HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2020

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

11:27 A.M.

CHAIR

Rafah DiCostanzo

THE CHAIR: I call to order the Subcommittee on Supply. We’re meeting this afternoon to consider the Estimates for the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, as outlined in Resolution E16.

Resolution E16 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $308,513,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, pursuant to the Estimate and the business plan of the Nova Scotia Municipal Finance Corporation and Housing Nova Scotia be approved.

THE CHAIR: We will start with the minister’s opening remarks - you have up to one hour.

The honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

HON. CHUCK PORTER: Madam Chair, I am pleased to be with you here today. I will introduce the folks I have with me here. I have Deputy Minister Nancy MacLellan, who joined us when we took over Housing last June. As well, Darlene O’Neil, the Executive Director of Finance for the department. She is probably no stranger to this room - she has been through the Estimates. We’ll introduce other members as they come to the table and we make our way through the Estimates this afternoon.

I am pleased to introduce the Estimates for the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing for 2020-21.

As you are aware, Housing Nova Scotia moved from the Department of Community Services to the Department of Municipal Affairs to form the new Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing last June. Housing Nova Scotia is responsible for ensuing access to safe, suitable and affordable housing for Nova Scotians with low and moderate incomes. The new blended mandate is to promote responsible, local government and support safe and secure communities. This is achieved through partnership with local governments and communities across Nova Scotia to build strong, sustainable and safe communities with diverse economies, high quality of life and affordable and suitable homes for Nova Scotians with low and moderate incomes.

Having a safe, affordable place to live is key to living a healthy and productive life and building healthy, connected communities. People can’t think about school or work if they’re worried about their housing situation. Municipal governments have a fundamental role in this work. That’s why aligning the housing and municipal functions of the province more closely makes sense. I’ll speak more to this in a few moments.

The ability to successfully deliver on the department’s mandate hinges on the ability to build and maintain strong partnerships. At the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, we continue to strengthen the relationships we have with many governments, organizations and community groups that help us deliver the programs and services on which Nova Scotians rely.

One of the most important relationships we have is with municipalities. Local governments manage the services that affect the day to day lives of Nova Scotians. The quality of our water, our roads, our public safety and even our parking depends on them. As a department, we work closely with municipalities to ensure good governance, accountability, effective planning, and most importantly, to help build healthy, vibrant, and safe communities. Without question, our relationships with municipalities matter.

[11:30 a.m.]

A few years back, the Province and municipalities through what is now the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities formed a commitment to work together. This municipal partnership framework - now in its fourth year - shepherds our work on joint priorities, improving communications, and being accountable for outcomes. Together, we collaborate on programs, policies, legislation, and initiatives that directly benefit Nova Scotians we collectively serve.

My ministerial colleagues and I also meet twice a year with representatives of the NSFM to ensure we remain focused on the right items. Key to this work is modernizing our legislation to make it easier for municipalities to work on behalf of their citizens.

During this current House session, we introduced amendments to the Municipal Government Act and the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter to remove unnecessary approvals that only served to complicate processes and increase turnaround time. Last week, these amendments were passed here in the House. Last Fall, amendments were made to the Act and the charter to support municipal councils and their need to outline the rules governing councils who want to run for elected office at other levels of government.

We also amended the Act and the charter so that all municipalities, should they desire, can offer loans to residents in their areas who need to install or replace septic systems. These legislative changes recognize municipalities as independent levels of government and provide them with greater authority to make decisions in the best interests of their communities.

In this upcoming year, we will continue to modernize and update our legislation to better meet the needs of municipal partners, communities and Nova Scotians. Solid infrastructure links people in neighborhoods to employment opportunities, business, markets, hospitals and places of worship. It also delivers clean water, reliable electricity, sustainable resources and connects us to the world through the internet.

Our funding partnerships with the federal government are all about ensuring our communities are equipped with sound infrastructure. In 2017, the Government of Canada announced investing in Canada infrastructure program. Under this program, Infrastructure Canada will invest $180 billion over 10 years to address three key objectives: to create long-term economic growth, to support a low carbon green economy, and to build communities whereby everyone is included. The portion of federal funding to Nova Scotia will be $828 million over that 10-year period.

This year, 21 projects in 20 municipalities have benefited from infrastructure funding approvals. The projects range from upgrades to wastewater and sewage treatment to remediation for an organic materials facility. Bridgewater, Antigonish, Annapolis, CBRM, Colchester, Amherst, HRM, West Hants, Inverness, Lunenburg, Richmond, Victoria, Argyle, Digby, Guysborough, St. Mary’s, Mulgrave, Wolfville, Trenton, and Lockeport all have projects that received funding approval this year.

Municipalities also benefit from other programs that leverage federal dollars. Federal gas tax funding is money that is transferred from the Government of Canada to Nova Scotia municipalities through our department. It provides long-term, stable funding for municipalities that can also be invested in local infrastructure priorities. In the new fiscal year, more than $55 million from the federal gas tax program will be available for these purposes. Projects funded under the new Building Canada Fund continue to progress. These infrastructure projects are helping to grow the local economy, create jobs and increase productivity across Nova Scotia.

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. Wastewater projects in Colchester, CBRM and Lunenburg will benefit this year as a result of the program, with $690,000 included in the new fiscal year’s program to continue this vital work. A call for applications will take place later this Spring.

The Flood Risk Infrastructure Investment Program allows us to make investments that help reduce the flood risk in community vulnerability. Through the program this year, Digby received approval to install five tide gauges and five weather gauges. In addition, the Town of Wolfville received funding approval to work on their flood risk climate change adaptation study. A call for applications to this program will also take place this Spring.

We know there’s a direct connection between local prosperity and reliable infrastructure. How we design and build our cities impacts the local government’s ability to attract skilled workers, entrepreneurs, investors and future employers. Infrastructure doesn’t last forever. An aging infrastructure can increase maintenance and operating costs for municipalities, as well as the cost needed to replace it. This makes infrastructure planning and a means for managing municipal assets very important. Informed and timely decisions help municipalities optimize investments, save money and better manage risks. Improved municipal managed assets also helps to ensure that provincial resources are directed to where they are most needed.

Infrastructure planning is a key responsibility of municipal governments. To help municipalities better identify their infrastructure needs, we continue to work with them on an asset management program. Our asset management program was designed to help municipalities make informed, evidence-based decisions so they can manage their infrastructure assets. This work involves developing a standard means for collecting data, assessing the condition of assets, incorporating lessons learned, and identifying industry best practices.

To date, the department has piloted and made available data collection tools and resources to all Nova Scotia municipalities. We’re also continuing to develop the infrastructure registry for municipal assets that provides our municipalities with a system to store, assess and maintain relevant information on their infrastructure. In the new fiscal year, as work on the program advances, we will continue to engage with our municipal partners - both in sharing information and working together to identify opportunities for program improvements.

Our department also provides annual grant programs to municipalities to support the delivery of their services to their residents. One example is the Municipal Finance Capacity Grant, which is separate and distinct from federal equalization funds that flow to Nova Scotia. As you are aware, the amount of funding for municipalities in this program has been set at $30.4 million. We continue to work with the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities, the Association of Municipal Administrators of Nova Scotia, and municipalities to update this program.

The grants in lieu of property tax, where the province pays municipalities grants instead of property taxes for provincially owned properties, is also delivered by the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing. This year, approximately $20 million was provided to 49 municipalities and one village.

The municipal Farm Land Grant compensates municipalities for working farmland loss to them as property tax income. Working or active farmland is assessed as exempt property by the Property Valuation Services Corporation. During this fiscal year, 42 municipalities received a total of $1.9 million. As well, the fire protection grant is paid to municipalities for properties such as public hospitals, schools, and museums that are not eligible for the grants in lieu of property tax payments. This year, $1 million was paid to 34 municipalities and two villages.

To compensate municipalities for property taxes on NSBI-owned properties, 43 municipalities received a total of $14.9 million this year. As well, in recognition of the increase in HST costs, $6 million was provided to all 50 municipalities as an HST offset grant. These grants and others are legislated under the Municipal Grants Act. This year in total, we are providing close to $76 million to our local governments. At the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, we also operate programs that municipalities can apply for to various projects or participate in to enhance economic growth.

Our Beautification and Streetscaping program supports the development of attractive and inviting public areas for residents and visitors where they can spend time enjoying what our communities have to offer. The program fosters community pride and supports local development, tourism, and economic development.

The amphitheatre project for the Fundy Discovery Site located near the Cobequid trail system is a recipient of the investment this year. The site is a multi-phased tourism and community-oriented project by the Municipality of the County of Colchester. Construction of the outdoor amphitheatre project - which was supported by the Beautification and Streetscaping program - has been completed, along with the adjacent landscaping work. Completion of the amphitheatre and landscaping will allow for a wider variety of programming opportunities such as concerts, performances and interpretive talks.

Another recipient of funding is the Causeway trail project in Windsor that has brought partners together to create a vibrant and welcoming waterfront that connects to communities. Program support is helping to fund the installation of lighting, benches, an accessible gazebo, picnic areas, viewing platform, and more. There were 27 projects in all that received support through the program this year. The projects range from landscaping, interpretive and entrance signage to lighting for public spaces and public restrooms. A total of $500,000 has been allocated to the program for the coming year. A call for applications is expected to go out in the Spring.

We are working to help municipalities support youth who want to stay in their communities. During Estimates last year, I noted that we would be introducing a Community Works program to help municipalities create more job opportunities for youth, unemployed and other interested individuals. With the launch of the program this year, interested communities receive 50 per cent of the employment cost, up to a maximum of $25,000.

Community-focused projects range from municipal planning to administrative internships and landscaping. Municipalities from Inverness to Lockeport benefit from the program this year and we look forward to receiving even more applications next year.

Municipalities across Nova Scotia support innovative ways to work together and better leverage opportunities and build stronger communities. The Municipal Innovation Program will be a source of funding to municipalities looking to work collaboratively with their neighbours in the areas of economic development, regional infrastructure and regional planning. Criteria for the program that we’ve developed this year will be shared with municipalities in the Spring as part of our consultations and work with them.

Through our Regional Enterprise Network, or RENs, we work with municipalities to help create innovative approaches to regional economic development. Most of our province’s municipalities are part of a REN. RENs provide a private sector-led approach to identifying regional priorities and sharing information, and provincial economic development partners on local opportunities and issues. Core to the work of our RENs is developing and implementing a regional economic development strategy and working with partners to support business development by attracting new investment, and by keeping and expanding existing businesses.

A number of RENs are very involved in the Connector Program: a workforce development initiative aimed at matching recent graduates, newcomers and other qualified professionals with community business leaders in their industry of expertise. This simple and effective networking program connects individuals with industry leaders who can help build their professional network, facilitate the growth of their careers, and help them secure relevant jobs so they can remain in their community. More than 1,500 individuals secured jobs in our province with the help of the Connector Program.

Some RENs also participate in the Atlantic Immigration Pilot. That allows employers to recruit eligible foreign-skilled workers. It’s a fast track immigration program stream from employers in the four Atlantic Provinces who face persistent workforce challenges. The number of qualifying designated employers in 2019 across the province was 405 - 330 of which RENs played an instrumental role in helping them to qualify.

Other initiatives involving RENs include business development, continuous improvement and succession planning to sector development and gathering labour market information to promote workforce development and youth retention. Through the work of our RENs - together with the funding support of both provincial and federal programs and many other initiatives - we are helping our municipal partners build safe, vital and connected communities for all of Nova Scotians.

The mandate of the Emergency Management Office is to enhance the safety and well-being of Nova Scotians, their property, and their 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 to have an emergency plan. EMO supports municipalities in developing and reviewing the plan, carrying out exercises to test the plan and in training key staff in emergency response.

This past year, 35 training sessions and exercises were held for municipalities and other partners across the province. These training programs are ongoing and will continue into the new fiscal year. In times of emergency, EMO opens the Provincial Coordination Centre to bring together any number of government and private organizations that may be needed to support response and recovery. EMO coordinates and identifies the needs and risks associated with an emergency, finds and uses necessary resources to resolve issues, and helps Nova Scotians stay safe.

Last September, EMO coordinated the provincial response in both preparing for and responding to Hurricane Dorian. As we all know, Hurricane Dorian caused significant power outages across our province. At the height of the storm, approximately 400,000 households were without power. Thanks to Nova Scotians being prepared, there was no loss of life or injuries.

On January 8^th, we opened the Disaster Financial Assistance Program to help individuals, small businesses and not-for-profits - the property damage that is uninsurable. As well, municipalities with uninsured losses can apply to the program. Applications are being received until March 31^st. Disaster can strike at any time. That’s why EMO will continue to focus on helping Nova Scotians prepare for emergencies.

[11:45 a.m.]

Climate change is leading to more frequent and severe weather events like Hurricane Dorian. The services and material goods on which Nova Scotians rely depend on critical infrastructure such as electricity, telecommunications, and physical transportation networks like our roads and bridges. This evolving landscape makes it more important than ever to engage in emergency management planning.

For the past year, EMO has been working on a new strategic emergency management plan for the province. This plan lays a foundation for how EMO operates before, during and after an emergency. It outlines EMO’s structure and mandate, defines its training and exercising program, and details the three levels of activation when an incident happens.

The plan also details how EMO will continue to work with provincial governments, municipalities, the federal government, private critical infrastructure owners and operators, and not-for-profit organizations to prevent emergencies and to minimize risk, respond and recover from them when they do happen. We take a planning approach that can apply to any type of emergency that arises.

The strategic emergency management plan details how the Province and its partners will respond to 29 specific threats to the safety and well-being of Nova Scotians. Some of these threats include hurricanes, flooding, Winter storms, and critical infrastructure disruptions. The plan is in the final stages of review, and EMO expects to release it this Spring.

This year, EMO continued to implement a new critical infrastructure resiliency strategy. The key part of the provincial approach is the establishment of a committee involving provincial departments that own and operate critical infrastructure, as well as private owners and operators, other levels of government and non-profit organizations. This group involves more than 30 stakeholders and it continues to grow.

Last May, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island partnered with Public Safety Canada to jointly lead a table-top exercise - the first regional critical infrastructure exercise. Together with many of our critical infrastructure partners, EMO participated in the one-day event that focused on the importance of the corridor between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Participants discussed their infrastructure and interdependence, and contemplated potential actions should a severe weather event cut off access. Lessons learned were compiled as part of a national report.

The relationship-building that has taken place in recent years between EMO and our critical infrastructure partners proved to be invaluable during Hurricane Dorian. EMO was able to work with these critical infrastructure partners to address impacts, identify issues and creatively develop collaborative responses to complex situations as they arose. These relationships have improved the Province’s ability to check on vulnerable Nova Scotians, restore services as efficiently as possible, and monitor the status of critical infrastructure across all 10 sectors identified in the national emergency management strategy.

An implementation plan for the strategy is being developed by a federal/provincial/territorial working group that Nova Scotia is co-chairing. EMO will continue to build its critical infrastructure program, partnering with the federal, provincial and municipal levels in the coming year.

EMO also administers the provincial 911 system. As I mentioned last year, we’re participating in the development of the next generation 911 system, which will provide Nova Scotians with access to innovative emergency services and capabilities to improve public safety. This work will continue in the coming fiscal year.

I will now take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank our municipal emergency coordinators, our provincial and federal partners, non-government organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross, and the private sector for their efforts around emergency planning. As well, I recognize the very important role of the 911 call-takers as they ensure emergency calls are directed to the appropriate first responder.

I will turn our attention now to the work of 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 regulations reflect the latest national standards.

I want to assure Nova Scotians that the Office of the Fire Marshal take its governance and accountability role seriously. We recognize the critical role we have in public safety and know that Nova Scotians count on us in this regard. They can be assured that we understand the gravity of this role and are fully committed to their safety. We continue to work with municipalities who have that responsibility to provide fire services in their areas.

The Province supports fire services through the Emergency Services Provider Fund. The fund provides money to hazardous materials teams, ground search and rescue organizations, and fire departments. Many of these organizations are supported by volunteers who put countless hours into training and responding to emergencies. Indeed, they put themselves in harm’s way to protect us. This funding helps to ensure they have the tools and the equipment needed to stay safe. Organizations can apply for grants up to $20,000 for a variety of firefighting, ice rescue, and personal protective gear and communications equipment.

This past year, we’ve changed the program criteria so organizations could choose from a broader list of eligible equipment and buy equipment from three of the six categories, instead of just one. I’m pleased to say that 80 organizations in communities across the province received Emergency Services Provider Fund funding in this fiscal year. This coming year, we will have budgeted $1 million for this fund to ensure our first responders have the tools and equipment needed.

Public education about fire prevention and safety is core to the work of the Office of the Fire Marshal. During Fire Prevention Week in October, and indeed throughout the year, we will continue to share information with Nova Scotians on fire prevention and what to do if a fire occurs.

The Office of the Fire Marshal also provides information, advice and recommendation on the many aspects of building and fire safety, as well as fire service delivery. This work includes support for municipal building and fire inspectors, architects, engineers, other consultants and private citizens. The office also collaborates regularly with many provincial departments, conducts inspections for provincial licensing, and provides advice and recommendations relating to fire and building safety for more than 3,000 provincially owned properties.

They also continue to foster and develop relationships with fire services throughout Nova Scotia. 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. During the investigative process, the Office of the Fire Marshal work closely with fire services, provincial police services, Nova Scotia Medical Examiner service, and the insurance industry.

I want to thank the many organizations that partner with the Office of the Fire Marshal to keep Nova Scotians safe: the Nova Scotia Building Advisory Committee, the Nova Scotia Building Officials Association, the Fire Service Association of Nova Scotia, the Fire Inspectors Association of Nova Scotia, the Fire Safety Advisory Council, the Fire Services Advisory Committee, and others who are engaged in delivering fire prevention and safety services.

