[6:08:35] also because of the timeliness of the presentations the intervention by Joe and Brandon earlier

[6:08:42] today from our firefighters. So I would just like to put a motion on the floor that the budget

[6:08:48] committee recommend to regional council that we direct the CAO in consultation with the IAFF,

[6:08:54] specifically our local 268. The province of Nova Scotia and our service providers to establish

[6:09:00] a comprehensive firefighter cancer screening program effective to be effective no later than

[6:09:06] January 1st, 2026. So

[6:09:12] very briefly on this you know we talked about it when I put it on the

[6:09:19] budget adjustment list originally we had very impassioned intervention by Brandon Mar and

[6:09:25] and some of our public who showed up in support of the firefighters who I don't know if they were originally thinking they were going to be supporting the firefighters when they showed up, but certainly after that presentation they did so as well.

[6:09:38] And I know this might sound like it's far off in the future to say January is essentially the end of the year, but the idea is this is direction to our staff to go set up a program, work with the partners and the funding folks,

[6:09:52] and of course health care is provincial, so with the province, to build a program and

[6:09:57] start doing the screening. We are not saying explore it, we're saying go do it. However

[6:10:01] that ends up looking, so I do want to assure our firefighters that we've got your back.

[6:10:06] This is what we're serious about. We're telling our CAO to go do this, and so I'm very happy

[6:10:11] with the discussion and moving forward on this. So thank you, Madam Chair.

[6:10:16] So

[6:10:46] everyone, oh,

[6:10:54] there are no speakers on the list, is the question being called?

[6:10:58] Thank you very much, shall we all proceed to vote?

[6:11:12] Motion has passed.

[6:11:13] Thank you very much, Councillor Cleary. Councillor Austin, for the main motion as well, please.

[6:11:20] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll go ahead and put the motion on the floor.

[6:11:24] I move that the Budget Committee direct the Chief Administrative Officer to finalize the

[6:11:28] the 2025-26 operating capital budget and for your capital plan for regional council incorporating any accepted items from the budget adjustment list along with the proposed amendments.

[6:11:52] Thank you, Miss Chair. And thank you to everyone around the room, colleagues and staff who've all participated and members of the public who joined us today.

[6:12:02] I think today in a lot of ways was the microcosm of the whole kind of clash of priorities and challenges around resources that we all face.

[6:12:10] And, you know, that all lands ultimately with us.

[6:12:14] And, you know, when I looked through the staff report, I was very much struck by, you know,

[6:12:20] I think it's a very solid piece of work, honestly, in terms of recognizing the role that staff have

[6:12:28] and the role that we have, right?

[6:12:29] Ultimately, this is our budget.

[6:12:31] This is this council's budget, it belongs to us.

[6:12:34] Staff have given us their expert advice, which is their role.

[6:12:37] And, you know, we're wise to heed and consider it, but ultimately it's up to us now.

[6:12:43] This is probably the most important council meeting of the whole year, or at least one

[6:12:47] of them, for sure, when we go through our adjustment list and make the budget our own.

[6:12:52] And so in that regard, what I'm looking for out of this is, you know, there was very much

[6:12:58] a theme in what staff have come back with their expert advice, and it's a theme that I think

[6:13:02] It's really important for us all to consider as we decide what you want to maybe add what

[6:13:08] cuts you might want to go for when we weigh all those decisions and that is sustainability

[6:13:16] because it doesn't do us a whole heck of a lot of good to be passing our problems to next

[6:13:21] year or the year after that.

[6:13:23] Whatever we decide to do today, whether it's to spend more money, whether it's to make cuts

[6:13:27] to afford other things, it needs to be sustainable.

[6:13:31] We can't base our budgets on, you know, spending what we have in the here and now, and then being doubly behind the eight ball next year or the year after that.

[6:13:42] So that's what I'm looking for this. I have my own perspective. I think the services that we provide, the things we do in the municipality are really important.

[6:13:50] I think we make a very big contribution and a difference out there.

[6:13:54] that people might not always understand.

[6:13:57] I mean, you'd notice, if we disappeared,

[6:14:00] you'd notice the municipal government was gone pretty quick.

[6:14:02] You might go a week before you noticed

[6:14:03] that whether Ottawa was still there or not.

[6:14:06] We're close to the ground.

[6:14:08] The stuff we do matters,

[6:14:09] and you get all of that on a relative bargain

[6:14:12] in the grand scheme of things.

[6:14:13] You get all the ingredients that make civilization possible.

[6:14:16] So we do important work.

[6:14:18] It's meaningful to the people that we represent.

[6:14:20] they're also stressed regarding finances, and so we have to weigh all these things very carefully.

[6:14:27] So really what I urge you all to consider as we start this debate is whether you want to add

[6:14:33] something, whether you want to cut back on something, just keeps the long-term sustainability of this

[6:14:39] municipality in your mind because I'll play back to the extent that it's been around a little while.

[6:14:47] I'll reference back to the past councils.

[6:14:50] We had some challenges around, you know,

[6:14:52] well, do we take the kind of short-term measure?

[6:14:54] And occasionally we did.

[6:14:56] And some of what we are dealing with today

[6:14:58] is because of some of those.

