HALIFAX, MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2022

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

5:49 p.m.

CHAIR

Chris Palmer

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The Committee of the Whole on Supply will come to order. It is now 5:49 p.m. The committee must rise and report to the House before the hour of adjournment, which today is 10:00 p.m.

The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. KIM MASLAND: Mr. Chair, would you please call Resolution E14.

Resolution E14 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $400,479,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, pursuant to the Estimate.

THE CHAIR: I would like to now invite the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to make any opening comments. Minister, you have up to an hour to introduce yourself and your staff. You may begin.

HON. JOHN LOHR: I just want to confirm that you can all hear me well, is the sound quality good?

THE CHAIR: Yes, everything is great.

JOHN LOHR: Joining me here in the room are my Deputy Minister, Paul LaFleche; Associate Deputy Minister Mark Peck; Lisa MacKinnon, Executive Director of Finance; and George Murphy, Director of Finance with our housing group. I have other staff joining me here in the office as well to ensure that I am best equipped to answer your questions.

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to introduce Estimates for the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing for 2022-2023. As you know, the Housing file was moved back to this department on August 31, 2021, when our government took office, and I was sworn in as minister.

The Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing supports and works in collaboration with our 49 municipalities across the province. We also support safe communities through the Emergency Management Office and the Office of the Fire Marshal. Of course we have a responsibility for housing, an issue that is very much on Nova Scotians’ minds these days and one I will be speaking about at great length in this Chamber today, I am sure.

I’ll start with the Municipal Affairs side of the department. Municipalities are such an important part of our lives. We may not think of it in quite that way, but if you ask Nova Scotians where they live, they’ll name their community. Ask them what services they rely on most and it’s quite likely municipal services like public transit, waste collection, water, or recreation will make their top five.

We work closely and collaboratively with local government in communities across Nova Scotia. Our goal is their goal, to build strong, sustainable, and safe communities with diverse economies and a high quality of life. In other words, places where Nova Scotians want to live.

Municipalities are governed by the Municipal Government Act and Halifax Regional Municipality Charter. Municipalities have authority to raise revenue, manage planning and development, deliver services such as water, wastewater, solid waste management, police, fire and emergency services, and public transit, to name a few.

It’s important to me to work collaboratively with municipalities as much as possible to understand their concerns, their challenges and their strengths. We know that municipalities across the province are dealing with unprecedented growth and the challenges in planning and service delivery that come with it. They are concerned about housing, about transit, about the rising cost of energy.

Growth is a good problem to have but it’s also a major change. We haven’t planned for growth like this in decades, we haven’t had to. Municipalities need our support and partnership as we work through this together. That’s why our government doubled the Municipal Financial Capacity Grant last Fall, providing municipalities and towns an extra $32 million to provide services like police, fire protection, and transportation.

A key part of my mandate is to renegotiate the Service Exchange Agreement with our municipalities, which hasn’t been changed since 1995. This is a huge piece of work which my staff have already begun to work on. Our goal is to ensure that Nova Scotians across the province are well supported by the communities they live in.

In order to support and build strong communities, my department must have strong partnerships with the 49 municipalities and 21 villages across the province. The foundation of any good relationship is open, honest communication. I believe that sincerely, and I have worked to apply it to my relationship with our municipal partners since I arrived at the department last Fall.

I have visited 26 of our municipalities either in person or virtually since I became minister, and I am looking forward to visiting the remaining 23. I have met with the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities and the Association of Municipal Administrators Nova Scotia multiple times, and my staff have an excellent working relationship with them.

I mentioned that part of my mandate is to renegotiate the Service Exchange Agreement with the municipalities. Another important piece of work is the review of the Municipal Government Act and Halifax Regional Municipality Charter. We are doing this work in collaboration with municipalities. We have set up an advisory group with the NSFM and meet with them regularly. We discuss outstanding and emergency issues on both the Service Exchange Agreement and the Municipal Government Act review.

Governments often make changes to the Municipal Government Act and the Charter. We announced some amendments to the Charter on April 6^th, for example, to help modernize and speed up development in the Halifax area but it has been a long time since we’ve done a wholesale review of these two important pieces of legislation. It is past time, so we are doing it.

My staff have collected feedback from reviews of the Municipal Government Act that were done previously in 2016 and 2018 but never completed. We are hoping to consult municipalities this Summer on some of the themes which may include finding better and more efficient ways to govern and deliver services, fiscal responsibility, economic development, programs and services, and planning and development. We are also working on a municipal code of conduct and that work we are doing in partnership with the NSFM and the Association of Municipal Administrators.

Nova Scotians expect their governments at all levels to be accountable and transparent with taxpayers’ money and behave in ways that maintain public trust. I know that my colleagues from all parties in this House believe that, and our municipal colleagues do too. We have set up a working group with representation from the Association of Municipal Administrators, the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities, and the Association of Nova Scotia Villages, to provide recommendations on the code of conduct as well as potential sanctions. They will also look at the process related to handling complaints.

I believe strongly that this is not something the Province can impose upon municipalities; we need everyone to buy in. So once those recommendations have been brought forward by the working group, we will consult with the municipalities. I believe this will result in a strong code of conduct that will help our municipal colleagues and the public build and maintain public trust.

Our funding partnerships with the federal government are all about ensuring communities are equipped with sound infrastructure. In 2017, the Government of Canada announced the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program. This program has the Province and the federal government working together to make long-term infrastructure investments that will build inclusive and prosperous communities.

[6:00 p.m.]

We also support a low-carbon green economy. Under this program, Infrastructure Canada will invest $180 billion over 10 years. Nova Scotia’s portion of that will be $834.5 million over 10 years. On behalf of the Province, the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing currently administers 59 projects under this program, totalling $461 million. Of that, $188 million is federal money, and $165 million comes from the Province. Fifty of these projects are municipally led, with the other nine led by non-profits and universities. There are a number of these, and I just want to highlight a couple.

For example, there is a wastewater treatment infrastructure program with the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, with a total project cost of almost $100 million. Of that, just over $39 million is from the federal government, with the Province putting in almost $53 million. It’s a massive project.

Not all the projects are that large. For example, there is a project with the Municipality of the County of Annapolis, a water distribution system upgrade, which is a $395,000 project, of which the Province has put in $131,000 and the federal government $158,000.

Another larger project is for the Halifax Regional Municipality for a bikeway network. That is a $25-million project, of which the federal funding is $12.5 million, and the provincial share is $8.3 million.

These projects are all over the province. For example, the Town of Bridgewater wastewater system upgrades, $5.5 million, of which the federal government is putting in $2.2 million and the Province is putting in $1.8 million.

As I said, there are 59 of those projects, and I would be happy to answer questions on any of the 59 with my staff here.

Municipalities also benefit from other programs that leverage federal dollars. The Canada Community-Building Fund, which used to be known as the federal Gas Tax Fund, transfers money from the federal government to municipalities through our department. It provides long-term stable funding for municipalities that can also be invested in local infrastructure projects. In the new fiscal year, Nova Scotia will receive over $58 million from the Canada Community-Building Fund for these purposes. Projects funded under the new Canada build fund continue as that program winds down.

These infrastructure projects help grow the local economy, create jobs, and increase productivity across Nova Scotia. They have enormous benefits for all of the things they address, such as active transportation and particularly sewer and wastewater projects.

The department also offers provincial programs to municipalities to support local infrastructure needs. Through the Provincial Capital Assistance Program, we provide funding to improve municipal water supply, sewage disposal, and solid waste infrastructure as well. Last year, 11 projects received funding through this program, such as water and wastewater studies, water reservoir refurbishment, water and waste water infrastructure renewal, and backup power for waste water facilities.

For example, the Municipality of the County of Richmond did a sewage system inflow and infiltration study - a $25,000 grant from the Province on a total $50,000 building project. The Town of Port Hawkesbury had a project to process control systems upgrades which saw $35,000 come in on a total eligible project of $70,000. The Town of Stewiacke, a well water study, phase three - a $100,000 project on a total project cost of almost $350,000. These projects provide great benefit to our municipal partners - and there is $690,000 in this year’s program to continue this vital work.

A Flood Risk Infrastructure Investment Program allows us to make investments that help reduce flood risk and community vulnerability. Through the program last year five projects received funding. One of the projects was the study of the Fundy shoreline vulnerability in East Hants. That project received almost $20,000 of provincial funding on a total project cost of $40,000. Another was a project in Colchester, focused on bank stabilization and flow improvements in the North River. That project received almost $40,000 on a nearly $80,000 total project cost.

There were several other projects in that. The Town of Digby received $100,000 on a $200,000 project approximately for road seawater flooding on the Raquette Road. The Village of Port Williams received money for flood risk prevention infrastructure of almost $35,000 on the nearly $70,000 project.

A call for applications to this program will also take place this Spring. We also offer a Municipal Innovation Program to encourage municipal collaboration; a Beautification and Streetscaping Program which does exactly what you’d think from the name; and a Community Works Program to encourage municipal employment opportunities. We are pleased to partner with municipalities on these important projects.

The Beautification and Streetscaping Program last year saw CBRM receive funding for the CBRM Blossoming in 2021 in Glace Bay, Whitney Pier, Dominion, Reserve Mines, and New Waterford of $23,000 on a total project cost of $46,000. HRM received funding for the People Powered Park of $20,000 on a $65,000 total project cost. The Municipality of the District of Guysborough received $25,000 on a $110,000 project for a waterfront revitalization project. The Municipality of the District of Lunenburg received wayfinding signage implementation of $25,000 on a $106,000 project. The Town of Middleton received funding for Winter in Middleton of $10,000 on a $20,000 project.

Mr. Chair, I’d like to move on to talk about the Emergency Management Office. The Emergency Management Office works to enhance the safety and well-being of Nova Scotians, their property, and the environment through innovative, collaborative, and integrated emergency planning and response. In times of emergency, municipalities lead the response. The Emergency Management Act requires every municipality in the province to have an Emergency Management Coordinator and an Emergency Management Plan.

EMO helps municipalities develop and review their plans. It carries out exercises to test the plan and helps train their key staff in emergency response. In times of emergency, EMO opens a provincial coordination centre to bring together any number of government and private organizations that may be needed to support the response and recovery. We did that recently during a number of severe winter storms, including one that caused a great deal of flooding in Pictou, Antigonish, and Cape Breton.

The Emergency Management Office also operates the Disaster Financial Assistance programs which help municipalities, small businesses, not-for-profit groups, and Nova Scotians to get on their feet after a disaster. The programs support those whose losses aren’t covered by insurance, up to a maximum of $200,000 per household.

In December we announced support for those impacted by the November 23^rd wind and rain storm. I am pleased to be able to tell you that to date we have received 154 applications, and 37 have been approved so far, for a total of $684,000 in funding. We remain committed to helping Nova Scotians properly prepare for emergencies, to helping municipalities respond, and to supporting people and communities as they recover.

Climate change is leading to more frequent and severe weather events, like Hurricane Dorian in 2019, Teddy in 2020, and the weekly storms we’ve seen this past winter. Electricity, telecommunications, and physical transportation networks, like our roads and bridges, are susceptible to storm events. Nova Scotians rely on these services so it’s more important than ever to engage in emergency management planning to lessen or avoid the impacts.

EMO is working with its partners to implement and exercise the updated Strategic Emergency Management Plan for the province. This plan is the foundation for how EMO operates before, during, and after an emergency. We take a planning approach that can apply to various kinds of emergencies that may arise. The Strategic Emergency Management Plan details how the province and its partners will respond to specific threats to the safety and well-being of Nova Scotians.

