HALIFAX, MONDAY, APRIL 19, 2021

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

11:35 A.M.

CHAIR

Keith Bain

THE CHAIR: The Subcommittee on Supply is called to order. We’re meeting today to consider the Estimates for the Department of Municipal Affairs.

E17 - Resolved that a sum not exceeding $213,184,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Municipal Affairs, pursuant to the Estimate.

THE CHAIR: Minister of Municipal Affairs, you have one hour for your opening remarks.

HON. BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome, everyone. I hope you had a good weekend. Joining me here today is Deputy Minister Justin Huston, and Darlene O’Neill, Executive Director of Finance for the department. I am pleased to introduce the Estimates for the Department of Municipal Affairs for 2021-22.

As you are aware, the Housing section of this department moved from Municipal Affairs to the new Department of Infrastructure and Housing and the Department of Community Services in February. Additionally, responsibility for the Regional Enterprise Networks (RENs) is now with the Department of Inclusive Economic Growth.

This is a great fit for the RENs, as the department supports efforts that encourage entrepreneurship, help attract venture capital investment and grow sectors of the economy. We know municipal governments play an important role in working with the RENs, and we will continue to work with them to create a shared strategy for business growth.

The Department of Municipal Affairs promotes responsible local government and supports safe and secure communities through the Emergency Management Office and the Office of the Fire Marshal. This is achieved through partnership with local governments and communities across Nova Scotia to build strong, sustainable, and safe communities with diverse economies and high quality of life.

Municipalities are governed by the Municipal Government Act, or the MGA, and the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter. This legislative framework provides structure for municipal government in Nova Scotia. This legislation gives municipalities authority to raise revenue; manage planning and development; and deliver services such as water, waste water, solid waste management, police, fire, and emergency services, and public transit. It gives them these powers, and as such, each locally elected government is accountable to their citizens.

I look forward to working in a constructive and collaborative manner with all municipalities across the province. The department will work with our local governments to increase our resilience to climate change and find solutions that reduce our environmental footprint and carbon emissions. These include initiatives such as the extended producer responsibility (EPR), infrastructure investments that leave a smaller environmental footprint, electrification of public transit, and supporting municipalities as they invest in energy retrofits of their buildings.

I look forward to discussions with my colleagues at the Department of Environment and Climate Change on the municipal proposal for EPR for printed paper and packaging. Work is under way with municipalities to develop proposals for electrification projects under the transit stream of the federal Investment in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP). The province is working with HRM and CBRM on project proposals for consideration by Infrastructure Canada.

The ability to successfully deliver on the department’s mandate hinges on building and maintaining strong partnerships with the 49 municipalities and 21 villages across the province. Open communication is important to me, and one of my first priorities as minister has been to reach out to municipalities. I have spoken, written, and virtually connected with municipalities over the past several weeks, and will continue to reach out in the coming days and weeks.

We know these are difficult and challenging times for municipal governments. That’s why we have been working closely with local leaders to understand the impact of COVID‑19. We have worked closely with the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities and the Association of Municipal Administrators to identify the challenges that municipalities have been facing.

Municipalities told us what support they need. A safe restart agreement with the federal government helps address some of those needs; 67.5 million in federal funding has been provided to help municipalities address lower revenue from transit, taxes, and other areas, as well as increased costs associated with COVID‑19 infection prevention measures. This funding gives local governments the resources they need to continue to deliver essential programs and services for their residents. To leverage this support, the province contributed more than $100 million in operational funding to municipalities over the last year.

We also announced a $380 million loan program to help municipalities with operating expenses so they can continue to deliver programs and services. This was a direct request of the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities and the Association of Municipal Administrators and allows municipalities to request this funding through the Municipal Finance Corporation.

During the municipal elections last Fall, municipalities would have received personal protective equipment supplies from the provincial stockpile to support safe elections. EMO staff also worked closely with municipal emergency officials to identify PPE needs.

[11:45 a.m.]

At Municipal Affairs, we continue to strengthen the relationships we have with local government, 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 directly affect the day-to-day lives of Nova Scotians. The quality of our water and roads and our public safety depends on them. As a department, we work closely with municipalities to ensure good governance, accountability, effective planning, and, most importantly, help build healthy, vibrant and safe communities. Having a strong relationship with municipalities matters.

Through the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities, we have established a commitment to work together. In its fifth year, the municipal partnership framework drives our work on joint priorities. Together, we collaborate on programs, policies, legislation, and initiatives that directly benefit the Nova Scotians we collectively serve. My ministerial colleagues and I also meet regularly with representatives of the NSFM to ensure we remain focused on the right items. We’re working collectively with the NSFM on a new partnership to continue work on our collective agreement. Key to this work is modernizing our legislation to make it easier for municipalities to work on behalf of their citizens.

During this legislative session, we introduced several bills. These include amendments to the Municipal Government Act and the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter to put in place the framework agreement for a code of conduct. This provides more transparency for Nova Scotians and increased accountability by their local government.

We also introduced legislation changes that provide municipalities with greater authority to make decisions in the best interest of their communities when it comes to accessibility. The amendment allows municipalities to support accessibility initiatives by businesses.

We also brought forward an amendment that will allow municipalities and village commissions to hold virtual council meetings. The pandemic has highlighted the need to modernize the operations of government, and this change provides municipalities with options. The amendment also increases accessibility for citizens to publicly participate and view council meetings.

Finally, we introduced amendments to the Halifax Regional Municipal Charter that will allow the municipality to construct a permanent building and associated fencing in the aquatics area on the Central Common. This work will improve accessibility of the aquatics facility and meet public demand. We will continue to modernize and update our legislation to better meet the needs of municipal partners, communities, and Nova Scotians.

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 the 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, support a low-carbon green economy, and $828 million over the 10 years.

On behalf of the province, Municipal Affairs currently administers 38 projects under ICIP, totalling $251 million to 25 municipalities and five non-profits and universities.

Municipalities also benefit from other programs that leverage federal dollars. The 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 also can be invested in local infrastructure programs. In the new fiscal year, Nova Scotia is scheduled to receive $58 million from the gas tax programs for these purposes. We have been informed by our federal colleagues that an additional one-time payment of $55 million will be made available to Nova Scotia municipalities under this fund, subject to approval of federal enabling legislation. Combined, these allocations will total over $112 million in available funding in the coming fiscal year.

Projects funded under the New Building Canada Fund continue as that program winds down. These infrastructure programs have helped 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. Last year, 10 programs received funding through this program, such as backup power generators for waste water treatment facilities, water line replacements, and conditions assessment of a pump station. This year’s program includes $690,000 to continue this vital work. We expect to open the program with a call for applications this Spring.

The Flood Risk Infrastructure Investment Program allows us to make investments that help reduce flood risk and community vulnerability. Through the program last year, five projects received funding. The Municipality of the District of Lunenburg received funding for the Petite Rivière watershed mitigation system. In addition, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality received funding for the Prime Brook floodplain project. A call for applications for this program will also take place this Spring.

Mr. Chair, as you know, infrastructure doesn’t last forever, and aging infrastructure can result in increased maintenance and operating costs for municipalities and eventually the cost to replace it. This means informed and timely decisions help municipalities optimize investments, save money, and better manage risks. Improved municipal assessment management also helps to ensure that provincial resources are directed to where they are needed most. Infrastructure planning is a key responsibility of municipal governments.

Our asset management program helps municipalities manage their infrastructure assets. This work involves developing a standard means for collecting data, assessing the condition of assets, incorporating lessons learned and identifying the best industry practices. To date, the department has piloted and made available data collection and resources to all Nova Scotia municipalities. We are 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.

Our government also provides annual grant programs to municipalities to support the delivery of their services to their residents. The Municipal Financial Capacity Grant is separate and distinct from the federal equalization funds that flow to Nova Scotia. This is the main operating grant we provide to municipalities. It is set in legislation in the Municipal Grants Act. The amount of funding for municipalities in this year’s program is approximately $32 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 Taxes Program, where the Province pays municipalities grants instead of property taxes for provincially owned properties, is also delivered by Municipal Affairs. This year, approximately $21.2 million will be provided to municipalities.

The municipal farm grant compensates municipalities for lost tax income or taxes from active farmland owners. Working or active farmland is assessed as exempt property by the Property Valuation Services Corporation. During this fiscal year, municipalities will receive about $1.9 million.

As well, a fire protection grant is paid to municipalities for property such as public hospitals, schools, and museums that are not eligible for the Grants in Lieu of Property Taxes payments. It is estimated to be about $1.3 million annually.

To compensate municipalities for property taxes on NSBI-owned properties, approximately $16.5 million will be provided to municipalities this year. As well, in recognition of the increase in HST cost, $6 million will be provided to municipalities as an HST-offset grant. These grants and others are legislated under the Municipal Grants Act. We expect to provide in total close to $79 million to our local governments in the coming fiscal year.

At Municipal Affairs, we also operate programs that municipalities can apply to for 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 New Minas Beautification Project received funding to help the installation of benches, planters, and waste receptacles along Commercial Street and adding landscape to the roundabout at Commercial Street and Granite Drive. Another project that received funding was support for the installation of updated signs, picnic tables, planter boxes, mural paintings, and a new entrance sign to downtown Windsor.

In total, 50 projects received support through the program last year. These projects range from landscaping to interpretive signs, lighting for public spaces, and the creation and installation of an accessible outdoor art gallery. A total of $500,000 has been allocated to the program for the coming year. A call for applications is expected to go out soon, once the budget is approved.

We are working to help municipalities support youth who want to stay in their areas. The Community Works Program helps municipalities create more job opportunities for youth and unemployed and other interested individuals. There is $500,000 allocated to the program this year. Communities can receive 50 per cent of the employment cost up to a maximum of $25,000.

[12:00 noon]

Municipalities across Nova Scotia are exploring innovative ways to work together to better leverage opportunities and build stronger communities. The Municipal Innovation Program will assist municipalities looking to work collectively with their neighbours in the areas of economic development, regional infrastructure, and regional planning. Criteria for the program will be shared with municipalities in the Spring as part of our consultation and work with them.

The mandate of the Emergency Management Office is to enhance the safety and well-being of Nova Scotians, their property, and the environment through innovative, collaborative, and integrated emergency planning and response. In times of emergencies, municipalities lead the response. The Emergency Management Act requires every municipality in our province to have an emergency management coordinator and to have an emergency plan. EMO supports municipalities in developing and reviewing that plan, carrying out exercises to test the plan, and training key staff in emergency responses.

As I stated earlier, COVID‑19 has had a significant impact on all our lives over the past year. EMO has been actively involved in the COVID‑19 response for Nova Scotia, supporting Public Health. EMO staff continue to work closely with municipal Emergency Management officials throughout the pandemic to support the response efforts.

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 the response and recover. The Provincial Coordination Centre has been activated since the beginning of the pandemic in Nova Scotia. Their role has been to coordinate and share information with our many partners: municipalities, federal agencies, and critical infrastructure organizations.

We also put in place a state of emergency to support the Public Health response to COVID‑19. We continue to renew it as it is part of our overall response. It allows us to put in place the 14-day restriction and provides enforcement options.

This past year, training sessions and exercise activities were limited due to Public Health restrictions. We have started to resume these activities and develop a plan to move forward with regular training with municipalities and other partners across the province, incorporating virtual options. EMO coordinates and identifies the needs and risks associated with an emergency, finds and uses the necessary resources to resolve issues, and helps Nova Scotians stay safe. Disaster can strike any time, and that’s why EMO will continue to focus on helping Nova Scotians prepare for emergencies.

Climate change is leading to more frequent and severe events, like Hurricane Dorian, in 2019; Teddy, in 2020; and ongoing weather events like the freezing rain event a few weeks ago in Cape Breton. 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. It is more important than ever to engage in emergency management planning. EMO is finalizing a new strategic emergency management plan for the province. This plan is the 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 details how EMO will work with provincial governments, municipalities, the federal government, private critical infrastructure owners and operators, and non-profit organizations to prevent emergencies and to minimize risk, and 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 specific threats to the safety and well-being of Nova Scotians. The plan is in the final stages of review, and EMO expects to release it this Spring.

EMO also administers the provincial 911 system. We are participating in the development of the next-generation 911 system, which will provide Nova Scotians with access to new and innovative emergency services and capabilities and improve public safety. This work will continue in the coming fiscal year, with the goal to implement it fully by 2023. The next generation of 911 will increase the quality and variety of data availability to first responders when responding to emergencies and 911 call-takers will receive the caller’s location information automatically. The NG911 system will allow for text, photos, and videos to be sent to support responses to emergency situations.

I will now take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank our municipal emergency coordinators; our provincial and federal partners; our non-governmental organizations, such as the Canadian Red Cross; and the private sector for their efforts around emergency planning. COVID‑19 has certainly tested all of our planning and skills in responding to the pandemic.

I also want to mention the very important role of the 911 call-takers as they ensure emergency calls are directed to the appropriate first responder agencies.