[6:15:01] So, I urge you all to think over the long term. So, that's kind of my big picture budget thought. I did have one question for staff here. The homelessness measures where that's coming out of reserve and, I mean, contradict myself a little bit. I would prefer if they were long term funded, but for this year I would take reserve, especially where the AIN team is new,

[6:15:28] where then we would have within a year presumably a report back to us on results and then we could decide whether we wanted to continue it, it's almost still pilot phase to me.

[6:15:39] What I'm wondering where that is proposed zero dollar impact, does that still need to be moved?

[6:15:49] Because this is budget and business plans, like is that built into the business plan or do you need a positive motion from us here today to do that?

[6:15:57] No, because we actually have the funding already set aside for within the reserve and it's part of the

[6:16:02] Falls under the offices of the work they were to do

[6:16:05] I think we can go without having to make a motion to do that because they already have the direction

[6:16:09] To do that work that it's very similar to what they actually did prop for it as a report last year to get direction on

[6:16:14] That's why that money sit in the reserve

[6:16:16] So there's no motion needed to do it that we would need a motion if we were to give an additional permanent funding this year

[6:16:21] But I think it'll come back as part of next year's budget at which point you'll be able to provide it with that additional

[6:16:26] if permanent funding should that be something the council wishes to do, but for this year, you have the money in the reserves, it's already approved, come out of the reserve, there's no need to actually do another motion to bring that forward.

[6:16:36] Okay. Well, with that in mind, I'm not going to move a motion.

[6:16:42] This is the drop-in, drop-in, after hours, it's about 0-0-1, so there's no budget implication.

[6:16:52] and well, that's fine with me. I'd prefer if it was long-term funded, but I see the value of

[6:16:57] let's have a year worth of activity with the aim team, and then that report could come back to

[6:17:02] us and then we can decide, hey, is this something we want to continue to do once we've seen that impact

[6:17:07] over the course of a year. So I'm okay with doing that. Thank you very much, Councillor Austin. You're

[6:17:12] over time. Come back. Absolutely, Councillor Kent. Thank you very much Madam Chair, and thank you,

[6:17:20] Councillor for putting that motion on the floor. This is this is hard work, but we all made

[6:17:26] the decision to come in and do it. I think that we've had some really good dialogue

[6:17:30] and discussions along the way. Today is when we really have to slice and dice this this

[6:17:38] ball list, because I don't believe for a second that we can capture all of it. And frankly, I'm

[6:17:46] I'm not sure that I agree with any one of the options that came for, or although I appreciate that they were put forward, so we have that perspective, right?

[6:17:54] But I will put a couple of motions on the floor, and I want to see how they all sort of work their way through, so I'm going to start the process of doing one or two at a time.

[6:18:07] I'll test the water there and then see where we go.

[6:18:11] So I realize, and just to remind folks that we will be, our staff will be keeping a tab

[6:18:17] on the implications of each of the, each of the moves that we make.

[6:18:22] But I really think that these two are critical to our, I think our, I'm going to call it the

[6:18:29] sustainability piece because, physically, we have to be sustainable, but service delivery,

[6:18:34] that's what we're here for, too, and that has to be something that is sustainable and

[6:18:39] effective for our communities based on the impact, the insight and engagement that we

[6:18:47] have with them, and we had today and over the budget process, but also based on what

[6:18:54] we are hearing from our staff. So I will put a motion for that the Budget

[6:19:00] Committee amend the motion to direct Chief Administrative Officer to finalize the 2025-26

[6:19:05] operating budget, capital budget, and four-year capital plan for regional council,

[6:19:10] incorporating BAL-003, Community Crisis Diversion Pilot Service,

[6:19:17] as outlined in attachment A and B, and two, as well, incorporating BAL-008,

[6:19:26] which is the RCMP staffing request of 14 positions, and I'll leave it there for now.

[6:19:32] Thank you, thank you, Councilor Hartling, crisis, community crisis.

[6:19:40] Yeah, so I'll speak to both the community crisis diversion pilot is one that I believe

[6:19:48] strongly is really, really an acknowledgement of the many, many, many people who came not

[6:19:57] not only to this council but to the Board of Police Commission that I served on over the

[6:20:02] last four years around new delivery models for responses and supports for people experiencing

[6:20:10] mental health crisis. So, this one is led by our brilliant team, led by Dr. Amy Cisliano.

[6:20:18] We are privileged really to have her on our team and I know our commissioner Bill Moore

[6:20:24] would agree with us on that. A lot of work was done. This is a pilot. This is meant to be

[6:20:30] what I believe is the Edmonton model. I think correct is that, right? Yeah, it's the Edmonton

[6:20:37] model. It's with a twist for our city and that it's meant to be something that, and I believe,

[6:20:47] based on what I've heard from it, that we can sustain and move forward with and we must.

[6:20:52] That's about resourcing our, allowing our police resources to do their core policing as they should and only being involved when a crisis becomes a volatile situation.

[6:21:07] And so when police are needed, so the first delivery and first contact would be would not be the police.

[6:21:13] The second piece that I speak to is the 14 positions for the RCMP.

[6:21:19] I said it before.

[6:21:20] I'll say it again.

[6:21:21] We are growing municipality.

[6:21:23] Our expectations for growth into the rural areas of our municipality are very real and

[6:21:32] we know that the RCMP are contracted now with the municipality to serve those areas.