EMO also administers the provincial 911 system. We are taking part in the development of the next-generation 911 system which will give Nova Scotians access to new, innovative emergency services capabilities and improve public safety. Our goal is to have this work fully complete and in place by the March 2025 date prescribed by the CRTC. Next-generation 911 will increase the quality and variety of data available to first responders when they are responding to emergencies. It will eventually allow for text, photos, and video to be sent to support response to emergency situations.

I’d like to take a moment to thank the 911 call takers for their very important work.
As all members of the House know, it is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week and I know that the work they do can be extremely difficult when they are responding. They are the first person on the phone responding to an emergency and their work is deeply appreciated. They ensure that emergency calls are directed to the appropriate first responder agency. They are the calm, reassuring voice Nova Scotians hear when they phone 911, and the one that sends help, so thanks to them for everything they do to help us when we need it most.

My department also holds responsibility for the Office of the Fire Marshal. The Office of the Fire Marshal oversees building and fire safety for the province and advises various levels of government on fire-related matters. The office also oversees building safety, ensuring that the Nova Scotia Building Code Act and regulations reflect the latest national standards

[6:15 p.m.]

The Fire Safety Act of Nova Scotia provides the office with the powers to enforce the Fire Code, conduct inspections and investigations, and provides authority to the municipal fire inspectors and chiefs.

We continue to work with municipalities who have the responsibility to provide fire services in their area. The Province supports fire services through the Emergency Services Provider Fund, also known as ESPF. This $1-million fund provides money to hazardous materials teams, ground search and rescue organizations, and fire departments. Organizations can apply for grants of up to $20,000 for a variety of firefighting, ice rescue, personal protective gear, and communications equipment.

Many of these volunteer fire departments, ground search and rescue organizations, and First Nations fire departments also rely on fundraising. Obviously, traditional fundraising has been a struggle for the past two years, so last month we announced $3.5 million in funding to help them recover from the fundraising losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 340 organizations will receive a one-time grant of $10,000. They will decide how best to use this money - it could be for new equipment or operations, smoke alarm campaigns, or as an honorarium for volunteer firefighters to help with increasing costs. The work of our volunteer first responders is so important. I am personally grateful and appreciative for all they do, and so many Nova Scotians have reason to feel the same.

I have had occasion three times in my life to call 911, and I don’t want to unpack any of those moments, but I can’t express enough my gratitude toward the first responders in the Annapolis Valley area. I know Nova Scotians all over the province have the same sentiment.

The Office of the Fire Marshal also conducts inspections for provincial licensing and provides recommendations relating to fire and building safety for more than 3,000 provincially owned properties. We support local fire chiefs in determining the cause and origin of fires. Our deputy fire marshals are available to respond across the province and around the clock when asked to conduct fire investigations. We also share information about the cause of fires when our staff have completed an investigation and where it is possible.

Mr. Chair, there have been far too many fatal fires in the last few months, and each one brings unimaginable loss for families and friends. There are different circumstances around each one, but I would encourage each and every Nova Scotian to make sure their smoke detectors work. Have one in every room where someone sleeps and on all levels of your home - and replace them every 10 years. They save lives.

Housing is my last topic I’ll address in today’s speech, but it’s also my first priority. It’s the first priority for so many Nova Scotians. In recent years it’s become harder and harder for people to find a place to live that they can afford. That’s a challenge well highlighted by the Nova Scotia Affordable Housing Commission report last Spring, but it’s also one Nova Scotians are telling us about every day.

Nova Scotia has experienced growth in the last few years that we didn’t plan for. More and more people understand the benefits of living here. The pandemic taught us how important family, friends, and community are and gave us the tools to work remotely from anywhere in the world. This year, Nova Scotia’s population reached 1 million people, its highest level on record. That gives us a number of opportunities but also a number of challenges. One of our first challenges is that we don’t have good data yet to fully understand the scope of this issue.

The Nova Scotia Affordable Housing Commission recommended, and we agree, that we need a housing needs assessment. That work has now begun. Turner Drake & Partners Ltd. has been awarded the contract to study the needs in our 49 municipalities to assess current and future needs in urban and rural areas and propose solutions.

African Nova Scotian communities have faced unique challenges in accessing housing because of systemic racism. We have also awarded a contract to Akoma Holdings to complete a housing needs assessment for these communities. It will include an analysis of environmental racism and systemic barriers to finding housing. This information will assist in developing a housing strategy for African Nova Scotians. We hope to see initial results from that study this Fall.

We knew the housing crisis requires action quickly. We couldn’t wait for the results of these important studies to take action. We need more housing supply as soon as we can get it. We should have started building five years ago, but we are moving quickly to create more supply and with it to invest in affordable housing for Nova Scotians at all income levels.

In the Fall, the Premier and I were proud to announce our government’s housing plan, with $35 million in investments in housing. This was in response to the work of the Affordable Housing Commission which recommended a $25-million quick start investment. We made it $35 million.

We passed legislation to create the HRM housing task force, which is designed to clear barriers and help more housing supply be built faster. Last month on the recommendation of the task force, I designated nine special planning areas across the Halifax area. Together, they have the potential for 22,600 new residential units.

Designating a special planning area allows me to take over responsibility from council for planning approvals in these areas. We also invested $2.3 million to allow the municipality to conduct critical environmental land-use suitability, transportation, and infrastructure studies to inform future planning and development decisions. For areas that are not part of the special planning areas, we have introduced legislation to amend the HRM Charter to streamline the approval process and to modernize it.

We invested $22 million to create 373 affordable units in the Mount Hope area of Dartmouth, homes that will cost 60 to 80 per cent of market rate. We have also invested $6.4 million to create about 200 affordable rental units in Kentville, Lantz, Halifax, and Cole Harbour.

We recognize that many Nova Scotians need deeper affordability, so we are working with partners in the non-profit community housing sector to support projects in their communities.

We have worked with groups like Akoma, Souls Harbour Rescue Mission, and the North End Community Health Centre to offer deeply affordable housing tailored to the needs of these communities. Akoma will operate eight town houses on Main Street in Dartmouth, which will be affordable homes for African Nova Scotians living in the Preston area. Souls Harbour Rescue Mission will offer a 12-unit supportive housing facility in Chezzetcook for women and children who are at risk of homelessness or who are already homeless. The North End Community Health Centre has bought a central Halifax home, with our support, that will house seven African Nova Scotian men, including a peer support worker.

We recently announced $203,000 for a Habitat for Humanity project that will see up to 70 affordable homes built in Spryfield. This budget included $15 million more for affordable housing programs, so I expect we will be busy in the months to come and that is good news.

Mr. Chair, we know there is so much more to do. We continue to work with non-profit community housing groups to offer grants so they can build capacity for the work ahead. We will continue to work with all partners, including non-profits, private companies, and community groups who want to create more affordable housing in all areas of the province. We want to create more supply and more affordable units, but we know it takes months or over a year, or several years sometimes, to build new units. That is why rent supplements are an important part of our strategy.

A rent supplement makes any unit an affordable unit. It allows people to bridge the gap between the rent of their current home and what they can afford, and it allows them choice. Usually, the choice to stay in their current home. We have increased the number of rent supplements we offer to people and families across the province. We added 425 more rent supplements in October of last year, and in March we invested another $4 million to add another 550 rent supplements in this budget.

With the latest investment we will be giving out well over 5,000 rent supplements every month in total across the province. Rent supplements are increasingly popular. People are applying for them in growing numbers, and we have streamlined the process to apply. We also offer public housing units where rent is geared to income. We have over 11,000 public housing units across the province where rent is calculated on a sliding scale that will never go above 30 per cent of household income. If your household income goes up, rent may increase, but if your income goes down, your rent goes down.

No government has built more new public housing in 30 years, Mr. Chair, and many of our units are badly in need of repair. After years of delaying maintenance, we are investing in those units - renovating, making them more accessible, and more energy-efficient. In December our staff put an extra push into ensuring as many of our vacant public housing units were filled as possible. I am pleased to say that over a three-week period we were able to see 187 families offered new homes in public housing.

I look forward to continuing to focus on improvements to that process, to upgrading our existing units, and making them available more quickly to those most in need. While we want to find new homes for those who need them and build more supply overall, it is also important to support low-income Nova Scotians who want to remain in their own homes but need our help to do so. Our home repair and adaptation programs are designed to do just that.

We help 1,860 households every year with $19 million in home repair and adaptation programs. If someone needs a roof repair, a new porch, or suddenly has an accessibility issue, we have support available for them. If it is an emergency situation, our staff put them at the top of the list.

While these programs are not all targeted to seniors, it is important to note that seniors applied for and received significant amounts of this funding. Every time we make an announcement about housing, I’m asked, “Is this enough?” and I always answer, “There is more to come.”

We continue to work on a provincial land inventory - land owned by the province that could be useful for affordable housing. That land inventory is part of my mandate letter, and I look forward to sharing more details about it with Nova Scotians as soon as I can.

[6:30 p.m.]

There are a number of strategies that we need to use, and we are working with other departments such as the Department of Advanced Education on student housing strategies and the three new NSCC campuses our government plans to build in Pictou and Dartmouth.

My staff are working very hard on a number of fronts to create more housing supply and support more affordable housing. We’ll work with all partners in the private sector and the not-for-profit sector to address this issue as quickly as we can. Nova Scotians want and deserve our full attention to this important issue and they have it.

I started this speech talking about partnerships and I’ll end it that way as well. Partnership is the cornerstone to everything we do. We work with municipalities, the federal government, the non-profit community housing sector, and the private sector. We work to leverage federal funding as much as possible and we act in partnership with municipalities as much as we can.

Our province is growing and it’s changing at a rate that we hadn’t imagined. Our goal remains the same: to support strong, vibrant communities across this province where people want to live.

I’m very grateful to be the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and I want to just state my deep appreciation for all staff in the department who work so hard to help make all of these programs which I have outlined possible and work every day to make things better for thousands and thousands of Nova Scotians. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I would now be pleased to answer questions.

THE CHAIR: Thank you, minister, for your opening remarks. According to the practice that has developed in this Legislature, the Opposition caucuses take turns asking questions for approximately one hour each. During a caucus’s turn, the members within the caucus may take turns examining the minister on the Estimate Resolution.

Only the minister may answer questions. Caucuses are also expected to share time fairly with the independent member. To begin the examination, I will now recognize the Official Opposition with one hour. I would ask the minister, in his response, to give some kind of signal so we know that you’re ready and able to respond.

The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Dartmouth.

LORELEI NICOLL: The next series of questions is going to be based on the Affordable Housing Commission progress report.

My first question: In the business plan for the department, it states that “the Department will continue to implement recommendations from the Affordable Housing Commission.”

According to the Nova Scotia Affordable Housing Commission progress report released in January, there are delays in short-term recommendations.

Could the minister please provide an explanation on why the first recommendation to establish an arm’s-length, independent provincial housing entity has not been initiated as yet?

JOHN LOHR: There actually is an enormous amount of work going on this recommendation, as I previously stated. We certainly respect the Affordable Housing Commission report.

We hope to have - it will take enabling legislation. We hope to have that ready this year. There are a number of factors that have slowed it down. I’m not sure if the member is aware, but there are five housing authorities across the province. There are a lot of lives at stake here, a lot of people; there are human resource issues. There is also really figuring out exactly what it needs to look like. I can assure the member that we’re working on that with diligence.