I wish to speak to the work of the Office of the Fire Marshal. Early in the session, I recognized the office for celebrating their 100^th anniversary. The Office of the Fire Marshal oversees building and fire safety for the Province and advises various levels of government on fire-related matters. The office also oversees building safety, ensuring that the Nova Scotia Building Code Act and regulations reflect the latest national standards. If you ever want a good long read, Mr. Chair, take a gander at the Nova Scotia Building Code Act. It would take you a couple of months to get through. The Office of the Fire Marshal takes its governance and accountability role seriously.

The Nova Scotia Fire Safety Act provides the office the power to enforce the fire code, conduct inspections and investigations, and provides authority to the municipal fire inspectors and chief. We recognize the critical role the office has in public safety and know that Nova Scotians count on it in this regard. You can be assured that we understand the gravity of this role, and we are fully committed to their safety.

We continue to work with municipalities that have the responsibility to provide fire services in their area. The Province supports fire services through the Emergency Services Provider Fund, also known as the ESPF. The fund provides money to hazardous material 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 our emergencies. Indeed, they put themselves in harm’s way to protect us. This funding helps to ensure they have the tools and equipment needed to stay safe.

Organizations can apply for grants of up to $20,000 for a variety of firefighting, ice rescue, and personal protective gear, and communications equipment. A new category was added to the program last year for emergency power for buildings. Applicants can choose standby generators, including electrical and wiring, fixed fuel supply tanks, and posts to protect generators. I am pleased to say that 74 organizations and communities across this beautiful province received ESPF funding in this fiscal year. This coming year, the budget for the fund continues to be $1 million, reflecting what we have been investing on average as a result of requests received 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 recommendations on many aspects of building and fire safety as well as fire service delivery. This work includes support for municipal buildings and fire inspectors, architects and engineers, other consultants, and private citizens. The office 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 origins of fires. Deputy fire marshals are available to respond across the province and around the clock when asked to conduct fire investigations. During the investigation process, the Office of the Fire Marshal works closely with fire services, provincial police services, the Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service, and the insurance industry.

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

As part of my mandate, I will continue working with my colleagues at the Department of Environment and Climate Change and the Department of Energy and Mines to look at launching a review of service exchange agreements across municipal government to access taxes levied; partnering with the Department of Energy and Mines and all municipalities on clean and climate-resilient infrastructure investments; working with the municipalities and Energy and Mines to explore new revenue streams as the Province doubles its renewable energy target to 80 per cent by 2030; working with the Department of Environment and Climate Change to adhere to update national building codes to incorporate principles that encourage builders to offset emissions and use sustainable low-carbon material; working with the Minister of Energy and Mines to invest in electric vehicle charging infrastructure on municipal government buildings, and work toward electrical vehicle fast chargers in all new commercial developments; participate in work on electrification of our public transit systems, and to review how municipalities borrow money for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects to find ways for them to invest in deep energy retrofits for their buildings which will work toward energy targets and provide energy savings.

[12:15 p.m.]

As I said at the start of my remarks, building and maintaining partnerships are the foundation upon which we deliver on our mandate, partnerships with municipalities, the federal government, and our other critical infrastructure partners. It’s these partnerships that together will 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 will be pleased to answer questions.

THE CHAIR: We’ll now recognize the Progressive Conservative caucus.

The honourable member for Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River, you have one hour, but it will be broken up by COVID‑19 breaks.

DAVE RITCEY: Thank you, minister and to your department, for all your hard work on budget and mandate preparation. There’s a lot there.

I’m going to start out and go through the mandate. I heard that collaboration, communication, consultation, and partnerships are going to be valued. I think it is important as we move forward with municipalities, the towns, and the villages. We can’t forget about the villages either.

You work with your colleagues at Environment and Climate Change on extended producer responsibility, EPR. Does the government have a position on EPR, and what would EPR look like?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I want to recognize this is actually my first question as Minister of Municipal Affairs. I know it’s the member opposite’s first session, so congratulations. I don’t think I got to say that to you. You’re doing an outstanding job.

EPR is seen as an important tool, but my job as Minister of Municipal Affairs is to listen, consult, and work with our partners, which include municipalities and businesses, business associations. Right now, as you have seen throughout this session, this is the legislation that we have. It has come forward from municipalities. It has come forward from our NSFM partners. We’re always there to talk, to see what’s needed. We realize that it is an important piece.

Again, this isn’t about downloading or forcing legislation on our municipalities. It’s about continuing to work with them. I have had the privilege as minister to sit - virtually and in person - several times with the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities to listen to what they feel they need to have to be sustainable and to move forward because we know the world is different now. The asks from municipalities and our villages and our partners right across Nova Scotia have changed to a degree because of COVID‑19.

We need to make sure that whatever decisions we’re making on our end are in lockstep with them. We have seen that throughout this session. When legislation has come forward at the Law Amendments Committee, we have seen the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities supporting our legislation. We have seen members of CBRM and HRM supporting our legislation.

I have had the ability already to speak to all our mayors. I wish I had the time to speak to every single councillor, but as the MLA of a busy area, a minister, and a father of three children, I don’t think I could ever get home if I had to talk to every councillor, but I’m trying to. Like I said, I have attended the virtual meetings. Just recently, I, the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, and others sat down with CBRM Mayor and staff - along with the Premier, he was there also - just to hear from them, hear what they need and what they feel will help move them forward.

EPR is definitely something that is being discussed. It’s in my mandate letter, obviously and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change’s mandate letter, but it has to be done responsibly. You have to realize that we don’t want to put any undue pressure on our businesses, on our residents, and on our municipalities. There’s ongoing conversation.

It’s a great question, but again, I feel my job as Minister of Municipal Affairs is to listen more than talk, and that says something because I like to speak.

DAVE RITCEY: I would like to ask a couple of questions around EPR. One of them is: Through your consultation with the NSFM, has EPR been a mandate of NSFM and its members moving forward? A couple of questions to add to that: How much money are we talking about if we do implement any kind of strategy around EPR and moving forward with the municipalities?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: It certainly is in the interest of our NSFM members. That, along with other things, comes up in our conversations. There’s a whole list of priorities depending on which member of the NSFM you’re talking to. Infrastructure is something that comes up a lot with us. Again, part of what I’m here to do is to listen to them.

When it comes to a dollar value, that’s kind of a tricky question. We don’t have an exact dollar amount. Those are things that we will work through. If those are things that NSFM wants, this is something we’ll work through with them. We’ll ensure that there are no surprises, obviously, and that there’s a clear vision - if this is something that they want, there is a clear vision.

Again, for myself and for this government, this is less about dictating or downloading. We don’t want to get into what we can make you do. What I feel and what we feel is that this is about what we can do to ensure that you’re sustainable, to ensure that you’re in this and that you have what you need because the truth is yes, we’re all Nova Scotians, but in order for Nova Scotians to come out of this pandemic, in order for Nova Scotians to continue to move forward positively, as we have seen over the last eight years, we need our municipalities to be the driving forces. We need to make sure that our municipalities and towns are the driving forces, that they’re successful, that they are listened to, that they are heard.

Again, with EPR, we have had these discussions for sure. We’ll continue to have these discussions. It’s going to be about more wholesome conversation. I say that knowing that we have had a lot - in my short time here as Minister of Municipal Affairs, I have had a lot of conversations with the members. I have had a lot of conversations with individual mayors and wardens and councillors. They have had concerns about the restart program infrastructure. What we’re here to do - we have a whole host of fantastic, smart and creative individuals at work in this department.

To be honest with you, I can say that they work directly with municipalities. They’re having those conversations with the mayors, the wardens, the councillors, and all NSFM members to walk them through, to advise them, and to listen. We have a very, very capable staff here, and they have their ear to the ground.

I can tell you that when I first had the privilege to be named Minister of Municipal Affairs, the first thing I did over the first couple of days is make calls, talk to the mayors and wardens, and see what it is they need and what they think. A big part of this is they have the outside look of how this department works and what it does. One by one, every single one of them said - they were naming staff [Inaudible] an outstanding job building relationships with us, working us through things, and helping us find the needed funding for our projects, whether it’s waste water, whether it’s streetscaping or a lot of other different programs that we have available here.

[12:30 p.m.]

I have also taken time to meet with the CAOs and the mayors and wardens of this province. CAOs are extremely important, as you know, because they have their eye on the money. They know where the assets are, where the liabilities are, where the funding needs to go. They’re the experts on where municipalities need to spend their money, and where the weaknesses, I’ll say, in some of the stuff are.

We have done an exceptional job - when I say “we”, I mean the staff - keeping those close relationships. When it comes to EPR, we’re listening, we’re working with them, and we’ll continue to work with them. We’ll work out the numbers once we figure out what that EPR looks like that works for all of our members right across Nova Scotia.

DAVE RITCEY: That leads me into my next series of questions around service exchange agreements, municipal governments to assess tax levy in corresponding areas. What categories are negotiable in service exchange agreements and how could road agreements change? For example, Main Streets, Highway Nos. 1, 2, or 3 through towns: How can they change? Those are my first two questions, I guess, as Part 1.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I’ll answer this not just from a ministerial position but also from an MLA position. Believe it or not, as an MLA for HRM, this is something that actually impacts me. I’m one of the few MLAs, I think, left in HRM who have the confusion, we’ll say, between municipal and provincial roads. It’s great when there’s a snowstorm, huh? I’m getting calls, and people are saying, why isn’t my road plowed? I’m like, that’s the municipality.

Right now, as you stated, there is a bit of confusion, and there are some ongoing conversations about municipal and provincial responsibility. It is different, and that was one of the first things I learned when I became an MLA, how different it is depending on which part of the province you’re standing in.

I’ll give you a good example. For myself, where the confusion really hit home was about six or seven years ago. There’s a road in my community called Chebucto Head Road. This road led to a lighthouse at the end, a federal lighthouse that was divested probably 15 or 20 years ago. The road was built for the feds, was on provincial land, and for some reason, had the municipality involved.

To add more confusion around it, just down the road from me, actually - people always say to me, oh my God, in the Winter, your road, Herring Cove Road, is plowed nicely. I’m like, well, we get salt. Another confusion is once you hit the provincial side of the roads, in my community, for example, you can’t use salt because of wells.

Chebucto Head Road fell within the provincial roads. What happened was there was an amalgamation of roads in HRM. Here and there, some of these roads, for some reason, were left off the list.

Talking to the Department of Transportation and Active Transit and the fine folks over there, they have spent the last several years going through this stuff and trying to figure out which road goes where and do a service exchange. As you can tell, this is something that I was deeply involved with. They were doing service exchanges, like this road over here should be municipal, and this one should be provincial. It took us about - I want to say - two years of negotiation.

First the feds were like, it’s not ours. Then the province was, like, technically, it’s on provincial property, but we never maintained that road. The municipality had agreed to build that road, so there was a bit of responsibility there. In the end, what we ended up doing was a road swap, essentially. We took that road as the Province, and all the service agreements that we do and maintain as a province, and we gave a road to the municipality of HRM that should have been under them anyway.

That’s not even to touch on the J- and K-class roads that are all over Nova Scotia.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. I’m sorry to interject, minister, but it’s time for our 15-minute COVID‑19 break.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I’m just getting going.

THE CHAIR: We will return at 12:53 p.m., and you can keep going then, sir.

[12:38 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

[12:53 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please The Subcommittee on Supply resumes. I invite the minister to finish his answers to the member for Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Back to the road issue, it’s a complex issue. I would say it’s multi-jurisdictional, whether it’s our towns and municipalities or the provincial government and, as we see, investment on the twinning of highways from the federal government. It does get complicated.

I go back to some of the issues that I have been able to witness first-hand. Part of the problem that we see around the complication of these roads is that some of these service agreements go back - my first Premier that I remember would be the Honourable John Buchanan. Some of these service agreements go back even further than Premier Buchanan.

I think the Department of Transportation and Active Transit is trying to work some of these things. We’re talking to our municipalities to see what it is they need.

We have seen in the past - gravel roads, for example, is a hot topic. It has been a hot topic for quite some time. We saw the massive amount of investment in the gravel roads across Nova Scotia.

I would say if we look at - one of the things, I think, about this department is that it’s all connected. I feel like this is a department that’s connected to all of the other departments and all the municipalities and all our stakeholders.

When I sit down and I speak to the municipalities and the town, the questions are never really about the MGA or the Halifax Charter. Sometimes we’ll get that. It’s mostly about infrastructure spending, it’s about resources, and it’s about what we can do. Roads certainly come up a lot.

I can say that in our last meeting with CBRM, which was, I think, about a week and a half ago, the face-to-face we had with CBRM, we had the Department of Transportation and Active Transit there. We had conversations with them about water, waste water, infrastructure investments, and, of course, roads. We really are seeing historical investments from the government in infrastructure right across Nova Scotia.

Again, I go back to thinking sometimes with these roads, it’s a matter of sitting down and having these conversations with the municipality and trying to figure out ownership. I look at J-Class roads and things like that. A lot of these roads are roads that are smack dab in the middle of municipalities but are provincial ownership.

