Improving life through technology
CBRM seeking tech-savvy Cape Bretoners to lead municipality in Smart Cities Challenge
It’s no secret the Cape Breton Regional Municipality is struggling to make ends meet.
Balancing its budget while providing taxpayers with required services is an annual challenge for the cash-strapped municipality.
Bu the CBRM’s director of technology is excited about a potential $50- million windfall that could be realized with some local high-tech, entrepreneurial savvy.
On Wednesday, an enthusiastic John MacKinnon appeared before CBRM council’s general committee on planning and economic development to explain about the Smart Cities Challenge, an Infrastructure Canada initiative open to communities of all sizes across the country.
“This is actually pretty exciting — it’s something we’ve been talking about internally here for a long time,” he told council prior to outlining details of the national contest.
According to the Infrastructure Canada website, the exercise encourages communities “to adopt a smart cities approach to improve the lives of their residents through innovation, data and connected technology.”
One prize of up to $50 million is open to any sized community, two prizes of up to $10 million are open to communities with less than 500,000 people, and one prize of up to $5 million is open to communities with fewer than 30,000 people.
MacKinnon reminded council that when the CBRM amalgamated in 1995, the municipality was considered a leader in the utilization of technology. “It was the opportunity, it was the amalgamation of eight municipalities that had a wide variety of financial systems — it was sort of like having a blank canvas as we went in and started doing things,” said MacKinnon, who prior to joining the CBRM eight years ago spent years in the private sector working on municipality issues.
“We were the first municipality in Nova Scotia to have a complete communications network where we were able to integrate all of our buildings into a single domain — we had the most advanced, and I mean by far, GIS (geographic information system) that existed in the province.”
He said the system allowed the CBRM to do “all kinds of interesting and wonderful things” in terms of taxation and other logistical issues.
But, according to MacKinnon, the area’s continuing population decline has adversely affected the high-tech advantage once enjoyed by the municipality.
“All of our departments’ budgets have been constantly feeling the pressure of reductions, including technology and our ability to deliver the technology support has become more and more challenging,” he said.
“When the population declines, the amount of support that is required to keep the operation running doesn’t change, so our pressures have become greater as the years went on.”
Despite that, MacKinnon is confident that the CBRM still has the potential to be a leader in technological innovation.
“Community engagement is the key — we can’t lose by going forward and this is an amazing opportunity to engage with the community to find out what they need to help us better support them in the future,” he said.
Dist. 8 Coun. Amanda McDougall is a fan of the initiative.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel — we have a huge amount of human capital and resources that are already here in our municipality,” she said.
“We might not be privy to it all, but the residents know and will lead us and tell us how we can develop a really great application.”
Council voted to endorse the Smart City initiative and is expected to issue a call for expressions of interest to lead a working group on gathering ideas.
Communities wishing to participate in the Smart Cities Challenge have until April 24 to submit an application.
Following a review by an independent jury, five finalists per prize will be selected this summer. Finalists will receive $250,000 grants to develop their final proposals. The winners will be announced in early 2019.