LORELEI NICOLL: The Affordable Housing Commission progress report states that the reason Recommendation 1 has been delayed is due to the pending completion of a broader government review of Crown corporations.

Why is this Crown corporation review a roadblock to achieving this recommendation set out in the commission report?

JOHN LOHR: Yes, the member is correct. There is an extensive review of Crown corporations taking place by government. As the member may know, there are a lot of Crown corporations and there is a lot to review there. It has been the effort of my department, I will say, and I’ll commend them for it, to take effort on this very subject.

We are talking about creating a Crown corporation. While the Crown corporation review is happening about all Crown corporations, there’s the potential and desire to see a new Crown corporation. We did not want our potential Crown corporation to be held up by that review, so we asked for, and received, an exemption from that.

Meanwhile, creating the Crown corporation itself may seem like a simple thing to do, but it does affect a lot of people’s lives. It affects a lot of bargaining units. Really sorting out what we want for the structure involves consultation. It’s turned out to be, maybe I can say from my point of view anyway - maybe not from my department’s - maybe a bit more complicated than I expected in the beginning. I recognize that.

I realize that, although the member will have to take my word for it, there’s been an enormous amount of work put into this issue already. We hope to see something in the Fall on it.

LORELEI NICOLL: Just to repeat what you said, because my next question was around the new Crown corporation. The pending completion of broader government review of Crown corporations did not stop the government from establishing the Joint Regional Transportation Agency, a Crown corporation, in the Fall legislative session.

This broader review also didn’t stop the government from dissolving Tourism Nova Scotia as a Crown corporation in the Fall Session.

Can the minister explain why it’s possible for other departments to make these decisions regarding Crown corporations, but this broader review is an impediment for establishing a new independent provincial housing entity?

JOHN LOHR: First of all, I will say that I decline to speak on behalf of other departments. I’m sure that you’ll have the opportunity in Estimates to ask questions of other departments.

I will say that in terms of the Crown corporation review, as the member says, that is underway. We haven’t yet created our Crown corporation, but we have received permission, or exemption, to go ahead and work on this. I wouldn’t even say that it’s been held up. I’d say that we’re working on it.

What’s at stake, of course, is hundreds and hundreds of employees, millions of dollars worth of assets, and five housing authorities. In some cases, not all cases, we just sort of need to get some standardization there and looking at how we’re going to make this all mesh together.

I hope the member will appreciate that it’s a much larger task than simply creating a Crown corporation. It’s about structure and people’s lives and how we want this to function efficiently. We’re working very hard on it.

Again, as I said, in terms of what’s happening in other departments, I would encourage the member to go directly to those departments and ask them what they’ve done.

I think I can say that I’m pretty pleased with the work that has taken place. I realize that it’s not visible yet, but when the time comes it will be. We are proceeding to work on this recommendation.

LORELEI NICOLL: I know it’s often been said in the House by many of us here that the Affordable Housing Commission progress report, and we’re all in agreement with it, has recommendations in it with a timeline attached to each. The timely accomplishment of future mid-term and long-term recommendations is dependent on the success of earlier short-term ones set out in the report.

Given that the first two short-term recommendations of the report are already delayed, what impact will that have on the completion of future recommendations? How will future recommendations in the report also be delayed given the delay of some of the earlier ones?

[6:45 p.m.]

JOHN LOHR: I would disagree with the member on the premise of the question that any of this has been delayed. I know the member would know the timelines here just came out in March.

I picked up this work the first of September of last year. In reality we’ve been working at it six months. We did things that had been waiting to be done, for example, the inclusionary zoning. We brought that in; it had been asked for for six years by our municipal units and we brought that in.

We’re working very hard. As the member knows, the Affordable Housing Commission report recommended $25 million in Quick Start Investments. Due to our concern and our review of the opportunities and the need by our government - with the full and absolute support of the Premier - we made that a $35 million Quick Start Investment. There’re just a lot of different components in that.

There were a lot of new housing units, with 425 new rental supplements, there were just a lot of things in that Quick Start Investment program that we did. We continue to work very hard on the Affordable Housing file and we continue to respect the Affordable Housing Commission recommendations. Just very recently, we acted upon looking at the housing needs across our 49 municipal units.

I can tell the member that it’s really shocking to go to very small communities in rural Nova Scotia and find out there’s no place for employees to live if they’re coming in to work for the fish plant or the local restaurant. Those are very critical jobs in rural Nova Scotia. Our municipal units are very concerned. I can tell you about the effect that’s having on limiting the economy in Nova Scotia.

We’re working very hard. We’ve done many of the things in that. I’m very proud of our government’s response to the Affordable Housing Commission report, to be quite frank. Is everything done? No, not everything is done. We continue to work very hard on all of the recommendations. We continue to look at them. We will continue to do so.

LORELEI NICOLL: That’s the beauty of a progress report. It’s like a report card. We know what you’re graded on and what has been delayed.

On to my next question. Recognizing housing as a right and a key strategic sector for economic development, health, and social equity has not been initiated yet. The progress report states that this delay is due to the need for government to engage with stakeholders to better understand the implications of recognizing housing as a human right. (Interruptions)

THE CHAIR: My apologies. When I looked over, the light was still on.

The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Dartmouth.

LORELEI NICOLL: I’ll just repeat: The progress report states that this delay is due to the need for government to engage with stakeholders to better understand the implications of recognizing housing as a human right. The report states that this has not yet been initiated.

Has the department begun stakeholder consultations, and what stakeholders is the department engaging with on this recommendation?

JOHN LOHR: I’d like to thank the member for the question on Recommendation 2. As the member may know, this all flows right to the United Nations. The United Nations in 1948 had a Universal Declaration of Human Rights and part of that right was the right to adequate housing. Our federal government has signed on to that, and as a human rights-based approach in principle and through the National Housing Strategy we have also signed on to that.

We have adopted as a principle the human rights-based approach as our national government has. That approach is, I think, everything that we all would hope it would be, that we employ the principles of equity and inclusion and fairness and all of those principles in terms of how we approach housing in the province. I’m very proud to say that our staff in our housing do so in all the various sectors of housing that we have.

So I think I can say we have adopted the human rights-based approach which was recommended, and have certainly signed on with the National Housing Strategy to our federal government’s approach which they signed on with the United Nations. I’m quite proud of that and I’m very proud of our country for having done so.

LORELEI NICOLL: I gather from that that in principle your government agrees that housing is a human right - that’s all you would have to have said.

Now I will move on to the environment and Housing. In the Fall Legislature sitting, the government passed the Environment Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act which has a goal of the province being net zero by 2050. We know that a large part of becoming net zero has to do with upgrading housing through retrofits to become net zero while simultaneously requiring that new housing builds must be net zero.

Would the influx of new housing builds being initiated by this government - are they requiring any of them to be built as net zero units?

[7:00 p.m.]

JOHN LOHR: I’m just thinking about the question that was asked and I’ll answer it. Maybe if the member is not satisfied with the answer, the question can be rephrased so I can understand it better.

What I think you’re referring to is a goal in the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act that new public buildings be net zero. That would be starting, I believe, after 2022. After 2022, any new build or major retrofit in a government building would be net zero.

That’s part of the Department of Environment and Climate Change and I believe that department may have already been up. I know your caucus would have had a chance to ask about that.

If maybe the member can rephrase the question to clarify if that was what the member was asking about?

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Dartmouth.

LORELEI NICOLL: I just think it’s a great opportunity right now. I know this government wants to ensure that new builds are developed with environmental goals in mind.

I just want to ask: Will the government ensure that a certain percentage of new housing builds are net zero rather than down the road paying more money to get them retrofitted to fit within your climate mandate targets?

JOHN LOHR: First of all, I just want to say, as the member may know, the National Building Code is something that guides and directs us in Nova Scotia. We do adopt the National Building Code. In terms of our housing, I’m very proud of the department. I know that, as the member would know, no government in 30 years has added to new public housing. But we are working very hard to see energy retrofits for that public housing now. As I mentioned in my opening speech, we’re working to update, modernize, and refurbish that building stock.

In terms of energy efficiency, of course we encourage all Nova Scotians to - and I know many Nova Scotians are, in their own homes and what they’re building - become more and more energy efficient. Certainly that is reflected in the building code and we would encourage that.

LORELEI NICOLL: Just to close on this, in the department’s business plan it states that Housing Nova Scotia will work to improve building efficiency in its public housing portfolio to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets. So if it’s already on the department’s radar to introduce retrofits to existing housing, it just would make sense to implement these greenhouse gas targets to (Inaudible) your new builds when the government is going through that approval phase.

On to the business plan. I have a next series of questions. In the department’s business plan, it discusses implementing the recommendations in the Affordable Housing Commission progress report. It breaks down, again, quick-start goals, some short-term goals, some mid-term recommendations, et cetera.

However, nowhere under short-term recommendations does it mention the creation of a provincial housing entity, the first short-term goal outlined in the Affordable Housing Commission progress report. If this isn’t in the 2022-23 business plan, does the government not plan on creating this entity this year?

JOHN LOHR: I believe the question is referring to Recommendation 1 in the Affordable Housing Commission progress report. We are certainly working on this; I realize that the member’s party has introduced legislation on it, but in fact, we are working on creating an established arm’s-length independent provincial housing entity.

The reasons we haven’t done so so far is because this does affect a lot of people’s lives. We are working very carefully to see exactly what structure we want to have in this Crown corporation. We can’t provide the business plan for that entity until we create it, but meanwhile, we’re working very diligently in the department; a number of people are working. The member may be aware that across government there is a deep dive into Crown corporations and a review of them. We have been exempted from that in terms of developing this new entity.

When the time comes, we’ll be happy to provide the member and all Nova Scotians with results of that, we expect to provide that in legislation this Fall. There are just a number of considerations to go into the structure of the new entity. We do recognize this was the No. 1 recommendation coming out of the Affordable Housing Commission. We do recognize it was a short-term recommendation. I don’t think we’ve been working on it for a year yet, but we’re working very hard behind the scenes, and my staff takes this very seriously.

The first question you have to answer is exactly what we want this to look like, and that’s something that we need to determine. The recommendations don’t spell that out exactly as the member may know, having read the report, I’m sure, and it gives it in broad brush strokes. We need to isolate it down to what exactly are the details of this Crown corporation, and how this is exactly going to work, and how do the five existing housing authorities across the province all mesh together, in terms of all of the things that they do.

We realize this is a very important issue for Nova Scotians and as the member knows, we have over 11,000 housing units in this, which we spend an enormous amount of money on maintaining and developing. As I just mentioned in the previous question, energy retrofits and all of that. It’s an extraordinarily important question to us, and we’re working very hard on it, and I would say that it’s a big focus of our department.

LORELEI NICOLL: What enhancements is the department looking to make through the Down Payment Assistance Program, DPAP, to assist first-time home buyers? Will the DPAP threshold be increased to keep up with the rising prices in the market?

JOHN LOHR: I’m going to apologize to the member because I’ll have to ask her to repeat the question, but my staff just pointed out to me that in fact, in our business report, Page 5, short-term recommendations advanced in 2021-22 will continue in 2022-23, including advancing the new government’s model for housing. In fact, just to fully answer the previous question, it is in our business plan.

I apologize to the member, but could the member just, because I had several people talking to me at the same time who said, no, it’s here. Could the member repeat the question that was just asked?