[6:21:39] And there is a will from them to and an interest of them to return to the community policing

[6:21:46] office model, which I recall when I was on council the first time in 2004 to 2007,

[6:21:52] that community policing offices were in a pilot space and with the anticipation that

[6:22:00] we would go there, fell off the rail for a number of years and now it's being considered

[6:22:05] at the best practice again. So I'm excited about that. I know that the position for two community

[6:22:12] officers being positioned this year, Beachville and Fall River, each of them are requiring six FTEs,

[6:22:19] not all officers, but also support positions. The other is the community policing officer for

[6:22:28] sheet harbor having one FTE and the traffic services position, which is them for

[6:22:34] Muscatob and Harbor. So those are the 14 that are being asked for this year and

[6:22:39] and I don't need to just go over all the ones that are looking forward because I

[6:22:44] think people can can take the time to do that. But I know that people have brought

[6:22:51] to our attention that we don't need more policing resources. It costs to deliver policing.

[6:23:00] The cost to deliver policing without the bodies to do it effectively has the potential to

[6:23:07] be much higher and much more difficult to live with than to re-look at our budget to support

[6:23:19] it, re looking at our budget to support it. I agree with a person that presented earlier

[6:23:25] today that food security is a community safety issue. It really is. And that would be another

[6:23:35] example of some opportunities for new models of delivery. So we have an obligation to be

[6:23:45] be ready and really catch up to the growth that we have here in the municipality. I am happy

[6:23:54] to support these positions. Look forward to hearing what other Councillors will have

[6:23:58] to say on it. And I hope that you'll support these two parts of this motion. Thank you.

[6:24:06] Thank you, Councillor Klery. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[6:24:12] and obviously these will be splits we can vote on them separately because I can vote for one and not for the other.

[6:24:18] So the community crisis diversion pilot happy to support that because that's an investment.

[6:24:24] It has a payoff in the sense that we actually need fewer police resources hopefully with that program.

[6:24:31] And I've made this argument previously so I'll just restate it very quickly for the RCMP 14 new positions.

[6:24:36] and I'll back up one second, and this was presented to us by our staff.

[6:24:42] And Councillor Oster talked about sustainability in our budget.

[6:24:46] So one of the biggest drivers of our structural funding for operations increases over the

[6:24:54] years is FTEs, it's full-time staff, it's employees.

[6:24:59] And so over the last number of years, adding more and more positions means that your

[6:25:06] We're increasing the cost because you have more people, but every single year after that,

[6:25:11] because whether, especially if the unionized collective agreements are through non-unionized,

[6:25:15] the formula we have for increases in compensation means that those go up every year.

[6:25:21] And so there's an increase to that.

[6:25:24] And including some other factors, I think Mr. Harley pointed out, that we're looking at a minimum,

[6:25:29] 68% increase in the budget next year, and a lot of that is salaries.

[6:25:35] There's some other things to inflation and other things, but a good portion of that

[6:25:39] sellers.

[6:25:40] So, reimagining our approach to public safety includes retasking the from police to

[6:25:47] more civilianized services, and that's what the community crisis diversion pilot is going

[6:25:52] to help us with.

[6:25:53] And if you look at some of the data that was in the report that HRP in particular provided

[6:25:58] to us, but in the RCMP presentation as well, overall crime severity index has been

[6:26:04] stable or decreasing. Violent crime severity index has gone below the national average again

[6:26:09] for here in Halifax. Calls for service are not increasing dramatically. In fact, they're

[6:26:14] stable if you look over the last five years. So I'm not sure if we're adding more civilianized

[6:26:20] resources to deal with some of these public safety issues, why you would then continuously

[6:26:25] add to the police because we're taking off their plate some of these things and their plate

[6:26:32] it hasn't grown very much in terms of what they have to do, so it's not like they're overwhelmed,

[6:26:39] and although they, some of them say they are, but if you look at what they've been doing the

[6:26:43] last few years and you look at where we're going for the next year, it's kind of like, well, they're

[6:26:47] doing the same amount of work. Why would we add more people when we're also adding more civilianized

[6:26:51] employees to do some of that stuff that we're taking off their plate? Sorry, for that reason,

[6:26:56] and I've mentioned this before, I'd probably be unsuccessful again because everyone loves their

[6:26:59] But I will vote for the BAL-003 Community Crisis Diversion pilot, but I cannot vote for 14 more officers, especially for the RCMP.

[6:27:11] Thank you, Madam Chair.

[6:27:13] Thank you, Councillor Cleary.

[6:27:15] Councillor Sainamond.

[6:27:17] Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to build off of Councillor Cleary's point, you know, looking at the first part of this, the Community Crisis Diversion pilot,

[6:27:27] But this is still just a pilot.

[6:27:30] So the fruit that it will bear is yet to be determined.

[6:27:33] So I don't think we have a great one-to-one ratio here in terms of service delivery in

[6:27:40] one area, delivering necessarily a one-to-one service reduction in another area.

[6:27:46] We're just not there yet.

[6:27:48] So I can understand why these things don't quite add up on either side of the ledger.

[6:27:55] Just to speak for a moment about the crisis diversion pilot, I mean, ultimately this is

[6:28:00] a community good delivery, you know, and that, to me, is a core municipal service.