I know one of the things that I have tried to do as an MLA is work with the HRM to try to figure out what we can do to - I would say improve services but also to work together. I know that it can be frustrating for people at times where you see, for example, the main provincial roads in my community all have active transportation lanes. That’s something that I worked on from day one. It can be frustrating - confusing, I would say - to individuals, residents, constituents, when they see some of that stuff go so far and then stop. They think, why is it that these roads have that on the side of them - these do and these don’t? A big part of that again is the municipality and the province have different ownership on the stuff.

I go back to the Winter stuff. It’s the same with Winter maintenance. I know a lot of people get calls about why is it that this road is completely clear, and this one isn’t. A big part of it is standards when it comes to salt.

I know your constituency a little bit. I used to actually spend a lot of time in Brookfield when I was a kid. We used to bike up to the Tastee Freeze, I think it was. We used to bike up to Tastee Freeze and then we would bike up to Truro. Along the way, even as a young teenager, I remember thinking about bike lanes and things like that and infrastructure in place and safety.

It is a great question, and we continue to work with our municipalities to see what we can do from a provincial standpoint and with our federal partners to implement the type of services that they expect when it comes to roads.

DAVE RITCEY: I just want to touch base with you on a couple of other questions. You have consulted with NSFM, CBRM, and HRM. What about the other villages and municipalities? These roads and service agreements really affect those smaller towns and villages and municipalities too. Have you had any consultation or communication with those members directly?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I and our staff have. I’m working my way through speaking to everyone. I do plan, as minister, to get out as quickly as possible into those communities to speak to those individuals, as long as COVID‑19 allows. Virtually and phone calls and that are great - and emails - but as you know and everybody knows, in the end, face to face is the best thing that we can do. We are definitely working with them.

Listen, our towns are as important as our municipalities. They are, for me, again, a cog in the wheel that makes this province successful. We need to make sure that our towns are successful, that they have the infrastructure in place, and that they have the revenue in place to be where they’re at. I can tell you that we have staff here on hand who speak to and meet regularly with the wardens of the towns and the mayors of municipalities. Sometimes depending on the issue, they’re speaking daily, if not weekly. We are constantly being updated on what they need.

[1:00 p.m.]

I just don’t want them to ever think that they’re not important because they are. They are extremely important. To me, when I say municipalities and towns, that again is the backbone. Those are the backbone of our province, and they’re what makes us move forward. We’re going to sit down with them. We’re going to have conversations. Staff have been directed to keep open communication, which they would anyway.

If you want, we could get the member in sometime to speak with some of our staff. You’ll see how engaged they are and how their relationship goes. Obviously, they have a professional relationship, but they also feel a personal responsibility. You have to remember that yes, our head office, the main office, is in HRM, but if you look around and you see the staff, the ones who are dealing with individual towns and municipalities, they’re from all over the province. A lot of these people who are dealing with these communities have family in these communities. They have loved ones. They have friends in these communities, so it’s personal for them. They want to make sure that Nova Scotia and all our partners are moving forward.

We will make sure that they continue to feel valued. Again, we are meeting with them regularly. I have continued to meet with them. I probably have had close to half a dozen or a dozen virtual meetings that had wardens and councillors. I encourage them. I encourage them to be open and direct.

You know as well as I know that some people won’t voice their opinion with the minister there or staff there, but I encourage them. We have had some really great conversations. Some of them are easy conversations and some of them are more complex conversations. That’s all part of what this department is about. We’re going to make sure that our municipalities and our towns continue to feel valued.

DAVE RITCEY: I’m not sure - I think we sometimes look outside the box and really consider our villages and our towns and our municipalities. That includes HRM and CBRM as well. Having those conversations with the smaller-populated members is critical because sometimes they have larger issues as well. They want to be heard, and they have concerns too.

That leads me into my next question. Municipalities are estimated to be paying 40 per cent of the revenue to the Province for mandatory education contributions. Does the minister think this is appropriate? If not or if so, what other issues are on their plate at this time? They’re carrying a lot of load through these service agreements and other agreements with the Province. It just seems like the word that we have referenced before, downloading. I would just like to get your thoughts on where we’re going with that or something to consider.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: As a father of three, education is extremely important, not just for me but all Nova Scotians. We’re going to continue to work with our municipalities. I can tell you quite frankly, this isn’t something that has come up in my discussions with our members.

I will say that looking over the last few years that I have had the privilege to be an MLA, there have been unprecedented investments in education. That’s being made by the provincial government. Obviously, that takes a lot of the expenses and the load off of our municipalities. We have seen hundreds and hundred of millions of dollars in infrastructure repair and new builds.

Personally, just in my community, we have seen a brand new high school that is being built that I can proudly say is going to be opening in September 2021. We have seen unprecedented investment in inclusive education. Obviously, everybody knows about the report that came from that committee. Those are things that are extremely important for our education system.

Someone once told me that your first impression driving up to a school as a student, in that school bus or being dropped off or walking to school, your first impression when you look at that school, how important it is.

The member may or may not be aware, but J.L. Ilsley High School had a whole host of issues, whether it was leaking or heat issues. The education that was being delivered in that school was first class. We heard that from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. They were saying that the staff there are outstanding and the students were outstanding, especially from an arts standpoint. They were seeing an extraordinary amount of beautiful art coming from the school.

The kids knew, and they wanted - when you look around and you see the brand new Citadel High School, and you see the new Halifax West, they wanted something different. They wanted a new school. We built, along with people like Rebecca DeCoste, a good friend of mine who lives in the community of Spryfield, and other parents, the SAC. We worked together to enhance a case for that school, a school that was on the list for almost a decade, that had been overlooked. That’s a whole different topic, why I think a school in Spryfield would be overlooked. We committed to that, and we got it done.

We’re also looking at SchoolsPlus, the mental health support services. Well over $10 million is being invested and has been invested. In this budget, you’ll see there is even more investment in SchoolsPlus. That helps. That definitely helps municipalities.

I think of Dr. Stan Kutcher, who is also a senator now, who is a constituent of mine but also a good friend. Even before I was an MLA, we would talk about mental health. I always said it’s no secret that I deal with some stuff myself, and I always have. Stan has always been someone whom I could go to for perspective. Stan would say to me, if you really want to help, take the services to the school. He and Starr a couple of years back had done a report. That’s exactly what’s happening now.

We’re seeing these investments in schools. That helps municipalities. It helps the province. It helps the residents. I think any time we can invest in our children’s future, our children’s health and our mental health, there’s a huge, huge win for our communities and for the municipalities. You see it when our children feel like they can get a safe education, when they get the resources.

Another thing that I’m extremely proud of that this government did and has had a huge, huge impact in my community is the breakfast program. The breakfast program is now available in all schools right across Nova Scotia. It’s very difficult to be in any environment, let alone a learning environment, when you’re hungry. I was very proud to see that.

Again, when it comes to education, pre-Primary - obviously we see pre-Primary is now in every school in Nova Scotia. That’s an investment in our municipalities. That’s an investment in our schools. That’s an investment in the people who live and support and help each other out. That’s investments in our brothers and sisters, our friends and family. It has had a massive impact. I know it has. I have witnessed it first-hand. It has allowed more parents to go back to work.

I know the federal budget is coming out today. I read a CBC article that there’s potentially a huge investment in child care. I’m looking forward to seeing that. I think it’s extremely important. I know that we need to continue these types of services.

Listen, there were some critiques. There were some naysayers on the pre-Primary program. I sat there in the Legislature and listened to the debate. That’s fine. That’s what democracy is, right? That’s what it is. There is not a single MLA, there’s not a single councillor or warden, there’s not a single town or municipality in Nova Scotia that would take that pre-Primary service away. It has done an exceptional job.

The one down by where I live, which is William King Elementary, one of the schools - I know that the previous Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development had visited it because it is one of the more successful programs. Mrs. Hart, who is a good friend of mine from before this, has done an exceptional job with those kids. The program has become such a success that they have expanded it, and it’s now two classrooms of pre-Primary in that one school.

That impacts our municipality’s bottom line. It allows and it helps people to go back to work. It helps people to go to school. It helps them to earn some extra money, which then they spend locally, which helps produce revenue for our municipalities. For me, it’s a holistic approach. I watch how these programs are rolled out.

[1:15 p.m.]

When I look at the budget as Minister of Municipal Affairs, I’m not just looking at what’s in the budget for Municipal Affairs. I’m looking at what’s in the budget in every department. Are those roads going to be twinned? How will that impact communities when they have twinned highways? Where are the schools being built? Where is the water and waste water infrastructure being put in?

We have seen unprecedented health care investment in this province. The QEII redevelopment, the investments in Cape Breton - these are things that help. From the beginning, it’s spurring on our local economy. It’s putting tradespeople back to work. It’s making sure that they don’t have to move to Alberta. They don’t have to move out of the province for work. For too long, we have seen that. Now what we’re seeing is more and more youth retention. Our trades are in such high demand.

I look at my own house. We’re looking to replace a couple of windows. I can tell the member that if I had time, I know I could do it myself, but obviously, we don’t have a lot of free time. We were trying to get somebody in to replace those windows. Good luck. The economy, when it comes to a trade standpoint, is booming. Municipalities have done an incredible job during COVID‑19. They really are the envy of all of Canada. We’re seeing unprecedented growth. It’s exciting. The other thing that COVID‑19 has - one of the spinoffs, I guess, or one of the things that’s . . .

THE CHAIR: The member has muted himself.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I thought that was you, Mr. Chair. (Laughter) Sorry about that. I’ll wrap it up.

We have seen the importance of getting out of the classroom and enjoying nature. I think back to my Grade 6 teacher, Mr. Sullivan. When I was in Grade 6, Mr. Sullivan, who has long since retired, on a sunny day would say, everybody put your books down, we’re going out to the field to play sticks. We would have two piles of sticks. Essentially, it was a game of chase. You had to steal each other’s sticks, and the winner had the most sticks at the end. He understood the importance of our children learning outside, being part of nature, and getting that fresh air, getting the beautiful sunshine on you.

I’m really proud to see the investment in our outdoor learning centres, which is just over $7 million. Again, I go back to my own community. We have several outdoor learning centres already. It was something that the community, working with me and government and our former Councillor Steve Adams - we helped create an outdoor space. The reason that came about is we had an administrator at the time and we had teachers at the time who said, you know what, this is important.

Those type of investments, I would say, we know how important it is, and we know how important it is that education is an investment. It’s not just a line on a sheet. It’s those infrastructure spends. It’s the hiring of the teachers and the staff. We’re seeing more and more staff coming into the education system.

I’ll let the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development speak on that, but I just want to say we will continue to work with our municipalities if this is something that they feel is top of line for them. Listen, I’m open to talk about anything they want. Again, even though I’m long-winded - I apologize - I’m here to listen, not just to speak. If you have municipal leaders who have brought this up to you, please send them my way, and I’ll have that conversation.

DAVE RITCEY: That leads me into a next question. It’s around enabling municipal modernization. What does that mean to you at the department? It sort of streams into my segue into another question around municipalities and the Minister of Energy and Mines to explore new revenue streams. I would be interested to hear what your thinking is around that in terms of new revenue streams for municipalities.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: This is something - modernization, if you don’t mind that I start there, is definitely top of mind. For us, again it goes back to those requests that are coming in from our municipal partners. In this session alone, we have seen a good example of changing and adapting and listening. That would be in some of the bills that we have brought forward, especially around virtual council meetings.

It’s kind of a strange thing to say, but even five or six years ago, if someone would have said virtual council - we all would have been like what in the bloody heck is that? That was something that was brought forward by our partners on the ground, who said, listen, it has worked effectively. In fact, they have seen an uptick in public engagement around their council meetings because of access to these virtual meetings. We have seen that. That is one thing. That’s one way. We’re always willing to listen.

When it comes to modernization, a part of that is investments. To modernize municipalities and towns, we need to have the infrastructure in place. As we’re all aware, this government has set up a trust with hundreds of millions of dollars to work with our partners on broadband to ensure that the rollout of broadband is in almost every community, it touches all our Nova Scotians. If we want our municipalities, if we want our businesses, if we want to attract modern - I think that’s one of the other advantages that we as Nova Scotians have, that we have such an educated and smart workforce. We have universities all over the place. With the investment in broadband in particular and more and more people and more and more companies working from home, this will help modernize our municipalities. It will help put more money in our municipalities, in their pockets.

I was speaking to a gentleman the other day. He and his partner moved here from B.C. They had never been to Nova Scotia in their life. They read an article in Maclean’s magazine. I was speaking to him over the weekend - they read an article in Maclean’s magazine that rated Nova Scotia, Halifax in particular, the number one place to live in all of Canada for its modern and efficient health care system, is what the article said, for its access to broadband, for its coastlines, and everything else it has to offer. He and his partner both work for a large IT company. He said he approached his manager at the time and said, listen, I want to move to Nova Scotia. What’s the possibility? They asked, do they have access to high-speed internet? He said, yes, we’re moving. Literally within days, he found a house, purchased it, and now he’s down here. They have done their COVID‑19 stuff, and now they’re going to move here.