[7:15 p.m.]

LORELEI NICOLL: Yes, because it’s in the plan is the reason why I asked the question.

What enhancements is the department looking to make to the Down Payment Assistance Program to assist first-time home buyers? Will the threshold be increased to keep up with the rising prices of the market currently?

JOHN LOHR: I appreciate the question from the member.

As the member knows, I’ve stated previously that in October we did increase the limits realizing that they were too low, and maybe have been too low for some time. We are continuing to work on that. We have received further budget allocation for this coming year for that program. We have not yet announced or determined that I can publicly say the new limits.

It is a very big concern of mine. I don’t think that as a government, or as a nation, we should ever give up on the idea of people owning their own homes. I think that’s an extraordinarily important thing. The pride of ownership, and ability to be in a position to benefit from something that increases in value as you own it, which a home typically does. Which we hope everyone’s home will do.

We’re very committed to home ownership as a program. We have already proactively, without announcing it previously, in the Fall, increased the limits. We are intending to do more.

LORELEI NICOLL: I’ll take that as a maybe, and maybe get filled in a little bit more later as you figure it out, since you agree that the threshold is too low for first-time home buyers.

In the department’s business plan, it also states that Housing Nova Scotia is working to develop an accessibility plan to increase the availability, sustainability, and affordability of accessible housing units.

Could the minister please provide an update on what work has been done to increase accessible housing in the province? Given the number of housing units that have been recently approved by this government, are there plans to ensure that a certain number are accessible, and are any of the recently announced affordable housing units being set aside as accessible?

JOHN LOHR: I’m really pleased to be able to answer this question; in fact, it flows back again to the National Housing Strategy which I know I previously mentioned we’ve signed on to. There are two different programs or two different sort of streams here I want to refer to. All funded housing, for instance the announcement we made in regard to Mount Hope, has to meet what is called a visitability standard, so that someone in a wheelchair can visit and get in, get out, use whatever facilities they need to use. That’s for everything that we’re funding for new construction; it has to meet that standard.

In terms of our existing housing, again through the National Housing Strategy, one of the things we are doing is renovating 40 units per year to be accessible and we are in Year 3, so this was a mandate obviously by the previous government, too. So 120 of those are improved as per the National Housing Strategy and that carries on so we are continuing to do that. I think this is a very high priority for us, as a government, for sure.

LORELEI NICOLL: In the business plan, funding for the Emergency Management Office was decreased by nearly $950,000. Could the department please provide justification for this decrease?

JOHN LOHR: Mx. Chair, yes, to the member’s question, I can note that of course last year EMO had federal funding of $1,121,000 for personal protective equipment related to COVID-19. That doesn’t show up in the budget this year. It shows up as a decrease, but in fact it is because this year we are not acquiring protective equipment for COVID-19, and I hope we don’t have to. Anyway, without commenting on COVID-19, I’ll just say that is where the member’s question sort of comes to that it is different - there is no cut to EMO on our part.

LORELEI NICOLL: I’ll just gather from that that it was matching funds with the federal program for personal protective equipment.

On to the mandate letter, the next series of questions. In the minister’s mandate letter, it states that within the first 90 days of his appointment he should have a timeline prepared that will outline when tasks should be completed in his mandate letter. Where can this information and the timelines be found?

JOHN LOHR: I’d like to thank the member for the question. She’s right, that’s part of my mandate letter and those timelines have been submitted to the Office of Planning and Priorities and they would be available from that office.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Dartmouth, and I just wanted to note, too, that there’s about six minutes left in this session.

LORELEI NICOLL: Can the minister provide an update on the development of a full inventory of provincially owned lands that could be used for housing? The ministerial mandate letter states that this must be completed within three months of coming into government. Is this identification and inventory of lands complete? I’ll complete the question since it’s in essence of time, has this information regarding inventory of lands been released publicly, and where can we find this information? And what housing projects have been identified so far to be built on provincially owned land?

JOHN LOHR: In fact, this has been the subject of a considerable amount of work by my department. The member may know there are two properties in Dartmouth that we have announced and have sought request for proposals on Circassion Drive and a property downtown owned by Develop Nova Scotia.

In terms of the inventory, I can tell you that it has turned out to be surprisingly more challenging than we first thought. It turns out the government owns over 100,000 individual pieces of properties. Narrowing it down and determining - you can go through Property Online, and find suitable property then you find out once you’ve identified them - and I can tell the member that we were looking for individual pieces of land that had access to water and sewer, if possible, to (Inaudible) transit routes right across the province. We were looking for these types of characteristics in these individual pieces of land.

[7:30 p.m.]

Then a second layer of questions arises with regard to which department these pieces of land are housed in. One thing which doesn’t show up when you might see something through Property Online is encumbrances on those pieces of land or plans those departments had for those pieces of land. I will say that we are working on this one. We do have our first group of properties identified but are still doing work on them. We are close to being ready, but we are not quite ready to announce them. We continue to work on them.

It has been an interesting process and I’ve learned a little bit about property and Property Online that I did not know, and I know that my staff have too. We continue to learn more about the property assets of the Province and we are committed to making them available. We will do so but so far we have not, we have just announced the two pieces of land that we have announced. As I say, the first batch of ones that we hope to announce we should announce soon. I don’t know how one - you are sifting through 100,000 different pieces of land - we will continue to work on it after we’ve done the first batch. It’s not something that we’re going to stop working on, we will continue to look for a second batch and work on them. The department is working on it, and I appreciate the question.

LORELEI NICOLL: With only a minute and a half he won’t be able to answer if I ask a question. If he can answer it very quickly I just want to ask: Why wasn’t Shannon Park one of the special planning areas?

JOHN LOHR: Shannon Park is owned by Canada Lands. It is a federal piece of real estate. We don’t own it so that’s why it isn’t one of our pieces of land that we identified in our inventory.

LORELEI NICOLL: You mentioned the Cole Harbour one, one I know very well because I was the councillor who managed it. It was for affordable housing, and I think three developers were planning on doing something with it and they never initiated anything, so I look forward to seeing that take place.

With regards to Shannon Park, there was a lot of public input that was provided, again for affordable housing. That’s why I was hoping you would say that you have been having those conversations with your federal counterparts because there was a lot of consultation, and a lot of people are expecting affordable housing to be put there. Those are just my comments at the end, and I look forward to continuing the questions at a later date.

THE CHAIR: The time for questions from the Official Opposition has elapsed. It is now the NDP’s turn.

The honourable member for Halifax Needham.

SUZY HANSEN: I have some budget-specific questions and listening to my colleague here I learned a lot. The budget provides an additional $17.7 million more for affordable housing programs - how much of that is federal funding?

JOHN LOHR: The $17.7 million is provincial money. We will use that to leverage as much federal funding as we can, but I can’t exactly predict how much federal funding that will leverage.

SUZY HANSEN: If that’s provincial money and you’re not sure about federal funding as of yet, how much is allocated for additional rent supplements?

JOHN LOHR: In the budget there’s $2.7 million to help maintain the 425 that we announced last Fall. As well, there’s $4 million for the additional 550 we’ve announced in the budget.

SUZY HANSEN: So out of that particular funding, the $17.7 million, how much of that will be used for new affordable housing and how many units will that funding create?

JOHN LOHR: In the budget, there’s $8 million for affordable housing units, and that should, we expect, create 150 affordable units.

SUZY HANSEN: So there is $2 million in the budget to support the work of the joint planning task force on housing in HRM. Can you provide a breakdown of what specifically that $2 million is paying for - does it include salaries or honorariums for the chair or the members of the panel?

JOHN LOHR: The $2 million is broken down as $400,000 for staff, which our support staff would represent, four FTEs - full-time equivalents - and $1.6 million for operations, research, studies, stuff in order to progress the work of the panel.

SUZY HANSEN: Is it correct that there’s no money allocated for housing within the capital plan?

JOHN LOHR: There is no money for new public housing in the capital plan and, as I stated previously, I think the member would have heard this, there hasn’t been any government in 30 years that’s put more money into new capital for housing. However, we continue to invest significant amounts of money in public housing. The member may be aware that the public housing - we invest $100 million a year in public housing in the 11,600 units that we have.

We continue to invest more money than that in the retrofits to make them accessible, to make them energy fit in public housing. It is a significant amount of money in our budget, but more than that we are investing money in the rental supplements, as we just discussed, as the member just asked about, which, again, is a significant amount of money, billions of dollars. We continue to invest in housing. We continue to invest for seniors and repairs to homes and all of the many, many different programs the department has that are just a huge amount of money. I’m very proud of that, very proud that the department is working now on all of these fronts to provide housing for Nova Scotians.

SUZY HANSEN: Capital expenses are cost of assets that the government is going to buy or develop. Has the department done any cost-benefit analysis to compare investing in publicly owned housing to giving public money to private developers to build housing?

With the private developments that are being supported with public money, will the government have any ownership stake in the housing built?

[7:45 p.m.]

JOHN LOHR: It is a complicated question that the member is getting into. I can give some big picture numbers that maybe will help all members understand what’s going on here. In public housing we have 11,600 units and a total budget for that is $165 million; approximately $65 million comes in in rent and $100 million every year, from three levels of government, goes into those 11,600 units.

The math on that, which I did myself, comes out to about, every year every unit we are putting in about $8,500 into each public housing unit every year. That $100 million that we’re putting into the public housing, into the 11,600 units that we own, that could be used to buy - I don’t know, you can do the math on that - two hundred $0.5 million homes every year and given to people but we’re spending that money every year on public housing.

By comparison, rent supplements - there’s a range of rent supplements so the rent supplement depends on a number of factors, but it would be the household size, their income, where they are renting - they might be anywhere from $400 to $700 and I’m just giving a range. You know $700 is still in a very similar range and may be more affordable. Certainly the $400 rent supplement that we give would be quite a bit more affordable or better use of government funding per household. We could make it go further.

What we are doing with things like Mount Hope, we are creating for 20 years affordable units that are 60 to 80 per cent of market rent, as calculated through our federal partners, Statistics Canada. That costs $50,000 up front for us to achieve that. Actually, over that length of time it’s more efficient, possibly, than either of the other two programs, if you do the math. We’re looking at this.

I’m interested in this, and you’ve asked the question. These are my own observations. Certainly I want to see government running (Inaudible) as efficiently as possible, to help as many Nova Scotians as we can help, with the amount of money we have at hand.

I am sure, as the member realizes, our government has been remarkably responsive on multiple fronts of this housing crisis and invested a significant amount of money in different ways, for example in new NSCC campuses and in other ways we are addressing it.

We are very committed as a government to address the housing crisis. I am personally very interested to see the money used as efficiently as possible.

SUZY HANSEN: I’m just trying to wrap my head around this whole conversation because yes, absolutely, there have been a number of investments. Absolutely there’s been a lot of money being put in place. That is necessary; 100 per cent.

What I’m taking from this is that this particular investment in this new location, 22,000 new homes being built, we’re not going to receive anything back from the investment that we put forward.

In my head I’m just thinking, this is an opportunity for us. I know that we’re saying the 60 to 80 per cent market rent, it sounds like a really great opportunity for someone who could afford 60 to 80 per cent of the market rate in that particular area but still to me it doesn’t seem as affordable as most would think.

This is my next question: When the department is talking about affordable housing, how is affordable defined?