[6:28:06] You know, we're trying to build a better municipality for the people that live here, and this

[6:28:13] is exactly the type of service that I think, you know, we're dipping our toe into it by doing

[6:28:18] a pilot, but this is exactly the type of service we should be looking at.

[6:28:21] because it does have the, arguably, we're kind of guessing a little bit as to what the impact is, but I think we can understand that there is a natural, and there's an intention that this will wind up reducing the amount of pressure that there are, there is on police services, but other social services as well.

[6:28:40] It is also an alternative proactive service delivery which is consistent with the direction

[6:28:46] that we have historically given to the municipality.

[6:28:52] It is a redirection of police resources and because it's a pilot and I'm expecting, you know,

[6:29:00] as soon as you use the term pilot you expect that there's going to be a degree of measurement

[6:29:03] to it.

[6:29:04] So we're going to have real metrics to be able to use.

[6:29:07] we're going to be able to measure and adjust and refine the delivery of that program over time

[6:29:12] such that we can reap better benefits from it as we get better and better at the service delivery.

[6:29:18] And potentially even expand the service as its impact becomes a little bit more well-known

[6:29:24] and we're able to steer our resources appropriately in order to ensure that the delivery of that service

[6:29:30] is reaping the benefit that we're actually chasing by having it in the first place.

[6:29:34] So, that is a service that I think is absolutely warranted, including here.

[6:29:39] Thanks.

[6:29:42] Thank you, Councillor Sainamon and Councillor Hartling.

[6:29:46] Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[6:29:47] Thank you very much, Councillor Kent, for putting this on the floor.

[6:29:50] You have my full support in this.

[6:29:53] I understand that if I could just follow up with Councillor Sainamon's point there, I feel like

[6:29:59] And

[6:30:00] The two services should not be conflated. I don't think that they are, I don't think that having the one service, the one valid, I don't think that that takes away from the current need for a greater RCMP presence in some of our more rural communities. Certainly within the rural communities, I think that there is a profound need for a continued and better presence for RCMP. That is something that for somebody like me.

[6:30:29] I get asked about every single day, right?

[6:30:32] Like this is, I would argue that this is the need

[6:30:35] to look at metrics about how Halifax is doing generally.

[6:30:39] I think that that is smart and I think that that's fair.

[6:30:42] However, to say that we don't need more RCMP

[6:30:45] in our rural communities, I don't think

[6:30:47] that that is necessarily representative

[6:30:49] of the amount of growth that we do go through.

[6:30:55] Yeah, if I could just maybe leave it there

[6:30:58] just because I think that we need to understand policing services beyond just the metrics in

[6:31:04] terms of, you know, how safe we are creating it. I think that we also need to consider population

[6:31:08] as well, as well as net need. Yeah, geography and need, so I will leave it there. But thank you very

[6:31:15] much. I'll be supporting this. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hartling.

[6:31:28] Councillor

[6:31:28] the community crisis, would that be just piloted in the urban service boundary?

[6:31:37] Because RCMP of course are peripheral boundaries, the rural areas that are in desperate need for more boots on the ground out there.

[6:31:47] So I don't think that there's much of an overlap here, but I could be wrong.

[6:31:52] And then yes, and there's Amy, thank you Amy.

[6:31:56] me. And I just keep thinking of Tim Outhet saying this is going to cost us a lot of money.

[6:32:07] And my focus is on the folks in my district that can't afford an increase and to be initiating

[6:32:18] new programs, even though this is such a good idea.

[6:32:27] There's a real conflict, but anyway, thank you Amy for answering the geographic question.

[6:32:42] Just buzz in and we're all great welcoming me.

[6:32:45] Thank you, Amy Cislano, Public Safety Advisor with Community Safety through you, chairs who

[6:32:50] cancel the pretty things for the question.

[6:32:51] there would be overlap, the community crisis service that we're proposing would run in a small

[6:33:00] geographic area so it wouldn't cover the entire, for the pilot, it wouldn't cover the entire

[6:33:05] of HRM. Our intention would be, as a previous Councillor mentioned, to evaluate it, monitor how we're

[6:33:14] and expand it as the results indicate we should expand it.

[6:33:19] So I will say that we don't have the exact geography

[6:33:24] determined yet because we're still looking at call data

[6:33:27] to ensure that we're putting it in the most appropriate place.

[6:33:32] But that's as much as I can share at this point.

[6:33:37] Thank you very much.

[6:33:39] Mayor Fillmore is on the list, but I think he's buzzed in for me.

[6:33:42] So we'll go to Councillor Austin.

[6:33:46] Okay. Surprise. So, I'm really much where Councillor Clary is. I think the, you know,

[6:33:56] the alternative approach is really important. It's a pilot program for those of us who've

[6:34:02] had the chance to, you know, participate in discussions across the country, FCM. It's

[6:34:08] a model that works, right? Like, we're not reinventing the wheel here. It is effective in

[6:34:13] other places, and it takes work off the police and it gives it to people who are more specialized

[6:34:20] in being able to do that. I've used the example in the past of paramedics in the 1970s and

[6:34:26] how transformational that was. I think this is where we are society wise. We're having

[6:34:31] another moment, and if we skip forward 20, 30 years, we'll just never remember a time that

[6:34:36] there wasn't mental health diversion type resources on call. So I think that's where we're

[6:34:41] I think this is really essential work, I think it will pay dividends and I expect that when we do the pilot, what we'll find is when it comes back is it'll be something that we'll be wanting to grow and expand from there.