We’re seeing Nova Scotia moving with investments. We’re modernizing our health care system - the largest health care infrastructure spend in our province’s history. That’s about modernizing our health care system. That’s about bringing and attracting bright new young minds from all over the world. If we want to stay competitive - it wasn’t us. It was Maclean’s magazine that said we have an exceptional health care system here in Nova Scotia. That’s due to all the frontline health care workers. That’s due to all the people who come in every single day and work day and night for all Nova Scotians. We’re in a competitive market when it comes to resources.

If we want to continue to attract the brightest minds to our municipalities, we have to modernize. That includes, again, our internet. That includes our infrastructure on the ground. That includes planning. Regional planning is huge, and we are encouraging regional planning. We’re working. We have staff here who work with municipalities day and night to look at what they have. What is it that we can do, and what is it that you can do to attract people to your community? We’re seeing growth right across this province. We’re soon to hit 1 million residents, which not too long ago was unthinkable. We’re seeing a beautiful diversity in this province.

I have had the privilege to spend time abroad. I did the backpacking thing years ago. I turned 30 in the hills of a place called Ostrava in the Czech Republic. I travelled France and Germany and all over the place. I had gone to Europe before I even had gone to Quebec. One of the things you notice in major metropolitans, especially London and places like that and Paris, is the diversity. That in itself is a modernization of our municipalities, when we can bring a diverse culture and mind. We’re seeing that.

The regional planning - we’re here every day to work with them. We’re encouraging shared services for cost efficiency and collaborations around municipalities. This isn’t about silos. I remember when I was much younger, it would be Halifax versus Dartmouth or this area versus this area. Sometimes we see urban versus rural. What I say to people is, I hate to break it to you, but we’re all in this together. If a part of this province isn’t working, then it’s up to us to continue to work with them, to make sure that we give them what they need and the resources they need. The whole thought process around shared services is that. Why take on an expense as a municipality all by yourself when you can work with your partners next door? Why not do that? You talked on the revenue side of it - we have a massive - every economist who is worth their weight in salt has said that the green economy is here. It’s coming.

[1:30 p.m.]

The ones who will come out of this ahead are the ones who are going to be investing in the green economy. We have to realize - I have listened to all members in this House, and I can honestly say that I think all members agree that climate change is real. We have to make the necessary investments with our federal partners and our municipal partners. The area of opportunity is there, whether it’s solar or wind. I go back to when I was able to travel and had the luxury to travel in Europe. I’ve been there a couple of times, but the first time I was there, it was 15 years ago, and when I was in Ireland, there were windmills everywhere. There were windmills everywhere. They knew then that there were investments that could be made.

I even think back to Quebec and the whole idea around Quebec and the way they produce their power. At the time, I had a discussion years ago with a former Premier of Quebec, he said . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The first hour for the PC Party has expired. We’ll move now to the NDP.

The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.

KENDRA COOMBES: I would like to welcome and say hello to the minister.

I want to talk about the budget for a second. After the impacts of inflation on your department’s costs, it is taken into account in this budget, represents the budget - into account of that. With regard to housing being taken out of the budget and a few other things being taken out of the budget, has the budget of the Department of Municipal Affairs had an increase or a decrease? How much? By how much has there been either an increase or a decrease in the department?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Like the member before her, this is her first time in the Legislature. I’m proud to see you here, and you’re doing an outstanding job. You have some beautiful artwork there behind you.

The budget of housing and a few others - I know that some people looked at the budget, and they saw a decrease. That was actually because resources were moved out of this department, and they were moved into their own department because we feel how important the Department of Municipal Affairs is. My job, and I’m very proud of it, is to concentrate strictly and solely on those relationships and to work with the municipal department.

Our budget has remained stable, and we’ll continue to invest. There are lots of projects, and we’re seeing a huge amount of money trickling down from the federal government. When we think of money or resources, we take a lot of time, it just goes right to dollars and cents, but a large part of this is also the human resources that we give each and every day to the municipalities. I can tell you that the services that are being provided by staff there are saving money, saving the municipalities money. They’re helping them work through issues. They’re helping planning. Just the other day as I stated earlier - sorry, the other week - we met with CBRM. We worked with them through their projects and what was important to them.

One of the things that was said to them was, let’s have that discussion. Let us work with you to frame up these projects. Obviously, everybody has a whole list of projects. It would be an endless pot of money. It would be probably tens of millions of dollars. We all wish we had a money tree, and we could do it all. It’s about prioritizing. That’s a big part of it for us, sitting down with those municipalities and saying, let’s prioritize. Yes, this over here would be great, but we’re working with them on electrification. We’re working with them on helping to get safe roads in and out of their municipalities.

I look at this department from a holistic standpoint, because when I sit down with municipal leaders, it’s not just about the programs in Municipal Affairs for them. We have conversations on schools. We have conversations on health care. We have conversations on so many other things. We sit there, and we have that conversation with them.

We have individuals who work in this department who will sit down with them. They’ll go through their applications, and they’ll help them frame up their applications so that they meet the guidelines and the standards from the federal government. The federal government has programs that are readily available that we piggyback off of. We spend a lot of money on these programs. They have to meet certain conditions. I would think that if those staff who work with municipalities, if they weren’t there, that would be a huge cost to our municipalities.

We continue working around environmental and economic stability and making these communities the best communities in the world. Things have changed a lot because of COVID‑19, obviously. We were seeing record numbers of tourism in this province. That was because of moneys that were being invested from a provincial level to invest and to advertise and to promote this beautiful province.

That trickles down. That trickles down into our municipalities. As an MLA for Cape Breton, I’m sure you’re - I know you are - well aware of the importance of tourism to Cape Breton. We will continue to work with all our partners on this stuff. We want to ensure that they feel empowered, they feel listened to, and they know that we’re here as a partner. Our job is to work hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm with them.

KENDRA COOMBES: I don’t know if the member is aware, but I was a former municipal councillor up until March 2020. I’m very well versed in Municipal Affairs and the running of the department and they are great people. I would like to have the questions because I know a lot about the department already. Thank you.

I want to know how much of this budget is coming from federal money.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Currently, our budget sits at $213.2 million. Of that, $100 million is recoverable from the federal government. Basically, as the member knows, but just for everyone else out there, how this works is things fluctuate depending on what programs are out there.

Also, we look at potential emergencies that happen. I look back at the last two hurricane seasons and the amount of damage that was done. Obviously, when things like that come up, we as a province, as a people, need to react to that. We’re here to take advantage.

When I think of Municipal Affairs, I think of working with our partners hand-in-hand, listening to them but also I think of opportunity. This is a department that looks for opportunities, and those opportunities, a lot of times, come from the federal government. We want to piggyback off their money.

I’ll use HRM for an example. I have worked in my community and other communities where HRM has a project, and they’re looking for funding, and they come to government, whether it’s a field or community centre. Those are the opportunities that we look for. We look at what it is from a federal standpoint, from a municipal standpoint that is out there that we can use our money, our taxpayers’ dollars, to stretch and to take advantage of. Building that community centre, if you can get one-third, one-third, one-third, is a fantastic thing to do.

We’re looking at what the feds have. We’re constantly in contact with our partners right across Nova Scotia. Part of designing and working on this budget is also key priority areas and what programs that are out there that are available.

A good example of that is waste water, sewer, our ICIP program with the water and waste water program. That is made available because of our federal partnership. Without that federal partnership, it would be difficult. Let’s be honest, it would be difficult. But that’s what the feds are there for. They’re there to partner with us. When they come to us, and they say, hey, listen, we realize the importance of water and waste water infrastructure, we need to have a partner, that’s what Municipal Affairs is. It’s a partnership. I do actually come from a bit of a water/waste water background. I worked at Halifax Water for years as a utility worker. I can tell you just from my standpoint that those kinds of investments are needed. We have extremely old infrastructure here in HRM and right across Nova Scotia. When we’re looking at those programs, we’re saying to the federal government, here are some priorities for us, whether it’s water or waste water.

[1:45 p.m.]

Now we’re looking at electrification. We met with our municipal partners. They’re saying to us, you know what, we want to meet our carbon goals. We want to be able to - as a province, you’re not going to be able to do that without us, but truthfully, we need your help on this.

Those kinds of conversations come to us in the Department of Municipal Affairs. We take those conversations. We have the discussion here. We have people on the ground in those municipalities talking to the leaders in those municipalities. Then we have those conversations with the feds, because we want to make sure that those programs are matched up to the wants and the needs and the desires.

It’s a little different - obviously this department is a little different than others. When you look at some of the other departments, they’re like, this is what the budget is. All this money, the majority of this money is coming from the Province. With us, obviously a large portion of our money comes from recoverable federal dollars.

Again, I go back to all you have to do is take a walk around this department, and you see the staff, who are constantly on the phone. They’re constantly emailing. They’re constantly in contact, on the road, in those municipalities talking to the leaders. That to me is invaluable because it saves those municipalities money, and it shows a level of co-operation that I’m very proud of.

I have yet to hear a single complaint from any of our municipal partners about the staff here in this department. That says something, because some of these staff have been here a long time. They have worked with the municipality for a long time. You know as well as I know that any time you work with someone for a long time, people can find a reason to disagree. I think with the department here, they don’t always agree, but they find a way to come to a common ground. When it comes to the money, I would say this department is as much about money as it is about resource and knowledge.

KENDRA COOMBES: I would like to talk about EPR for PPT. The provincial government’s EPR program requires manufacturers to take financial responsibility for the eventual end destination of their product packaging. The NSFM has cited this as one of their top priorities. Municipalities would like to have facilities in Nova Scotia because it would save them between $12 million and $17 million. It has been my understanding since 2017-18, or maybe 2019 if I’m being fair, that that legislation has been ready to go, that the committee did their job and put forward potential legislation. My question is, what is holding this up?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Certainly, EPR is something that has come up. It’s definitely part of my mandate letter. We’re working with NSFM, and we’re consulting. Consultation is a big part of this. We know that it’s important for them. We need to work with our municipalities, we need to work with our business leaders, and we need to work with people on the ground to really figure out what this looks like.

We’re also working with the Department of Environment and Climate Change. This government, I think, has an exceptional record when it comes to the environment, whether it’s Boat Harbour, which was a longstanding historical issue. We made the decision to take the cleanup and for the Indigenous community in Boat Harbour, I think that was something that was long overdue. I look in my own backyard in Harrietsfield and the construction and debris (C&D) site that’s there. Again, we’re looking at a 25-year historical issue that nobody wanted to touch. I can proudly say that as of the end of May, that site has been remediated.

We need to continue to consult, to work together. We know this is a priority. We know. Listen, I speak to municipal leaders right across this province, and we’re having these consultations. When it comes to the environment, we have shown that we’re leaders. We can talk about the cap-and-trade system here in Nova Scotia, and the current Premier who helped design and build a Nova Scotia way, a Nova Scotia solution, something that works for Nova Scotians. When it comes to the environment, and EPR is a large part of that, it’s one of the biggest pressing matters. It is the issue of a generation here. It’s something that has been talked about . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. It’s now time for another 15-minute COVID‑19 break. We’ll return at 2:08 p.m.

[1:53 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

[2:08 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The Subcommittee on Supply will resume.

THE CHAIR: The honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I just think that when we talk about the environment, it’s important. I just wanted to finish up quickly.

EPR, obviously, is something that we’re going to be looking into. I think it has become really clear to the general public that this government and all departments have as part of their mandate to look at the environment. When we’re making investments and we’re making policy changes, we want to look at what best benefits our economy and the environment. For too long, even in recent memory, it was either the environment or the economy. We realize that these things need to go hand in hand. We’re seeing that you don’t have to do more to make more.

I look at my time working with the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. I was able to tour the province when it comes to the lobster industry. They have been extremely successful. I represent a traditional lobster fishing village in Sambro, Nova Scotia. What they realized and what they adjusted to with the help of government and stakeholders is that these resources are finite. We don’t control the amount unless we’re overharvesting, unless we’re overcutting, unless we’re doing these things. What we did was, working with the fishers across Nova Scotia, ask what is it we can do to add on value. That was a big part of it. How can we increase value of a resource that you’re harvesting?

I have been able to live in and around a fishing village my entire life. I actually baited trawl a few times and tried my hand at fishing. I can honestly say I don’t have the sea legs for it. I went out a few times. God love them who are out there doing it. It’s not easy work.

There have been a lot of ebbs and flows, especially when it comes to lobster and the price around lobster. We don’t see that anymore. Right now, the price of that resource has been pretty stable. That’s because going back to an environmental lens, instead of saying, let’s take every one of them, let’s get as many as we can out of the water, it has been, okay, the ones we get, how do we get that value? How do we get more value? That’s opening up markets around the world.

