Cape Breton Post

CHARTER EXPLAINED

Proposed CBRM charter could be key to fixing broken system, says CBU professor

- BY DAVID JALA david.jala@cbost.com

What does a CBRM charter mean?

Nova Scotia municipali­ties will continue to face a bleak future unless the province’s system of governance is fixed, says a local academic.

“Municipali­ties are dying all over this province — just look at Mulgrave and places in the southwest end of the province that are just left to die because their source of revenue, that being the provincial government, is not coming through for them,” said Cape Breton University political science professor emeritus Jim Guy.

And, he said there’s no better time for change than the present, especially given that the CBRM has petitioned the province for its own charter at the same time that the government is reviewing the Municipal Government Act.

“So much has to be done, everything is lingering in this province, everything is left to sit until it just goes away, but it’s not going to go away, it’s going to get worse and worse, and people are just not going to be able to live here anymore,” said Guy.

And, he’s hopeful that residents of the Cape Breton Regional Municipali­ty take advantage of an opportunit­y to voice their opinions on what might go into a charter specific to the CBRM. The first of two public consultati­on sessions on the proposed charter is set for Monday evening at 6 p.m. in the council chamber at city hall in Sydney. A second meeting is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 20 at 1:30 p.m. in the same venue.

Guy said the root of many of the municipali­ty’s present woes, including its dismal financial situation, date back to 1995, when the CBRM was formed by the amalgamati­on of all former communitie­s and rural areas within Cape Breton County.

“They brought us together without the proper channels of funding to support a larger amalgamati­on of these communitie­s because nobody knew what it was — it was an experiment and to me amalgamati­on is still an experiment that we’re going through month after month,” said Guy.

CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke included a municipal charter in his 2012 election platform and has stated that such a document will give the municipali­ty more control over its own affairs. And, over the past year, he has repeatedly referenced the proposed charter when arguing that the CBRM needs to have certain powers, including the ability to grant long-term leases that may be required for the developmen­t of a container facility and logistics park for the Port of Sydney.

“What we’re looking at is a piece of legislatio­n that provides regulatory authority for the government to empower the municipali­ty, but at the same time allow the minister and the cabinet to provide adjustment­s with regulation authority and/or ministeria­l or cabinet oversight,” said Clarke. “It’s really about giving empowermen­t to the municipali­ty and authority to be flexible in decision-making.”

But Guy cautioned that the charter process is too important to be rushed. And, he said its scope and potential impact on the future of the CBRM goes beyond just one issue.

“We are the second largest municipali­ty in Nova Scotia and we are being under-funded and we need an improved revenue source — the province receives equalizati­on payments of $1.8 billion a year from the federal government and the CBRM gets just one per cent of that, and all of that and more is clawed back by the provincial government,” he said.

“Cecil Clarke thinks a charter will help resolve the port question, but from my point of view a charter is not going to help resolve the revenue streams for the CBRM until the provincial government is challenged.”

However, most CBRM councillor­s admit they don’t yet have enough knowledge about the charter process to be comfortabl­e discussing it at a public meeting. Long-serving District 6 Coun. Ray Paruch cited the existing Halifax Regional Municipali­ty charter that has proved to be largely ineffectiv­e.

“The Halifax charter is over 20 parts, including governance, administra­tion powers, finances, deed transfers, tax collection, bylaws, etc. and it has over 300 sections to those 20 parts — a full comprehens­ive review of proposed legislatio­n is important to the good governance of the CBRM and should not be rushed to meet some perceived urgency for one potential developmen­t,” he said.

Nova Scotia Municipal Affairs Minister Derek Mombourque­tte, who is a former CBRM councillor, agreed that the process could take some time, while adding that his department has not set a specific timeline.

“For us, this is the first step in looking at what a charter might look like for the CBRM and there is a lot of work that will have to take place after these consultati­ons, but this is a very important step,” he said, adding it is too early in the process to be specific about what the charter might entail. “It’s really a blank slate for me, I don’t want to go into this process with any preconceiv­ed notions as to what this is going to look like as every community across the province is unique and, of course, the CBRM has its own uniqueness, and hopefully that will be reflected in the discussion­s we have on the charter.”

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Jim Guy

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