[6:34:53] So fully on board with that, I'm not going to vote for the RCMP one. I didn't when it was first proposed.

[6:35:02] And it really just, for me, it comes down to this piece about, you know, there's so much going on around policing.

[6:35:07] And, you know, in past years, past councils, I didn't support adding HRP officers when they were requested.

[6:35:14] I just can't, when we're in the midst of deciding what the direction is around policing.

[6:35:19] Add more uniformed officers, unless there's a really, really solid case.

[6:35:24] And I just don't think that that case has been solidly made on this.

[6:35:27] I'm going to ask staff, where are we with the whole police

[6:35:32] transformational stuff that has been initiated?

[6:35:36] Like, when is that actually going to, you know,

[6:35:40] I know it's a slow process, it's a long process to look

[6:35:43] at those fundamental questions, you know, like even

[6:35:47] where the appropriate boundary is between HRP and RCMP

[6:35:50] and everything else under the sun regarding policing?

[6:35:53] When is that work actually slated to come back to us?

[6:35:56] because, you know, it'd be easier to add people if we knew where we were going.

[6:36:07] Madam Chair, through to the Councillor, thanks for the question. Bill Moore, Commissioner

[6:36:11] of Public Safety. So, what I would say is that the work has been ongoing. Quite frankly,

[6:36:16] there's been, we were, for a lot of the work we're waiting for the HRP Chief to be finalized,

[6:36:21] which has now occurred. We have a joint schedule for meeting of the strategic, between HRP and

[6:36:29] And in my new role now, I've actually taken the transformation project with me to this new role.

[6:36:35] So that's underway.

[6:36:37] You're correct, there was an aviability of the integrated model report that was to come back to the council.

[6:36:42] In discussion, as you're probably aware, the province is doing a policing review now, provincially.

[6:36:47] So we're waiting to see the results of that report to be able to weave that into what we are doing.

[6:36:52] We are having discussions preliminary right now in relation to areas that we can look at,

[6:36:59] including updating the MOUs, are there areas that we can look at for integration?

[6:37:04] There's been no direct discussion up to this point on any boundary changes or anything in those nature.

[6:37:10] But it is part of my work plan and I'll leave it at that and defer to the subject.

[6:37:15] So is that a few years realistically?

[6:37:17] basically? Like I don't know what the province's schedule is.

[6:37:22] Thank you. So our initial schedule of implementation of the results of the policing transformation

[6:37:32] study, you recall I think we had presented it to Council around maybe end of May or June

[6:37:40] of 2023. Later that fall, the province announced they were going to do the provincial policing

[6:37:46] services review. Just this week in the NSFM released what they heard report through

[6:37:57] their survey of policing agencies, municipalities with police forces in the province. And this

[6:38:06] spring, later on, we do anticipate there will be something being released coming out of

[6:38:11] the provincial review, and in the meantime, we have been trying to work on the, I'll

[6:38:22] refer to them as low-hanging fruit, the things that are going to approve our interoperability

[6:38:29] between RCMP and HRP in the meantime. So we are not going to be positioned to take any

[6:38:38] large strategic decisions until we see what comes out of the final provincial review.

[6:38:44] And also I did notice earlier this week or late last week, one of the last things that

[6:38:51] the former Prime Minister Trudeau did on his way out of office was to express some opinion

[6:38:57] about establishment of federal policing type force using the RCMP.

[6:39:04] So I think we've got to wait and see what happens federally also.

[6:39:08] So in the meantime, I'm really pleased that we've got the Commissioner of Public Safety on board now.

[6:39:16] And it's going to be starting to work directly with the Chief Superintendent of the Halifax Detachment and

[6:39:23] the Chief of Halifax Regional Police.

[6:39:26] And I think the next update on the work being done under the Policing Transformation Study is scheduled

[6:39:33] to come to Council in,

[6:39:38] yeah, I think it's around May. So the other thing that will come forward is

[6:39:44] in June Council receives a report from the Board of Police Commissioners that has the work

[6:39:50] they've done in the last year plus their work plan for the current year. So you'll see some of it in

[6:39:55] that. Thank you.

[6:39:59] Thank you, Councillor Austin. Oh, I just wanted one of the pieces of work that I

[6:40:05] I don't want to add there because I think it's important to the conversations being

[6:40:08] hit.

[6:40:08] So, for instance, the next board of police commission's meeting, Dr. Slano will actually be presenting

[6:40:14] on the public safety strategy to the police board.

[6:40:17] So we're starting to see the, because one of the pieces that came out of the policing transformation

[6:40:20] was to build out the community safety function.

[6:40:22] That was one of the deliverables in the policing transformation study.

[6:40:25] So we are actually moving on that.

[6:40:27] We have working groups from HRP, RCMP, and community safety that are working at mental health,

[6:40:34] looking at the diversion.

[6:40:34] So, that work is being done cross-pollination.

[6:40:38] So, there is work being done in that alternate response space with both police agencies.

[6:40:46] Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor.

[6:40:48] We can switch chairs.

[6:40:49] I think Councillor Kent would like to close.

[6:41:14] Madam Chair, there are floor zeros.

[6:41:16] Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor.

[6:41:18] Thank you, Councillor Kent, for putting, whoops, we need to turn off.