It used to be that - we call it a canner - anything over, I guess, 2 pounds wasn’t considered valuable. Working with our municipalities, working with jurisdictions right across the world, we were able to find value so that resource isn’t thrown away, so that resource isn’t undervalued.

EPR is obviously a tool that a lot of municipalities are looking at. Again, I go back to - we need consultation. We need to make sure that our municipalities and our businesses are consulted, people whom this is going to impact are consulted. We want to make sure that we roll this out properly. We have seen that. We have seen that with legislation that has come this session from Municipal Affairs. We have seen legislation that has been heavily consulted on. It has been heavily consulted on. We have seen our members and our stakeholders come to the Law Amendments Committee with full support, with no surprises, saying, yes, virtual council meetings.

Whether it’s a change to the Halifax Regional Municipal Charter, these things came from us. These ideas came from us. That’s what we’re hearing from our members. They were consulted. I want to thank the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities. They did a lot. They did a lot of legwork on this stuff, and they come to us and they say, listen - we talk to our members. We have held virtual meetings and face-to-face meetings on this stuff. Are they going to have full agreement with all their members? No. Hopefully, they’re able to talk to all their members and explain to them the importance of these things.

EPR is definitely something that we have heard the Premier speak on. It’s obviously in our mandate letter, so it’s something extremely important that we want to look at. Again, we need to get these things right. We need to make sure that when we’re rolling out legislation - important legislation - that is going to have impacts on the ground to our municipalities and to our towns, that they are part of this and that they are in lockstep with us. This doesn’t mean that legislation is going to be perfect, but we want to make sure that the legislation is - I should say perfect for everyone, but we want to make sure that it’s something that is palatable, that they don’t feel like it has been forced on them.

In closing, we’re committed to formally continuing to work with municipalities on EPR.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre, you have until 2:47 p.m.

KENDRA COOMBES: I have asked about EPR for PPT. I will ask again, and if the minister could just give me a timeline for when the consultation is going to take place, or when this legislation may - if this legislation is eventually going to come. You know what, Mr. Chair? The committee did their work, and they have been waiting for a very long time for this legislation to come forward. If the minister could just give me a clear answer as to what he expects the timeline to be for consultation.

[2:15 p.m.]

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Obviously, EPR is an important topic. We’re working with the municipalities, and they have signalled to us that this is a priority for them. We look at when we brought in the cap-and-trade system in Nova Scotia and how. I would argue, and many would argue across Canada, that we got that right. It was because of extensive consultation. There are many, many stakeholders to have these conversations with. We want to make sure that their voices are heard. We want to hear from our non-profits, our business community. We want to hear from people on the ground.

Again, I look back to the cap-and-trade system that is here in Nova Scotia. That came because we listened and from extensive consultation with our community members. We know that this is a priority. There are many, many, many priorities from our municipalities. That has been reflected in this session.

We heard from HRM that they wanted changes to the municipal charter to allow for a new aquatic centre. This is something that they felt was important. We worked closely with them on that change. We worked with municipalities.

We have heard from NSFM around the accessibility piece of legislation that we brought in. If we want to talk about the importance of consultation, on that piece of legislation, there was heavy consultation that was done. We saw (Inaudible)

KENDRA COOMBES: Mr. Chair, there’s something wrong with the member’s audio.

THE CHAIR: Member, we cannot hear you. Your microphone is still on, but we can’t hear you. You must have worn your mic out.

KENDRA COOMBES: Mr. Chair, I think we lost the member as well. I just want to know, is this going into my time?

THE CHAIR: Well, I think it is because we have it down pretty pat, but I’ll try and . . .

KENDRA COOMBES: The minister has disappeared.

THE CHAIR: I’ll try and allow a minute or so on the other end.

I’m going to ask that the minister try to get on as soon as possible.

KENDRA COOMBES: Mr. Chair, what time do I go to?

THE CHAIR: To 2:47 p.m. so far.

He’s having a lot of problems.

KENDRA COOMBES: I see he has disappeared again.

KARLA MACFARLANE: Mr. Chair, perhaps we can have the past Minister of Municipal Affairs. I see he’s on here with us. (Laughter)

KENDRA COOMBES: As time eats away.

HON. CHUCK PORTER: Sure. Where would you like to pick up?

KENDRA COOMBES: Let’s talk about EPR for PPT.

CHUCK PORTER: Brendan might not be very happy.

KENDRA COOMBES: That’s all right. We can actually change it. How about we go with this one, Mr. Chair? Could the former minister tell me, why has the province not followed through with the NSFM’s request of . . .

THE CHAIR: The minister is back.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I want to apologize. We’re trying to figure out - we had a technical difficulty there. The computer that I was on, for some reason, just said the audio stopped. I guess it was a sign that I was talking too much.

To go back to the question (Inaudible).

You know what, I’ll just pass the time to the member.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Member, I’m going to give you an extra three minutes.

KENDRA COOMBES: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My next question, because we’re getting stuck on that one is: Why has the province not followed through with the NSFM’s request of $20 million over three years in the Municipal Financial Capacity Grant?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Can I just get some clarification on that ask? Our staff is trying to pin down what you’re referring to, sorry.

KENDRA COOMBES: Yes. In a letter of resolution that the NSFM provided to the Department of Municipal Affairs, there was a request for funding to take the grant and increase the funding by $20 million over three years.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Before I start the question, right now I’m using my phone because my laptop had to restart. I have another laptop here, and I’m trying to get into the subcommittee. I’m not being - there we go. They just admitted me. It would just be a lot easier if I could use this instead. I want to apologize.

THE CHAIR: Would the minister turn off his phone, please.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I want to say I apologize to the member. I know your time is valuable, and your questions are greatly appreciated.

Obviously, conversations around that will continue. We’re working with our municipalities on this and a host of other issues. I can tell you that in the past when it comes to - we want to make sure that our municipalities are financially viable, and they have the resources [Inaudible] going through the COVID‑19 pandemic. There was $67.5 million that was given to our municipalities for the restart program. That is a small percentage of what our municipalities see right across the board. We are continuing to invest in infrastructure right around this province, which will have a positive impact. It helps generate individuals and revenue to our municipalities.

I know in CBRM, for example, we’re seeing unprecedented levels of health care investments that will have a huge, huge impact in Cape Breton and also the investment in NSCC, the downtown campus - just to name a few things. So we’re listening and we’re talking. There are several - to be quite frank with you, there are probably hundreds if not thousands of issues that are before the staff at Municipal Affairs. We’re working with the municipalities to prioritize with them what they feel is most important. Right now, in my recent conversations with municipalities and towns, what we’re hearing is that they’re looking at coming out of COVID‑19 ahead. One of the biggest issues has been around broadband and access to high-speed internet. We know we can’t attract individuals to our community, and we can’t expand the scope of employment . . .

[2:30 p.m.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Minister, you’re breaking up again, and we can’t hear you.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Can you hear me now?

THE CHAIR: Yes, we’ll try it again.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Listen, I think I might be cursed here today. I apologize. This is the third piece of equipment we’re using, and I was just talking about broadband, so there you go.

For us, it’s about figuring out what it is that we can do to put our municipalities on a competitive playing field. We have heard for decades now the importance of high-speed internet, and that’s hundreds of millions of dollars of investments that we’re seeing from the provincial government that’s finally a promise that has been made for decades that has come to fruition. We’re seeing expansion of high-speed internet right across the province. That is a huge cost savings for our municipalities that would normally - that is something that could have potentially been put on our municipalities, but we’re there to work with them and work with the private sector to ensure that we see that rolled out right across this province and that our municipalities become more attractive.

We know right now that we are in high demand. Nova Scotia is in high demand. There is a list a mile long of people who want to come live in this province. That’s how we’re going to grow this province - with good immigration, with people moving back home. Municipal equalization is just one tool. We’re exploring this and other means to assist in the economic sustainability of our municipalities. I think sometimes we concentrate on one thing, and we don’t see all the other things that are happening around us. I can tell you that when I speak to our municipal partners, they’re happy. They’re proud and they’re excited to see schools being built all around, roads being paved all around, investment in the fishing industry, investment in high-speed internet.

We went, I think, back-to-back years with record investments in infrastructure from the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal. That spread out right across this province. That happened because we were able to take a fiscally responsible approach to governing Nova Scotia. We were in a massive deficit situation in 2013 when we took over. We were also in a structural deficit, whether it’s through health care or roads or schools. For me, it’s important as Minister of Municipal Affairs to look at the big picture and to say, okay, we’re looking at the equalization portion of it, but also we need to continue the communication and continue the work with our municipalities and see the positive work that is going on from one end of this province to another.

KENDRA COOMBES: I’ll be happy to note that the minister just called it equalization. Good to know we got that confirmed.

All in all, that was an answer to some question - I don’t know what it was - but it really was not the answer to mine. I’m moving on because I have a time limit here. We want to talk about spreading the wealth, and we want to talk about municipalities and being able to thrive. Municipalities need operational funding. They need money to actually do their responsibilities.

Part of that was supposed to be under the cannabis tax revenue. The feds agreed to a 25 per cent/75 per cent breakdown in cannabis tax revenue with the Province with an agreement that 25 per cent of the 75 per cent would go to municipalities. As of today, there is no such agreement in Nova Scotia. Instead, municipal units have to take on more administrative work in order to receive the money, which I call showing the receipts. I would like to know from the minister: What percentage of tax revenue is currently going to municipalities? That is the cannabis tax revenue that I’m asking about, Mr. Chair.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: The legalization of marijuana, I think, is something that - I’m proud that the federal government took that on. We were seeing lives ruined because of carrying or having access to marijuana. It’s something I’m very proud of. Nova Scotia has taken a safe approach to this. There are jurisdictions all around the world that have taken different approaches to us. What we did is we worked with the federal government, we worked with municipalities, obviously. This was a joint effort between the Department of Justice and many other departments to ensure a safe rollout of marijuana and cannabis products across Nova Scotia.

We’re seeing now, online and in some of the comments I had with the ministers, an expansion of the NSLC. I think the NSLC was and is a great place for that to land. We’re seeing that it has been shared fairly, I think, across where they have tried to work and have those stores represented in all corners. We’re going to see an expansion of that.

Originally, I think, when these conversations came out around the legalization of marijuana, it was less about seeing this as a cash cow and making money off of it. It was more about the way we treat people who are using the product and have access to the product. I know that when I heard the federal government talk about it and I heard the Prime Minister talk about it, that’s what it was about. It wasn’t about, we’re going to make all this money off of it. In fact, it was about how we treat our citizens and are we treating them fairly?

I think they have done a great job. When this came in and we had these conversations in the Legislature, there was some Party support around the legalization of marijuana. I know there wasn’t all-Party support. I know that one of the Parties in particular didn’t want the legalization of marijuana for a whole host of reasons. That is their own providence.

What we kept hearing was, if you legalize this product, the social issues and the justice issues are going to come along with it. I think the federal government’s argument was that the social and the justice issues that happen because of making this product illegal far outweigh the ones on legalizing it. In fact, we heard other members talk about how this would lead to a huge run of abuse and other things that come along with substance use. I mean, that would be a question for the Department of Health and Wellness.

I think what it has done is it has taken the stigma away from it. It has taken that off of our police forces. That in itself is a savings to our municipalities. They’re not out there policing the use of marijuana. They’re not out there just being steamrolled over the stuff. When I have talked to police officers right across this province, they felt very relieved that this was something that they didn’t have to deal with.

We have heard from municipalities and we have heard from people - it has been a hot topic on the discussion of what is the job of our municipal police officers, and what is the job of our RCMP officers? What is the best use of the resources? I would argue that there is a massive cost savings and resource savings to our municipalities because they’re not using these resources now to fight marijuana and go after them.

We’re going to continue to work with our municipalities. I am proud of the relationship that we have with them. We have sat down and had multiple conversations with our municipal partners. This is not something that they have identified as a top priority. If they want to have those discussions, what I would say is we’re here. We have staff who are in contact with them every single day. If they want to have these conversations, we’ll certainly sit down with them.

We’re going to find the best use of their time and their resources. We continue to fund lots of programs for them. We talked earlier about the $213 million budget that this department has. The majority of that money is going directly into the municipalities’ hands. It’s going into municipalities’ resources and assets.

I look around our province and the growth that we’re seeing now. A lot of that is because of the investments that the municipalities are making in their people. We’re getting phone calls from them and we’re meeting with them. They’re saying, listen, that new school, that new water and sewer, that park that you have helped preserve is making a big, big difference in our community.

I just think of in my own backyard, working with the municipality and the private sector and the Shaw Group and millions and millions of dollars in investment for the Province, the municipality, and the private sector. We were able to create and work with individuals to create one of the largest green spaces - definitely in HRM, but one of the largest green spaces in Nova Scotia.

That helps bring revenue, and that helps bring people to the community. It has become - it really has become - a focal point for people wanting to move into our community. I looked at some numbers the other day. Just in the Spryfield area alone, there were 400 homes sold in Spryfield since January. Why? Because they’re seeing the investments from the Province to the municipality, whether it’s sidewalks, it’s an investment in our transit, it’s investments in schools. These areas are going to grow because of the investments that are being made.