I know you are going to take the information from Statistics Canada and it’s going to show the amount from that particular area, that’s going to give you a base number on what you could be charging. If we think of the cost of living and all of these other numbers that come into play, I’m just curious to hear what “affordable” means to the department itself.

JOHN LOHR: Mx. Chair, what I can say to the member’s question is that in reality we’re working on more than one definition of affordable. If the member thinks about the funding that we put in in partnership with the federal government for things like Akoma and Souls Harbour Rescue Mission, we’re talking about deeply affordable housing.

We’re working on that in partnership with CMHC. We’re working on more affordable and very affordable in some cases with rent geared to income across public housing, as I’m sure the member knows. It can as be as low as $28 a month for someone in public housing, in rent-geared income. It just depends on what their income is.

In terms of programs, and I think the member was referencing Mount Hope and programs like that, it depends on whether we can leverage money through the federal government, then we’re working with them on whatever definition of affordable they’re using. We’re working across the spectrum.

As the member I’m sure is aware, we are also working very hard to increase the supply of housing. We recognize that right now - I don’t have the information in front of me - there is a very low rate of vacancies for apartments, as I’m sure the member knows. That means that the cost of renting is going up. We’ve got that under a cap, but we know that cap can’t last forever so we want to increase the supply of rental units across HRM.

I’m very interested in seeing the increase in the supply of housing to be purchased. All of that. We’ve worked very hard on both sides of this equation in reality. Affordable is really dependent on where you’re at. We’re interested in helping Nova Scotians.

We have programs, as I think I’ve mentioned, which are very heavily used by our seniors, to help keep Nova Scotians in their own homes,. There are things like paying to help contribute to the cost of putting a new roof on or a new furnace in. We’re working very hard on that front. I’m very proud of those programs.

There’s no one answer. I’m sorry I’ve given the member a very long answer, but the reality is that for the question of affordable, we’re working on a number of different fronts and on a number of different levels of affordability. It’s just meeting Nova Scotians where they’re at. We’re deeply concerned about this issue and we’re working very hard on it.

SUZY HANSEN: I will say, the rent cap, as it stands right now, is actually helping people who are struggling. We might need to explore that in other ways, but I just wanted to make that point.

We know that the minister views the current housing crisis as a supply problem, which was just spoken to. In the government press release about the special planning areas, it says that the current housing deficit in the Halifax region is estimated to be at least 17,000 units. How was that determined?

JOHN LOHR: I appreciate that the member did use the term “estimated.” That number came from the panel of the Nova Scotia Affordable Housing Commission. It is an estimated number. We’ve heard numbers higher and lower.

One of the things that the Affordable Housing Commission recommended was that we get a better handle on the shortage. We know there’s a shortage. I know that anecdotally. I had a friend tell me that his daughter moved away because she couldn’t find a place, and moved right out of the province. It’s not just anecdotal. It’s a real shortage in supply.

One of the things that we’ve done in response to the Affordable Housing Commission report is April 8^th, we announced that we had awarded Turner Drake & Partners a $406,000 contract to study the needs across Nova Scotia’s 49 municipalities. The fact is, there’s probably better information on HRM than there is on many other places in the province. This study is needed right across the province. We do want to get a better number. We need that data for lots of reasons. We’re trying to acquire it in this way.

SUZY HANSEN: The minister - you’ve said that housing supply is in need at all levels of the market, and the special planning areas announced have the potential to add a total of 22,600 units within HRM. Only a few hundred of these are planned to be designated as affordable units.

Can you explain to me how adding more market housing will help people who need more affordable housing?

[8:00 p.m.]

JOHN LOHR: What I think I can say to the member’s question is that the member knows on the Mount Hope project we announced 373 affordable units. At the time we announced that, we did say that there would be more to come in an estimated 22,500 potential units. They haven’t been announced. They are contingent on negotiations with developers.

There will be more. I don’t know how many more, but my expectation is there will be more than double what we’ve already announced and potentially considerably more, but it remains to be seen. We want to work to see these nine special planning areas and not only them; there are developments happening in other places in HRM, too. We’ll work with community groups or with for-profit and not-for-profit to see more affordable housing units across HRM, so our interest is not simply in these nine areas, it’s right across the province really, right across HRM. We’ll continue to do what we can to work with whoever is available to see these more affordable units.

SUZY HANSEN: This is bugging me, just because it’s bugging me: Can we come to a conclusion on what affordable really is? Affordable for me is probably not affordable for you, or you, or anyone else in here. I just really want us to be clear on when we use that word, can we come to a consensus on what that word actually means? When I think of affordable, I think of rent geared to income, or a percentage of someone’s monthly amount taken. Maybe we can work on that. The term affordable is irking me. That’s for later, minister, we can talk about that later. It was just bothering me because when I hear it, it just bothers me.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2016 there were almost 50,000 families in Nova Scotia in core housing need. Core housing need is defined as spending 30 per cent or more of your income each month on housing and utilities. How does the number of households in core housing need relate to the kind of housing supply that is needed?

JOHN LOHR: This is something that is of great concern to us and obviously the core housing need. As the member knows, I’m sure, the definition has three components to it. One is that you’re spending more than 30 per cent of your income on housing. Secondly that you just - some people might choose to do that but if there’s no choice in the community, if you can’t find something more affordable, that’s part of the definition too. Whatever level of income you’re at, if you’re absolutely forced, there’s nothing else available.

The third part of the core housing need is that you have to be able to find suitable housing. If, for instance, you have a four-member family and you can’t find housing with enough bedrooms for everybody, that would be part of the core housing definition. Or if the housing that you could afford was in very, very poor condition and just not suitable.

We’re very concerned about that. It goes back to a couple of things that we are working on. I mean, it certainly - immediately, as I give that definition, it means that we need more affordable housing and so we’re working on the supply side, absolutely, to give people more choice of where they live.

Again, in terms of choice, that goes right back to the rent supplements that also provide individuals who are receiving the rent supplement the choice of where they want to rent and live. That is something that, as I’ve already mentioned, we’re continuing to invest even more money in, rent supplements, and seeing the number of rent supplements across the province continue to increase.

Just to recap, yes, we recognize the core housing need. As the member quoted, my staff tell me that in 2016 it was 50,000, in 2018 the number was 48,000. I’m not sure if that’s just part of the normal variation or if that indicates a trend but we certainly look forward to more recent data to see where that’s going and hope that number continues to go down. I don’t know if it is or not. This is a major concern for our government and we’re working very hard.

SUZY HANSEN: Even if the number is 48,000 households that need core housing that is more affordable than what they currently have, I’m just curious as to how we’re factoring this into the kind of housing development that we as a government are supporting.

When we think about these new builds, are these new builds with the understanding that they have to build based on the community that they’re in? I mean, this is where community consultation comes into play, the environment in which people live, and even the income background in that particular area. What I’m saying is, I’m just wondering, are we as a government supporting these types of builds with the intent that these builds will be built with the intention to have core, the 30 per cent, tied into any type of rental pricing that they want to add to that?

JOHN LOHR: The question of affordability, we’re working across the spectrum of housing to provide more affordable units. As the member, we’ve discussed the Mount Hope announcement that we made a month ago. I think that’s a great example where in that community you don’t have to own a car to live there, that’s so well located. It’s a great location for affordable units as we announced. They will be 60 to 80 per cent of market rent for 20 years and if that’s not enough then people who have a rent supplement can choose to live there as well.

We’re working across the spectrum, as the member knows. We’ve made announcements on the deeply affordable housing front and we’re working through public housing with rent geared to income to maintain those 11,600 public housing units that we have, which is not done easily. That’s a massive investment on our part, a $100 million investment actually across three levels of government to maintain that housing supply there.

As I mentioned, we’re working primarily with seniors to keep them in their own homes. Again, we’re working across the spectrum of affordable. I know the member has expressed frustration with the definition of affordable, but the reality is there is not - everybody is an individual and we respect that, and it just depends on who you are and where you’re at. We want to see everybody in housing, we want to do it in a way that is fair and equitable and respects individuals and we’re working hard on that.

SUZY HANSEN: It’s really good to know that - these next major developments that this government will be putting forward and tons of money towards - if those who can’t afford to live there can just apply for a rent supplement and add more money from our government money to pay for a place to stay.

I’m just going to shift it around a little bit. Our most recent count provided by the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia reports that as of March 29, 2022, there were 512 people in HRM experiencing homelessness.

Will passing this particular budget ensure that housing is provided for those 512 people?

[8:15 p.m.]

JOHN LOHR: I want to start up by saying that homelessness is a concern across the province. It’s something that I work very directly with as an MLA myself and we are very concerned about that. The member may know, we did partner with the North End Community Health Centre on a project for the affordable housing partnered with Akoma. I know that my colleague, Minister MacFarlane, the Minister for the Department of Community Services will be up next here in this Chamber and has considerably more to say about homelessness and how her department is addressing that.

I can say that across government we’re working to do that, and I would encourage the member to address the question also with the Minister of Community Services.

SUZY HANSEN: Thank you very much and I will save that question for the minister.

As we’ve seen new construction popping up across the province, we know that we’ve lost many small multi-unit buildings that have provided affordable housing for many years. We’ve seen many affordable housing developments sold for redevelopment. We’ve seen many people evicted so that the buildings can be renovated and then offered for much higher rents. A lot of that happens in Halifax Needham.

Does the department know how many affordable rentals have been lost over the past two years?

JOHN LOHR: The reality is we don’t feel like we have a good handle on that number. We don’t know. That would be one thing we hope to get out of the Turner Drake assessment that we just announced three days ago which was part of the recommendations of the Nova Scotia Affordable Housing Commission. Whether we get that information from them or not - I hope we do.

I can say that, as the member might know, we have renoviction legislation that was brought in which resides in Service Nova Scotia and Internal Services. My colleague, the Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Internal Services, could better answer that. But certainly, having that legislation there means that we will start to collect data on that, but we wouldn’t have much right at the moment.

We do have, I don’t know if the member would realize it, but we have a Rental Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program.

This is for, there’re certain qualifications on that for landlords, but if they have an affordable unit that they need to rehabilitate or do significant repairs to, we have a program that they apply to, and one of the conditions is that they continue to maintain the rental as an affordable unit. We have $5 million in the budget for that. It’s not a new program. I think it’s been there every year. There are landlords who take advantage of that program and maintain rental units.

Directly to the member’s question, it is a concern. It’s been a concern of Housing Nova Scotia for some time. There is a program to address it. We don’t feel like we have a handle on the data there. It’s hard to know. We may get that, in time, through one of two ways, either through Service Nova Scotia and Internal Services collecting the data - I assume they would have it over time - and also through the needs assessment that we are doing, which we’ve just engaged Turner Drake on.

SUZY HANSEN: I am a firm believer in data-driven work. I believe that getting the information, making sure that we have the right numbers, and just trying to figure out how we can best plan for solutions would be absolutely the right direction to go in. It’s really good to hear that we’re having assessments done and that there is information being collected in the next little bit and we’ll have some information and some data on that.

Is this government considering implementing a right of first refusal that would allow them to have the first opportunity to purchase affordable housing when it becomes available? My previous question was about the multi-unit properties and here’s an opportunity for us as a province to take that on and have space ready for people to move right in.

JOHN LOHR: The question has sort of engendered some debate amongst my staff on what actually the member is asking about. What I could ask is if the member could rephrase the question, or further explain the question, so we can determine precisely what this is and better answer it.