[6:41:25] Good.

[6:41:30] Thank you so much.

[6:41:32] I was hearing my own echo.

[6:41:34] So thank you, Councillor Kent, for putting this on the floor.

[6:41:43] It's really interesting.

[6:41:44] I didn't think it would get to this today.

[6:41:45] I thought we would be doing this by far, but it's great to have this conversation now.

[6:41:54] I find it kind of interesting that the two Councillors say that they can't support it or not support

[6:42:00] it by the RCMP, that their policing service is HRP.

[6:42:04] And so a small amount, yes, a very small amount.

[6:42:10] So I can speak for Fall River and say that our community has been working with the RCMP

[6:42:15] now for about four years looking to say why we wanted to have a community office.

[6:42:21] And there's a distinction between, you know, an attachment and a community office

[6:42:25] and I really appreciated the conversation this morning from one of the speakers that said,

[6:42:29] you know, what does community in front of it mean?

[6:42:31] And actually what it means is the community safety and a presence.

[6:42:36] And the stats that the RSNP and our community have worked together on is that, yes, the

[6:42:42] calls for service has increased.

[6:42:44] In terms of fall, where the pressure on the lower sackful detachment has been rather significant

[6:42:49] and so because that's where the fall, river, Waverly, Wellington, Oakfield, all of that community

[6:42:56] is being service by and Waverly.

[6:42:58] So the, um, and the future growth, so the business about business, uh, briefing

[6:43:04] note that we got did qualify, uh, the need and seeing the identified need.

[6:43:10] Um, so, and, and the other thing is like, on the other side of things, I also said I

[6:43:16] agree with retasking that there are positions within our policing services that shouldn't

[6:43:23] be by uniform officers.

[6:43:24] So this increase or this having a community office doesn't detract from that at all, it actually says that we're going to put more resources in the community where they're needed.

[6:43:34] So I do hope that people will look at this and see where it is that its suburban and rural does need to have the kinds of support from policing.

[6:43:44] We look about, you know, where are we, where are our taxes going?

[6:43:48] And in the suburban rural place, the first two things everybody says is that it's fire

[6:43:52] in its police.

[6:43:54] Well, 50% of her firefighting force in all of HRM is volunteer.

[6:44:00] And in the rural and suburban, the majority is volunteer.

[6:44:04] So then you're looking at the police force and it is RCMP.

[6:44:07] And that is actually where we want to see the support.

[6:44:10] and the nice thing is that when we talk to the RCMP about what this community office will be like,

[6:44:16] it'll be with public consultation, it'll be about where are the officers, what are the times,

[6:44:22] how is this going to work, how is it going to really reflect the need of the community?

[6:44:26] So it is something that can be uniquely delivered in terms of community office.

[6:44:30] So I do hope that you'd support it. Thank you very much.

[6:44:37] Well, the chair comes up, I can see that Councillor Gillis is next.

[6:44:45] Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor.

[6:44:48] I just want to say I'm going to support Councillor Kent's motion on this, of both parts of it.

[6:44:53] I think it's important that the RCMP have the tools what they need to do their job.

[6:45:00] My district is totally, totally covered by RCMP. I don't have HRP, it's sackful at all. And yeah, just like Councillor Deagle-Gammon said, you know, six officers for Fall River, which then lightens the load on Laura Sackville, enables them to do more proactive patrols. I'm sure you guys get lots of calls and everything for, you know, speeding, you know, all kinds of different calls.

[6:45:29] and stuff like that. And I think this is a great initiative and I think this is something

[6:45:34] I can support. So I'd like to say I would support Councillor Kent. Thank you.

[6:45:40] Thank you Councillor Gillis. Just a moment we were to go to four o'clock is council okay

[6:45:45] for us to finish this to get to a vote on these. Awesome. Is that consensus?

[6:45:53] We're good. Okay. Councillor White.

[6:45:59] I do need to leave round 425.

[6:46:04] Okay. I support the community crisis, is that what, yes, diversion program. I can't vote

[6:46:14] for the policing and the reason for me is financial life. I wanted to try and make some

[6:46:22] reductions in the HRP budget with the body cams and that didn't go anywhere. I really appreciate

[6:46:32] the community policing model. I do want that to happen. I see the benefits already with HRP

[6:46:40] in my district. So, you textbook voted this morning and there's been other enforcement issues

[6:46:47] working with the new constable that have just been things solved right away. So, I totally

[6:46:54] appreciated I'm feeling this from a budget pinch. I would have wanted to save elsewhere, but that

[6:47:01] that didn't happen, so that's why I'm going to vote against the policing part.

[6:47:04] Thanks.

[6:47:05] Thank you, Councillor White. Councillor Steele.

[6:47:09] Oh, there I go. I wasn't flashing.

[6:47:12] Okay. A couple of comments. I will be supporting both.

[6:47:18] I do want to say that Community Crisis Diversion Pilot.

[6:47:22] I still feel that we should be looking for other sources of funding around this.

[6:47:29] The pilot is great once we do it and if we find out that it works and that it's effective, I think we need to find other sources of funding.

[6:47:36] Because I think what we're really talking about mostly here is mental health support.

[6:47:41] And so for the mental health support, I'd love to find some other sources of funding.

[6:47:45] And it does appear as if there are other funding partners out there, but I'm willing to fund the pilot.