[2:45 p.m.]

Our budget is about cost-sharing. It’s about taking advantage of those precious municipal dollars. Tax dollars are tax dollars. Whether it’s municipal, provincial, or federal, it’s all coming from our residents. We need to make sure that when we spend that money, we’re spending it wisely, and it’s trickling down to the municipalities and having the greatest impact possible.

That not only includes infrastructure, but it includes programs. We have seen the importance of these programs around COVID‑19, with the Safe Restart. Without federal and provincial and municipal co-operation, I think that a lot of these municipalities would be in a situation and a lot of these businesses would be in a very tough situation. We’re hearing from them. They’re saying to us, these are the . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Minister, I’m going to ask - we’re straying. If you could get more in tune with the questions that the members are asking because we don’t have a lot of time. I know I shouldn’t be expressing an opinion on that, but I can see frustration when I look around at the screens.

The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.

KENDRA COOMBES: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I concur with your sentiments, to say the least.

Cannabis tax revenue is a priority for NSFM, so either the minister is not listening to the NSFM, as he keeps on saying he is, or he’s blatantly ignoring them. I’ll move on to another question with regard to the NSFM.

The ask - let’s see, what else can I say? The department actually ignored them - I should say this - and told them no, but the NSFM requested that the municipal election be delayed. If the department and the minister are listening to municipalities, why didn’t they listen to the request to delay the election because they feared if the election didn’t go ahead and had to be cancelled, they would be out thousands, millions of dollars? That’s my question. Why didn’t the minister listen to the NSFM when they asked for a delay in the election?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: We work with our municipalities. We work with the Department of Health and Wellness to come up with some guidelines - strict guidelines.

I think Nova Scotians expect democracy to continue. What I can say is that the numbers show that this was a success. The turnout for the municipal election was higher than the last few cycles. We had very few hiccups. We were able to show how to conduct the democracy of Nova Scotia during the time of COVID‑19. Again, I will say that at the time - obviously, there is going to be some potential fear or trepidation around what this would look like, but again, this . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. I’m sorry to interrupt again, but the hour for the NDP has expired.

We’ll go back now to the PC caucus. We left off with the member for Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River. I don’t know if he’s going to continue his line of questioning or wants to pass it on.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Mr. Chair, I missed the last part of what you said. What was it?

THE CHAIR: I’m just seeing if the member wants to ask a question or pass it on to another member.

DAVE RITCEY: I’ll be very brief with my questions, and hopefully we can get direct answers from the minister and from the department.

My first question is around the Town of Parrsboro, in the Municipality of Cumberland County, being asked to repay costs associated with the new multi-million dollar sewage and treatment facility. There were letters written to the Province, to your department, as well as the federal government looking for support for the overrun instead of putting it back on to the taxpayers. It was an additional $4 million that, right now, the taxpayers are on the hook for. My question is: Is there or will there be any additional funds available to the Municipality of Cumberland County and the community of Parrsboro?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: When it came to the water/waste water, we as a province, along with the federal government, had provided 100 per cent of the funding. This was during the dissolution process. Part of that agreement was that there would be no cost overruns, or we would not be responsible for the cost overruns but we did provide 100 per cent of the cost for that project under the original agreement.

DAVE RITCEY: So your answer is there’s no provincial support for that community on that project?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: No. No. My answer would be that the original cost that came forward to us was 100 per cent covered, which, for those who may not know, when it comes to water/sewer, is normally not the process. I have been involved with water and sewer projects for a while now, even in my own backyard, and it’s usually one-third/one-third/one-third. The municipality usually has to come up with a third of the cost for the water/waste water project.

In this case, Parrsboro was going through the dissolution process. They had identified this as a project that was extremely important to them. And we helped them. We helped them out with 100 per cent of the cost. We asked them to bring forward the project, to bring forward the cost of the project, and we would work with them to ensure that the original cost was covered.

They did their due diligence. They did their hard work. They brought forward this project, one that’s extremely important to the community. We gave them 100 per cent of the funding. To say that the Province is not supporting them is simply not true: 100 per cent is better than 0 per cent, obviously, and we are continuing to work with them on this project. They’re in close contact with our staff. Again, the agreement that was put in place with Parrsboro was that we would cover 100 per cent of the original cost of the project. They brought forward the original plan with the original cost, and we gave them the money for that project.

DAVE RITCEY: I’m just going to move on to my next question. Here in the Town of Truro, we have had some recent announcements, some closures and relocations. This is an EMO question, by the way. The relocation of the local RCMP 911 communication centre attachment took about 55 jobs out of the community.

In your mandate, you talk about partnering with Public Safety Canada and other related stakeholders to continue to facilitate critical infrastructure emergency planning programs. Describe the role public safety has in dealing with EMO in continuing the planning and development related to deployments of the Next Generation 911.

When we lost this communication centre, I was asking the questions from day one about it, and I kept getting pushed off to whether it was the federal government or the RCMP. The Province obviously would play a role in this decision to move it to the Dartmouth headquarters. My question, again, is, why? What’s your plan moving forward and strategy when it comes to the Next Generation 911?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I do want to start out by saying it’s very, very important for everyone to realize that services in that area have not been impacted. The movement of the 911 call centre is a federal decision. It was something that falls under the RCMP. It’s really something that I can’t speak to because I don’t have jurisdiction over that. I would encourage the member to probably reach out to your MP.

I can understand. I can understand the local economic impact that would have. What I would suggest is that the member reach out to the RCMP and the local MP to find out why that decision was made. Anything I would say right now would be purely speculation. I don’t think it’s fair to the member and the residents of this area to speculate.

[3:00 p.m.]

What I will say is that when it comes to Next Generation 911, the CRTC did rule that this has to be in place by 2024. We are working with Bell Canada and one of our other partners. We’re currently testing on this system. It’s very important that we get this right and this system is up and running.

As I said in my opening statement, a big part of this will be moving away from our traditional method of communication - I shouldn’t say moving away, but expanding on our traditional method of communication. It’s funny - it would be interesting to see how many people actually make phone calls now compared to - maybe not our generation, but the generations coming up behind us. It’s all about social media, text messaging, and videos. We want to make sure that people have access to the newest and most current information so that 911 is as effective as possible.

Again, I would reach out to your MP and to the RCMP on the movement of that.

DAVE RITCEY: Back to the minister just before I pass it on to my colleague from Pictou West. I have reached out to the MP. I have spoken to the assistant commander of the RCMP, and she has referenced that the Province was involved.

Anyway, that will answer my question. I would like to pass it over to my colleague for Pictou West for the remaining time.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Quickly, Mr. Chair, I would just say that from the staff here, we would not be involved in any federal positions or jobs. We don’t have jurisdiction over that. I don’t know what was said to the member, but I can tell you that it would be no different than if you’re a provincial employee and the federal government told us where to put our employees. That’s simply not how it works. If there are federal jobs being moved around, that would not be up to us. That would be up to the federal government.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Pictou West.

KARLA MACFARLANE: I just have a couple of questions. I’m sure that my questions can be answered fairly quickly so that my next colleague can ask his questions as well.

The first one is around ground search and rescue, which is clearly an invaluable service to the Province of Nova Scotia. We have 23 different organizations, all volunteer organizations in this province. I’m quite aware of the contributions that they make. Each organization basically runs their system pretty well the same. We know that liability insurance, workers’ compensation, all of that is covered by your department. I know all that information.

My question is: We invest as a province. We give each organization $3,000 - $3,000 for all the work that they do. I’m wondering if the minister is going to consider giving them an increase. They have not had an increase for decades, I believe. I could be corrected on that. At the end of the day, you’re investing basically $69,000 in the 23 organizations. Surely we can increase it to $5,000 each and put it up to $115,000. Minister, what are your thoughts on that, please?

Mr. Chair, while we’re waiting, how much time do we have before break?

THE CHAIR: Three minutes.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: First, I want to recognize our search and rescue crew and all the great work they do. I have friends who volunteer and work with our search and rescue. They’re an extremely important part of our frontline workers. They work side by side and - listen, they save lives. They do an invaluable service here in Nova Scotia.

Yes, we do give them $3,000 per team, but there are other benefits that we do provide. We cover liability insurance, which can be a huge expense for those teams. It’s something that they have asked for in the past, and that’s something that we’ll continue to provide. We also do cover their workers’ compensation. Again, that’s . . .

KARLA MACFARLANE: Mr. Chair . . .

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: That’s a savings for those - Mr. Chair, I’m not finished, sorry.

That is a savings for those teams. It’s something that we make sure that these things don’t come out of their pockets. The other thing that could be and is extremely expensive that we do cover is the telecommunications side of this.

I understand the member was asking about one particular part, but this is a bigger thing. This isn’t just about one simple benefit or fiscal piece that we’re providing these search and rescue groups. We provide them with many services. We provide them with satellite phones, which can be extremely costly and expensive. All of this is also to show - we need to make sure that when they’re out there, they have the proper equipment and that they’re safe when they’re doing work to protect our loved ones. There’s also an income tax credit that’s given to all members of our search and rescue. That’s another way that we show our appreciation. Part of this is not just showing them how valuable they are to us but also retention.

We have to give them - it’s not an easy thing to do, obviously. They’re under a stressful situation. I would argue that not every person can and will do that job. We want to make sure that there are things there that will attract them to the position. A lot of the time, it isn’t about the financial. It isn’t about the finances for them. It’s about a duty that they feel to all Nova Scotians. We see that with a lot of our frontline workers . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Again, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have reached the time for our final COVID‑19 break for the afternoon. We’ll come back at 3:23 p.m. for the final hour of the subcommittee.

[3:08 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

[3:23 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: We’re running a little bit behind the committee in the House. We’re about seven minutes behind them, so we started a minute earlier. I’ll let the minister finish - briefly - his response.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I guess to kind of wrap it all up, Mr. Chair, in addition to the $3,000 that we provide, we also provide a lot of different services which take the monetary pressure off those organizations. To close the question out, we want to thank our search and rescue volunteers and the ones who are out there on the front line. Thank you for everything you do to keep Nova Scotians safe.

KARLA MACFARLANE: That absolutely has not taken the pressure off. I wouldn’t be asking the question if it was taking the pressure off and you were giving them more than $3,000 a month. As I opened with my statements, I am completely aware of what your department is giving them. In fact, even a licence plate was recently mentioned that they’re receiving. That’s not what these organizations are asking for. They’re asking for a base increase in their operational amount. It’s disappointing that the Liberal government doesn’t support increasing these organizations’ overall budget from $3,000 to $5,000. They’re well worth it.

Certainly, they’re well aware of how grateful I am of their commitment to this organization and the number of volunteers who sacrifice their lives to go out and save ours. I definitely support an increase in their basic funding. I will get back to them and certainly let them know that there’s no indication of an increase in funding. That’s fine.

I do want to ask - I know that when their members are travelling, they can be reimbursed for their travel and their meals. But a lot of these organizations actually do not have enough money to write cheques for their members for their travel and their meals. Therefore, they’re waiting two to three months to get the money back from the government. That’s why they need this basic operational increase.

I know that my other colleague who will be on later will be asking a number of questions as well around this. Just to finish off, I’m just wondering if the minister can commit to maybe speeding up that process of making sure that they receive their funding for miles and meals.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I can tell you that I will bring this forward to staff. We will work on expediting the process as much as we can. We value all the work that our search and rescue teams do. It’s extremely important work. The member talked about operational expenses and helping them with operational expenses. The $3,000 is second only to B.C. We provide one of the largest remunerations for search and rescue but also part of operational expenses, again, is the liability insurance, the workers’ compensation, and the . . .

KARLA MACFARLANE: I know all of that.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Please. Can I continue?

And the telecommunications. All of this stuff is money that would be coming out of the pocket of those individuals in our search and rescue. We have taken that upon ourselves to deal with those issues and to deal with that funding. That could add up to potentially hundreds of dollars a month, but we are dealing with that because we know that we need to take some of that pressure off of our search and rescue. The last thing they need on their mind when they’re out there bravely supporting all Nova Scotians is where they’re going to be able to pay their liability insurance, their workers’ comp, and their telecommunications.

Just having satellite phones alone is a massive asset to our search and rescue. Just looking at Nova Scotia, the cellphone service, we do have fairly decent cellphone service, as someone who worked in that industry for a long time. In order for our search and rescue men and women to do their job properly, they need something stronger. They need the most reliable communication that they can get. That’s what that satellite’s there for.

As for your original question, listen, I will sit down, and we can have them sit down with our staff. We can have these discussions. I really do appreciate you bringing this forward. It’s extremely important. I know you’re somebody who has stood up for and will continue to stand up for our frontline workers, and I have a deep appreciation for that. I know it’s heartfelt. We know that there’s always more we can do. We’ll sit down with them, and I welcome you to be part of that conversation.