I’ll move on to some comments now around housing. At the start of my remarks, I noted our government’s decision to more closely align the Province’s housing function with municipal affairs. As research shows, there are different links between one’s access to affordable, safe housing and one’s safety, health and education. Not only is stable, affordable housing critical to breaking the cycle of poverty, it’s fundamental to leading healthy, productive lives and being able to participate more fully in one’s community.

Having an affordable place to call home with access to services and supports helps to build safe and prosperous communities. We know that many Nova Scotians struggle to find suitable housing, and the reasons for this can be varied and complex. That’s why our partnerships with our housing partners are all so fundamentally important to us in delivering the housing supports Nova Scotians need.

These partnerships include our work with municipalities, the federal government, the private developers, not-for-profit and co-op housing sector, and affordable housing advocates. Together through a multi-pronged approach, we are working to address immediate housing needs, develop new programs, and increase housing capacity over the longer term.

One key component of this approach is to address homelessness and the immediate housing needs of Nova Scotians. That’s why with this budget, we are making the largest single investment in homelessness prevention ever made by government. The Integrated Action Plan to Address Homelessness will be supported by more than $20 million over five years. Some of our work in this area will include partnering with agencies in the HRM and the CBRM, and with others across the province through the Housing Support Worker Program to increase the number of housing support workers in Nova Scotia by 27. An additional seven trustee positions will also be put into place.

Housing support workers help those in need transition from a shelter or unstable living to safe, affordable housing. Last year, close to 1,200 people in the HRM who experience homelessness or were at risk of homelessness benefited from this program. More housing support workers will enable us to direct resources to eviction prevention and partner with more communities. With this investment in community partnership, we will help even more individuals and families stay in their homes or find homes.

A few years back, housing staff partnered with the Salvation Army to help men in a temporary shelter in the HRM move to more stable housing. I’ll note that this was accomplished without the need for rent supplements. The Rapid Rehousing Pilot is now an annual program. To date, more than 100 men have secured housing because of this partnership.

Of course, another tool in the toolkit is our Rent Supplement Program. Currently, 2,500 households are benefiting from rent supplements. The program helps people find safe and affordable homes. An additional 500 new rent supplements will be available in the coming fiscal year, and 120 of these will go directly to supporting people facing homelessness.

Together with our partners, we will move homelessness services from that of crisis management to prevention. You have likely heard me say many times that every Nova Scotian deserves a safe, affordable place to call home. This belief is what drives the work we and partners do to address housing issues. It’s also why we entered into a funding agreement with our federal partners that will see close to $400 million in federal and provincial dollars over the next decade go to housing supports in our province.

We announced the Canada-Nova Scotia Housing Strategy last August and a month later, we introduced the first three-year housing action plan that spells out how the first three years of funding will be invested - and we didn’t stop there. In addition to the $88 million in provincial and federal funding that will be invested between now and 2022, we are adding another $70 million in provincial funding to address other housing priorities.

This year’s investments alone will contribute to the construction of the new affordable housing units, the repair of existing public housing stock and improved accessibility for Nova Scotians living in public housing units. This year, work will also include repairing urban Native housing units and home repair and adaptation programs.

Last week, Glooscap First Nation Chief Sid Peters and I announced the signing of an agreement to fund the repair and renovation of rental units owned and operated by Tawaak Housing Association. This agreement is part of a commitment made in our first three-year housing plan. The association is a non-profit housing organization that owns and operates off-reserve rental housing for Indigenous people in Nova Scotia. Through our agreement, 36 Urban Native Housing Program units will be repaired and renovated and existing affordable housing programs will be maintained. As well, under the existing housing action plan, 51 rent supplements will be available to Tawaak residents.

The association will complete building condition assessments that are already underway to determine where the work will be done. Work will be prioritized and begin as soon as possible. The Urban Native Housing Program provides people who choose to live off reserve with the opportunity to put down roots in the city while maintaining ties with their culture. By working in partnership with Chief Peters and Tawaak Housing Association, we can improve rental housing for urban Indigenous families.

Through the home repair and adaptation program, homeowners with low incomes - including seniors and people with disabilities - are able to remain in their homes longer. Together with our federal partners, we are investing over $20 million annually in the program, directly benefiting about 2,000 households each year.

Homeownership has become more challenging and out of reach for many Nova Scotians. That’s why we’re adding $250,000 to the Down Payment Assistance Program to expand the program’s lending capacity from $1.1 million to $2.2 million. The loans are interest-free, repayable over 10 years and participants have the option of postponing payments in the first year. Through this program, nearly 500 first-time homebuyers across Nova Scotia have realized their dream of owning a home.

In closing, as I said at the start of my remarks, building and maintaining partnerships are the foundation upon which we deliver our mandate - partnerships with municipalities, federal government, community agencies, not-for-profit housing providers, community and co-op sectors and the private developers. It’s these partnerships that together enable us to leverage opportunities and deliver the supports that matter to Nova Scotians, and in doing so build healthy, vibrant and safe communities. I now look forward to questions.

THE CHAIR: Thank you for your opening remarks. We will be starting questioning with the PC Party for one hour.

The honourable member for Cumberland North.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Thank you to the minister for your opening remarks and sharing that information. Thank you to everyone in your department for the great work they do with all of the municipalities across the Province of Nova Scotia. I would agree with you that local government and municipal governments play an integral part in this province. We value the work that they do.

[12:00 noon]

I have a few questions from your remarks, but also questions that I had prepared before I came today I’ll try to keep them together. My colleague, the member for Sackville-Cobequid is going to come in for the second hour and he’ll focus more on housing, but I did want to bring one comment myself around housing and I’ll let him do the rest.

You mentioned that $20 million will be spent over five years, and you only identified HRM and CBRM. I’m concerned from that comment that other areas of the province might be overlooked and want to just emphasize to the minister - to ask, are other municipalities going to be considered for this funding and in equal ratio to CBRM and HRM?

I’ll just share with you a specific example why I think this is necessary. It’s certainly an issue that I’m hearing about from residents in Cumberland North. Recently, for example, I had a gentleman who needed affordable housing, was moved from the Town of Amherst to the community of Wallace and he doesn’t have any transportation. So transportation for him actually worsened.

He had a family physician in Sackville, which is quite common for us. We cross border a lot. He was being visited at home, so his health care worsened as well because he was receiving home visits by a nurse practitioner in his new community of Wallace. For some reason, when they found out his family physician was in New Brunswick, they discontinued that home service as well.

So there is a lack of accessible, affordable housing, but also affordable housing in general throughout Cumberland North and throughout rural Nova Scotia. I was just wondering if just to ensure the minister is going to be looking at the entire province equally.

CHUCK PORTER: Thank you for the question. You raised a couple of points and I’ll try to address them the best I can. Thanks for your comments about staff. They work hard and we’ve got a great team here at the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing. I can assure you, there is no shortage of things to do. They’re working hard everyday on behalf of all Nova Scotians.

On the $20 million, I’ll clarify a couple of points for you. It’s $4.5 million times five years - each of those years. It is not directed solely at the HRM. This is a provincewide agenda. We have work we know in the HRM. Of course it’s our biggest centre in the province by way of population, therefore we know the issues that come along with that are probably also larger in number. However, this is an investment that will see housing support workers, as an example, put across the province - not just in the HRM. We know that these folks are on the ground. We know the work that they’re doing out there and the success that they’ve had. Hence the reason that we’ve looked at this, knowing the kinds of results that we’re getting - we see great value in these folks out working.

It’s not just here in the HRM; it is across the province. I agree with you. A lot of us here are rural members. We’re not all from the HRM, of course. We know that we have similar concerns, regardless of where we come from - whether it’s Cumberland North, Amherst, Windsor or wherever it might be. We have the same concerns and challenges and we deal with them on a regular basis. I know folks are probably coming into your office, just like they come into mine and others, looking for housing and options and opportunities.

You talked about transportation where a gentleman was placed outside. Transportation is something that is certainly key for us. We understand the need for them to be able to get services or get to services. We do deal with those. When folks are placed, priorities are looked at. I’m not sure of the exact circumstances of that gentleman, but I would suggest working with our staff. We could do more on that probably - assess it at least to see what was available. There may be somewhere else that he would be interested in moving to, if another place became available. We do all kinds of those things on a regular basis as well.

We’re very wide open to looking after as best we can the folks not only waiting and looking for homes, but we also have over 17,000 Nova Scotians living in public housing that we deal with everyday, who are tenants in over 12,000 public housing units. You can appreciate how much of that that we have. It is a regular occurrence that we’re dealing with - the issues and concerns - from every walk of life that you can even imagine. We do our very best to ensure that they have their needs met.

If that gentleman is interested in looking at some options nearby, maybe whatever may meet his needs better, staff would certainly be willing to work with him and certainly with the staff out there - home support workers and such - that we’ll be supporting going forward.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Let’s move on housing, but on a bit of a different slant, as you will. There has been an issue around houseboats that people have been coming to me about with their concerns. I have spoken with our Speaker, as some of the residents are from his constituency, but it has also been raised by some constituents here in HRM.

I realize through some of the work that I’ve done, that it’s a municipal, provincial and federal jurisdiction. My understanding, though, is there’s currently no legislation or regulations in place around this. Potentially there is some opportunity there, but there are also concerns by vocal citizens. I’m wondering if the department has started any work around the issue of the future of houseboats in the province.

CHUCK PORTER: This issue has been raised with us. The honourable member who represents the area out there - the Speaker of the House - has brought it to our attention within the last couple of months - within the last six or eight weeks perhaps. I may be off a bit on that, but he has brought this to my attention.

We’ve done a bit of research. We’ve begun to look at that, as I assured him that we would. I know they’ve had a couple of community meetings over that way. I don’t know about other areas, if they have or not. My understanding is that there are currently no houseboats in that particular area. You are quite right - it depends on the waterway as to whether DFO and the feds are involved or not on what’s considered navigable waters versus a lake that maybe wouldn’t be considered the same.

There are a variety of rules and regulations federally around all that. We know that British Columbia has legislation, I believe, in place. We’ve delved into that. We haven’t got a conclusion yet, but we are looking at that. I’m not interested in reinventing the wheel if they have something that works great. They have a lot of those waterways in British Columbia, obviously. We understand that houseboats are something that are used out there.

Having said that, there are a lot of concerns around all of that. I suppose depending on the waterway, how many do you place in certain areas? I know that people don’t want them for a variety of reasons, and they’re all good. I appreciate every one of the reasons that they may not want something looking out. I think I read an email to the effect that looking out on their backyard, they get up on Sunday morning on a beautiful day, and see a houseboat out there or a party boat or whatever it might turn into.

That aside, there are also things that I think about. What about the environmental piece of this? How do all those things operate? You have to be able to have running water and sewage facilities. All of these things matter. How do you dispose of your garbage? All of these kinds of things come to my mind when I think about it.

Having grown up in an area that’s quite rural - we used to enjoy a place called Panuke Lake on the weekends, going for a boat ride. Way back when, my grandfather had a houseboat that he built, quite frankly - that’s what it was. He sailed up and down that lake for a good many years and it was a lot of fun, but he went to his camp - parked the boat, so it wasn’t like you were living on it. It was much like one of these pontoon boats but only from the old days, I guess you would call it, perhaps.

I haven’t heard much about it being an issue until just recently with regard to this. We are looking at it as a department and we’ll continue to assess it. We are doing some work with staff in British Columbia. I wouldn’t be surprised that Ontario maybe, with the amount of lakes that they have and boating and things as well, have some of that as well.

Given that we’ve been here in the House for a bit, it is certainly on my agenda as we get back into regular briefings and meetings with my staff, to discuss further and find out where this is at. We’re not sure what the legislation looks like. It may vary, obviously. There may be a lot of similarities, but each province is different so it would be specific to Nova Scotia, but it’s something we were looking at. We are looking at options for the best way to address this issue that has come to light.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: People are continuing to contact me, as critic for the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Are you able to give me any sort of timeline for what I can be telling people what to expect? Is the province considering a moratorium on houseboats until legislation or regulations are put in place to deal with things like garbage disposal and sewage - those kinds of things? Any comment on that?

CHUCK PORTER: I guess I would only say that I don’t have a time frame for you, but I don’t want it to drag on either. I’m the kind of guy, I guess - and my staff can probably attest to this, happily or otherwise - I like to move things along. These things seem simple to me. I haven’t had a moratorium discussion. I haven’t stated - although some emails might make the statement that “the minister said” - that there will or will not be a moratorium on houseboats. We’re not that far down the path.

I don’t want this to drag on for many months. I’d like to address this as soon as we can to look at other options, if there are options - what others are using. I think when we look at this stuff - we do a lot of consulting when we build legislation and regulations and such as well. I would not rule out the fact that there may be communities - as a matter of fact, I know there are communities who are probably absolutely against them, and maybe for a good reason. I think it will be important to have conversations with those communities as well because that’s what we do.

I wouldn’t want to say that there’s a flat-out no anywhere or a flat-out yes, but I would say that it might work on Panuke Lake where I enjoyed many a wonderful weekend and days there, but it might not work on the Eastern Shore somewhere or in Cumberland County or where have you. I don’t know. My desire is that this does not drag on for a very long time.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Just a couple questions around the fire services. We do appreciate the flexibility and change in the increase and criteria so they can apply for funding. Certainly, in Cumberland North - and I would say provincewide - there is no doubt about the amazing service that our volunteer and paid firefighters make in this province.

In our area where we are bordered by the Northumberland Strait, water rescue is a priority. Just a couple of years ago, we had a rescue of a young child who had drifted off on an inner-tube floating device. It can happen so quickly. It really made it more of a priority for some of the neighboring fire departments.

I know I have encouraged them to reach out to your office to see if there is any flexibility with the funding. It’s a real priority for Pugwash as well as Tidnish Bridge, and rightly so, especially in the Summer months and also throughout the rest of the year with our fishermen and fisherwomen. People are on the water a lot.

Considering Nova Scotia is almost completely surrounded by water, would the department be willing to look at more financial investment into water rescue initiatives and capital costs there that fire departments are looking at?

CHUCK PORTER: A great question. You have been here now a few years, so you would be familiar with the ESPF program that we manage and how it works. It was $500,000 a year for the last number of years, but we have doubled it as a government. We made a big investment in it last year again and served over 80 fire departments for the maximum of $20,000 they can apply. That is a big piece of money for most volunteer services out there, and the ground search and rescues and such that fall into this.

One of the things that I wanted to do - and we’ve done in this budget successfully - is to make it a $1 million line item. That will automatically allow us to continue to cover almost all the bulk of these things that come in.

The other point you raised was the kind of flexibility we have and the criteria. I think that’s what you were getting at - what we cover and what we don’t cover. Some changes haven’t been made around criteria and I will be perfectly honest - I’m looking to make more. One of the reasons I went in to look for more money on this was because of the absolute support that fire departments required every year - and it was no shortage of applications. We work very closely with them. They do great work out there, we know that.

We know in certain areas like yours - I’m very familiar with the events that you talked about. We all have water issues whereby we may need a boat or small boat or something along those effects that will get us out there. Times are changing and there are more people doing these things. I think the fire services have been very proactive - and rightly so - in trying to be prepared. They do a wonderful job in training. They spend a lot of time at it. I would say that any that have this equipment are probably quite well-trained.

[12:15 p.m.]

I guess what I can say at this point is that I’m looking at that criteria because I want to be able to ensure that we can offer up things that we haven’t been able to do in the past to these fire services that have needs. They are just as important as any of the rest of criteria that has been in that list, quite frankly.

In a roundabout way, my answer is yes. I haven’t got that piece completed yet, but it will be very shortly, I hope. We’ve been working on that in the past weeks. I’ve been very clear on what I want to do with it as minister. I come from that world, as you may know, not only as a volunteer firefighter, but a long-time paramedic who understands - they were always right there beside us - what that response means. They need to have the equipment that they need. It’s not all just fire hoses and it’s not all just nozzles. It’s a variety of equipment that allows them to do their job based on the necessary responses.

I believe all of us - our government, all members in this House have been, and certainly our Premier has been very passionate about that. He has shown that and our government has shown that in a number of years now by the increase that we’ve had and this year. Like I said, I’m very pleased to move this budget line item to double, to $1 million. We’re looking forward to getting that out.

I’ll talk a bit about that. The application process has gone out. We’ve worked with them if there’s a cut-off date. It comes in and then it seems like there’s a bit of time lag before it gets out. I’ve also wanted to make the change that if a fire department applies today or whenever this is open and they’ve met all the requirements, the cheque is out the door. We don’t need to wait to do everything at one time. I think it’s important to get it out. They need the equipment, they wouldn’t be applying if they didn’t. I want to see that sped up. Staff will look at me and say, yes, he wants it yesterday. I guess it’s just the way I tend to be, I guess. These things are important. This equipment is important to our community.

I’m looking forward to getting that criteria where I need it to be - going through and finishing that process - getting this opened very soon so we can get those applications in. We’ll do as we’ve always done - staff have been great. Some of these departments don’t understand all the paperwork. It’s a little hard for them sometimes to figure out what we want. We work hand-in-hand with them. We will work to do everything we can to get all the information to help them complete the applications and so on. We’ll continue to do that. We’ve got a great team at the Office of the Fire Marshal who manage that stuff, and always have.

We’re very pleased to be offer up the $1 million. I am confident it will all go - and probably there will be more asked for. It’s just how that program operates. We’re very pleased to be able to continue it.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Just a couple of questions around the great work that EMO does. After Hurricane Dorian, I’m sure there was some evaluation done. I’m wondering if there were any best practices came out of that situation.