[6:47:52] But I don't want to give the impression that this is going to be the long term and every

[6:47:57] year we're going to do more of it.

[6:47:59] On the RCMP, I can support it, unlike Councillor Dagle-Gammon, I haven't been part of a big community

[6:48:06] effort.

[6:48:07] I was only elected last fall, so I haven't been part of that.

[6:48:11] But I'm comforted by the fact that there will be community consultation on what the community

[6:48:17] policing office in the Beachville Lakeside Timberley area would look like. And I will say

[6:48:23] that I'm probably somewhat unique in that I have both HRP and RCMP quite a bit of both

[6:48:29] in my district. So I have seen kind of the evidence of both and I'm willing to support the

[6:48:35] motion brought forward by Councillor Kent. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Steele. May I feel more?

[6:48:43] Thank you. Just to ask that we vote on the two items separately. That's all. Thank you.

[6:48:50] Councillor Austin?

[6:48:55] Okay, sure. I'll go now. I just wanted to comment, Miss Chair. I don't

[6:49:02] know what the intent of the comment was, but you know, my record on policing budgets, and

[6:49:08] actually he's not here right now, but it's pretty much Councillor Clarke will has been the

[6:49:12] same is I voted against HRP officers adding I voted against RCMP officers adding I've been

[6:49:18] completely consistent on we need to figure out what we do with policing and so if the

[6:49:23] insinuation that it's interesting that the counselors that are not supporting this are ones

[6:49:29] who don't have RCMP and therefore we don't care about policing in rural areas I just want to be

[6:49:34] if that was what that was meant by that okay I appreciate that because I take exception to that

[6:49:40] I had very much so because this is my, this is core philosophical belief here that I have been consistent about when it's in my own community and I've had to tell people that like, well, I'm sorry I don't support adding HRP officers at this time for the same reason my one exception was during COVID and you'll remember some of the in-camera discussions when we were in a pretty severe staffing situation or regarding policing so but other than that one year, I have not supported

[6:50:10] uniformed officers in HRP or RCMP and I think my colleague, the clock, crossed the way is the same.

[6:50:16] Thank you.

[6:50:17] Thank you, Councilor Hauston.

[6:50:17] Point taken.

[6:50:18] Wasn't my intention.

[6:50:20] Councilor Perdi.

[6:50:22] The chair and I just wanted to pick up on Councillor Steele's comment about funding and another

[6:50:26] question for Yemi.

[6:50:31] Is funding going to be actively pursued during this pilot project from perhaps the federal

[6:50:38] government to see if ongoing monies can be brought into this in future years.

[6:50:47] Amy Cisliano, through you, Chair to the Council. Thank you, Councillor Perdi. I have been

[6:50:53] in discussion with the province since we've started working on this pilot. To date,

[6:50:59] I have no news to share around potential funding sources from other levels of government, but

[6:51:06] But I am actively pursuing those.

[6:51:10] I think it's also important to say that we are also looking at what's happening in

[6:51:14] jurisdictions across Canada and from the knowledge that I have right now, municipalities

[6:51:22] are offending this service because they are seeing a diversion in calls that are going to 911

[6:51:30] and ending up this police.

[6:51:31] So it's something that the police are already doing, and we're already funding police to do,

[6:51:38] and so this would be an alternative to something that we actually are already

[6:51:42] resourcing. Okay, in your professional experience doing this, how likely is it that there would be

[6:51:51] some new funding stream coming online from like a federal government source in the next year or so?

[6:52:00] Well, I can't say, for sure, especially at the federal level because we don't know

[6:52:05] what's happening.

[6:52:06] I do know that we've had great success working with the Office of Addiction and Mental

[6:52:12] Health in a great example of that is they're cost sharing the stabilization center of 50-50

[6:52:17] with us.

[6:52:18] And that was direction from Council to ensure that we got that funding and they're stepping

[6:52:23] out because of the healthcare component that that stabilization center would be providing

[6:52:32] for some primary care to folks. So this particular service that we're talking about today,

[6:52:38] the crisis response service, would not be staffed by healthcare workers just as in other jurisdictions

[6:52:49] like Toronto and Ottawa, but staffed with folks who have specialized training,

[6:52:59] training that some of you have taken, like nonviolent crisis intervention, mental health

[6:53:02] foresaid, those types of training. So we wouldn't be providing a health care service.

[6:53:07] There wouldn't be health care workers employed. It would be specially trained individuals

[6:53:13] to respond to instances of crises that, in many cases right now, are police are responding to.

[6:53:23] Okay.

[6:53:23] Thank you.

[6:53:25] Thank you, Councillor Kent to close.

[6:53:28] Yes, thank you, Madame Chair.

[6:53:30] Thank you, colleagues, for your input on these motions.

[6:53:33] I appreciate the support that was clearly articulated for the crisis model, intervention model.

[6:53:40] I'm going to focus my closing on the RCMP piece.

[6:53:44] I want to recognize first that the payoff notion for the RCMP is in relation to the

[6:53:52] structure for RCMP, you know, that's already in place and is functioning very well in

[6:53:59] our communities that's contracted and Price Waterhouse Cooper report that we ask for strongly

[6:54:07] recommends the integrated model.

[6:54:09] So with that, there has to be an expectation that we will resource them appropriately.