SUZY HANSEN: Absolutely I can rephrase that question. I asked: Is the government considering implementing a right of first refusal that would allow them to have the first opportunity to purchase affordable housing when it becomes available? So multi-unit properties that come right onto the market, we could have an opportunity to house X amount of people in the units right away - I mean, mindful of maybe some small amount of work that needs to be done, but we get the right of first refusal to be able to say we want this property or not.

JOHN LOHR: Thank you to the member for clarification on that. What I can say is that we are committed to working with the not-for-profit sector and we recognize that the cooperative sector in Nova Scotia could be stronger, too. We would like to see that enhanced. There are funding streams available in our budget for that and through our partnership with the federal government through CMHC as the federal government has this as an agenda too, to increase the strength of the not-for-profit and the co-op sector. If there were projects that came forward in that way, we would certainly look at funding them through those means.

SUZY HANSEN: I know that there is a bill on the table. At some point we’ll get to it and, hopefully, we’ll examine what that looks like for a right of first refusal.

Germany has banned real estate investment trusts from owing certain types of multi-family residential homes to keep them available as affordable housing stock. As the minister, are you considering limiting the ability of REITs to buy up affordable housing?

JOHN LOHR: It’s my understanding that REITs are federally regulated so it would have to be something - if anything like that was to be done, it would have to be through federal regulations.

SUZY HANSEN: Me, being aware of that now I think this is a really good opportunity for us to have conversations with our counterparts who are in the federal government, to make sure that we keep Nova Scotia a place that people can afford to live and stay here.

The next question I have is: Over the last eight years the provincial government has concentrated most of their spending on housing and rent supplements and we talked about this earlier because we know this is just one piece of the puzzle. But rent supplements don’t increase the supply of affordable housing; they increase the profits of private landlords who can continue to charge more than most people can afford. To the minister: Are you able to explain why the government has continued to put so much funding into rent supplements?

[8:30 p.m.]

JOHN LOHR: A couple of points, I guess. I don’t have the numbers immediately in front of me, but I know that in the immediate year that we just finished, the government put $100 million into the 11,600 units that we have in the public housing stock. That represents the single biggest investment by far in housing that we’ve done. If we looked at the past eight years, I’m sure that number was - I’m just guessing - it might have been $70 million or $80 million, six, seven, eight years ago, and just slowly continues to climb.

Far and away the most significant investment we have is the continuing one which we continue to do in public housing. Beyond that $100 million investment in public housing to maintaining those 11,600 units, we are continuing to invest in the maintenance of them and the upkeep and in the energy efficiency. In another budget line that doesn’t show up in that $100 million we’re putting a significant investment in the energy efficiency of those public housing units.

In terms of the money that we’re putting in, for instance, as we’ve been discussing the 373 units in Mount Hope to keep them affordable. They don’t make the units more profitable for the landlord, they just make them as profitable as all the other units. They don’t increase the profitability of them for the landlord, it just holds it at the same as far as the landlord is concerned. I don’t agree with the premise of the question in that sense.

SUZY HANSEN: I’m just recapping some of these things that have been said. So we’re saying that the government, we pay $100 million in public housing every year? Every term? I just want to be clear. You can tell me that number in a second. But if that’s the case and we’re paying this amount for retrofitting - which is amazing, which is what is necessary for public housing - but I will say this: if you think about public housing and the creation of public housing and how long it’s been since they’ve actually been done properly, when we have band-aid fixes, we actually have to continue to put in more and more money.

I think creating a different plan or an opportunity to have affordable housing would be beneficial to them. We’re not sinking so much money into public housing, but it is a necessity only because it’s been left behind for so long. That’s why we have to add so much money into the work.

I have 22 seconds, so I just want to say this: I hope that the housing minister and I can have continued conversations over a number of the questions that I have put forward and I look forward to asking many more questions because that’s just what I do.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time for the New Democratic Party has elapsed. We will move on to the Liberal Caucus, with the member for Cole Harbour-Dartmouth.

LORELEI NICOLL: My, how time flies. I just wanted to ask another question. In the current housing, market homes are selling well over assessed market value, making home ownership unattainable for many Nova Scotians. Growth in population from inter-provincial migration is good, but how does this government plan to make home ownership affordable for those already living in Nova Scotia?

THE CHAIR: The honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

JOHN LOHR: I do agree. I will agree. I don’t know if it’s flying for everybody, but it is for me personally. The time is going by quickly.

I mean home ownership is an important part, I think, of the Canadian identity, the Canadian model. We want to encourage home ownership. We realize that the increasing cost of home ownership is a major concern, especially for first-time buyers. We don’t want to see that dream lost for anyone. We don’t want it to be a dream; we want it to become a reality.

There are a number of things that we’re doing. As the member knows, we have the Down Payment Assistance Program and we’ve recently increased the limits on that. We did that in October. I did that because I wasn’t satisfied with the limits. We’ve increased the funding for that in the budget.

I’m encouraged that the federal government is also recognizing that through the various programs that they’re doing. I know that it is a priority for me personally. I know that the members will recognize that a lot of the work that we have done this Fall has been driven by the Affordable Housing Commission Progress Report that only looked at the rental situation and did not look at home ownership, did not provide recommendations on that front.

Nevertheless we are concerned about that. I am concerned. As the minister, I want to see us do more. One of the things that we have done, as the member knows, is taken steps to look at what we can do as a province and what needs to be done in HRM to increase the supply of housing.

One of the things that we’re doing is, we’ve got this province-wide public housing needs assessment being done to know what the needs are. We’ve also worked through the Executive Panel on Housing, or the planning task force, to try to speed up the pace of development in HRM.

That is not because HRM wasn’t doing a good job. It’s actually more to the contrary. The city has become a very desirable place to live; people from around the world and across the nation recognize that and want to be here. We recognize that and we think that we’re in a moment in time where we need to seize the opportunity, so we’re doing that across government.

We’re doing that through building new campuses for the NSCC in Pictou and two in HRM. We’re doing it in other ways. I could say more, but I’ll just wait to hear the member’s next question.

LORELEI NICOLL: Just to go back because I asked you an earlier question about the Down Payment Assistance Program and you said you agreed that the threshold was too low. Just now, you said you increased the limit in the budget. Is that increasing the threshold as well? I just wanted to go back to that and make sure I’ve got the right response.

JOHN LOHR: We did increase the limits in October, as I think we’ve mentioned. In terms of what we have done in the budget so far is we’ve doubled the amount of money in the budget that can be put in to cover the interest. We are expanding the envelope of money available for the program but the actual nature of the program or what it looks like is still under design.

LORELEI NICOLL: Thank you for that clarification. I’ve attended meetings of the Standing Committee on Community Services and when they had a session on homelessness where we had presentations from Shelter Nova Scotia, the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre, and the Department of Community Services themselves, they all said over and over again during their presentations what they really need is core funding.

I just wondered: How and where in this budget can this core funding be found?

JOHN LOHR: There are a number of answers to this question. We do, in our budget, have $200,000 budgeted for shelter enhancement in the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing budget. We have invested in community groups across the province.

I realize the member is referring to core funding. We’re concerned about this in this department. I don’t want to say this isn’t a concern for us, but the responsibility - and I would encourage the member to ask the Minister of Community Services, who I believe is up after me and would have more robust programs and involvement in homelessness than the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

It is a concern of all members of our government and we are doing things to enhance the community housing sector and co-op sector, as we’ve mentioned, and many other things.

LORELEI NICOLL: How are the locations for the new NSCC - you’ve mentioned them earlier - how is the student housing decided upon? What locations? How much consultation was done with NSCC to ensure these campuses had the highest need for student housing?

[8:45 p.m.]

JOHN LOHR: The question of how we decided where the residences were going to go - there were several criteria. First of all, there had to be campuses that had a large number of away students coming in; secondly, they had to have proven needs for more housing in the community; and, thirdly, these campuses had to have readily available land that they owned right there ready to go.

The member may know there are three other campuses of the NSCC that already have residences in the province and, as I think I mentioned in my opening comments, I’ve been to more than half of our municipal units and I can tell you that most anywhere there’s an NSCC campus, their local community will tell me they want a residence. There’s more demand for those residences, we recognize that.

I will say too that I know I’m answering the question but the department directly responsible for that is the Department of Advanced Education, but I think the answer that I have provided is accurate and that is how it was decided.

LORELEI NICOLL: I just wonder if you are tracking the capacity of Nova Scotia builders, how many units they can build each year. In 2020, I believe it was 2,776. The industry can only build like 3,000 housing units a year. Why would you approve 22,600 units? How can these be planned properly - and built?

JOHN LOHR: First of all, I’m not sure about the number the member quoted in terms of the capacity of the industry in Nova Scotia, at all. Maybe the member can table that.

The reality is the capacity of the industry in Nova Scotia is something that we’re interested in and concerned about. The member may be familiar with our More Opportunities for Skilled Trades program for new, qualified workers, trained workers under 30 years of age. It’s a very exciting and innovative program. It’s not a Municipal Affairs and Housing program but I’m convinced it’s a great one, which would start to address some of that. We realize we need to up our construction industry capacity. We’re interested in that.

In terms of the member referencing the nine special planning areas and the number of 22,500, as I said at the press conference when we announced that, the number is 22,500 thousand potential units. It’s potentially how many could be built if everything is built out in those nine special planning areas that we’ve defined. There’s no guarantee that is the actual number and I think I did say that at the time. They will all have to meet all required environmental and permitting processes and it is also dependent on what is actually built there.

Just to recap, yes, we are concerned about capacity in our industry. We are taking steps to bring more young people into the province and to encourage people in skilled trades, particularly in the construction trades, but not only. We recognize supply is an issue across the province and we’re hoping to create the opportunity for more supply across the province.

LORELEI NICOLL: In the budget highlights, it shows that this government has put forward $2 million to fund the HRM Housing Task Force. How was this figure arrived at? How much of that budget is specifically put aside for operational support? Is it staff salaries, full-time equivalents? I just want you to actually quantify the $2 million for the task force.

JOHN LOHR: The $2 million is spent in the following way: $400,000 is for support staff, specifically four FTEs; the $1.6 million of the $2 million is for studies and different things that we do, and I’ll point to the $2.3 million we announced for the environmental studies. This is what this money will be used for, to support the effort of the panel on housing to work on furthering the development of HRM.

LORELEI NICOLL: This government is pushing forward development projects that had been previously voted against by community members, as well as by HRM council after long debate. I understand the need for housing in this province but that aside, I’m wondering what the minister’s justification is for pushing forward on development that had been halted before through public consultation. Is he not concerned about this?

JOHN LOHR: I would like to say to the member that the one project that was in the category she is referring to was 150 units out of the potential 22,500 that the nine special planning areas encompass. It was not an issue of an environmental issue or human health or any other issue that was at stake there, and the member knows that well.

We are recognizing that we are in a housing crisis, and we’re working to increase supply and speed up the pace of development. We’re doing what we need to do, I believe.

We’re looking at it not only from the point of view of what HRM needs to do, we’re also looking at what we need to do as provincial government and I’ll remind the member that the Executive Panel on Housing is looking at what the Province needs to change to make this go faster. That panel is making recommendations to me not only on planning areas but also on things that the province needs to change.

We’re looking across the spectrum of what needs to be done and we’re working very hard on that. That is to address the absolute crisis we see in supply, which is driving up home prices to record levels; a shortage of rental units which is causing in some people who can’t find a place they want to live in, to move away. We don’t want to see that.