I’ll slide this question in, too, because it fits with EMO. There was an amendment to the 911 Act last year around the excess money that was sitting there. I’m wondering if there have been any rules around how that money can be used and has that money been spent yet throughout the province for improved EMO services?

CHUCK PORTER: I’ll take a bit of time to talk about that. It’s a big question, believe it or not - there’s a lot in it. EMO - couldn’t agree more. We’ve got a team of people there that are - again, it’s a world I come from and it was absolutely great to be in the room with these folks when Hurricane Dorian was passing through. I spent a fair bit of time there.

The work that was done prior to Hurricane Dorian arriving - the preparedness work that these folks do - is what makes this thing work. You’re waiting for it and it comes and goes, and we know what to do while it’s here. We know how to react, we know who our partners are. We saw - and I talked about it in my comments - how municipalities play a key role in emergency management and preparedness with the coordinator.

The expectation is that every municipality will have a coordinator. What I’m saying in that though is that you can share one. If there are two or three neighbours who want to share one, we’re okay with that - as long as there’s an organization set up there. In times like Hurricane Dorian, when you have a hurricane that big that takes your whole province as it comes ashore and affects it from one end to the other, it is so important that all of these municipalities are ready and lined up, that we have numbers and conversations. These conversations went on prior to the hurricane ever arriving and the preparedness.

We had some challenges along the way, because there are some municipalities perhaps that weren’t quite there, but we’ve been working with them. One of the pieces around your question - the answer to that is that when we look at the lessons-learned piece, we look at all of that. Every single aspect from who was ready, who wasn’t ready, what does that mean, what didn’t they have - it may have been a very small piece. We saw places where generators weren’t working for water, as an example. We saw communication towers that only lasted so long.

Having these partners with us in the room is crucial. Nova Scotia Power was a fine example of that. We had been working for some time prior to this event with Nova Scotia Power and the preparedness and what the plan was. They had one of the most exceptional responses they’ve ever had in their history by way of bringing people in - 1,000 folks on the ground ready to go. Power was reconnected actually quite quickly, given the swath of this storm - it was amazing. For most, not all - there were some days there.

They were an example of when you have the partner in the room. We had the HRM fire and a whole room set up there - people monitoring everything. There were calls going on throughout the day with municipalities, with regional coordinators and so on in preparedness: what to do, what do you need, what do you see as a problem, where are your comfort centres? We continue out of those lessons learned from that one event.

We’ve learned from every event. The last hurricane of significance was a long time ago - three with Juan, a huge event. We continue over the years as technology increases and gets better and smarter, if you will, and you can do more things. Now we’re looking at big maps on the wall and you can see the weather blowing and the clouds and the rain and how fast the wind is blowing. This is just an absolutely incredible thing.

You can manage that. You can prepare. You can see the storm for days out, even as it comes closer to you and it begins to form a model, that it’s coming or it’s going to pass through or whatever it might be. The preparedness is the same - the readiness - and the importance of all that.

I think one of the pieces that we really learned about with Hurricane Dorian afterward was, who wasn’t ready? What do we need to do to ensure that they’re ready? Again, some of them might be a little bigger than others, some of them just small things. We’ll continue that work with them. I mentioned in my remarks a number of training sessions that went on, as an example. We’ll go out. We’ll work with whatever those needs might be.

Hurricane Dorian is an ongoing event for us by way of the learning piece. There is a synopsis; we’ve been looking at a number of things. There’s no document per se that’s prepared yet around all of that. I’m going to assume there will be a number of points that we will see in the coming months that say, there’s this, this and this that are really key for us and maybe top five or ten things there. I don’t know how many there are, but as I work with Paul and his gang at EMO and our partners, they will have a lot of input, sitting around the table and saying, what went good over here, what didn’t go so well. Where it came ashore, we got the most damage over here, so were we ready for that? What do we need to change?

One of the things, as you would be very well aware, that we needed to change is the whole communications piece where we saw towers that lasted for a certain number of hours and then no back-up generator or fuel or whatever that might be. There’s a great lesson learned right there. We need to figure out what we need to do the next time.

Having those communication partners in the room is a big deal for us. The Premier was on the phone to these folks the day of, the following day, et cetera, and had conversations, as did our department to say, what are you doing. I met with Ralph Goodale - at the time, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness - to say, this is not acceptable to us here in Nova Scotia, we need a better plan. These are federally-regulated entities around communications and a lot of things, like the CRTC and so on. How does this go on? How do we help you make it better? It has happened. We’ve experienced the issue. I don’t want it to come again. I want to know how I mitigate it for the next time. If we need to help you do something - whatever that might be - we’re prepared to do that.

That’s what we do at EMO. That preparedness and readiness, no matter if it’s a hurricane or a Winter storm or whatever it might be - Nova Scotia Power’s centre will activate for storms of high winds, for example. You may see emails whereby that’s going on. Most people probably would not even know we were activating, but we’re doing that to monitor, to be ready and to be prepared should something occur during the event, because we’ve got that team of players there that really know what to do.

We are continually readying and training. We spend a lot of time talking to our international partners to the south of us. They have events and tabletop exercises and conferences and so on. We’re always learning. I can tell you, for all my years I spent on the streets as a medic - about 17 of them - a lot of those years I also worked inside as part of the management team and also otherwise on the floor as a call-taker. The process comes in, 911 is called and they ask, what is your emergency? Let’s say it’s a medical emergency. It’s automatically - a button is hit and it’s sent right to us at EMC, EHS. They’ll process the call through technology that is absolutely incredible.

There’s an understanding of how the system works there and it’s always evolving. You have to know how it works to understand it totally - for anyone, for every Nova Scotian. I wish they could see how the centre works, both from the 911 - I’ve often thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have some sort of video or something saying, this is what happens in an emergency. With technology and YouTube and all these other things in social media, I think it would be something very simple to do. From an education perspective, what do you do? What happens when I need 911? This is what happens and that whole process.

It’s very specific, but very well-trained people do this work. They are also partners with us at EMO. We know what everyone is doing. We know how those systems work. We’re very fortunate to have Dave Wilson. Dave was a member in this House, as you know. Dave was a partner of mine way back when and a student at one point. Dave and I know one another well. When he got the job over there and decided that’s where he wanted to work, I was very pleasantly surprised. You’re talking about somebody who is not only qualified and able to do the job, but brought with him the knowledge from his previous days of working on the street and what it feels like to do that.

The other part that you asked about, honourable member, was spending around a program and a change we made last year to the Emergency “911” Act. There is money that’s collected for this service. A lot of that money - millions of dollars - will actually go into the technology. Around every four to five years as computers change - I always say that we’re never on the bleeding edge, but we try to be on the leading edge. It’s ever-changing. You know yourself what technology has been like in just a few years, how something changes.

As part of the work that they do at EMO is ensuring that all of these systems are in place - coordinated efforts. That equipment will also need to be updated as we go along, so that money will be invested there.

Did I have a different idea? Yes, I did - anyone will tell you that’s in our department. I certainly had a plan and a different idea for some of that for other programs. That sort of comes back to why I asked for $1 million in ESPF this year versus it being $500,000. My goal was to take some of that funding, if we were allowed within the rules - which I believed we were - but ended up not doing it there. It was very much for the same thing - to look at some of the other things that we needed.

Some of the things we’re going to be doing with that as well - you hear a lot about cell phone coverage. We have just completed a gap analysis across this province - a very detailed analysis that we’re going to talk more about in the coming weeks. It’s been quite a bit of work, quite frankly - finding someone interested to do it - but we finally did that and we’ve put together something that I believe, having looked at this, is going to be extremely beneficial to fixing that problem.

We know that there are some issues across the province. I’m not saying I want to build towers all over the place. We already have all kinds of towers, but if I can go into an agreement with tower owners - and the province owns towers. There are TMR towers and a variety of other towers out there. There are other communications towers. I’m not interested in building more towers, but I am interested in updating and upgrading our hardware to today’s world where we might be able to cover those areas where there are gaps. That’s part of what I did last year by changing that Act to be able to spend.

[12:30 p.m.]

Those are things that fit within the Emergency “911” Act and spending that is beneficial and it fits that bill very directly. There is no out of scope. There is no concern about - it’s iffy, I don’t know if we can do that or not. It’s about focusing on the emergency services and the provision of that. That’s what my focus is in this. I want to make sure that we can cover as much of that province where there are some drops or gaps that might occur.

We know that there have been some bounces. Your area might have even been one where you would dial 911 and it might bounce across to a tower across the border and bounce back. The member for Pictou West, I think, raised the question last year in QP one day about a call that was made. It bounced to P.E.I. and bounced back.

I want to talk about the bounce for just a second so that everybody is clear. It’s not like we throw it and it takes its time and hits something, but then it takes its time and it comes back. We’re talking a millisecond. This is called hunting in the technical telephone world. It goes boom, boom, boom. It’s quicker than that. This call just bounces. It will pick up because it may be the nearest tower that it reached, depending on where that person is standing. That’s what it does - it picks it up and it bounces back. People say it’s not good. Yes, it’s very good because it picked up a tower and it bounced back - the call was made and completed as it should have been. That’s the benefit to that.

You may still be somewhere in Pictou in the area along Route No. 6 or wherever or in Amherst or somewhere, even after we put other towers and I get this piece done that I want done - it might still depend on how you’re standing or if you’re using a cell phone somewhere, it might still bounce somewhere. There’s no delay, quite frankly. That’s very important for people to know.

Everybody thinks all of the infrastructure is right here. Well, yes, in Nova Scotia it’s Nova Scotia infrastructure, but we use every bit of infrastructure that we can use to partner with all of our emergency service entities to make that work. In this case, it picks up wherever it might be on the island or across the border in Sackville or somewhere - it might bounce back. It does work very well that way. Some of our investment is going there. We’ve got money allotted for that. That’s where I want to see it going.

We will work closely with Develop Nova Scotia as well. Develop Nova Scotia, as you know, is out there doing the high-speed internet piece around the province. They’re doing great work. They’ve made a lot of progress and there’s more to come on that. We’ve also looked at what that means and how we can partner with them, if we have a certain amount of money and they’ve got a big chunk of money. There’s $193 million the province invested in this internet piece - there’s no sense in us duplicating the work, so if we can help them or they can help us, or they’re putting up a tower to accommodate internet service, I want to be part of that tower. I want to put my gear on that tower - my hardware - to make that work for cell phone service.

That’s some of what we’re doing within that Emergency “911” Act. Now we have the leverage to do that. The importance of it goes without saying. There’s no question that we need to ensure that all of those things are there. I’m not sure if I covered everything that you asked me, but I hope that covered a good portion of it.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I’ll just add a couple of comments to your comments, and I’ll move on to another area. I know in our area, gas stations weren’t prepared, so people had generators but didn’t have any gas. Gas stations took a little while to get up and running without having power themselves.

There are two other things I’ll mention. Currently there are areas in the province right now that don’t have any cell phone coverage, so they don’t have access to 911 depending on if they’re driving through an area on a daily basis. Certainly, there was a problem with cell phone towers and their issue of capacity for battery storage.

One last comment I’ll make around EMO that I brought up more with Minister Glavine of the Department of Seniors - there is a desire in our communities to be working with the EMO coordinator - and I can see it being all volunteer based - towards creating some sort of call system or check-in system with seniors. I heard you mention that. I’d love to see that provincewide. As an MLA, I spent most of the better of eight days just checking on people in rural Nova Scotia. When people don’t have power, they don’t have running water. Water is a necessity of life so we checked on a lot of our seniors to make sure they had running water.

The longest period of time in Cumberland North, people had no power for up to eight days. I know my colleague in Queens-Shelburne had a few families as well that went up to eight days without electricity and running water as well. Something just to mention, and I don’t know if that’s on the radar for EMO - some sort of a volunteer plan where one person checks on 10 people and they check on 10 people and so on.

Moving on in a different direction, I just have a few questions around our RENs. I think last year during Estimates, I probably showed my bias as a former businesswoman who always kind of questioned the RENs being under the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing. I know that part of the funding comes from municipalities and that’s probably one of the reasons. But for me, it instinctively belongs more in the Department of Business and the work that could be done with NSBI and Innovacorp and so on.

Around the RENs, I’m curious how they’re going. What areas of the province are currently without a REN and without a vehicle for economic development?

CHUCK PORTER: I just want to close off first on your previous comments. I appreciate your comments. One of the things that we did was certainly encourage folks to check on their neighbours and knowing that those issues did exist. It’s a great point that you raise, and I appreciate that.

Our staff at Housing Nova Scotia - I mentioned all the numbers of units that we have. Part of what we would have done at that time around water and so on, knowing the necessities, was checking on all of those things. That’s something that is there and we are doing more around that. I’ve talked to our communications folks. We’ve done a lot of advertising around fire prevention as an example, and things like that - not only that week, but throughout the year.

One of the other things about stormy weather and times is to be checking on neighbours. There are some great campaigns and that. We had a lot of that, especially our seniors. We all have senior populations. We’re very fortunate as Nova Scotians - people are a caring bunch and we’re very fortunate. They are looking out for neighbours, families and friends, and checking on them, even though we might not know that they are. We hear from them and they are doing that. I applaud them for that.

On the RENs - I know that we don’t have a REN on the South Shore. We did have one for a period of time. Antigonish and Guysborough also don’t have one. We do a fair bit of investment in RENs. We’ve just had some success with Cape Breton - all of Cape Breton now, if I’m not mistaken.

We also have a wonderful organization down there called the Cape Breton Partnership. I had an opportunity to meet with them last year and I left that meeting extremely pumped. Talk about a group of folks that are positive, who are able, who want to be out there looking for business opportunities, creating economic development. I wish I had one of them everywhere. That group is just a powerful group of folks and very qualified.

The RENs similarly though - that’s what we’re talking about here - is the same makeup. We want them to work with our municipal partners; that’s why they are there. I know there are some great stories of the work that the RENs had done along that Antigonish/Guysborough corridor. When we met with the Mayor of Port Hawkesbury, she told us a wonderful story back some time ago - Brenda talked about how that area gained from those conversations. There are a lot of factors. There are personalities, there’s geography, there are meeting schedules - a variety of reasons why sometimes things just don’t click.

I don’t say all is lost. I say, if that didn’t work, is there another sort of model that might work that does something similar. Continued work with all of our municipal partners out there by way of economic development is key for us. We want to work with them. We want to have the private sector there. Most of the time these boards come from a private sector business opportunity. I see them as a valuable asset for us. People have questioned it, obviously. I think you did question it last year.

On the issue of whether they should be with the Department of Business or with us, I think it fits with us because of our municipal relationship, but I also think there would be a fit there with the Department of Business. I’m not arguing that point, but I’m not complaining. I’m not looking to say, why don’t you go work with the Department of Business. We’re happy to have them because of our relationship-building.

I think it’s work that we’ll continue to do. Prior to that, it was the RDA, if I’m not mistaken. They had been around for some years. One of the things that we do with them, or that we know historically about the RENs as much like the RDAs - those that work tend to work very well. The group clicks. There’s a drive. We were very fortunate in West Hants to have the West Hants RDA back some years ago. That was a group of really great folks that came together from a variety of backgrounds that had a real interest in economic growth and opportunities from big to small and anything in between. As I said, I think that those that click and work, work well.

We know we’ve got some work to do around the areas that don’t have them, but having said that, I’m not sure that the South Shore as an example would be called a REN. Maybe it’s something else. I can tell you, as the minister currently responsible for that, I’m open. If somebody wants to come and talk about an option down there about how we might be able to create something, sure - we’re wide open to that. If it’s not working as a REN, bring me an idea.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Can the minister share with me how much money is invested annually in the RENs? Has the department developed any performance measures so that we know if it’s good investment or not?

CHUCK PORTER: We invest $1.8 million in the RENs. We do work closely with them, we do measure the performance that they are doing. We want to be able to see and support things that they want to do - the ideas that they want to share. They’re all trying to partner with the municipalities. We’d look at those opportunities.

We have a great interest in what the return is for our investment; there’s no question about that. Some may call me cheap; I like to say I’m more frugal. We’re talking about taxpayer-invested money. I want to ensure that for any program we are investing in, we’re getting a good return on that program. That means different things for different programs. We know we’re getting great return for the beautification program. We know we’re getting great returns for the Emergency Service Provider Fund. We know what the end result of that is.

We also want to see economic development by way of a return - people meeting and coming up with new ideas, big and small and everything in between. It’s important that we continue to work with them to measure that. We’re looking forward to continuing with them and other groups. Like I said, if there’s not a REN in the area, I don’t want to just walk away and say, we’re not interested in working with you. We want to figure that out. We look forward to that.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Is the minister able to share what the performance measures are for RENs?

CHUCK PORTER: I don’t have them here today, but I will commit to getting them for you.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Thank you, that would be great. I want to ask you a couple of questions around municipal modernization. I’ve gone around the province and met with some of our municipal governments; it’s been quite interesting. We have 26 towns in our province, and one of the common themes I found with our towns is anxiety around cost of infrastructure and being able to keep up with infrastructure needs into the future.

One of the common themes in general with all our municipal governments is a little bit of bitterness - hostility may be a little too harsh of a word, but there isn’t a great feeling around the provincial-municipal service exchange. I know that was done back in the 1990s, but a lot of municipalities are not happy that they’re contributing to education or corrections, and I’m wondering if there’s any work being done on that.