KARLA MACFARLANE: What I would like to discuss next would be regarding a letter that was sent - many actually, I believe. There was one from myself and one from the mayor of Pictou and the warden requesting your department to engage in the project of our new library. Earlier, you spoke of thirds, thirds, and thirds for funding. We have all our thirds except from the Province. We have the federal and we have the municipal. We wrote a letter asking for you to be engaged as well. I’m not sure exactly the date of the letter, but you’re probably aware. My question is simple: On behalf of Pictounians and our municipality and our town council, are you willing to engage and support us at the Executive Council on this project and give it a push and be someone who is a champion around this project for us?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I will sit down with the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage. We’ll have this discussion. I am certainly willing to help push this forward for the member and for all of Pictou. Thank you for raising this. When we’re out of the House, whenever that is, maybe we can meet on this and we’ll do what we can to support you.

[3:30 p.m.]

KARLA MACFARLANE: I truly appreciate that answer from the minister, not just for myself, but absolutely I can extend the gratitude already from the warden and the mayor and all of us here in Pictou West. We’ll look forward to those conversations and learning more about what those meetings hold for all of us.

My last question is simply around - every year I seem to ask this, and I can’t seem to get an exact answer on how things are supposed to go. We are struggling with speed limits. Is it that difficult to change an MGA so that we should be able to allow municipalities to be responsible for changing their speed limits? How can we make this easier for them? Let’s face it, there are areas in the town that certainly can remain at 50 kilometres per hour, but there are other areas that need to be reduced. I’m just wondering if you can comment on that and if that’s part of the MGA.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Just quickly to go back to your previous question, I do want to say that the library is a fantastic project. Speaking with staff, we will continue to work. I really do want to thank you for pushing it forward. We will do what we can.

As for speed limits, obviously this is something that has impacted all Nova Scotians. It’s kind of a complex issue really, because there’s a balance between safety and transporting as efficiently and effectively as possible. I know myself that I have had to deal with this issue on numerous occasions. We have seen in the past where we have had speed limits dropped in some municipalities to 30 kilometres an hour.

This is something that would fall under the Department of Transportation and Active Transit. I know that they’re doing a review. It’s something that I have had these discussions on. Listen, we can certainly - it’s something that is top of mind for myself and many other MLAs and Nova Scotians. What I promise to do is I will talk to our staff, figure out the process for yourself and for others, and we’ll get back to you.

KARLA MACFARLANE: Mr. Chair, I would like to hand it over now to my good colleague for Sydney River‑Mira‑Louisbourg.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Sydney River‑Mira‑Louisbourg.

BRIAN COMER: Minister, congratulations on your new portfolio. Thanks for allowing me to ask you a couple of questions this afternoon.

My first question is: During COVID‑19, Cape Breton Regional Municipality Transit was declared an essential service, especially municipal transit. My understanding, based on conversations with my municipal colleagues, is that the municipality spent somewhere in the range of $1.5 million on transit for additional buses, staff, PPE, sanitization, et cetera. They essentially footed the bill for this cost. What’s the stance of the department? Is this going to be reimbursed to the municipalities, or is this something that they’re going to be stuck with as a debt, I guess you would say, moving forward?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I want to thank the honourable member for the kind words. I can tell you that under the Safe Restart funding, CBRM received just under $4 million. They submitted their costs through the Safe Restart program, and we reimbursed them for what they submitted. Listen, if there’s discrepancy between that or if there’s issues, I will gladly sit down with CBRM Council and have that discussion.

BRIAN COMER: Minister, I’m just curious, of that $4 million that you say was reimbursed, was any percentage of that dedicated towards municipal transit specifically? Where was that money allocated to during the pandemic?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: About a quarter of that, or $1 million, was specifically for transit.

BRIAN COMER: Moving along, my next question is in regard to the fiscal capacity grants. It’s always called different things depending on who you ask. My understanding, based on the research that I have done, is that that number of $15 million has not changed since 2007-08. Since that time, various costs have gone up, whether you factor in inflation or the general cost of doing business in the municipality. My understanding is that the municipality actually pays the Province back about $18 million of their own revenue, essentially having a net loss of over $3 million. Why has that grant been frozen for about 13 years? I just need you to explain the rationale of the department to me there.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Just to correct the member, it hasn’t been frozen for 13 years. My staff around the table is telling us that it hasn’t been frozen for that many years. We do recognize that there have been some challenges, especially with the new world we live in with COVID‑19. We are in discussion and we will be in discussion with NSFM and the Association of Municipal Administrators Nova Scotia (AMANS) to talk about this grant and many others.

BRIAN COMER: Can the minister just please clarify to me, this $15 million operational grant, when has it been frozen since?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: It has remained stable since 2014.

BRIAN COMER: I’m just wondering, based on the characteristics of Cape Breton, the high childhood poverty rates, and high unemployment rates, a lot of individuals have difficulty paying their property taxes, for example, which also falls under the purview of Municipal Affairs. Why has there not been any consideration to increase this grant for people who need it most?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: This budget is reflective of, I would say, people who need it the most. We have seen the largest income assistance increase in this province’s history. That was followed by the second-largest - previously the second-largest increase. That $100 per individual is going to go a long way to helping people. My understanding is that some of the new statistics that are out are showing child poverty is decreasing. I’ll be honest with you: any child who lives in poverty is one too many. We need to make sure that we’re supporting our children, that we’re giving them the proper place in life to start. This is something for me that’s personal, and I think it’s personal for every member around the table. As someone who has experienced childhood poverty in my life, I understand what it’s like.

We know that COVID‑19 has shone a light on not just this and the environment and so many other issues. That’s why this budget is so reflective of that. That’s why we’re seeing these large investments.

As for CBRM, we met with leadership two weeks ago - myself, the Premier, the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, and staff from all departments - to have a discussion about the priorities. In my short time as minister, I can say that I have had numerous conversations with CBRM. I recognize the importance of our second-largest municipality and all they bring to this province.

We’re going to continue to work with them. We’re going to continue to listen to them. Llisten, you know as well as I know - you know better than me because you grew up in Cape Breton, that these are the experts on the ground. They know what the issues are, and my job is to listen to them. We’re seeing record investments in some of those areas. We have made it a priority to support those who need it the most and under-represented communities in this province.

BRIAN COMER: Minister, I’m just curious, I’m wondering if the department would be able to give me a breakdown of the last 10 years of the operating grant with incremental increases. I think you said the last increase was in 2014, so maybe my research is not accurate. I would like to get a breakdown of the increase and maybe what that was based on.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Not a problem. In fact, we’ll get you all the operating grants. We’ll get you that information. Obviously, I can’t do it right now, but we’ll make sure that that information lands in your hand.

BRIAN COMER: Minister, I’m just wondering your position on the property tax cap, especially for new homeowners in Cape Breton. I know last February, I believe in 2020, there was an all-Party committee that hosted meetings held in Halifax. There has been no dialogue, I don’t think, whatsoever since that time on that subject. I’m just wondering if there are any alternatives to the property tax cap that are on the table? What are the department’s views on the property tax cap, especially for young homeowners trying to start out there in Cape Breton?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Obviously, this is a very complex issue. We’re having this conversation with all our municipalities, not just CBRM. We need to recognize that pulling a lever over here is going to impact someone over there. We want to make sure that any changes that are made are fair and equitable to all Nova Scotians. We realize that the market here now in Nova Scotia is extremely desirable. Any changes that we make, as you could very well appreciate, we want to make sure that we’re not adversely affecting someone else.

BRIAN COMER: Minister, I’m just curious if your department had any meetings with stakeholders in the CBRM in regard to a potential new library, if there has been any dialogue. What’s the level of support gauged within the Department of Municipal Affairs, and what do those discussions look like?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: The member is starting to sound like the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development. I can tell you that we have had many discussions. This is an interesting project that was brought forward. As I think you can appreciate, finances and money are limited. What we have said to CBRM is that they have many, many fantastic projects that are on the top of their list and that they would like. We have asked them to prioritize what it is that they need and what it is that we can do. I think we have proven with the NSCC investment, the historic investment in health care and so many other investments in CBRM, that we’re willing to listen to those very important partners and make the investments needed. We’re going to continue to talk with CBRM to get their list of priorities. We’ll move forward from there.

BRIAN COMER: This will be my last question before my colleague, the MLA for Argyle-Barrington, takes off with it. I’m just touching back to the operational grant. I know many people in Cape Breton think that it’s unfair, I guess you would say, based on our population and our demographics, unemployment rate and various factors, that this grant has been so low for so long. Essentially, the municipality is at a loss right now by the time they cover their own bills with the Province. I would like to hear why or why not this grant is not being increased. Just explain this to my constituents.

[3:45 p.m.]

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Obviously, this is something that has been brought up to us several times by CBRM and I met with the council and with the mayor. I have met several times in person and virtually with them. We’re willing to talk about what we can do to ensure that our municipalities, our partners, are on a strong path to stability and growth. I plan on getting up to CBRM soon, and I’m willing to sit down with the member and council and have these conversations in person, as long as COVID‑19 allows. I know that the member is a strong advocate for CBRM. I will gladly sit down with you and have these conversations. I do really appreciate you bringing this forward on behalf of your constituents.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Argyle-Barrington.

COLTON LEBLANC: I’m just wondering, quickly, how much time we have left.

THE CHAIR: Fourteen minutes.

COLTON LEBLANC: Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the minister for his time this afternoon and that of his staff and get right into it.

Following up on the topic my colleague for Pictou West started off with regarding ground search and rescue organizations, I would like to give the minister an opportunity to clarify or correct the record. I have at my disposal statistics from 2019 regarding Nova Scotia ground search and rescue organizations. There are 23 organizations. They did 56 searches at that time, over nearly 13,000 search hours, over 32,000 training hours, over 68,000 administration hours. They have done over 15,000 fundraising and public presentation hours. That’s a lot of time dedicated by almost 1,200 Nova Scotians who are passionate about their communities.

Most recently, my community has been significantly impacted by a number of searches, the neighbouring area with the sinking of the Chief William Saulis and two right in my constituency, the disappearance of Zach Lefave and the drowning of Kenneth and Noreen Surette, which has certainly significantly impacted the entire region.

The minister said in his previous response that these associations or these organizations shouldn’t have to worry about finances and that it isn’t about the finances. Yet we know that there has been an ask by the organizations for an increase from $3,000 to $5,000 for organizations with an increase of $25,000 to the provincial association. I’m just wondering what’s stopping the province from investing that money for these organizations, which have told me a couple of years ago, if their services would have been costed out to another organization, it would have been over $1 million. So $145,000 from the Province’s coffers to offset a $1 million saving by volunteers.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Previously, I talked about the liability, workers’ comp, and telecommunications support, just to name a few, and said that they shouldn’t have to worry about those expenses. I’m glad that we cover that.

Also, our heart goes out to all those families that are impacted. Obviously, it’s not an easy thing to do. Our search and rescue people do an amazing job. I’m going to sit down with our staff, we’re going to have a conversation about this, and we’ll see what we can do. We’ll talk to them, and we’ll reach out to our search and rescue groups and see what we can do to help.

COLTON LEBLANC: When the minister was answering my colleague for Pictou West’s question, I was thinking back in my mind, where did the minister come up with this ideology that it wasn’t about finances?

The reality is, at least for rural organizations that I’m aware of, when they have to make a decision between infrastructure needs, like the one in Yarmouth, for Yarmouth County - the roof is leaking, and there are a number of issues - to making repairs on one of their critical pieces of vehicle infrastructure, to juggle that - I think they’re very much appreciative of the Province’s support when it comes to telecommunications, the workers’ comp, and the liability insurance, but when they have to go in on a training night and think about what happens when the next call that we get, the next search that we get, we can’t start our vehicle anymore, what impact is that going to have on their communities? I think it’s certainly weighing heavily on their minds.

I do urge the minister and his staff to have serious consideration about the funding model. What’s the minister’s response or message to ground search and rescues about their finances? Recognizing that some may get support from municipal governments and others may not, but for those that are struggling, I’m interested to hear the minister’s comments on finances for these organizations who volunteer their time.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: My response would be I’m extremely grateful. We’re extremely grateful for everything they do. They work under difficult circumstances. I and every Nova Scotian are very appreciative of everything they do.

We are willing to sit down and have a conversation with those organizations. We will talk to them and figure out what we can do for them. Again, at no point is anyone in this department or anyone in this government or any Nova Scotian not appreciative of what they do and the difficult circumstances and the time and the commitment for the training and the programs. These are people who go out in the middle of the night - as you would know, as a frontline worker yourself. We owe a lot to our frontline workers, obviously, and the time away from your family and your loved ones - we’re extremely appreciative.

What I would say in this situation is, listen, if there’s more we can do, we’ll sit down, and we’ll have those conversations. We want to make sure that when our search and rescue workers go out there, they have the assets they need and they have the tools they need to keep Nova Scotians safe.

