Continuing to improve
Victoria County hopes to feed off 2017 banner year
With the banner year of 2017 behind them, the Municipality of Victoria County is hopeful 2018 will be much of the same.
The municipality considered 2017 a success, especially in its tourism sector which produced record numbers.
Warden Bruce Morrison says the tourism upswing was influenced by Parks Canada waving its entrance fees as part of Canada 150 celebrations.
“The (Cabot) Trail was busy, the businesses were busy all the way around the trail, so people were very pleased with how last year went,” said Morrison.
“Not only did (fishermen) get good prices for our lobster and crab, they also had good catches, so even those resourcebased industries did well — it just changes the mood and the atmosphere in our county.”
One of the major changes for the municipality last year came in October when longtime chief administration officer Sandy Hudson announced his retirement.
“Sandy was an experience CAO and it will be a challenge to replace him,” said Morrison. “We’re just in the process of going through recruiting and hiring a new CAO — we know there are a number of qualified candidates that have applied.”
The municipality has a number of priorities for 2018, including the hiring of the new CAO, which Morrison expects will happen by the end of the month.
Victoria County will continue to take a more aggressive approach on tax collection and the municipality also plans to continue to improve broadband.
“We’re concerned about the amount of uncollected taxes that we have,” said Morrison. “We will continue our approach, which will also be reflected with more tax sales.
“Most people are looking for broadband and we’re committed to the improvement in areas that have limited connectivity right now.”
Morrison said the municipality will also look closely at physician recruitment and housing.
“We need at least one more physician in both Baddeck and Neils Harbour — we’d like to pick up another,” he said. “As a municipality, we’ve invested in both these sites to make (it) more attractive to potential physicians to move into the area.
“Housing is an issue both … the cost and availability, it’s a concern for us.”
Improvements to the Neils Harbour water supply, along with renovations and upgrades to solid waste facilities across the municipality are also priorities.
Although no surprise, tourism is an important part of Victoria County.
The municipality has a new
tourism strategy for 2018. The strategy is complete, however Morrison said the municipality is doing some final consultations with community and tourism groups prior to launching the plan.
“Everybody benefits when we have the kind of year we had in 2017 with tourism,” said Morrison. “We’ve heard nothing but very positive comments in regards to tourism, so we hope that will continue into the new year.”
“We’re really starting to see that tourism is starting earlier and ending later, which means businesses are opening earlier — we’re also working very much on winter tourism as well.”
Among the notable events taking place in Victoria County this year are the Hike Nova Scotia summit in Ingonish and the Cabot Relay Race, both in May, as well as the Celtic Colours International Festival at various venues in October.