I have a copy of the Municipal Service Exchange here and when I read through it, it was pretty clear that there was a lot of good work done and that some responsibilities that municipalities used to have to pay for now no longer do - like community services, for example. I’m sure there was a lot of good communication and consultation done then, but it was long enough ago that a lot of municipal governments now only sort of see the present day. They feel it’s unfair that they have to contribute to, say, what they would see as a provincial responsibility like education.

I’m just wondering if there’s any work being done with municipalities around municipal modernization. What’s provincial responsibility and what’s municipal? I see a need for improving relations there with our municipal governments.

[12:45 p.m.]

CHUCK PORTER: Thank you very much for the question. It’s a great question. Municipal modernization, to me and I think to our staff, is pretty simple. Everybody thinks it’s all about amalgamation. There’s this fear or theory out there that means we’re going to amalgamate you all or we want you all to amalgamate. First, I would say that we’re not forcing anybody to do anything.

There are a number of relationships that exist in a variety of areas by way of shared services and agreements across Nova Scotia municipalities. Sections like Pictou County as an example - there are a variety of shared services there. I know of a recent one where Yarmouth was in the media about what their thoughts were around it - I believe there are some shared services going on there, as an example.

Municipal modernization for me is very simple. Wherever we can encourage municipalities to work together, it doesn’t mean that they have to amalgamate, consolidate, partner. I don’t care what the word is. We want them to work together in the best interests of the taxpayers that they’re all representing. We are collectively doing the same thing. That is exactly the goal here. It doesn’t mean everybody has to sign a piece of paper saying they want to consolidate. Some may be thinking about that because there may be a benefit to that. You mentioned towns having their anxiety. Well, towns are different from rural municipalities, there’s no question about that. That argument has been made for some time.

It doesn’t mean what people take it absolutely to mean as we want you all to become one. There are a variety of reasons why that might work for some and certainly may not work for others. We are very happy and have been in the past - we’ve had numerous discussions with areas that have been interested. The one in Yarmouth that I mentioned a minute ago was very public about bringing Argyle, the County of Yarmouth and the Town of Yarmouth together. I think a lot of that driven by the town for maybe that reason - some anxiety, what does the future look like.

We already share a lot of services. Maybe it makes sense, maybe it doesn’t, but they went through a process, which was fair. I had no issue with the process. We went down multiple times - my staff and others - to have discussions with them about their concerns. There were a variety of topics that were raised during that time that were all valid.

In the end, the municipalities will make the decision. We will always leave that to the municipality to make the decision. We’re not going to force anybody. I’m not going to force anybody to come together to amalgamate or whatever. Do we want to see that modernization? Yes, and that modernization is about partnerships or whatever you want to call it whereby we are sharing services that benefit the taxpayer. There is a lot of opportunity out there for that to happen.

I mentioned a few minutes ago around the EMO coordinator, as an example. You don’t all have to have one. You’re pretty close neighbours in a lot of places - you can share something because it’s the same geography. That’s just an example of shared services. There may be other things - policing or what have you. There are a lot of options.

You talked about the inequity that they feel around what they give the province by way of dollars as opposed to what they receive, perhaps. I want to be pretty clear on this one. Those are provincial services that they are collecting the money for. That is not money they are giving us. Those are provincial entities that they are collecting for. They are a collection agency basically for the province in that scenario. It’s not portrayed that way. It really isn’t. It is, as an example, we give you $17 million and you give us $15 million, or whatever it might be. They feel like there’s a loss there.

What I will share with you is that is something that I had committed to a while ago to look at and review how all of this works. The Capital Assistance Financial Program is what we call it today - what was formerly known provincially as equalization. That is a formula that has been locked for the last five years - maybe even close to six now. We are looking at that to say, is this in need of some change? What does that look like? Is the formula correct? Times have changed over the course of that five years. We know that there are increased costs for things. We know that municipalities do business differently. We know all kinds of different things.

We’re looking at that. I’ll tell you that I don’t know what the end result of that is - about how we do business that way. I listed in my remarks, as you probably heard - there are a number of grants that we provide to the tune of many millions of dollars to municipalities right across this province, because we believe in supporting them.

I think from my time at the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, which is almost two years now - it’s hard to believe that it is - I have met and dealt with three different presidents of the NSFM, all of which have been fantastic. There’s Pam Mood now, Waye Mason last year, and Geoff Stewart before him. I’ve very much enjoyed those conversations, relationships, and meetings we’ve had with them. We have even changed the way that we meet with them. We now meet with them twice with a variety of provincial ministers prior to House sitting, as opposed to what we used to do once in the Fall at the annual meetings.

Quite frankly, I have felt that the relationship has been very good. I think we’ve made a lot of progress over that time. Will we always agree? No. No one ever does. We’re not always going to agree on everything, but I think there have been a lot of changes and amendments made to a variety of Acts that they’ve asked for and things that we’re working on that they’ve asked for. There is stuff that I’ve asked for, which they may not totally be used to, but there are some commitments that I want as well.

One of those I mentioned at the annual meeting - I think you were there maybe when I spoke - was around our framework. We have a really good joint framework between us and municipalities - UNSFM - but there’s one piece missing in that. It’s vitally important that we come to a conclusion on that. This code of conduct thing keeps coming up. It’s here and there and everywhere, quite frankly. It’s kind of scattered as to what the rules are. I don’t see it as being that difficult.

One of the things that I said last Fall was, look guys, I want to work with you on this - we need to complete this last piece of that joint framework because it’s the only piece missing. We’ve made so much headway, and this is a really important piece. We as members who are elected officials know the importance of conduct and how people look at us and expect us. Whether we like it or not, we’re held to a different level of standard and conduct - and so we should be. We’re in trust of the public. We should be held to that account - no issue with that.

It’s important for me in this mandate to look at how we get this complete. I’m looking forward to discussions with the NSFM in the coming months as to how we wrap up this piece as well. I think they’ve got some good stuff to offer and we’ve got some ideas too. We’re going to complete that.

They may speak differently when somebody is not in the room. Everything is not wonderful no matter what. I’m not going to sugar-coat it in any way. There will always be issues. There will be people who don’t like the way the province does business and that’s fair - they wish it may be a different way. I think that we’re working hard though to try to build that relationship to say, alright, if it’s tough over here for you, are we able to work with you? Are we able to make a difference or help you in some way?

I’ve got to be honest with you, I would say that I think we’ve been pretty flexible. There’s a lot more to come about things you’ll hear about in the coming days and week or so ahead that I think will really show that we’ve been very flexible in what we’re willing to do by way of assisting municipalities - because they matter. They’re all our taxpayers - every one of them. There’s only one, no matter what level of government we sit at and we cannot forget that.

Every decision that we make every single day should be with the best interests of the taxpayer in mind. I believe that’s how I operate. I’d like to think that’s how we all operate. That’s how we have to if we’re going to move forward. I’ll continue that relationship with them. Like I said, I’m not expecting that they will always be 100 per cent happy or that we will be able to give them everything they want. That would be foolhardy for me to say that. I’m more of a realist, I guess.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Is the department looking at a future provincial-municipal service exchange agreement? Is that part of an ongoing discussion because of the concerns of municipalities - disagreement about them contributing money for things like education and those kinds of costs? I guess I see it come up a lot around transportation as well. A lot of times the bitterness that’s coming at me from towns, specifically - some of them are pretty strong in their feelings around the cost of infrastructure, around roads.

A couple of them literally told me they were considering putting up tolls because people are living in the county and paying half the taxes, but using the infrastructure in the towns. I was quite surprised by that. It kind of shows the emotion and the frustration that a lot of towns are feeling. I’m just wondering if a new revised, updated municipal-provincial service exchange is in the works.

CHUCK PORTER: As a guy who lives in a town, I appreciate those comments and as a former town councillor, I’ve been on the other end of the argument, believe me. I understand it and I appreciate it.

We would question why we would be driving along Route No. 1 and you would come to the town line and you would lift the blade when you were plowing. It just doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, probably to anyone. Not only am I paying for that as a taxpayer - and I’ll just use me as an example of living in a town - now I’m paying my town taxes and crew to have the roads plowed there.

I think we have some work to do. I can tell you, I’m extremely open to that conversation. Again, this is about those partnerships I talked about between municipal agreements and units amongst themselves - not consolidating, but other ways to make this work. I think we’re part of that conversation, quite frankly. That example of, why do I pick the blade up, I drive two miles and then I drop it back down over there - I understand that argument, I appreciate it more than you know, and I am trying to figure it out. There will be a lot of discussion around that as we go forward. I have had some discussion at a high level, and I think people are understanding of that - probably more so if they live in the town.

Certainly those councils that represent towns, those municipal bodies that are the towns, obviously see it and would argue that inequity around their costs versus the municipalities’ costs that we’re paying to plow that road, pave that road, to fix the pot holes in that road, and so on - when they’re doing all that over here. Taxes, to my knowledge, are higher in the towns than they are in the counties. I pay about twice as much per hundred - I’m pretty close - living in the Town of Windsor than I would pay if I lived in the Municipality of West Hants. I’m not far off there, I’m pretty close - it’s almost double. Obviously, it cost them to do all that work over and above, if they didn’t have that.

Those are topics that are priorities for me. I want to look at this stuff to say, is there some ability? Does it make sense? Let’s have a real look at it.

As far as a municipal agreement, I’m not sure exactly what you meant by that. A provincial-municipal agreement - I think that’s what I heard you say. I think our framework really takes a lot of that. If you look at that framework closely, you’ll see that a lot of the MOU kind of stuff is all there - what we believe is the path. I think we have something to that effect now that would represent that.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: What I meant by that is where I’m hearing a little bit of dissatisfaction from municipalities on the current service exchange agreement. Is the department looking at maybe revising or updating that? I don’t want you to comment on that.

One last comment, and I actually brought this up to Minister Hines in Estimates with him - I think a lot of municipalities were happy to see an investment in J-class roads in this budget, an extra $10 million. My concern for municipalities is that it’s 50/50, a lot of them would all have their budgets set already, and they wouldn’t have known about this $10 million. How can the department work with municipalities to make sure they can take advantage of this one-time investment of $10 million into J-class roads?

CHUCK PORTER: Good question. What did Minister Hines say? (Laughter) He does manage that. I do appreciate that though. You’re right, some of those budgets would be set, but some of them might not be quite yet.

The other issue around that though is the ability between municipal units. Some would have more wealth, if you will, or ability from a financial bank account to do those 50/50 dollars to a certain amount. Some wouldn’t be able to do it, so . . .

THE CHAIR: Order. The time has elapsed for the PC Party. We will move on to the NDP.

The honourable member for Halifax Needham.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you very much, I welcome this opportunity. I’m going to get right into questions because I have a lot. In the budget, under Municipal Sustainability, the budget line for grants and programs has decreased over $6 million from last year’s Estimates and almost $52 million from last year’s forecast. Can you please explain those differences?

[1:00 p.m.]

CHUCK PORTER: I would ask the honourable member if she could repeat the question. We’re just not exactly sure - was there something specific in the line item?

LISA ROBERTS: Under Municipal Sustainability in Departmental Expenses, I’m looking at 18.2. It goes from $196,990 in last year’s estimate to $189,905 in this year’s estimate, but the forecast for this past year was $242,163. It’s about a $50 million reduction.

CHUCK PORTER: Federal gas tax one-time payment - $55 million was in there as a one-time payment, so that’s why the change.

LISA ROBERTS: But this is expenses, not revenue, so you had flow-through?

CHUCK PORTER: You are correct, flow-through.

LISA ROBERTS: In terms of Nova Scotia municipalities or citizens, what will they see cut as a result of that funding not being there this year?

CHUCK PORTER: They will actually see no cut at all. They had a one-time increase by the federal government, which allowed them to actually increase their spending for projects or what have you and their expenses. So they won’t actually see a decrease in the coming year.

LISA ROBERTS: On 18.6 under the Emergency Management Office - similar in EMO disaster assistance, there is a dramatic decrease from both the estimate, but especially the forecast of this year down to a very modest looking $321,000 for this year. I’m wondering if you can explain how accounting for disaster assistance takes place, given the uncertainty of natural disaster events combined with the fact that they’re becoming more frequent.

CHUCK PORTER: I’m going to try to get this as right as I can get it for you. So $8.4 million was Hurricane Dorian - that would have been the difference, that was the forecast. Then $3.8 million was to deal with the end for the floods of 2016 that occurred in Sydney.

LISA ROBERTS: Basically, am I to understand that we will always be in a position of budgeting low and hoping that we don’t need an extra influx during the year, but that money is somehow made available through Cabinet or federal funds?

CHUCK PORTER: I wouldn’t say that’s accurate, no. Federal dollars flow through, so we don’t budget low and hope - I guess that’s what I want to say. We try to budget appropriately, of course, and what we will deal with at EMO is anybody’s guess.

As we watch climate change and things - we talk a lot about the environment - storms become more frequent. That may change how we budget, how we estimate for coming years. Where were into a pattern where every year we were seeing a hurricane, we may look at that line item a little bit differently. We would all like to say that we would hope not. That would be the biggest difference that you saw that big change in the number, because of those two major events.

LISA ROBERTS: Just to pick up on the conversation with the member for Cumberland North, can you identify in Estimates the total municipal mandatory contributions - like, combining education, finance and justice?

CHUCK PORTER: I don’t have that number right here, but I would say - I think she’s sitting at the end of the table, you might ask her. I think those contributions would all flow to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board so there would be a round number somewhere that we would have. We can get that for you; I don’t think we’re able to provide it at the moment. (Interruption)

The Department of Finance and Treasury Board would be able to provide that number for you. We may have it at some point, but I don’t have it here today with me.

LISA ROBERTS: Just the last thing on that service agreement and the flows of provincial money to municipalities and vice versa, the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities has made an effort in recent years. Because of your experience, you’d know that they used to pass a lot of resolutions at every annual meeting, and it wasn’t a very focused effort. They’ve gone through a process of trying to really identify their priorities, some of which are related to things that would generate funding for them like producer responsibility for products that are being disposed of, for example.

That is one of the ones that might actually increase their fiscal capacity, and yet they haven’t had uptake from the Province on that priority. Another priority is the process related to the cap and also an ask to increase the Municipal Finance Capacity Grant. What prospect is there for municipalities that the Province will engage with them on their top priorities?

CHUCK PORTER: I appreciate the question. You’re quite correct, there was a whole array of resolutions way back from even when I was involved in council quite some years ago now - it’s hard to believe how many years ago it has been. I think they did a good job of refining it to their top five and they’ll bring those. I think that’s important for them as a group, that the municipalities are on side with the NSFM, that they go through their processes as well.

I think there would always be some difference of opinion. Not everybody would agree probably with those resolutions. It’s just we’re people - that’s how it works. I think overall, that’s what the NSFM has decided and that works for them. That works for us too. I don’t mind that. I like that actually. We can focus on something.

We have had discussions with them on a variety of those topics - I’ll give a couple. The cap, for sure, has been a top priority for them for some time. As you would be aware, we have been working with the group. They went out last Summer and I think they met with all three caucuses if I’m not mistaken, and gave a great presentation. I was there when Waye, Juanita and others came to our caucus as well. He did a really good job of it, I thought.

He then, as president, wrote and asked about an all-Party committee - wrote the Premier, if I’m not mistaken. Of course, why not? This has been an all-Party debate since the day it was born. We see that as a favorable thing. This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. This should be something that we’re all working, if this is something to be considered and changes are required. I think that they’ve met a couple of times.

I’ll be very honest with you, I’m not sure that they’ve made a lot of progress. They’ve heard from stakeholders that have been for and against. I believe they’re committed to meeting again when the House rises. That’s where we’re at with that. I think we’ve been very open to the conversation. This has very much been an NSFM-led initiative, and I think that’s important for them.

The EPR one, I think that’s what you were talking about - the end-produced responsibility? That was brought to our attention - I want to say a year ago Fall - in one of my first meetings with the group, a round table with all ministers present. I asked quite a few questions about it at the time because I’m a big fan of recycling. Quite frankly, I’ve been doing it since I can’t remember when. The green monster, I call it, is always full when it goes to the curb. We’re big supporters of that.

This is a topic that really interested me, so I asked a few questions at the time. I remember asking the then-executive director - Betty, I think was her name - about a figure of $2 million. I asked: Could you explain to me, please, how you came to a $2 million figure? No disrespect to Betty, but they couldn’t really - it’s where they landed. They thought it might have been a figure that was in the zone.

There’s a lot of work, I would say, yet ahead on EPR - not only with our department, with multiple departments. I think the Department of Environment probably has something to say about that. Someday we’ll probably have more conversation about that, but we’ll be working closely with them and all of the municipalities. I think it’s a big piece around the business community. The question was, if it’s okay for the big business, you’re going to give a pass to the small business - where does the figure come in?

I think there’s some real refining to do. I think there are a lot of folks, to be perfectly honest with you, who don’t understand what we’re talking about. We talk about end produced responsibility - some don’t quite understand. I think the business community see it as costing them money to recycle. It would be an increased cost to them. Small business, if I’m not mistaken, has probably had a comment or two. Jordi Morgan has had a comment that I think has been positive toward implementing something along these lines.

I would say from our perspective, we have more discussion to have on this before it comes to a conclusion. I don’t think it’s just us - I think it’s obviously teamed up with the Department of Environment, the business community and our municipalities and the NSFM. I think there’s a bit of work to do before we get there, but I hope we’ll move that along. I think it’s top for them. I’m a fan of moving those objectives along for them.

LISA ROBERTS: I’m going to move along to housing because I have a lot of housing questions. The budget announcements included announcements related to hiring additional housing support workers and I absolutely agree with that. They do incredible work and, by and large, everyone I’ve met has been an incredible person as well.