COLTON LEBLANC: My next question for the minister would be: Who is ultimately responsible for not only the operation funding but for the capital needs of ground search and rescue organizations? Does that responsibility fall single-handedly with the Province, or is there an obligation for municipal units? If it is cost-shared, I would appreciate an answer to clarify what that expectation from both levels of government is.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: A lot of this is shared contribution between the Province and the municipalities. For those that may not be receiving the municipal contribution, we’ll sit down, and we’ll work with them. Once we’re done here, I’m going to sit down with my staff, and we’re going to talk to those individual organizations and find a path forward.

COLTON LEBLANC: Seeing as how these organizations work so closely together, not just one organization for one county but they do deploy simultaneously, they do cover other areas, one organization has gone to other parts of the province, I have a little bit of trepidation that it may be treated organization by organization, whereas there may not be a standardized approach and some municipalities may be expected to do one practice and the other municipality may not. I’ll re-ask my question. Is there an expectation for municipalities to cover a certain part of the operations or investments required to maintain sustainable ground search and rescue organizations?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: As all of us are aware, our municipalities work on a tight budget. They’re concerned about every dollar, as they should be. We’re going to work with them to ensure that they continue to have the search and rescue services that they need. As minister, I want to make sure that I’m listening to those municipalities, and we’re not putting undue burden on them. In order for us to be successful as a province, we need to make sure that those municipalities are sustainable, and sustainability to me isn’t just around the finances, but that is a large part of it. It’s also around resources. That’s why as my first effort as minister, I reached out to municipalities, and I had those conversations. We’ll continue to have those conversations.

We’re going to - I really do appreciate the member and the member for Pictou West bringing this up and speaking on behalf of their constituents on this issue. It’s a very important issue. We want to make sure that our search and rescue workers feel appreciated, are sustainable, and that when they go out, they are given the resources that they need. When we talk about the financial contribution to our search and rescue teams, the $3,000 grant - again, I’ll go back and say it’s the second-largest in the country. We’ll talk to them. I go back to the other services that we provide, because this isn’t about a singular thing.

It’s a holistic approach. How are we supporting our search and rescue groups? How are we supporting our frontline workers who are out there doing this thing? How are we supporting our municipalities? The last thing, as Minister of Municipal Affairs, that I want to do is put undue burden upon them. I want them to know, and I think I’ve gotten the message out pretty significantly to our municipal partners, that I’m here to listen. I’m here to learn from them. I’m here to help them in any way possible.

[4:00 p.m.]

COLTON LEBLANC: Similar to the fire service, of which I was and continue to be a member, we could be having this discussion about that. It’s just that ground search and rescue has certainly taken the forefront for very sad situations in my region.

I guess I’ll ask this last question: I cited earlier statistics about search hours - more than 13,000 search hours and over 15,000 fundraising and public presentation hours. If the last thing that our ground search and rescue organizations should be doing is looking for money, my question for the minister is: Where should they be searching for money when they’re struggling to make ends meet?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I wish we had a little bit longer to discuss further. What I will say is that I’m here to have those discussions. Again, I will offer you the same offer that the member for Sydney River‑Mira‑Louisbourg . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time for the PC caucus has expired. We get back for the last few minutes with the NDP caucus. We’ll have to leave enough room for the minister to make his closing remarks and put forward the Estimates. I’m going to ask the minister, how long do you anticipate for your closing remarks and putting in the Estimate?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I feel like this is a trick question, but no, I’ll just take probably two minutes.

THE CHAIR: Thank you. The honourable member for Cape Breton Centre.

KENDRA COOMBES: Mr. Chair, how long do I have?

THE CHAIR: Eighteen minutes.

KENDRA COOMBES: Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair, I’m hoping that the minister can tell me, as the Code of Conduct for Elected Municipal Officials - which I’m very happy to see come through - is developed, will there be also material developed for training purposes, such as sensitivity training or anti-racism training? Will funding be allocated to municipalities to help with the full actualization of these codes of conduct to come to reality?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: We are working hand-in-hand with the NSFM and AMANS on this. Of course, those are things that will and have been identified. Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll hopefully have all that stuff in place, and we’ll roll it out.

KENDRA COOMBES: I would like to ask you this question: The Nova Scotians for Equalization Fairness group has sent a letter to the Department of Municipal Affairs and to the Department of Finance and Treasury Board asking where the portion of federal equalization transfers on municipal deficiency and tax capacity related to property and miscellaneous revenues is spent by the Nova Scotia government. I’m wondering if the minister can tell me what portion of these yearly transfers has been applied to address the municipal deficiency and tax capacity. If there hasn’t been, why not? Also, for the sake of accountability and transparency, would the department be willing to post a breakdown of how the federal equalization money from the feds is spent and where?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: For the detailed answer to this, this would be best put toward the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, as that money would flow through the Department of Finance and Treasury Board. I will say that we continue to and will continue to work with our municipalities so that they get the investments they need, whether it’s in infrastructure or programs. For a full detailed breakdown of federal money, that would be best put toward the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

KENDRA COOMBES: I hope to do that.

I want to go back to cannabis, as we were talking about before. I don’t want to talk about the legalization of it. I want to talk about the revenue side of this. I already discussed the 25 per cent and 75 per cent breakdown. Will the minister agree that to actually have the municipalities do the administrative work and show the receipts is cumbersome and a formula should be worked out with the NSFM and/or the municipal units so the municipal units can receive a substantial share of all tax revenue being generated through the sale of cannabis without having to show receipts as - I should say this - the agreement was intended?

Mr. Chair, while we wait for the minister, I would like to yield the rest of my time to the member for Cape Breton-Richmond.

ALANA PAON: Mr. Chair?

THE CHAIR: We’re waiting for the minister to answer that question, and I’ll recognize the member for Cape Breton-Richmond after that.

ALANA PAON: Thank you.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Obviously, with expenses, there are also savings associated with this. I will endeavour to follow up with my staff on the receipt part of it, and then we’ll get back to you.

I want to thank the member for the questions.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cape Breton-Richmond with about 14 and a half minutes left.

ALANA PAON: It’s a pleasure to be able to ask the new Minister of Municipal Affairs a few questions. I am going to start with a question that I had asked the minister during Question Period around funding for the pager system repairs and upgrades that we need to our Strait Area Mutual Aid Association. It was a system that was built back in the 1970s. It was originally built for maybe eight departments, and I think we’re up to about 28 now. I don’t have the number here in front of me, but I think it’s 28.

Fortunately, there’s staff on board who are able to machine parts and kind of fix this really outdated system. It’s going to cost somewhere between $70,000 and $100,000 to do the upgrades that are necessary to be able to make certain that the system - it is part of our 911 system - to be able to get hold of and page a volunteer firefighter. I would like to know specifically: Is there money - there’s a lot of it in there - in the 911 fund that can be made available to put towards the pager system so that these volunteer firefighters and emergency first responders, obviously, are not put in a position where they’re having to fundraise to upgrade and maintain part of the integral 911 system that we have in our constituency?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: The paging or the Trunked Mobile Radio (TMR) system is actually under Service Nova Scotia. That question would be better put to that minister. I can tell you that the 911 fees that are collected generally go toward upgrading and maintaining a stable and world-class 911 service.

ALANA PAON: Again, I would ask - the paging system obviously is an extension of the 911 system, whether it’s under a different ministerial hat or not. Volunteer firefighters are really struggling. They’re struggling as well, I’m going to tell you, with the fact that municipal governments are - with gratitude - granting them money to be able to take care of some other expenses on a yearly basis. But with insurance costs going up, it looks again as if there’s a possibility that they will have to upgrade their Class 3 licences and probably have to incur a great deal more expenses.

It’s not an equitable - again, no disparaging municipalities, but the system within the municipalities to grant money to volunteer fire departments is based on how many people live within that district and how many commercial businesses are within that district as well. It really creates inequity between these volunteer fire departments. Everyone should have equal access, as far as I’m concerned, to the same type of fire service. No one should feel that their house is more at risk to burn down in one area within a constituency more so than another.

Can the minister provide me with some input on whether or not he feels that there should be more a standardized or maybe different type of system put in place to look at these grants that are given by municipalities as well as if the minister might feel that it would be justified to look at more provincial input into these fire departments that give essential services to our communities and to our residents?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: There are a few there to unpack. I’ll take them as quickly as possible.

Around the TMR and the paging stuff, we’ll follow up with Service Nova Scotia and have a conversation around them. It would be unfair for me to answer any questions that aren’t under the purview of this department.

As for the grants that are given out by municipalities, respectfully, that is their level of government. They’ll decide where those municipal grants go. I personally and I think most of us don’t feel that the provincial government should be dictating to our municipalities where they spend their money. I can follow up with NSFM on these concerns and also Service Nova Scotia because there are legitimate concerns, and I do appreciate you bringing them forward.

ALANA PAON: Certainly, I would never suggest that the provincial government should be dictating or interfering in municipal affairs in that way. The only way that the provincial government should ever be concerned with anything within municipal government is with regard to the MGA. I know from full experience that we have had enough of that in my constituency in the past, thank you very much.

I’m glad to hear that the minister will follow up with Service Nova Scotia, but the situation is very grave with regard to the paging system, so hopefully that will be a priority follow-up. I guess what I was getting at - again, municipalities obviously dictate where - I have had a full conversation with the municipality. I meet with them regularly. I wanted to ask basically again, because there is an inequity that is occurring from fire department to fire department because of the way that the grant programs are set up - again, not speaking disparagingly or wanting to get involved in municipal government affairs at all - my question to the minister is: Is he concerned that there is a possibility that there is an inequity in the amount of money that is available to make certain that citizens in some parts of Nova Scotia have access to more fire services or better equipment or more up-to-date equipment than others? To me, that’s a massive concern. I would hope that the minister has a concern about that.

[4:15 p.m.]

Mr. Chair, could you advise how much time is left?

THE CHAIR: I would say about three minutes after the minister gives his answer.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: What that means is the Chair is saying, be quick. So I will. There is the Emergency Services Provider Fund, and I am very concerned. We want to make sure that our services are there, that they’re there when our residents need it. The Emergency Services Provider Fund is $1 million, and fire departments can apply for equipment and other things. Yes, of course we want to make sure that the people of Nova Scotia are kept safe and that when they need the services, they receive the services that are life-saving and the same from Yarmouth to Cape Breton.

ALANA PAON: I’m very familiar with the Emergency Services Provider Fund. As the minister knows, that’s not available on a yearly basis, so that is limited. It’s very good, obviously, that we do have that in place, but I’m just bringing to the minister’s attention that the insurance rates for many of these fire departments are skyrocketing. The insurance companies are starting to query the fire departments with regard to who has a Class 3 licence and who doesn’t. We all know that a Class 3 licence is related to having to drive some of the fire trucks that are on site. There were ways around this before, but because the insurance companies are starting to ask questions about this, it would probably follow suit that they’re going to ask for firefighters who are driving these trucks to be able to get extra training. With the Emergency Services Provider Fund not available every single year, these are rising costs, and many of these fire departments are delivering an essential service - these men and women are volunteers. They’re not getting paid for this. Again, I would ask the minister: What else is the minister going to look at as a solution other than having to try to fundraise in the middle of a pandemic for some much-needed equipment, increased insurance costs, and the possibility of increased training as well coming in the very near future?

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Obviously, these are very important discussions, and our firefighters are doing an incredible job. I am constantly in conversation with our NSFM and AMANS. I will bring this up, and we will have a conversation to see where they are and what we can do to help. Again, we want to make sure that our communities right across Nova Scotia have the proper access to fire safety. I look at my own backyard, which you’re very familiar with. They did amalgamate a couple of our fire stations and build a brand spanking new one. That was HRM, obviously.

It’s tough. It’s a tough job. The recruitment is very difficult. We’ll work with them. We want to make sure that our frontline workers - especially we have seen the importance - we have always known, let’s be honest. We always know how important our frontline workers are. They’re the true Nova Scotian heroes. During COVID‑19, nothing has shone brighter than our frontline workers. The next time I talk to our NSFM members - our mayors, our wardens, our councillors - I’ll have this discussion. I’ll commit to bringing this up. I want to thank you for bringing this forward and continuing to fight for our frontline workers.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time for questioning has expired. We’ll turn it over to the minister for his closing remarks and to present the resolution.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I want to thank our members for the questions today. As you can tell, I started to realize that I was getting long-winded, and I apologize. Unfortunately, it’s in my nature to talk a lot, so I want to apologize. I hope that all the members were able to get the answers to their questions. Please, if you weren’t able to get the answer to your question, you could call me on my phone. You could send me a text, or you can email me. I have deep appreciation for all your hard work and for you being there for your constituents. That’s why you have been elected - because you have done a solid job.

THE CHAIR: Shall Resolution E17stand?

The resolution stands.

Folks, we have just completed 40 hours of Estimates in Subcommittee on Supply. I want to thank everybody for their participation, even those behind the scenes. I want to also recognize Karen for her tremendous help as we got through this situation - I guess we could call it.

What we’re going to do now is go back to the Committee of the Whole on Supply. We’ll be reporting at that point. Thank you all very much.

[The subcommittee adjourned at 4:24 p.m.]