I want to see the opportunity that Nova Scotia has to prosper and grow in a way that we haven’t seen in some of our lifetimes. We have a new opportunity and that’s an opportunity to seize upon, I believe. That’s why we’re working across government not only in the special planning areas but as we just talked about, on NSCC campuses, in the deed transfer tax for out-of-province property owners and those things.

There’re multiple efforts that we’re working on. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Is any one of those the magic bullet or the solution? No, it’s not. I’m hoping that all the things we do, all add up together to make a difference. That’s my hope, as the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. My colleague from the Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage just introduced regulations, new regulations for short-term rentals, another thing we’re doing.

We’re working across a number of different departments to address the housing crisis in ways that I think we haven’t seen happen in the province in a generation. We need to do that right now. We’re taking on that challenge.

[9:00 p.m.]

I know the member is asking specifically about one which represents a very small fraction of the nine special planning areas that is one which did not involve permitting or human health or environmental regulations but involved a situation with essentially another provincial government department. If it needs to step up in that department, we’ll do that when the time comes.

LORELEI NICOLL: The minister has stated multiple times that he’s not interested in downloading ideas onto municipalities in terms of legislation. A number of HRM councillors have come forward disapproving of the way the government is handling this housing plan, stating this approach to housing is appalling, as one said, and takes away all public consultation - which is what my previous question was about - asking if you had concerns about removing public consultation, which you didn’t really answer.

The mayor of HRM stated this morning during the Committee on Law Amendments, for which I was present, that HRM never asked for this housing task force and that they want to see public consultation as part of this process. Given this, could the minister please explain to me and to this room his justification of this government’s approach to housing? How will the government maintain a collaborative relationship with the HRM when they are dismissing their concerns?

JOHN LOHR: What I can say is that we recognize that we’re absolutely in a housing crisis. I believe it is partially because of the success of Halifax and the success of Nova Scotia, seen during COVID-19 as a haven from COVID-19, and we are working - you know, we’re not always going to agree on everything but we’re working very hard. I’m very pleased with the work that the panel has done and I know, as I mentioned to the member, that the panel is making recommendations on what the province needs to do, as well as recommendations on what needs to be done in HRM.

I don’t agree with the characterization by the member of the panel and the work that’s been done. I think it is something that we - literally, through circumstances, through a crisis - are being forced to work together. We recognize that and I think HRM recognizes that and wants to work with us. Are we going to agree on every detail, every time? Maybe not, but the broad strokes of what needs to be done I think we do agree on and see we need to address the crisis. It’s something that we will do on our part, and I know that the mayor and council - I have a lot of respect for them - I know that the mayor and council of HRM and the staff of HRM, the city and the people of the city want to see the city grow. We want to see more homes be available for people, and more attainable homes. We want to see home ownership. We don’t want to see that lost. I want to see home ownership grow in the province and in HRM.

We’re doing things that I believe need to be done to work together and we’re figuring it out together, so to speak, with HRM as we move forward.

I’m proud of what has been accomplished. I’m very grateful to the panel - and I’ve said this publicly and I’ll say it again - the panel produced, in a very short time, far more work that I would have thought possible and I’m very impressed with what they’ve done. I am very grateful to the panel - all the members of the panel and the chair of the panel.

I know that, as I said in the answer to the previous question, this is not the only thing we’re doing, this is not the only solution. This is one thing we’re doing. We’re working very hard on multiple fronts and all of them together, I believe, will make a difference for housing in the province.

LORELEI NICOLL: The figuring it out together, the last two questions, the “it” is actually public consultation, so I’m going to ask a third time about public consultation. We’ve heard the term crisis and we’ve heard you say you have respect for the mayor and council, but to that point I feel for each of the councillors because they have no recourse. They don’t have any information to provide to the public when they have questions.

In particular, this past weekend alone we’ve seen protests in both the Mount Hope and Robie Street areas by members of the public frustrated with the government’s lack of consultation on housing development. Why does this government not believe that consultation should be a necessary step in good municipal planning?

JOHN LOHR: There are a couple of elements in the question. In terms of the nine special planning areas, most of them have seen very extensive public consultation already, like Port Wallace. I believe that started in 2014. So there has been very significant consultation on that.

In terms of the bill, which I believe the member was referring to, which was before the Law Amendments Committee today, what that bill does is it will require HRM Council, or the community development association that is tasked with making a decision, to make that decision and not defer it to another group. They can ask the other group to provide input, or the other community advisory councils could proactively interact, and all of the public consultation that is required at that level, that the council is required to do, will take place according to the HRM Charter. But the optional passing off of a decision will not happen for three years. That is what is in the bill.

It’s a recognition on the part of the panel that made the recommendation that sometimes these decisions can be deferred to a different group and the response can be a very long time in coming. It’s seen as slowing down the process, but the required amount of public consultation that is required in the HRM Charter will take place. All required permitting that needs to be done for both the nine special planning areas and for HRM will take place. I will remind the member that there are some very positive things in the bill. All of the steps, I believe, that we are taking are very positive. We think that in some cases this bill will take years, but certainly months, off the permitting process, including things that are required on behalf of the Province.

LORELEI NICOLL: To repeat what I said earlier, the mayor said HRM never asked for this housing task force, and the task force is taking time away - critical time away, I should say - from the HRM’s planning department, specifically their two top planners, which includes their director of planning.

How many planners does the Province currently employ? Is the Province going to hire municipal planners to carry out the work and development approvals by this government or will the planners come from elsewhere? Has this been added to the budget and, if so, where?

[9:15 p.m.]

JOHN LOHR: What I can say is that it was the housing crisis that necessitated the task force, in our opinion. I recognize that this is a response to a crisis. As the member knows, the housing crisis is across the province but most significantly found in HRM.

We felt we needed to respond. We felt we needed to work directly with HRM. We did so. As the member knows, we provided $2.3 million for a number of studies that needed to be done to increase the speed of the process for hiring consultants and environmental reviews. We are working very closely with HRM planning staff on this.

I do want to say that I appreciate the capability and skill of the staff provided by the members of the panel from HRM. I appreciate it very much. They are working on all the same things that they would have been working on and continue to work on in their work with HRM. We are working to address the roadblocks to development, both on the HRM side and on our side, the provincial side. We are doing what we can. We want to work very closely with HRM through this panel and we are doing so.

LORELEI NICOLL: To that point, where you say that you were recognizing roadblocks to development, if the municipality didn’t feel that the task force was required, who gave you the opinion that there were roadblocks to development in HRM?

JOHN LOHR: In terms of the housing panel or housing task force, I think it’s fair to say that the mayor did say that he was pleased with the collaborative work that was happening as well.

In terms of why we did it - and we’ve talked about this previously, I can’t remember if this member asked me this or if it was the NDP, but we got into - and I will repeat it - sorry if it was you who brought it up - but the shortage of housing is really what’s driving this. We’re working to get a handle on that number. We’re doing a province-wide housing needs assessment, which was recommended by the Nova Scotia Affordable Housing Commission. What is the shortage of housing? I think it’s somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 units. We know that, looking at the projected growth of the city - which I hope happens - and I want to see us make room for it to happen, that number is going to increase.

The city was approving 4,000 to 5,000 units a year, I believe, and that was doing a great job. We appreciate that but we knew when we looked at those numbers that we needed to do something. We also knew that it couldn’t be just something the province did and whatever we did had to be done in conjunction with the city. That meant getting our staff and the city staff to sit down together on a regular basis and tell me what needed to be done. That’s why we’ve done it. We’ve done it because we’re in an absolute housing crisis.

A crisis is also an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to see unprecedented growth in our province and in this city and I want to see that growth. We’re making massive investments, as government, in health care, in other things. The only way that we’re going to pay for those investments is if this city grows, if the province grows, more people live here, the economy grows. We’re not satisfied just to say - to hope that those things are going to happen.

As I just said a few minutes ago, we’re working across departments to lay the groundwork for those things to grow, the city to grow, and the province to grow. That growth, which I hope happens - I don’t want to miss the opportunity of that growth. It’s a crisis but it’s an opportunity. It’s not an opportunity that we’re going to realize without full participation of our municipal units. It just so happens that we saw the need for this, and we knew we couldn’t do it ourselves and we needed the municipal units involved, HRM, and we’re going to continue. We’re going to continue to work across the province.

This isn’t the end by any means; we’re going to continue to do more. I hope that this, all of it put together, will make a difference, will allow us as a province to seize the opportunities that are represented by this most significant increase in our population.

I just want to tell a personal story for a moment. A number of years ago someone gave me a biography of George Nowlan, who was a long, long ago MP representing the Annapolis Valley. I started to read it and when I read it I went, oh my goodness, we still have all the same problems that were identified in the book that George Nowlan was facing in the late 1930s. I thought, oh, it was really - to be honest, I didn’t finish the book, I got depressed with it, but just the reality of that.

Now we have an opportunity, an unprecedented opportunity, to change the channel, to see this city grow. It’s being looked upon as an opportunity, the investment potential that’s here because of all the universities and the young people and the opportunity in the high-tech sector that this province is going to have. If we don’t meet these housing needs, we’re not going to have that opportunity.

I’m not satisfied to sit idly by. I know that the mayor is not, HRM is not. I know it’s not always possible to agree on every little thing but we’re working to do that. I can tell you that if you don’t do anything, you don’t make any mistakes, but that’s a mistake to not do anything. We’re willing to take chances and I hope to work to see this picture change in our province. That’s a goal of our government, I can tell the member that. That’s the goal of every part of this budget that we put forward.

We’re working to change health care, we’re working to change housing and that’s to change the channel in this province, to put in new optimism and provide places for young people and programs. It’s all connected. Our program with more opportunities for skilled trades for young people, that’s part of the plan too. We want to see young people come here but they’re not going to come here if there’s not affordable housing, if there’s not opportunities for them to buy their own homes.

All of those things put together create - I don’t know if I can clearly articulate our vision for the province, but that is the vision for the province - we want to see this province grow - not just HRM, but HRM is such an integral cog to it. I’ve said before in the Legislature that the success of rural Nova Scotia is really driven by the success of HRM, and the success of HRM is driven by the success of rural Nova Scotia. It’s not one or the other. We’re going to succeed and prosper as a province, I believe, and we’re going to try our best as government to seize those opportunities in all sectors. Part of that is meeting this crisis in housing head-on and doing what we need to do.

LORELEI NICOLL: I stood because I was tired of sitting down for so long. It is a late hour, so your stories are kind of like bedtime stories. Thank you for that. (Laughter)

As we’re looking at the full vision for the province, this government is expecting an additional $81 million in out-of-province deed transfer taxes this fiscal year. What is this government planning on doing with the additional revenue?

I know the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board already said that it was going into general revenue, but this is a municipal issue and you’re having the conversations with the NSFM and the AMAs, and so therefore you’re working collaboratively, so I expect to get an answer with regard to the justification behind this additional tax. It was to slow down out-of-province house purchases and to, hopefully, slow down the market so that Nova Scotians living in province could have more success in purchasing a home. If this tax is toward supporting the housing crisis in this province, will the government commit to investing these additional revenues specifically toward housing?

JOHN LOHR: I want to first of all, Mx. Speaker, thank the member for the compliment on my stories. I’m certainly not (Inaudible) to put anybody to sleep. I apologize if that’s the case.