I’m wondering if you can speak to the increasing challenges faced by them in doing their work. For example, what is the average time it takes a housing support worker to find housing for a client currently, compared to three years ago for example?

[1:15 p.m.]

CHUCK PORTER: I appreciate the question - housing is something we’re very passionate about. I’ve said in QP and outside of this place that we know there are challenges with housing - certainly with our vacancy rates being lower than we would like. There are a variety of reasons why they are where they are. You see good economic development and growth, and you see people wanting to rent homes and buy homes, and it reduces the number. I think our investment in the housing support workers and a multitude of other programs that we do by way of supporting housing is key, it’s vital.

Your question was around how long does it take the housing support worker. We could say it could take one to two months, but something that’s vitally important to recognize is how the rents work. The apartment, if you will, might be available, but not until the first of the month and it might only be the second or the fifth or the ninth, depending on the date of the calendar. There is some variable there as to when they may be placed.

Our workers are out there looking for these places all the time with a list of people they have to place. They would work with landlords to ensure that we find housing. The actual timeframe would be that one to two months based on the apartment becoming available and being able to move into it and whatever work might need to be done. If there was some work that might need to be done, it might take longer to get into.

LISA ROBERTS: Forgive me if I’ve not heard correctly. Do you share my understanding that it is taking them significantly longer now than it was taking them a number of years ago to find a unit?

CHUCK PORTER: I would say that it is certainly more challenging to find a place to live when we know that the vacancy rate is less than it was three years ago. People aren’t going to the same places. I don’t think our workers are going to the same places they know they have landlord contacts, et cetera. We work within a group of people who know what’s available out there.

I would say a lot of that has changed over the course of a few years. I think the housing market has absolutely changed over the course of a few years and availability. Is it tougher? Yes. Is it taking longer? I would say yes, it is taking longer.

LISA ROBERTS: One of the programs referenced in the National Housing Strategy three-year action plan is the Rental Rehabilitation Assistance Program, or RRAP. This program is supposed to help finance affordable housing development, but for various reasons, it has proven largely unworkable for non-profit housing developers. We know that millions of housing dollars have gone to private landlords under this program for renovations, as opposed to development.

In one instance, the landlord VIDA Living was given over $3 million to renovate 71 apartments and guarantee below market rent for 15 years. For a bachelor apartment, the savings to the tenant is sometimes only $25 per month. This represents a transfer of more than $40,000 of public money to a private landlord for savings of approximately $4,500 over the 15 years to the tenant. On top of this, we’ve heard from housing support workers that former tenants evicted for the publicly funded renovations were unable to return to the renovated units.

How much money will be spent this year on RRAP? How much of that will go to non-profit housing, as opposed to private landlords?

CHUCK PORTER: I think it is extremely important that we continue to invest in every and multiple options to increase affordable housing. The definition of affordable housing may not necessarily be the same to everyone. I would also say that.

We are working with a number of organizations, be it not-for-profit, private enterprise - co-ops are something that we’re very interested in. There are a variety of things we’re looking at and well under way on and are hoping to conclude very soon. I can’t speak to what those are, for obvious reasons, but we are making considerable progress in finalizing some of these.

It is important that we not only do rentals. We are constructing - and we have partners that want to be interested - in creating more units because we know we have the need. We are well into that and I’m certain we will accomplish over and above what I had hoped we would by way of targets.

The number is $5 million in that rental program that you just referred to in this budget year.

LISA ROBERTS: I had also asked how much of that will go to non-profit housing versus private.

CHUCK PORTER: I’m interested in the conversations with whomever wants to come to the table - whether they’re not-for-profit or they’re private - if they’re creating new units for us that are available.

We are building this plan. We are going to be investing this money. We will work with and create social housing for those in need. We know we have a need. I’m not opposed to having conversations with any group that wants to come to the table that is interested in creating affordable housing options for us - and not just affordable housing options. We talk about rent geared to income, for example, for low-incomers as well.

We have to take all of that into consideration throughout the course of this plan that we have over the next 10 years - which we are just about concluding year one. We’re in the first fiscal year of that. We’ve done a lot of work in that. We’re very happy with the Tawaak agreement coming together and getting that money out the door. We know the need that is there. That’s just one example.

I’ve been very clear in every conversation I’ve had with whoever will listen that we want to talk about options for all of the money that we have available to us to invest. I think it’s key that we do that.

LISA ROBERTS: I have heard from multiple non-profit housing providers that RRAP doesn’t work to help them finance new, affordable housing development. Are you aware of the challenges that they face in actually using this program? How have you addressed that?

CHUCK PORTER: Again, I would say that we are working on a number of different things to improve all of those scenarios. I would say, without saying too much - I can’t tell you, unfortunately today specifically what I’m doing . . .

LISA ROBERTS: Next week you’re going to have it all figured out. (Laughter)

CHUCK PORTER: No, I’m not saying that we’ll ever have it all figured out, but what I’m saying is our goal that I think that we are working hard toward is to improve. We’ll have a $5.8 million investment next year in the community housing sector, as an example.

There are a number of programs that we have talked about, and will continue to talk about, that we are investing in substantially. They’re all a piece of this puzzle. They’re all tools. There are some other ways that we are looking at around the not-for-profit sector, as an example, that I am very interested in. I think that as we move forward and can share more on that, I’ll be quite excited about that.

LISA ROBERTS: I think I’ll move on, but I would just put it on whatever record this is on - Hansard two months from now - that I think there have been investments through the Rental Rehabilitation Assistance Program that have not represented good value for public money. I’m getting the sense that there are announcements that you’re not going to make at this table.

Another key tool in the National Housing Strategy three-year action plan is the provision of rent supplements. You spoke about another 500 and there’s 2,500 out now. It accounts for a large proportion of the funding allocated toward affordable housing through the strategy. We know that rent supplements are - maybe we’ll have a debate. I think we can agree that they are a less effective tool in a low-vacancy environment, when landlords can easily choose renters without the paperwork and sometimes delay or stigma of a rent supplement attached.

My first question is: How much money is allocated for rent supplements in this budget?

CHUCK PORTER: We can have a debate, sure. I think it’s important. Rent supplements are one tool that we have. It’s an important tool for a lot of people. We have 2,500 of them in the market. We’re looking to put another 500 in the market and I know that every one of them will go.

We want to provide options as to how they are used. I do want to attach any stigma to them. If somebody is in need of a rent supplement and they can find themselves a place to live, I want to look at that. I think that’s vitally important. That’s how we want to do business. It shouldn’t matter, when it comes to renting an apartment or a home or whatever you’re living in, whether you’re on a rent supplement or you’re not. It’s not relevant. If you can pay the rent, you can live here. I think that is an extremely important piece of what we do.

Just like you and other members of this House across the province, I have people who will come in looking for a rent supplement. There are a number of landlords who are familiar with the program. There are some that absolutely are not. There are some who may not be interested in becoming part of that. Again, this is why the supplement has to follow the tenant and not the landlord.

We are investing a lot in this program - $11.4 million. We can debate it for the entire hour, if you like, but I would always say that this is one tool of many that we are using. Contrary to what anyone can believe or not, we are seeing that this is creating a benefit for a number of people in this province who need it, who are low-incomers who would not be able to maintain and live and do some of the other things they need to do without it. This is a real asset to them, hence the reason we continue to invest in it. We think it’s vitally important.

We agree that it is one tool; there are other options. There are always other things that we need to look at and I can tell you we will look at. We have had a great deal of discussion around not only the National Housing Strategy, I think it’s fair to say, which is a nice chunk of money - $400 million - split between the provinces over this 10-year period. We’ve signed that first three-year action plan.

Over and above that though, the Province itself is investing that $70 million in a program that we absolutely believe is vital, and that is the rehabilitation program for homes for seniors and others who want to stay in their homes longer. This is money well invested - a fabulous program of forgivable loans that we put out there that doesn’t cost people anything. They get substantial amounts of work done and they remain in their homes. That’s where they want to be when you talk to them.

[1:30 p.m.]

I come from rural Nova Scotia and when you talk to folks out there, they want to stay in their homes. Even when sometimes you wonder yourself - they’re getting on in age, they’re struggling to bring the wood in and they’re still doing that or whatever it might be - they want to stay in that home. They need to make some changes because of their mobility issues whether it be for a walker and wider doorways, or whatever it might be - new furnaces. We have more applicants than we have had money because people use this program. We believed in that as a government and wanted to keep that and we did. That is another example of a tool that we continue to use to house people.

We’ve made the homeless strategy that we’ve talked about - the $20.5 million over the next five years. It’s an absolute first, but it’s because people are passionate about what we’re doing around that strategy for homelessness and trying to prevent that - finding homes for these folks. Those are investments that were unheard of. We’ve done that through great conversation and interest and strategies that we believe are valuable to Nova Scotia’s most vulnerable citizens. We’ll continue to do that.

Every day that goes by, every week, every year that goes by, we’ll continue to work on the needs of housing. Will there never not be a need? I don’t think that I would ever believe that. I think that we’ve not seen it ever go away for some years. I think that there will always be folks in need. I think as a government - governments from multiple stripes have made commitments to help look after people and house them and benefits and what have you. We’re certainly not showing signs of changing that. We’ve been very supportive and will continue to be.

LISA ROBERTS: If the minister would be so kind - I have a lot of questions - maybe we could debate more outside of this room in this hour. You mentioned $11.4 million in the budget for rent supplements, and there are 500 new ones. There’s also the portable rent supplement program. I’m wondering how much money has been ear-marked in this budget for portable rent supplements. Is that in the $11.4 million or is it separate? Regardless, could I have the separate number?

CHUCK PORTER: I will have to get that number for you.

LISA ROBERTS: I understand that rent control pretty much always negotiated for rent supplements that are agreed to with landlords. It’s easy to see that without this arrangement, the rent supplement could quickly become insufficient. Will the same protection be obtained for people with portable rent supplements? Will they have rent control as part of their agreement?

CHUCK PORTER: I’m not sure that I agree with the statement that we negotiate rent control. Give me an example on what you mean by that just so I’m clear about what we’re talk about, if that’s okay with you.

LISA ROBERTS: There are a number of programs, and we’ve seen at least one contract for a rent supplement with a landlord where when the rent supplement is allocated, there’s a stipulation there that that rent is not going to increase for the length of the agreement or else there’s a very modest CPI-connected increase baked into the agreement, which is more rent control than people have out in the general market.

CHUCK PORTER: I guess you may call that rent control, yes. I would look at that as they have to fit into - landlords have a certain number of their apartments. For example, I think of a place where I live. It just comes to mind because we deal with them. So many of those apartments, the rents are different in those apartments based on size, et cetera - whether they’re mobility and what have you - two-bedroom, one-bedroom and so on.

There is a certain number that they fit into, I guess is probably the way to put it. I’m not sure how that constitutes as rent control per se. We put a certain amount out attached to a supplement. They’re going to look for a place to live within a range.

We do work with landlords on a three-year agreement that does speak to CPI or whatever it is, the increase in rental. That is having a benefit within it.

LISA ROBERTS: Just for the record, that is what rent control is. It’s having a limit on how much rent can go up that is associated with CPI. That’s exactly what rent control is, at least in a number of jurisdictions. I recognize that the details can be different, but our proposal that’s on the books is not for no increase - it’s for it to be tied to CPI.

Again, to be clear - because the rent supplement agreements that are with landlords have that clause in, and it’s a 15-year agreement, but in the case of a portable rent supplement, is there any way that those tenants benefit from an agreement limiting the increase in the rent in the unit that they find?

CHUCK PORTER: It’s different because it’s not attached to a unit, it’s attached to the client.

LISA ROBERTS: Just to be super clear, that means that they don’t benefit from any rent control - there’s no guarantee from the landlord at all, but they might take that unit if they get priced out of their current apartment, they would be able to take it somewhere else, for example?

CHUCK PORTER: Yes, that’s right. The benefit is truly their ability to pick and choose where they may want to live - to not be attached or stereotyped, if you will, by being attached to a rent supplement, if one did not desire that.

LISA ROBERTS: I would have concerns, given the emails I’m getting from my constituents. I respect it might be different in rural constituencies where there isn’t as much pressure or maybe such low vacancies - I think different parts of the province are different. Certainly in my constituency I’m hearing about people being served rent increases in the $100, $150, $200 a month range, such that that benefit might be pretty meaningless after a year.

CHUCK PORTER: We just completed an evaluation around rent supplements that actually show that people stay where they’re at, tend to live there longer, that are in that situation.

LISA ROBERTS: Might the department be willing to share that analysis? I’d be interested to see the geographic breakdown of it as well.

CHUCK PORTER: Once I’ve seen it myself, honourable member. (Laughter) I’m sure at some point it will be public. I don’t see why we wouldn’t share that information.

LISA ROBERTS: I’m just going to move quickly to the public housing wait-list. There were 4,611 people on the wait-list for public housing in May 2017. There were 5,316 people on the wait-list for housing in the most recently available numbers in November 2019 - at least the numbers that were most recently available to me. Can you explain why the net number of people on the wait-list has increased in the last number of years?

CHUCK PORTER: I think there are a variety of reasons probably for that. What I can tell you is that over the last couple of years, 2,500 people have come off that list. That list is very fluid, I would say, with people who are either coming into the province looking for housing or whatever their housing needs may be. It takes a long time, if you will. We all know what’s heard out there publicized, that it might take a year or two to find a place to live, so they add themselves to the list. I don’t know.

What it does show is that there are still a number of people who are looking for public housing. That is really the reason why we are working as we are working through the National Housing Strategy and other investments that we’re making. We know that the need exists. We’d love to take that number off every month if I could, quite frankly.

Will there always be a waiting list of some kind? I think probably there will be. The number will fluctuate over time as we see vacancy rates change. I hope we will see more availability, obviously, with some of the things we’re doing. Also, we would see changes in that list to get people placed. I think it’s ever moving, quite frankly. I know that we place people on a regular basis, I can tell you that.

LISA ROBERTS: Of the 500 new rent supplements that you mentioned in this years budget, what percentage of those will be assigned to people on this wait-list?

CHUCK PORTER: I was going to say that if I have my way, 100 per cent of the rent supplements will be assigned. With regard to the wait-list, I just want clarity around that, if I could. Are you talking about a wait-list for a rent supplement? You’re talking about the wait-list in general for housing option, right?

LISA ROBERTS: A number of years ago - unless the policy and practice has entirely changed - it had been the practice that rent supplements were assigned to people on the public housing wait-list. That may have changed. You mentioned people coming into your constituency office looking for them and so I’m aware that there are a number of other routes that people take to get rent supplements. I’m wondering if there’s an expectation that most of those 500 will come to people through the public housing wait-list.

CHUCK PORTER: Of that wait-list, 380 of those will come from the wait-list; 120 of those will go to folks on the homeless side of things to help place them. There are people in other programs - we talked about rapid re-housing in my opening comments, how they were placed without a rent supplement. But there is an allotment of 120 that will be set aside for folks that are homeless to use and 380 will be that coming off the list.

LISA ROBERTS: Just to be clear, apart from the 120, which are targeted to people who are experiencing homelessness or in shelters, the remainder will come from the public housing wait-list?

CHUCK PORTER: That is correct, yes.

LISA ROBERTS: I have a question regarding non-profit housing. It’s kind of a mix because we have private and non-profit housing a bit mixed up here. We know that the developers of the Willow Tree property on Quinpool Road wanted to build affordable housing, but they didn’t seem to be able to find a partner in Housing Nova Scotia. They ended up providing cash in lieu to Halifax Regional Municipality, which I understand was not the preferred option for either party. Can you explain why the department did not choose to work with the developer to build affordable housing as part of that development?

CHUCK PORTER: First of all, I would say that we never refused that at all. We’re very interested in working with any private or not-for-profit or co-op or anyone at all that wants to chat about housing and options that come out there. I’m not sure why anyone would be of the belief that we’re unwilling to have conversations with that organization or any other. It’s my understanding that they chose the path of the HRM’s Centre Plan, and came to an agreement with them as a way to make a contribution toward housing options within the Centre Plan.

Let me be as clear as I can be on this. For anyone who wants to have a conversation, we’re more than willing to have it. Like I said a little while ago, we are in discussions - and have been for a while now - with other opportunities that we will soon talk more about, which will clearly show our interest in creating housing options in the not-for-profit sector.

[1:45 a.m.]

LISA ROBERTS: We have also spoken with people at the Housing Trust of Nova Scotia that have been trying for more than 10 years now to move ahead with an affordable non-profit housing project on Gottingen Street and have struggled to make the financing work. My understanding is that they’ve also attempted to partner with Housing Nova Scotia, but haven’t made progress on that. Can you provide any update in terms of Housing Nova Scotia’s involvement with that project?

CHUCK PORTER: I’m not going to get into specific organizations. I don’t think that’s appropriate, quite frankly, to talk about any conversations that we have had or are having around that. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.

I would say to you that we are very, very interested in working with housing trusts or whoever else might come along that is interested in creating housing opportunities, working with us as partners, working with others as partners. It’s not just between us and the private sector - the municipality or others that may want to be involved. There’s no option that I as a minister and our team, quite frankly, will not consider.

LISA ROBERTS: Recognizing that obviously it’s within your right and even job description to make announcements at the time that you choose to make them, can you confirm how many affordable units the government will build this year, not counting rent supplements?

CHUCK PORTER: I think this goes back to our conversation last week around a number that was put out through a formula that I was very clear on. The 39 at the time was the targeted number in a media scrum that I did, and I said that I’m not interested in 39 - I’ll take whatever number comes along, whether it’s 59, 109 or 1,009. I don’t have a cap on what I am interested in trying to do. Knowing the situation that we have, knowing the need that we have, I think it’s vitally important that whatever number we can create, we’ll create it.