[6:54:19] I can't say that planning for growth should solely be on current data.

[6:54:28] What we have to forecast as well, this is around forecasting.

[6:54:33] You know, we forecast transportation corridors, we forecast transit, we forecast infrastructure

[6:54:39] needs.

[6:54:40] We should also be forecasting what we need in the way of RCMP and HRP.

[6:54:45] I want to focus right now specifically on our rural areas.

[6:54:50] They are becoming suburban areas.

[6:54:52] We have some in the lower sacrifice areas that already are being policed by the RCMP.

[6:54:57] But equal to that, we are also have very large geographic jurisdictions.

[6:55:03] And what I see now in this ask is a position being forwarded that our community policing offices

[6:55:12] really should be looked at as alternative models.

[6:55:17] When we look at that, we are talking about community offices that have policing

[6:55:23] building, um, constables that support, um, public servants. We have people who have the

[6:55:31] ability to liaise and create relationships with our community leaders, our teachers,

[6:55:38] uh, our, our restorative justice programs. They have the ability because they're within

[6:55:44] a community understanding the needs of that community to work on crime prevention programs

[6:55:50] that they otherwise wouldn't be able to because geographically they could be in the other

[6:55:55] end of HRM responding to something that takes them out of the community. And yes, that

[6:56:02] will happen at some critical moments. But knowing that there's a community policing office

[6:56:08] in communities can transform communities. They're faith in community, they get to know the

[6:56:14] the hospitals that are serving them, they get to create all of the relationships with

[6:56:20] the community builders that we speak about every single time we talk about alternative

[6:56:25] models. And I think that the Preston offices are some of the best examples of that. So

[6:56:33] I ask that you support this. This is the way to go forward. Thank you very much.

[6:56:38] Thank you Councillor Kent. Councillor Perdi has buzzed in again.

[6:56:41] I have, because we're in committee of the whole, so, haha, I have, no, okay, sorry.

[6:56:48] This is, I'm feeling tormented here, I want to be able to support this, but I tell myself

[6:56:53] I'm not voting for any extras on the ballot.

[6:56:56] I was wondering if I could ask HRP, if they believe this is going to be a benefit, yeah,

[6:57:02] for the community crisis diversion pilot project, the pilot project, do you feel this is going

[6:57:10] to be an asset, a benefit to your officers on the grant.

[6:57:15] This is going to free up your officers.

[6:57:17] It's, I don't think it's going to be in our CMP territory though.

[6:57:23] Thank you very much.

[6:57:24] Welcome.

[6:57:25] I'll keep it simple.

[6:57:26] Chief Dom McLey.

[6:57:28] Okay.

[6:57:29] I think we should ask the RSMP to.

[6:57:31] Is our CMP here as well, because we don't know the geographic area, but I would assume

[6:57:38] It would be inside the service ban ribbon.

[6:57:43] Do you see this as an asset to welcome your officers?

[6:57:49] Yes.

[6:57:50] Good afternoon.

[6:57:51] Council, Superintendent Don Moser, Acting Officer and Chair for Hall of Action Regional

[6:57:56] Attachment.

[6:57:57] Chair, through you, to the Councillor, thank you very much for the question.

[6:58:00] All that drama and lead up to say, absolutely agree with that.

[6:58:04] And we couldn't be more on board with alternative service delivery and off boarding things that

[6:58:09] don't fall with or shouldn't fall within the purview of the police. So wonderful, wonderful.

[6:58:14] I think a place to lead on behalf of HRM and we would play our part supporting that,

[6:58:20] but make it, I would say make no bones about it. We would play a supporting role in the

[6:58:24] effectiveness and the sustainability at any such model as well. So thank you.

[6:58:29] Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilor Portee.

[6:58:33] Councilor Hartling. Yeah. Councilor Hartling, I do know

[6:58:38] that two of our Councillors have a hard stop at 420, so I promise this will be so super

[6:58:42] fast. If you could also speak to, and I'm actually looking at the RCMP right now because

[6:58:47] I feel like there was a little bit of conflation there. With the success of the first program,

[6:58:55] assuming that that was a wild success, would you still feel that we are in a position to

[6:59:00] require the 14 new RCMP officers? Yes or no?

[6:59:05] Chair, through you, to the Council, ma'am, thank you very much for your question.

[6:59:10] I would say I would need to review the results of the pilot.

[6:59:14] They wouldn't change the here and now.

[6:59:17] It wouldn't change the substance of the request here and now because I believe that would be

[6:59:21] in it, it would be in it, it would be in it, it would be in it, it would be in the form and

[6:59:25] council.

[6:59:25] I don't have the data to be able to say that, and I think it would be disingenuous to tell

[6:59:29] you that would change things in here and now.

[6:59:31] Okay.

[6:59:31] Thank you very much.

[6:59:32] I appreciate that.

[6:59:33] Thank you, Councillor Hartling. Mr. Clerk, we're going to vote on the first one, which is the Bell 003, the Community Crisis Diversion pilot. Call for the question.

[7:00:00] Motion has carried. Thank you very much. We will now vote on the ballot item 008, which is the RCMP staffing request. Call for the question.

[7:00:38] Motion has carried. Thank you very much, everyone. And now what we will do is we will recess and reconvene on Friday morning at 9.30.

Budget Committee

Agenda

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