In terms of what we’re doing, I know - I’m not sure if the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board will get up to speak in Estimates, I’m not sure about that, but it would certainly be a question better put to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. I know the member has already referenced the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board’s response. I’m certainly not going to alter that; that is the response.

What I do want to say about the deed transfer tax is a couple of things. First of all, I just want to remind - and I just mentioned it a moment ago, and I’ll unpack it again - that is through the MOST - More Opportunities for Skilled Trades - we are making an investment of approximately the same amount of money as the deed transfer tax is projected to raise, actually. Both of those, of course, are projected numbers. We have to see how they actually turn out.

I just want to say that we want to invest in young people coming to this province, having the opportunity to work here. That means a tax break for them. That means housing needs to be provided too, so we’re working hard on the housing file. We’re working hard on bringing young people here. We need to change the demographics of our province, and we’re working on that. It’s part of our vision for the province. I respect very much the Premier and the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, who share that vision, who are willing to make that investment in young people.

When the Finance and Treasury Board Minister says that’s going into general revenue, I just wanted to say, think about that. That’s going into health care for our province. That’s going into funding programs to bring young people here. That’s going into funding housing. All of those things are part of that. It’s part of our vision for the province. We want to see this province grow and succeed.

What will the impact of the deed transfer tax be? Certainly it will be some more money in the general revenue fund, but it’s not only that - there will be some people who will react to that by making their property available for rental. There might be some who choose to sell. We don’t have a projection on either one of those numbers but that will be the choice.

[9:30 p.m.]

I can tell you that housing is in short supply all over the province. I can tell you that it was a couple of years ago, when there was a by-election for the member for Argyle, I was down in Argyle knocking on doors and, as all elected members know, they have a certain amount of information in hand in these by-elections. I’d walk up to a pretty attractive house and look at my sheet and say oh, this has been done, on my sheet. By and by I figured out that meant that somebody somewhere else owned that house. There were a lot of houses and they weren’t million-dollar houses. They were far less expensive than that.

There are a lot of problems around the province. I know this is a move that we have taken that is one that some find very difficult, but I think it’s not the be-all and end-all. Again, as I said before, all the things we’ve done we hope that together they’ll make a difference in the housing situation. This is part of that, and I want to applaud the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board and the Premier for taking these bold decisions on this front too. They are not easy decisions we’re making but we believe that all told, it will make a difference.

LORELEI NICOLL: Municipalities have essentially one method to raise revenue and that is through property taxes. The municipalities are facing increased costs from policing, cost of infrastructure, as well as provincial downloading, et cetera. Do you believe that this government tax is an infringement on municipal jurisdiction, limiting the municipalities’ ability to raise the taxes going forward? I ask, to bring it back, regardless of whether it’s the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. This is a municipal issue and I’m sure we are all hearing from our respective municipal representatives wondering what that means for them, whether it’s going to be a loss of revenue, and the fact that there are probably more non-residents living in certain areas, like the South Shore and the Valley, and those municipal units are very concerned with this new tax.

I would certainly strongly suggest that you, as the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, speak with the municipal counterparts in those areas. I just wanted to ask you specifically, and I’ll repeat again, do you believe that this government tax is an infringement on municipal jurisdiction, limiting municipalities’ ability to raise taxes going forward?

JOHN LOHR: I do want to say, and I think I mentioned this in my opening remarks, but that was quite a while ago . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, the time for the Official Opposition has elapsed.

I now recognize the honourable member for Cape Breton Centre-Whitney Pier for the NDP.

KENDRA COOMBES: I want to stay on municipal affairs for a little bit. When the Progressive Conservative government came into office, your government made good on the promise made to double the funding for municipalities for the first year, and I have thanked and congratulated you for doing something that others should have done.

My question is, will there be a new funding agreement in place, and when can we expect it?

JOHN LOHR: The member is correct that this is a significant part of my mandate to renegotiate the MOU and Service Exchange Agreement. As the member knows, the Service Exchange Agreement was an MOU dating back to 1995. I know that the previous NDP government had worked on it in the last year of their term, and the immediately preceding government worked on it a couple of times. It’s our intention to pick up that work, look at it, and go forward and work on renegotiating that.

We’ve set up an advisory committee with the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities and the Association of Municipal Administrators Nova Scotia, and we’re working closely with them. It’s a massive task. The member is right in referencing the fact that this year, we doubled the Municipal Financial Capacity Grant. The member may know - I’m just trying to remember, but I believe there are seven municipal units that do not benefit from that doubling, because they don’t get it. So that’s a concern.

The formula that was used was frozen, I believe, 10 years ago. That’s also part of the negotiations. Will there be that doubling again this year? I can’t say. It’s not in our budget, but certainly we are working on the renegotiation of the MOU. I’m very committed to our partnership with the municipal units. As the member may know, I’ve met with 26 out of the 49. I always tell them that I - and I’m being sincere when I say this - I do personally believe that their level of government is no easier than ours. A lot of the things that they decide are very personal for people. It’s a challenge. I appreciate anybody who would put their name on a ballot and stand up and make tough decisions in their own community.

We’re very committed to working closely with them. I’m told, and I have no idea if that’s true or not but I expect it is, that the level of engagement that we’ve already had to get out in this short a time to visit with 26 of the municipal councils - and normally that involves an hour or an hour and a half or two hours, sometimes, of back and forth and municipal councillors asking questions of myself, and not only me but our senior staff, who have a lot of history with Municipal Affairs and know the file very well. We’re able to get a lot done in those meetings and certainly learn a lot of the concerns.

I can say - and I know the member referenced housing - that the housing crisis extends right across the province, in every community, whether it’s Clark’s Harbour or Mulgrave or Chéticamp or CBRM or Kentville or Digby. Right straight across the province there’s a crisis in housing, and here in HRM. We recognize that. It’s beginning to impact our economy because employers can’t find places for their employees to live. In some cases, employers are being proactive in buying homes but that’s taking homes off the market for housing.

I respect the fact that they’re being proactive in doing that, but I think we need to work right across the province to increase the supply of housing, which we’re doing.

There’s a lot on the go and we’ve got a lot on our agenda with our municipal partners. I know that these renegotiations are not going to be easy. I think two previous governments took a decent stab at it and didn’t succeed, so it’s a challenge for us. It’s a challenge for me, as minister, but I accept that challenge.

KENDRA COOMBES: I got some answers to questions I didn’t even ask. I only have limited time, so if we can keep it to the questions I ask, that would be very helpful in getting through this.

There’s an issue that’s very close to my heart and it’s with regard to equalization and fairness, as I brought up. A number of years ago, it was brought to my attention by the Nova Scotians for Equalization Fairness group that the provincial government used to provide a breakdown of the federal equalization, which is 23.1 per cent, that is generated by municipal units to provide comparable taxes to comparable tax rates. That used to be the breakdown per region and for municipalities and used to be on the website up until, I think, about 10 years ago or so, when that information went down on the website. I’m just wondering if the minister is planning and willing to put that back on the website - that is the federal equalization that comes to the provinces to deal with the taxes, the tax rates.

JOHN LOHR: I apologize to the member. I know I start to ramble, but this has been three hours in. I apologize, I’ll try to stay on topic.

In terms of what the member is asking, and I’m just trying to wrap my head around that, I just want the member to know that we are very concerned. We talked about it in terms of housing fairness and across the board. We’re very concerned about that. I do want to point out that our government, in conjunction with the immediately preceding government, in reality, is making a billion-dollar investment in health care, in CBRM, and other investments in capital projects in schools and bridges, and in the Marconi Campus. We’re making very significant investments there.

[9:45 p.m.]

We’re very concerned about being fair across the province and to be frank, there are other regions of the province that are not seeing those types of investments. I don’t accept that. We’re spending where we need to spend. We will continue to do that. We’ll look at the needs of everybody in the province.

In terms of who gets what, I don’t accept that narrative. I think that we’re working very hard to be fair and, if anything, the numbers would speak to the opposite of that, in reality, of what the member is suggesting.

The fact is that government is always looking out where things need to be done and it’s always somebody’s turn to get something done, but then somebody else is waiting. There’s need for projects across the province. A major part of the capital spending right now in the province is happening in CBRM; that’s the reality. Some of it is happening in HRM. There are other regions where it is not happening right now but their time will come. We’ll address it for them when the time comes.

I think it’s not about us and them. We are all Nova Scotians; we’re working together to see this province prosper. I want to see Cape Breton prosper; I want to see all parts of this province prosper. In order to do that we need to change the channel. It’s got to be about economic development, it’s got to be about drivers of that - housing is a driver of economic development, that’s for sure; we recognize that. We’re going to do what we need to do, as a government, to see this province go ahead and prosper.

I had that same dream for Cape Breton. I’m a farmer and I know that the Margaree Valley was farmed, parts of Cape Breton were farmed at one time. I’d like to see that happen, too. There’s a lot of things we need to do as a government that we will do. We’ll meet those challenges. We want to see Cape Breton prosper and grow. I want to see all parts of this province prosper and grow, not just Cape Breton, not just HRM, but my own Annapolis Valley. I want to see that in every part of this province. We will do what we need to do in government to see that happen.

KENDRA COOMBES: I didn’t do an us or them. I asked if a document that used to be on the website that was updated would go back on the website and continue to be updated. That is what I asked.

Moving on, because I have only so much time, the increase for the RCMP pay came into effect last week. My question is: Is there anything in the budget to help municipalities cope with the increased costs of policing?

JOHN LOHR: I’m just getting some information from my staff on this. As I understand it, there are three different possibilities. There is policing, which is done by the municipal unit itself where they hire their own police force, which is not affected by this directly. Then there’s RCMP. There are two RCMP contract possibilities and one is direct billing from Ottawa. They would have received their billing. The other is done through the Minister of Justice.

In terms of what’s happening with the RCMP contract, it really is a question for the Minister of Justice to answer, not me, but I can tell you that it is a subject of concern everywhere I go throughout, visiting all the municipal units. There’s always a discussion about policing. It’s top of mind for everyone. Costs are increasing. It is a municipal responsibility to provide policing. The province pays for the Crown parts of the justice system, as the member may know, through the Department of Justice, but the municipal units do the policing.

It is primarily a question for the Minister of Justice. Other than just sort of that pre- (Inaudible) review and to agree that it is a very big concern about what is happening in Ottawa, and the back pay for the RCMP is a big concern for our municipal units, I can tell the member that. Other than that, I think it needs to be taken up with the Minister of Justice.

KENDRA COOMBES: I do hope that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, as well as the Minister of Justice, are in conversation on this very important issue.

The minister talked about speaking with the municipalities so I’m just wondering, what has the minister heard from municipalities in terms of the retroactive payments for the RCMP?

JOHN LOHR: I heard, I guess what I already reiterated, that it was a very big concern of theirs. I think the member will appreciate that the municipal units we have are budgeting right to the wire most of the time, so if there’s a major increase in one area then if they are going to pay that, there is going to be something in another area that has to be cut, or taxes have to go up, so a cut in services or increasing taxes. Both are very difficult. They have their own complications.

We need policing, that’s a reality, so it isn’t easy for the municipalities . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, it is now 9:53 p.m. and the House is set to adjourn at 10:00 p.m.

The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. KIM MASLAND: I move that the committee do now rise and report progress and beg leave to sit again on a future date.

THE CHAIR: All those in favour? Contrary minded? Thank you.

The motion is carried.

The committee will now rise and report to the House.

[9:54 p.m. The CWH on Supply rose and the House reconvened.]