LISA ROBERTS: I appreciate that you are willing to have conversations. At the same time - as the critic for this since 2016, I’ve had a number of conversations with non-profit housing developers who have really struggled to make programs work - be it that a non-profit housing developer is not going to charge very large amounts for units that are part of a funding program. They’re not going to increase rents on other things because they’re getting funds from the province for a certain allocated number of units or various other challenges in terms of who goes first in terms of mortgage repayment.

Is the minister aware of the challenges that non-profits have faced in partnering? How have you responded to those?

CHUCK PORTER: We are clearly aware of our needs. It’s easy to say the words “agreement”, “contract”, “development” - whatever word you want to pick, it’s easy to say. But we also need to be aware that the not-for-profit sector, the private sector, whoever it might be that are looking to develop have to not only create what we’re looking for - mixed use, mixed market, and mixed income - but they have to be sustainable.

It would be nice if I said to ABC developer, why don’t you build me 100 units and give them all to me in RGI. We know that’s not doable - they can’t sustain that. That mixed income is absolutely valuable. The mixed marketing and market rent versus affordable housing verses RGI are all extremely important to us as a government and as a department and minister who want to create housing. At the same time, I have to ensure, as part of that agreement, that we are reaching a point that is, in fact, doable. Otherwise, I’m making no progress.

Our interest is obviously in finding our path, finding the best way to get there that will work for the organization, regardless if it’s private or otherwise. We need them to be sustainable so the housing units are available. We certainly know how important that is and are extremely passionate everyday about trying to make that happen. We are working on a number of files, as I said, that I think we’ll soon be able to talk more about.

LISA ROBERTS: I’m going to spend a bit of time on the short-term rental regulation regime. Since the government announced its plans, research from McGill University have helped us to understand the impact of short-term rentals, including Airbnbs on the rental housing market. We now know that 740 long-term housing units have been converted to the short-term market in Halifax alone. I’ll note that really eclipses the 39 for-sure units, but also I expect it eclipses the stretch goals of the department in terms of building new units. In fact, it represents 1 per cent of the region’s housing stock.

Because there is no rental control, landlords have been known to serve tenants with rent increases in order to turn their unit into a short-term rental. Because there is no rental control, you can serve a tenant with a massive increase and then turn around and make it a short-term rental.

We’ve learned from this research, and from the experience of Quebec, that it’s vital that all short-term rentals be required to register in order for municipalities to effectively choose a regulatory regime. This is the position, for example, of the Mayor of Lunenburg as well as the position of the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia. The argument given, that we need to first understand what impact short-term rentals are having before we regulate further, is exactly why we need to require that all units are registered. But the province at this point is only planning to require some - those that are not in people’s principle residences. That makes it easy for units to fall through the cracks or someone to not be forthcoming, and the result is an unclear picture of the housing landscape.

Did the minister’s department intervene in those conversations - as I know that the government was also learning from experiences in other jurisdictions - and request that all short-term rentals be required to register?

CHUCK PORTER: As you would be aware, this is obviously that falls under the Department of Business. Our role in this has been around the assessment piece. They are building their registry. They have gone through a substantial amount of work. We would have been part of that because we changed the Act back a year ago now. We had a bill that we had to amend at the time for the charter and maybe - a year is a long time for me to remember sometimes about how many bills we’ve gone through. We would have made changes to legislation to allow the assessments to take place so PBSC and the assessments would be done. They’re working on regulations that will reflect four-unit, five-unit principle residence - all the things you just talked about.

When I began that conversation with the Department of Business, Housing didn’t belong with the Department of Municipal Affairs. We were separate from that. So I wasn’t the minister for Housing in a conversation about that. I think we have some work and assessments that are ongoing - and things to do to understand what kind of an impact that will have.

Municipalities will have options as well for designating zones, et cetera, if they wanted to manage some of that or allow it. There are some of these things that we need to ensure they will have an involvement in.

The starting point for the registry is where they’re at by way of who is going to register and who is not. I won’t tell you that I have all the answers around that and who should register and who shouldn’t. I would think that if I am one of those business owners who has a number of these, I would want to register in an effort to sell or market my place; there would be a benefit to that.

I don’t know what the outcome, the success rate or any of that will be around Airbnbs. I specifically don’t know. It probably changes based on location, tourism, all of these things. There was obviously a good reason to put forward the opportunity to create more room space as it brings more tourists. It increases our revenue and does all good things too.

What impact it will actually have on the housing market, I believe that is yet to be seen. I think we need to make sure that we’re paying attention to that and assessing that to see how much of an impact it is having for sure. We’ll continue to do that. We have a great interest in it - certainly now that we have Housing now with Municipal Affairs, but it wasn’t part of the discussion because I didn’t have it, not thinking about it a whole lot of the time.

I’m not sure whether the Department of Business had discussions with Housing at that time. I can’t answer that. They may have had - the minister responsible at that time, I’m not sure

LISA ROBERTS: I appreciate that your department has gone through a lot of change in the past year. At the same time, Housing became part of the Department of Municipal Affairs in June and I understand that the Department of Business was actively learning from the experience in Quebec of a failed registration system in October where they didn’t require all short-term rentals to register, and after a year they only had 5 per cent of units registered on their system, which effectively made it ineffective for tracking what the activity was.

I would encourage the department to take an interest. In the same way that the province has an interest in housing vis-à-vis decisions that municipalities make - there’s a provincial statement of interest - I think the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing has to exercise a departmental interest in housing with the Department of Business. Right now, we know that we have lost 740 housing units in Halifax Regional Municipality. That’s significant when we’re talking about a vacancy rate of 1 per cent. The registration program that is going forward by all accounts is not going to be effective. We’ve heard those concerns from municipal leaders as well.

Are you clear if municipal governments now under the MGA and the Halifax Regional Municipality have the power to limit short-term rentals?

CHUCK PORTER: I would say a couple of things. One, I want to reflect back for a second on the comments from a moment ago as far as the registry in other provinces. I’m sure that they are doing whatever they need to do. I can’t speak for the Minister of Business, but I would think that they are watching and monitoring this as a starting place. I’m not sure what that result will be, but I know that the minister will speak clearly to that when the time comes.

We’re doing our assessment here as well, which will be out in June around the supply and demand issues around housing. There are a lot of numbers out there, studies that have been done. We’re doing one that is a Nova Scotia piece, because that’s what matters. I want to know what this province looks like as a whole around supply and demand - HRM versus CBRM versus rural Nova Scotia. The numbers may be exactly the same as others, I don’t know, but I want to find out. We’ve undertaken that . . .

THE CHAIR: Order. The time has elapsed for the NDP. We will now move to the PC Party.

The member for Sackville-Cobequid.

STEVE CRAIG: Good afternoon. I wonder if the people answering the questions might want to take a break before we start.

THE CHAIR: Minister, would you or your staff like a break?

CHUCK PORTER: I’m good if you are.

STEVE CRAIG: I’m good. (Laughter) Thank you, minister. This is a first for me in the House at Estimates, although I did just do a little bit with the Department of Community Services. I found that interesting - the amount of questions you’re able to ask and the amount of detail in the responses you get. It’s quite informative and what I’m looking forward to is learning here. I don’t particularly have any suggestions; I have observations and questions. I have a capacity to learn and I want to do that here. I apologize for not being here earlier to hear your opening remarks. It is one of those things that as much as you try, you can’t be in two places at one time.

Being new to this, I reviewed some previous work and my particular interest is Housing Nova Scotia - that’s the focus I will have. I looked in the budget books and I looked on the website, but I did not see the Housing Nova Scotia business plan and estimates, and I was wondering why that would be.

CHUCK PORTER: To the honourable member for Sackville-Cobequid, it’s great to have you at the table. It is a bit of an experience. For me, it’s my 15^th budget. I couldn’t believe that the other day when I was thinking back, so I’ve been through this a couple of times on your side and this side. It is a good experience to learn a little bit about how things work, a chance to give this back-and-forth which is very casual, which I like it very much. I hope we’re able to provide you with some of the information you’re looking for this afternoon.

Your question around the business plan - it’s all combined within the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing document that you would have - the budget books. It should be within. To be specific, the Housing plan is integrated with the DMAH overall plan. It would all be within one. They’re not separate is what I’m saying.

STEVE CRAIG: I guess my question would be: When were they combined? The previous ones - I have one here for 2018-19, I have one for the following year. I have the business plan. The business plan is in the Housing Nova Scotia website. The consolidated statements are there. In fact, the Housing Nova Scotia Act states that this Legislature is to have these, so I was curious to know as to why not. I don’t know how I can ask detailed questions without having the material at hand to ask the questions.

I looked at the Act and went through and I saw the Auditor General’s Report saying that the Department of Community Services at that time should only estimate and account for the share of expenses for Nova Scotia Housing Development Corporation. It did not say these were not to be provided.

Again, I’m at a little bit of a loss as to understand why I can get off the Housing Nova Scotia website the business plan, the consolidated statements and even, in fact - which I found quite good - the accountability report. Why is it that I cannot get the information to be able to ask questions at this point?

I believe that the minister is responsible for that agency, for that corporation on behalf of the government. I would think I would be able to ask questions about that agency and the government especially, where we have for the last number of sittings where it has been stated that there are significant amounts of funds coming through the National Housing Strategy. When we talked about the bills that was passed the other day, that we would be able to get into the Budget Estimates and we’d have more detailed information, and here I find myself a little bit lacking. I’d just like a response on that, please.

CHUCK PORTER: Within your package, you would have received this. This is a combined business plan of the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing. This department was brought together last June as one. We worked extremely hard to do just that. The mandate was to bring this - not as separate. Housing shouldn’t be separate from Municipal Affairs. There’s a direct correlation as to how one works with the other. We are very much one.

I think we have quite successfully brought this together and continue to work on this with the team and bringing it together by way of how our executive team comes together as an example. When we’re being informed in briefings and so on, we don’t just talk about an issue of one or the other. We’ve learned very quickly that the two are very much interconnected - how one impacts the other. We see this as quite relevant.

This document does have a number of things and we’re happy to provide a copy of it if you need it and are happy to answer any questions you have about it. We will continue to provide our numbers. As the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, they won’t be separated going forward at all. I think the information in there - I don’t disagree with you, I’m not trying to say that. It’s just different for you to find what you’re looking for maybe. I’m not exactly sure what you’re looking for in it, but I’m happy to address what I can to make my way through this hour with you.

STEVE CRAIG: I’m still at a loss. What I’m looking at are documents that are on the Housing Nova Scotia website. In the past, they had been produced as Crown Corporation business plans and here’s one for Housing Nova Scotia. The Act clearly says that we are to receive these materials during the session of the Legislature immediately following December 31^st. I don’t have them, so how can I ask the questions?

CHUCK PORTER: Just for clarity - I just spoke to the deputy here - we have 2019-20 business plan. Is that what you have? I also have a copy of our business plan going forward in the current budget year 2020-21, that would have been put together for the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Are you referencing last year’s 2019-20 plan? If you are, feel free to ask questions within it, but I just wanted to be clear about what you have and what you don’t have.

STEVE CRAIG: What I can provide you is what I have. You can take a look at it. What I’m look for are the relevant documents for the current period - the budget going forward and the business plans going forward of the Nova Scotia Housing document.

CHUCK PORTER: Just for clarity for the honourable member, this would have been in the budget documents that he should have received. If you don’t have it, we’re happy to get it copied for you and provided. If you want, we’ll even recess for a few minutes if you’d like to do so.

THE CHAIR: We’ll have a five-minute recess.

[2:08 p.m. The committee recessed.]

[2:15 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: Order. We will resume with the member for Sackville-Cobequid.

STEVE CRAIG: Thank you, minister, for providing the document. This is not the document I was alluding to. The document I was alluding to is one that’s required under statute, which we were to have had. The document to which I was referring to, to question the budget, would have been part of the forecast that’s available and the resulting financials and, in fact, the business plan - in more detail than what is here. As a corporation of the Province, the statute says that the Legislature should have had this information, and this is not it.

I quote from the statute under “Fiscal year and financial statements”:

“12 (1) The fiscal year of the Corporation shall be based on the fiscal year of the Province and the Minister shall ensure that financial statements for the Corporation are prepared not later than the thirty-first day of December in each fiscal year respecting the assets, liabilities and other financial matters related to the Corporation for the previous fiscal year, and that the financial statements are tabled at the next ensuing session of the Legislature.”

To illustrate the importance of that is this. It’s alluded to in the Auditor General’s Report a couple years ago that the department does not have to report the total dollars in their budget for the corporation. However, we need the corporation to understand and the business plans as to what’s going on because of, again, the importance of housing. The 2019-20 estimate was roughly $70 million from the department. That’s what this states. If I go back to the actual financials of the corporation in 2018-19, the total funding sources were $223.4 million. That’s a significant difference.

I support what’s here in the municipal plan at a high level. However, in order to do due diligence on my part, I require the full meal deal and I don’t have it. The so-what of that, in my opinion, is that the minister has been talking, and announcements have been made about the importance of the National Housing Strategy, the three-year action plan and how that actually flows to accomplish what’s required. In the high-level plan, those details aren’t there.

I asked last week when we talked about the amendments to the Housing Nova Scotia Act, to enable Housing Nova Scotia to flow funds through, that we would be able to talk about those things here today. I don’t have the documents to back that up or to ask informed questions about. For that, I’m truly sorry.

Where do we go from here? Perhaps now that the minister understands now where I’m coming from, about the two documents. One is what the department is doing in contributing towards the corporation, but it’s really the corporation that is the catalyst and facilitator that flows the funds from the Province, as well as CMHC and the federal government, to do the work that it’s supposed to do. That’s really where the rubber hits the road - to be able to see how that’s done.

In light of the fact that I don’t have that, I will ask questions, if you don’t mind, about how that’s going to be done - recognizing that a lot of this I’m asking without the information. If I take a look at even a simple thing like measuring our performance, accomplishments on the key actions, priority areas, what we do - this is all information that was previous. For Housing Nova Scotia, what are all the government-funding sources to run the corporation?

CHUCK PORTER: I appreciate your comments, where you’re coming from. Some of examples of where they are coming from - obviously through the federal government, the Province of Nova Scotia, municipalities and things like rent revenues would fall under that.

STEVE CRAIG: What would be the federal revenues coming through for this coming budget 2020-21?

CHUCK PORTER: The social housing agreement is $30 million, along with the National Housing Strategy dollars, which would be about $15 million more. That is this coming fiscal year.

STEVE CRAIG: What is the number from the Province of Nova Scotia? That would include all departments that would contribute.

CHUCK PORTER: That number is about $84 million.

STEVE CRAIG: We’re getting up there. It’s nice to see. The estimate for the year ending now was $130 million. It appears as though we’re going to be up there a bit. What is the number coming in from the municipalities?

CHUCK PORTER: That number is about $10 million and they cost share in - that’s their share of the net operating loss.

STEVE CRAIG: Hopefully next year we’ll have this information. I’m curious, the minister mentioned that it was $84 million from the Province of Nova Scotia, yet in the business plan - the consolidated one - it indicates the number is an estimate of $104 million. Why the difference? That’s a $20 million difference.

CHUCK PORTER: Just to break that down for you, the administration and housing services portion of that is $20 million and the $84 million is the Housing Nova Scotia grant. That’s where those two numbers combined come from to give you that $103.962 million if you’re looking at the line item, rounded off as you have to the $104 million.

STEVE CRAIG: Minister, the number you gave me when I asked for the consolidated Province of Nova Scotia funds, the answer I got was $84 million. Should that number have been $104 million?

CHUCK PORTER: Sorry if I wasn’t clear. The $84 million is the number you asked about - the provincial housing number. The administration of housing services is the other $20 million that make up that $104 million.

STEVE CRAIG: I’m assuming that money doesn’t get transferred to the corporation, but it’s money within the department that stays there. Thank you for that, I appreciate that.

Revenue from rents - the previous estimate was about $61 million. What are we anticipating for 2021?

CHUCK PORTER: So $66 million is what’s there for this coming year.

STEVE CRAIG: What is driving that increase in rent?

CHUCK PORTER: Just for clarity, you’re looking at last year’s number for comparable? The rents would fluctuate depending - that’s why that number would fluctuate as well. The income would fluctuate depending on the client, the situation, et cetera. Those revenues would change.

[2:30 p.m.]

STEVE CRAIG: I’m assuming there’s no increase in the number of units being rented in this coming year, so the increase in rental would be a fluctuation of a percentage of income of those current renters?

CHUCK PORTER: Most of that would be in the fluctuation of income levels that would create that revenue. There may be periods of time where there’s a bit of fluctuation in the number of units that are being rented for a variety of reasons. I can go into a bit of that, if you like. I’m more than happy to do that as well.

STEVE CRAIG: Thanks for that. The question is: What is the current number of rental units in total capacity? It matters not to me whether they’re occupied at this point. Is that capacity increasing in 2020-21?

CHUCK PORTER: We have about 12,000 public housing units that are under our portfolio - a lot of units in a variety of places and styles and shapes around the province, as you would be well aware.

STEVE CRAIG: Is there going to be or is there any planned increase in the number of rental units through Nova Scotia Housing for 2020-21?

CHUCK PORTER: The answer is yes, we would certainly be looking to increase the number of units, but not publicly owned - if that was what you were asking. I wasn’t sure on the clarity around that. We want to go into agreements obviously with landlords and the private sector, with the not-for-profit sector, whomever, but our goal is not to own more public units. We have plenty now to look after, to maintain, to spend money on. That’s why these partnerships are vital to us as we move forward in the years ahead. We think that’s a sustainable path that we’re working on.

STEVE CRAIG: Then we are capped at 12,000. That’s really what Housing Nova Scotia is saying as far as what the corporation owns?

CHUCK PORTER: I think we’re a little over 12,000. I can get you an exact number somewhere here if you want it, but we’re just over 12,000. You used the word ‘capped’ there. I would say to you that our goal would certainly be not to increase that number. Again, we have to look at all options. We certainly need to provide housing. We’re very well aware of that. We think that these partnerships for the long term that we’re looking at are the best and most valuable bang for the taxpayers’ buck, if you will.

STEVE CRAIG: I’m sort of liking this short back and forth - if you’re okay with it, I’ll continue. Really what I’m doing is, I’m going down the income statement line by line and just trying to understand what’s in that and what it is.

The revenue from rents, I surmise, is really the housing stock that the corporation owns and the revenues that come in from that. The next line is: interest revenue from land sales and other revenue. I wonder if you might explain what that is - what makes up that number?

CHUCK PORTER: Are you looking for what the number is or why it exists? I just want the clarity around that because we can probably give you both.

STEVE CRAIG: Likely I’d ask for both.

CHUCK PORTER: I’ll start while Laurie is looking for the actual number as to what that calculation is.

One of the things that I learned very quickly when I came into housing was we have all of these units. Some of them have vacancies, depending on where they’re at. Some of them haven’t been lived in for a bit. One of the things, or conditions maybe - there was a variety of reasons when I looked at it - if no one’s renting it, why do I own it?

We have divested of some already. You would see those that we’ve divested of, for example, would have been sold and that money would come back to general revenue. That’s probably calculated in there. If there’s a place that is absolutely not rentable, my goal quite frankly is divesting of that and investing further in other options and housing that is rentable and needed and so on, regardless of where it is.

We talked earlier - I think it was with your colleague for Cumberland North - about the location of where a gentleman lived that was outside of certain essential services, as an example, around transportation, access to things, and so on. We have found that there are places that the government does own - public housing units like that - that are extremely difficult to rent. Even though there are people who are looking for places, they’re not interested in taking them there because they’re looking for those services. That’s fair. No question.

You have to look at the benefit of hanging onto places as such. They cost you money every day as a taxpayer, quite frankly. If they’re not being used, divesting of them begins to not save, but allows us to take the money to reinvest where we need to reinvest it. We have, as you look as those line items and as you go down through them, you will see there is no shortage of places to reinvest money in when it comes to housing within the Province of Nova Scotia.

Just to the number of that, honourable member, almost $249,000 has come back into general revenue to be reinvested in properties that we have divested of, for all the reasons I just spoke of. One of the things that I did do when I moved forward with this plan when it came to funding opportunities was, look, this is part of what I want to do. These are of less value to us, as an example, because people aren’t renting them. They don’t want to be in them. Even though there are people on the wait-list, they still don’t want to go to a certain place. Fair enough.

In divesting of them, that was what I had asked and wanted to do in an effort to bring that money back. Again, as I’d said, there’s no shortage of places for revenue or any sources of dollars that we can get to put back out. We’ll continue to do that. I can’t tell you the exact number of how many more of them there are to do, but there will be more as we go along and discover there are place that people don’t want to rent. That’s okay - we’ll sell one and create another one or more where people do want to rent. That’s exactly what we’re doing.

STEVE CRAIG: Thank you, minister. Certainly the idea of removing stranded assets and reinvesting in other assets to at least keep the rough number of 12,000 under the portfolio is admirable, I think. There’s no sense in having assets that aren’t being utilized. That makes sense to me.

You did mention though that the proceeds of those went into general revenues. I just want to question that. I know from previous consolidated statements on the financial position for Housing Nova Scotia that the balance sheet shows some cash and equivalents, accounts receivable - we’ll get into those later. Certainly we’ve got tangible capital assets in excess of $256 million. I’m assuming those are the properties.

If the assets are disposed of, do the monies go to the provincial general revenue or do they, in fact, stay within the corporation?

CHUCK PORTER: I wish I could say that they came back to me directly, to be able to invest - I say me as in the department - but it goes back to general revenue. I guess probably if you look at the money we’ve invested in the last 12 months as an example by way of asks and approvals to spend and invest, we’re well above the number that we’ve put in the bank of what we’ve taken back out.

Government has been very supportive, obviously, of me arriving in front of them and asking them for money to invest in certain programs and our other investments. As I said to you a bit earlier, you will begin very soon to see some of those other things that we’re working on, where that money and so much more will go back out the door, because we know the need exists. We’ll continue to do that.

STEVE CRAIG: Thank you, minister. There is the Property Management and Operation line, and following that is Repair and Maintenance Programs. Certainly the housing stock that Housing Nova Scotia has - to have it safe, to have it accessible, and to have it affordable so people do want to live in it is quite important.

Can you explain to me a little bit about how the Property Management and Operation line is handled first, and then Repair and Maintenance Programs second? I would think the property management and operation staff - FTEs - would be responsible for determining the state of good repair of your assets and then once they determine that, go ahead and spending the monies for repair and maintenance.

So there’s those two questions. As a follow up, how much deferred maintenance is out there?

CHUCK PORTER: I’m not sure if Laurie’s got a number there or not, but I can tell you based on what we do know. We signed the National Housing Strategy; there are lots around that. The first three-year action plan talked about how much of that money would go to maintenance costs on upgrades and so on.

What we do know from an asset bank - an asset portfolio - what we have are a number of buildings, quite frankly, around the province that are quite old; now 40 and 50 years old. One of the things we know is that you getting the wear and tear of windows, doors, and shingles, et cetera that are outdated - I’ll come back to that. What I would say also is you have your bigger systems now - your electrical systems, your heating systems - all these things are not cheap. They will take quite a big amount of money to fix or to renovate or to put in new or whatever we might need to do in that situation.

We are doing that. We’ve never stopped doing that. There’s always been money that’s allocated to go into maintenance of these buildings because it has to. As we get on in this age, we’re now reaching the point where that infrastructure is needing a lot more work. It is vital because these facilities are actually well rented and well used. They’re full all the time. They’re not vacant very long in a lot of these places. They turn over quite quickly.

There are lists of people, when they’re choosing where they’d like to go - I’m not sure in your time thus far how many applicants have come in looking for public housing to your office or not, but a lot of them will give you first, second, third choice maybe where they’d like to go. I want to be in this area or that area. All of those are relevant to the ones that are, for obvious reasons, around services that are provided or friends they know. There are all kinds of reasons why they want to be there.

[2:45 p.m.]

When you get out into rural parts of the province, there are places that are more remote, obviously. Mount Uniacke - I think about one of the places or a couple of homes out there that are very similar to places that are in Windsor that we call the Kendalls. There are four or five of them up there that are now, when I think back - 40 and 50 years old or more. It’s hard to believe they are that old, but they are getting aged. They do require work.

So there is a big investment we’re making because we believe that that is not only needed but it’s the right thing to do by way of maintaining that infrastructure so we can continue to support those units and have them available.

There’s many millions more that continue to be invested. We will continue to invest on interiors, things like hallways and interior apartment, common rooms, et cetera that also need to be done. That is a big part of, obviously, our maintenance. Then you move into a variety of different homes and styles and makeups that government owns from duplexes to single family dwelling homes. There’s all kinds of them. Each of them are their own respective physical plant that needs this or that lots of the time.

Again, there’s not a lot of new, I would say here. I don’t know what the number of, and what we refer to, as new might be. I might call new something in the last 10 years, as an example. I’d have to look at the list and say how many are new in the last 10 years? I probably wouldn’t be shocked to find out that there are none. They’re all older than that. As they start to age, this work has to be done. There are priorities that have to be set.

Just as an example, some of the things that I was just talked about in the coming year for 20-21, through the infrastructure work that we’ll do - we’re over $26 million planned to go in to be invested in that infrastructure this year. Those are those bigger kinds of items that I referred to that will be extensive amounts of work. It’s not just some paint here or there, which is still very much needed. They’re bigger parts of the maintenance projects, so $26 million will go there.

STEVE CRAIG: I think I’ve exhausted 40 minutes of the 60 minutes so far on this one particular area. Hopefully next year, I’ll have the information in advance that will save a little bit of that time.

I’d like to move on, though, to non-owned housing units. How much are rent supplements and are they actually under the authority and control of Housing Nova Scotia?

CHUCK PORTER: A total to your number there is over $12 million with the money that we’re putting in as well as money from the National Housing Strategy.

On the rent supplements, we’ve got about 2,500 of them out there now with 500 more planned for the coming year.

I just would ask for some clarity - I think you had another part of your question there that I may have missed there? I apologize.

STEVE CRAIG: I might have forgotten. (Laughter) Yes, I’m assuming it was because of the answer. Housing Nova Scotia has that authority and all the programs are run though there and so on, so that’s good to know.

In determining who gets rent supplements and the threshold and the income sources for that - under Community Services, we have the standard household income supplement or rate. Is that taken into consideration in determining whether somebody gets a rent supplement? The Minister of Community Services told me you would know that answer.

CHUCK PORTER: Just two quick parts, here. Yes to your previous question - Ms. Roberts helped us both remember. Along with the housing authority, we both worked toward managing those rent supplements. Obviously they manage placement in the list, and then they would apply for a rent supplement if they want it. It would be a combined effort between us and the five housing authorities.

Can you just repeat your question? I couldn’t quite hear all of it and I want to make sure that I’ve got what you just asked me - what the Minister of Community Services said I would have the answer to.

STEVE CRAIG: I’d be happy to clarify that. When I’m asking the questions here, I’m talking about Housing Nova Scotia as the umbrella. I’m not particularly concerned about the districts or what have you.

The question I had for the Minister of Community Services was: You provide household income - let’s say it’s $1,000 - and they can spend it the way they want. Then what happens is somebody may require, or ask for, rent supplements from Housing Nova Scotia. Does Housing Nova Scotia take into consideration DCS supplements at all in determining whether they are eligible for rent supplements?

CHUCK PORTER: The answer is yes, absolutely. We take that into consideration because there is an income threshold, obviously, when they apply for rent subsidy, et cetera. We would have knowledge of that. Obviously, you would take that into consideration.

If I’m clear, you’re talking about an individual who finds himself, unfortunately, as a DCS client - I see you shaking your head yes - who would then be of, obviously, one of the lowest incomes there is. You have to take all of that into consideration and we sure do.

STEVE CRAIG: My comment around that would be this: The Department of Community Services determines that the standard household rate is for the individual to use however they wish. Yet, we have another Crown corporation who says, there it is - I’m going to reduce the amount of rent supplement because you have this. I guess that the answer to that is yes. So, you take a look at all earned and unearned income when somebody is looking for rent supplement?

CHUCK PORTER: I’m just getting some clarity there from my deputy, but I believe I was correct in this. This is an income based model, so we don’t care where your income is coming from. Income is income is income. The threshold is the threshold. We’re not looking at you any other way or differently because of your situation. Your income is your income is your income. You would be assessed accordingly.

STEVE CRAIG: I’d like to move now to what the corporation is doing to incentivize others for putting and building affordable housing and renovating. In the municipality, for example, we have talked about - even today, maybe - the ability for people to put in secondary suites so they can utilize the shell that they now have and bring in in-law suites, what have you. Or they can do backyard suites.

I’m curious to know if we’re looking at how we can incentivize density - especially in the urban environment - and therefore driving down, or at least mitigating, the increases in monthly rentals and therefore affordability?

CHUCK PORTER: Certainly, they have an impact. We will work with any of those partners. There are a number of conversations around tiny homes - I think is where you’re relating there, perhaps - with some of those, the secondary suites. We’re supportive of that. We do have other programs, obviously, where we’re working with other individuals - whether they be private entity or whether they be not-for-profits or co-ops or what have you - where we have program dollars available.

I’m sure you’re familiar with our investment around the up to $50,000 a door for those who are looking to invest and build new, as an example. We’re looking to have all kinds of those conversations. That’s just one way to help incent builders. Again, it comes back to that sustainability model as well as the mixed housing, mixed income, mixed market, et cetera. All of that is relevant in the conversation, but again, it has to be sustainable. We are very interested in the sustainable model for our investments, whatever they might be.

STEVE CRAIG: Minister, land-lease communities, mini homes - singular section modular homes. Out in my community in the Sackville-Beaver Bank-Lucasville area, there are many land-lease communities. There is a requirement in some cases where people want to replace what they have that might be 40-, 50-, or 60-years old - I don’t know. I want to go back to your comment you were talking about earlier.

My home is 55 years old. We have continuously maintained it, so we don’t have those big increases in capital investments. In the cases of these modular and mini homes for a land lease communities, we have thousands. The member across opposite there would know this, as well. There are opportunities for people to purchase a new modular home, which is not what you’d think - the old trailer mobile home. These are built sturdily with current standards - highly energy efficient, low carbon footprints in the heating and what have you - and they’re quite more affordable. For $185,000, you can get a really nice unit.

What programs are available to help? I realize there is a program if you have a household income of I think $75,000, you can get some tax relief up to $14,000 to put into a new home through the department. I’ve heard some people tell me that they are not eligible for this particular type of housing. I’m curious to understand if that’s true or not. If it is true, why and what can we do to change that?

CHUCK PORTER: I’m very familiar with Sackville and the land lease and all of the different parks. I worked there for a lot of years as a paramedic. I was in a lot of those parks over the years. You’re right in what you’ve described. It’s something that has become very, very popular by way of the land lease. A mobile home is not a mobile home anymore, as we knew it back in the day. They are very efficient.

I have a huge development out my way you may be familiar with, I don’t know, called The Crossing where a lot of these are exactly that. These are these new style, very efficient mobile homes, if you will - or mini homes, I guess we call them today - that are very, very nice. They’re placed and they’re on a lease deal of the period of x-number of years.

They are something, specifically in my area, that’s creating huge growth - hundreds of these homes. Now it’s becoming more mixed use because they’re actually building - I guess we don’t call them duplexes anymore, we call them semis these days. They’re very nice, also. They are creating options, and we see an awful lot of the senior population moving into these. They’re selling their homes or downsizing and they are becoming a more affordable option for them. That’s a good thing.

For others who are also interested in them - again, they’re not all seniors, especially in Sackville which would be much bigger than the community I come from by way of the number of these options - we have our Down Payment Assistance Program that is out there for folks who are just starting out. The threshold is fairly high - around $70,000 - which is pretty good. If you can go and take part in a program and you’re making that kind of money, that’s not a bad thing. We’ve invested heavily in that and continue to. There is that option that does exist for them.

It is another area of growth that we really do see - you’re quite right in the fact that they’re becoming very popular. There’s probably no reason, in certain areas, we wouldn’t see that they continue to grow and become bigger in numbers in certain areas where they’re used to having them, and so on. They certainly have become quite popular, as I said, in my constituency.

[3:00 p.m.]

Anyway, those are things that we need to look at by way of what may exist in the future, those are also things. The Down Payment Assistance Program, I did mention. There may be other things we need to look at if that becomes something of enough interest, I suppose. I think it is growing, I will say that. I agree with you. I think it is a growing interest and certainly something we’ll consider.

THE CHAIR: Order. The time has lapsed for the PC Party. I apologize because you took nine minutes earlier on, as well, right? I should have asked and I just realized that literally a minute before I said it: Oh, he did take nine minutes before. I apologize about that.

STEVE CRAIG: The previous Chair didn’t tell me that. Thank you.

THE CHAIR: No problem. We move on now to the NDP.

The honourable member for Halifax Needham.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you. Just to continue the conversation for a moment about land lease communities. It’s also noteworthy and may be a factor in their growth that when rent control was suspended in Nova Scotia for almost all sorts of properties, land lease communities continued to enjoy rent control under the Rental Fairness and Affordability Act, going back to 1993 when that was suspended by a cabinet decision.

Minister, why have you not made the legislative change requested by at least Halifax Regional Municipality - I believe it’s been made more broadly - to enable inclusive zoning?

CHUCK PORTER: I believe we have that request maybe from them - yeah, we have. I would say that we’re looking at all things at this point. I wouldn’t say that we’ve ruled that out totally. There’s a number of things that we are looking at. We haven’t made the legislative change yet. We’ll continue to work with the HRM and all of our municipal partners, quite frankly, to see what the details of that might look like.

We are aware of it. Again, I’m not saying that it’s not something that would be beneficial, but we are working on that.

LISA ROBERTS: Given your stated preference for sustainable, mixed income models, inclusive zoning is a very widely-used tool to accomplish just that - also without public ownership of the units, which is another thing. It seems like it’s a tool that very much fits with what you express support for. I would urge you to consider it with some urgency given the kind of urgency that my constituents are experiencing.

CHUCK PORTER: Thank you very much. I appreciate your comments and your input, of course, on that. Again, I’ll just reiterate that it is something that we’re looking at. We’ll see where it takes us in the near future. Thank you.

LISA ROBERTS: Many Nova Scotians are experiencing unsustainable housing burdens. Forty-three per cent of renter households - that’s of 52,500 households - pay more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, with 19 per cent or 23,600 households paying more than 50 per cent of their income on rent and utilities. Housing experts consider more than 30 per cent to be unsustainable.

I think it’s important to underscore the fact that while all of these people experience an unsustainable housing burden, not all of them are low income. In fact, I hear regularly from people who consider themselves middle income, but year after year of rent hikes are pushing them sort of into the brink of real financial distress.

Is your department doing anything today to help people who are not considered low income, but who have an unsustainable housing burden?

CHUCK PORTER: A couple of things. One, the program that I talked about a few minutes ago where there’s up to $50,000 a door, part of that is sort of a mixed income/mixed level. It’s not all one income level or not when it comes to the threshold. That’s one of the investments, one way we’re doing it. There are others. Again, I have talked quite a bit about working with others who are creating housing. I think we have to look at all of those options.

The other part that I had also mentioned minutes ago was our data collection that we’re doing - the assessment that we’re doing here - that should be ready around June, I’m told. That should give us a solid breakdown of what those numbers are, I hope. You’ve quoted some numbers there. We’re looking and reassessing all of that, in fact, to see how accurate they are. They may be 100 per cent accurate, they may be worse than what you’ve just read, or they may be better. Again, I’m looking at Nova Scotia’s numbers specifically, so that we can create and invest appropriately in an effort to help those who need some assistance. We’ll have more on that when the data comes in.

We also have to look at programs - you made a point about the income threshold, people that you might not consider low income or don’t meet the low income threshold level who are still struggling along. I don’t disagree with that. I think there are lots of people out there who work everyday who are trying to make a living and trying to pay the bills. It’s the future of those folks that I think about down the road - how long can you sustain that, obviously?

Those are all top of mind for us. There’s no question. Part of what we do in housing is to do the best we can to put a supply forward and we’ll continue to do that. I’m looking forward to the assessment being complete as well, to see what our local numbers that we’re finding from our own assessments are that we’re getting done.

LISA ROBERTS: Sorry, just to clarify: CMHC just recently published some numbers, and you’re saying that the department is going to do its own assessment. Is it because it doesn’t trust the CMHC numbers, or because it doesn’t reach enough census tracks? Can you share a bit more detail?

CHUCK PORTER: Yes, CMHC does provide those numbers. It’s a pretty broad number. I looked at that and asked, how refined is this? We’re looking to make sure that we refine it more than what that number is, to detail it out to see if that number is accurate: is it close, how many households, where did they get their statistics from?

Anybody can fire a number out. I want to know what Nova Scotia’s number is. I want to know because we’re investing millions and millions and millions of dollars - $400 million to be exact, plus, plus, plus - over the next decade in housing to create options that people need. I want to know what our numbers are. I want to know what we’re dealing with in places like the HRM and rural Nova Scotia. We would argue they’re different.

The HRM is our biggest centre in the province. The numbers are probably higher here than they are because more people live here. I want to know if that’s correct. We talked about buildings not being located in places where we want them to be. We need to make sure that when we’re investing, we’re not just talking to an investor saying, oh I think we can just put one over here. Well, no, look we’ve got data that says this is an important piece.

That data will be used to help guide us along; I think it is very important. I don’t see anything wrong, quite frankly, with having good data when we’re talking about investing hundreds of millions of dollars in this province, both within the not-for-profits and co-ops and whatever kind of housing deals we’re going into. I think it’s vital that we do that.

LISA ROBERTS: I certainly agree that good data is important. I would also suggest, though, that there’s a lot of data available, including data on the affordable housing stock that we have lost in the last five years.

For example, I attended the housing and homelessness summit which is organized by United Way each Fall. They had a quiz that people participated in on their phones to see if you could guess the right number. One of the questions was how many rooming houses have we lost in Halifax in the last - I’m not sure if it was five years or if it was 10 years? We have lost more than 100 rooming houses, so deeply affordable units.

Certainly from speaking with housing support workers who have been working for four or five years in Halifax, they could tell you today about buildings of deeply affordable rentals that are no longer deeply affordable. Those are the properties in Fairview and in North Dartmouth that are resulting in flurries of phone calls.

I suggested, even, there be quite a lot of data available in the Department of Community Services who are seeing influxes of clients from some of those previously deeply affordable buildings. Now they’re coming to their caseworkers to find emergency housing, some of which ends up being in hotels. Then, of course, there’s the data that’s available from the analysis of David Wachsmuth, who has looked at what’s actually available online in terms of short-term rental listings.

I noticed that just today there’s tweets coming out of Charlottetown because there was a big meeting in Charlottetown last night where, again, they’re mining that data and determining that there’s upwards of 200 full-time housing units that have left the market in Charlottetown same as here; we’re 700 and some.

I guess I say that because part of the reason that we’re actually losing housing units right now is because of various regulatory choices that have been made, including the regulatory choice to not restrict commercial short-term rentals. The regulatory choice to not restrict rent control which makes it very attractive to take a building and put on some paint and not do $50,000 a door, or even close to that in terms of investment, but basically turn the entire building into a property that is kind of targeting young professionals with a new coat of paint and a renovated entry way or something.

There is a lot of data available and some of that data is actually being driven by the choices that we’re making and not making as the provincial government, and also by what we’re enabling municipal governments to do.

As I’ve spoken about in the House a number of times, the low vacancy rate is leading to rent evictions where landlords are renovating units and increasing rent by hundreds of dollars, pushing out tenants who can’t afford that kind of increase to their monthly bills. In some cases, this is happening to entire buildings at a time. Is your department doing anything to prevent tenants from rent evictions?

CHUCK PORTER: I appreciate your comments. The housing market, as you’ve described - I just want to go back a little bit on the data stuff. The data’s extremely important. All of those pieces that you talked about, I’m sure, as well.

Rooming houses certainly are important, and secondary suites. Those are things that are very much on what we’ll call our short-term to-do list. Housing is very much a long-term list, as well. This is a long game by way of investments of buildings. You can’t build a building overnight, as an example.

You talk about $50,000 a door - that’s up to $50,000. If I could get a whole bunch for $10,000, I’d be pretty happy. I could create a whole lot more. Am I interested in those conversations? I most absolutely surely am. All very worthy of - if that option comes along, no question. We’d be happy to have that conversation. I want that to go as far as we can make it go to create more housing options for us.

[3:15 p.m.]

On the renoviction stuff you spoke of, under the Residential Tenancies Act - and this isn’t mine, but I think I’ve got this - they have to give notice, obviously. It’s my understanding there was one last week that came up and was talked about on the Dartmouth side that had not, to my knowledge, given that notice of residential tenancies. They do have to give that. That does give folks some notice.

Is that the greatest answer? No, because we need to continue to work with them. Our support workers and all of our partners that we have, we work with them in an effort to place them. Again, we know that there are challenges. I don’t know how many are in said buildings, but we’ve seen some where there are multiple people in these places that do need to be placed. I guess the good part, depending on the building, is the building’s getting fixed up - much needed repairs that it should have.

You’ve mentioned a couple of key things. Are the same people given the options to come back? What is the rent when they come back? We understand all those challenges exist. We do have a team on the ground that is working there, our folks from the department. We’ll continue to work with all of our partners to help place these folks when they do become displaced if they can’t find housing when renovictions do happen.

LISA ROBERTS: Does the minister recognize that in such a scenario, and this scenario has played out - say a building needs a certain amount of renovation and applies to RRAP, for example, to fund some of that renovation. It’s actually not a net increase in units. You’re going from maybe deeply affordable, more run-down units to less affordable units - maybe still below market, but the net units is the same number and the rent is more expensive.

How is the department going to get to the scale of additional units of affordable housing when there are so many pressures actually removing units from the market - be it short-term rentals, and increased demand of course which we’re also living with.

CHUCK PORTER: I would say yes, absolutely, this minister is very aware of that math. He’s pretty good in math.

What I would tell you is that I’ve spoken different times today about partners who we are currently working with - and some things that we’ll be talking more about in the coming days and weeks - that will have an increase in our housing stock. That is what we have been working towards.

We know that there are issues and have been issues - these aren’t new. Obviously your vacancy rates may vary a bit depending on where you’re at. In the HRM, it’s one per cent or more. It may be different in Yarmouth, as an example. I don’t know right off the top of my head.

What we do know, though - I think across Nova Scotia regardless of where you go - is that there’s probably somebody looking for a place to live, to rent, or what have you. There’s a variety of options to rent, believe me. We all have a whole variety of options to rent. Some of them may not be the best. Some of them may need to be renovated. If there are landlords out there who are encouraged by an opportunity to rent them, so they should because some of them need to be renovated. Believe me. I know some of these places. We all do. They need renovations.

They need to be renovated. There’s no question about that. Do they create more units? No, they’d be lucky if in the reno they created one more - well, depending on what they’re doing. We’re looking at options that are going to provide more, because we know that doesn’t give us any more numbers. We’re looking at those partnerships with the organizations, the individuals, the not-for-profits, et cetera, that we are currently talking to, in an effort to increase those numbers. It’s not 39, it’s not 29, it’s not 59 - it’s as many as I can get. As I’ve said, we want to create lots because we know we have lots that are needed.

You’ve mentioned a couple of organizations that you’re aware of. The Housing Trust of Nova Scotia was one that you raised. Although I can’t speak to it specifically, that’s something that’s been going on 10 years. Why? That would be my bigger question. Are we working to try to improve that? Most absolutely we are. We understand that. We know that that need is there, and we’ll continue, as I said, to work with our partners out there. We’re having lots of conversations and people are contacting us regularly about this opportunity to create more housing. That’s a good thing.

These programs have sparked an interest in developers and not-for-profits and co-ops, et cetera. That’s a good thing in our opinion. Is it going to be done overnight? Absolutely not. We appreciate that and we know that, but we’re working every day on the ground trying to get people housed the best we can.

THE CHAIR: To the honourable member for Halifax Needham, you probably have another 10 minutes because the minister would need a few minutes to do his final remarks. Right now, we have 13 minutes left, so another 10 or 11 minutes.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you. I’m going to switch tack for a moment because I want to be sure to get this question in related to the Disaster Financial Assistance Program after Hurricane Dorian.

My caucus mates have raised in the house the small businesses that were impacted by the collapsed crane on South Park Street during the hurricane. They were cautiously optimistic at the announcement of federal disaster relief funding last year. However the fund is described as only covering damage to property which, in many cases, is already covered by insurance. It’s not the true loss suffered by them. They made it very clear when they met with the Minister of Business last year that lost revenues were their main concern.

One of the businesses posted over $100,000 in lost revenues. Yet, they have been urged to apply through this program. Can you confirm that these businesses should expect that their lost revenues will be considered for coverage under the program?

CHUCK PORTER: I am aware of the business piece, and the program and how it works. Obviously, we’ve put a lot of assessment into that. It took a couple of months or so post Hurricane Dorian to put that all together to figure out what the number was to begin the disaster relief program with the federal government.

I spoke with one of your colleagues the other day. We had a conversation about something similar around this - probably the same area of business. There were examples and I think it’s been very clear that this is about uninsured losses. What I had said to her, quite frankly, was that if a business had a loss and it was insurable, or not - obviously if it’s not, why wouldn’t you file. If it is insurable up to a point and then the balance of it is not insurable - if I were the business owner, I would look at that as an uninsurable loss and I would file the claim. It can go to wherever it needs to go and be assessed.

Why wouldn’t you file that? I don’t want to misrepresent anything or leave anybody to believe that that’s going to be accepted. If I were that business person, I think that I would be filing the documentation. I’d say, look I appreciate the rules. The DFA says this. It’s about uninsured losses - uninsurable losses, let me clear on the language. Not uninsured, but uninsurable losses.

I might make the argument that the insurance company pays up to a certain percentage. If they don’t pay the balance of it, or all of it, would you not consider that an uninsurable loss? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not an accountant. I would think that, from a business perspective, I might look at claiming that and the DFA program can rule accordingly. They have criteria and would do so, as far as I’m concerned.

THE CHAIR: Excuse me. Ms. Roberts, I think there is a calculation of seven minutes that’s wrong. I have given the PC Party 44 plus nine, which is 53. It’s just the calculation. You’re done your time that you were supposed to have. I apologize for that.

It’s up to you. Would you like that seven minutes or do you want to continue and you listen? Whichever you prefer. (Interruption) There was a miscalculation because we took a seven minute break and it messed up the calculation.

STEVE CRAIG: I do have many questions that I’ll ask later. My colleague is on a roll, let her go.

THE CHAIR: Wonderful, thank you again. I apologize for that.

The honourable member for Halifax Needham.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you. I’m sorry, when you’re referring to the DFA, can you just break out the acronym that you were just referring to in terms of the crane.

CHUCK PORTER: My apologies. One of the things in government, and certainly in the department I currently am in, these acronyms are just everywhere. The Disaster Financial Assistance Program is the DFA I was referring to. That’s the program that we file under with the federal government.

There was about $11 million or a little over $11 million in total damage that was compiled; $3 million or so of that was within provincial departments, so that’s eaten up by that. I think $8.4 million was what we calculated to be sent onto the feds for assessment to be provided. We would get a percentage of that back, which is what the Disaster Financial Assistance program is.

I’ve really done a job because of the time constraints. I could’ve detailed a lot more of that. We can probably have staff do more for you on that if you like. That’s really - I don’t want to use the word that I was thinking - but anyway. I have shortened it up, or summarized it. How’s that?

LISA ROBERTS: My interest is housing. I’m sorry, I’m going to return to it in the time I have. I appreciate that the minister is open to conversations. At the same time I occasionally have the opportunity to have conversations myself with people who have been in conversations for many years at various tables, including the one that’s convened by the United Way. There are so many tables of people having conversations that, frankly, I have a hard time keeping them all straight. One person said, we’ve been talking for four years and we haven’t moved a peanut. That was the quote that stuck in my head.

Given that, I know that there have also been conversations happening with the Municipality of the County of Inverness around creating some sort of municipal-led initiative on housing. I’m wondering if the minister would share, hopefully, news of a productive conversation.

CHUCK PORTER: I was just trying to get out of my head the comment you just made: Four years and moved a peanut. Is that what you said? I want to assure you that Housing has been with the Department of Municipal Affairs since last June. We’ve been talking plenty and we’ve moved much more than a peanut. I think that that is a good thing.

We’re moving in the right direction. We have a lot of road to travel and we’re on it and we’re travelling it. Patience and time and talking - ask any of my staff as I said earlier today, and they will tell you that sometimes I’d like things done yesterday. It’s because of those exact examples that you gave that we’ve talked and talked and talked. It’s time to keep moving. I believe we are moving in the right direction.

As far as Inverness, my understanding is they’re looking to create some sort of housing organization, but I haven’t personally had any conversation around that with them. I’m not exactly sure what they are trying to create - if it’s a foundation or if it’s a corporation or a municipal corporation within housing or housing within a municipal corporation, maybe. I’m not 100 per cent sure on that, so I can’t really offer you much more than that on it.

LISA ROBERTS: I am going to cede my time for maybe one more question to one of my colleagues in the PC caucus.

THE CHAIR: Okay. We move back to the PC. We have exactly four minutes that will give the minister two minutes at the end.

The member for Sackville-Cobequid.

STEVE CRAIG: Madam Chair, I yield to my colleague to my right.

THE CHAIR: Oh, I’m so sorry. Okay.

The honourable member for Cumberland North.

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Just listening to my colleagues ask questions around housing, I wanted to ask a question related to that. I also feel compelled to make some concerns known to me that are being brought to me by the private sector by private landlords. It’s been ongoing over the last year. My concern is that the Province is relying on the private sector for providing affordable housing now. My concern also is that that may increase in the future.

Certainly, the concerns that are being brought to me by private landlords around the fact that with the Residential Tenancy Act, it’s very difficult for them when they’re dealing with people that can’t afford their rent and that are defaulting on payment. It’s becoming an unsustainable business model for a lot of private landlords. My concern is that the Province is unfairly relying on the private sector for providing the needed affordable housing.

[3:30 p.m.]

CHUCK PORTER: I would say we’re not depending on any one entity. The private sector has been in business for years and has a role to play. We’re happy they’re there. If the private sector wants to stay in that role, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. They need to determine what’s sustainable for them. That’s extremely important to your point - they have to be sustainable.

I’ve talked a great deal about development opportunities and agreements and mixed income, mixed markets, et cetera - all of that has been about sustainability. Whether you’re talking about the private sector, not-for-profit, et cetera, it doesn’t matter who you go into partnership with - they have to be sustainable. We’re not looking to download, for lack of a better term to your point, anything on any one entity especially the private sector.

Some of these folks have been in business for many years. Some of them are just getting into it for whatever reason - investment opportunities, properties. All of them are assets, as far as we’re concerned. It’s great if they’re meeting and helping us meet the need of those in need of affordable housing. That’s a wonderful thing, but we’re not counting on or putting any pressure on any one sector. If they want to be involved, we’re happy to have a conversation with them. If they’re not, that’s okay, too.

We are getting lots and lots and lots of interest from the private sector, from not-for-profits, and others that are quite interested in these opportunities. We’re in discussions already that we will show, very soon, that we’re not talking that way at all.

THE CHAIR: Thank you, minister. I think that’s perfect time We have a minute and a half for the minister to give his final remarks.

CHUCK PORTER: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I won’t take a lot of time to do final remarks.

I want to thank staff that are here with us today who put a great deal of time, effort, and work into what we do everyday on behalf of Nova Scotians with regards to municipal affairs, housing, EMO - which you’ve heard some about today - certainly the Office of the Fire Marshal. We’re a busy little spot over there in the Maritime Centre. There’s lots going on in and around the province. We have a great deal of people that work everyday, both within departments and on the street, doing a variety of different roles each of which is extremely important. I want to thank all of them.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear today. I didn’t think I was going to have the opportunity to get up for Estimates, but I’m glad I did. Certainly, given we didn’t many questions in Question Period. I would have thought we’d have a few more, but I think they look at me like I’m the only asking for any questions. However, I want to thank you all very much. I appreciated the opportunity to back and forth in a bit of a casual environment like this. It’s much more interesting.

THE CHAIR: Shall Resolution E16 stand?

Resolution E16 stands.

Thank you everyone. Thank you.

[The subcommittee adjourned at 3:33 p.m.]