Next steps for the CBRM Charter

Don’t let opportunity slip away

There is momentum now to get a charter for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM), but I worry that it could slip away.

Here is the risk: The charter project could collapse if input is all over the place and not directly related to a charter. Or everything could fail if the process gets sidetracked by one polarizing issue.

We should draft the charter ourselves, in the form of a bill to be placed before the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. If left to other drafters, the charter could end up being merely symbolic. In a 2016 paper, political scientist Andrew Sancton cautioned other Canadian cities about this.

The charter must get passed while Derek Mombourquette is minister of municipal affairs. Time is short: Cabinet shuffles often happen mid-mandate.

Mombourquette has wisely pledged to share the credit and collaborate with his Conservative and NDP colleagues from Cape Breton.

A charter is not a grab bag for all good ideas. Nor is it an entire funding formula for all time.

A charter is a special law – a legal framework - to enable a city or region to have more power to act and to access transitional funding (a special boost) to move toward economic self-sufficiency and self-determination.

I recommend that the CBRM council name a volunteer group of advisors and drafters. They should examine everything we have heard so far and write the first draft, with discussion questions.

The draft would not be the end. It would help to focus the next round of input.

Here are points to consider when writing the draft.

First point: Enable rather than prescribe. Keep it to several succinct pages. The charter for the Halifax Regional Municipality is not a good model; it has 213 pages and 391 sections. Many parts just copy the Municipal Government Act.

A crisp approach would be for our charter to say that the Municipal Government Act still applies, but the CBRM now has a “notwithstanding” power. Provided there are transparent hearings and provided there’s proper notice to the province and citizens, the CBRM could pass a bylaw “notwithstanding the MGA” or certain related statutes. Other provincial laws would still apply. A notwithstanding by-law would require a two-thirds council vote to demonstrate broad support in the community.

Second point: To get the province to buy into transitional funding, we need to style it as a one-time or short-term “regeneration endowment.” It would not cause alarm by drawing the province into something open-ended and precedent setting. It would be justified as a special case to help lift this major population centre out of a long recession, a regional recession made worse by major industrial collapses.

The beauty of endowment funds is that they keep on giving - forever.

The principal – the base of the fund - would be protected and invested to generate an annual return. Each annual return on investment would go to the CBRM to leverage for project grants. It would be the municipal funding share for capital infrastructure projects, including roads, wastewater, libraries and recreation.

The principal, the base, would not be invested by the endowment trustees on the global markets, but locally in start-up enterprises that have the solid potential to grow the endowment and generate an annual return for the CBRM. There would thus be a double benefit to the area.

Third point: The charter must address property. Property has the power to weigh us down or revitalize us. We need the authority – the wiggle room – to quickly turn liability properties into asset properties. The MGA has not helped at all. It traps deteriorating and vacant properties in red tape and keeps them off the tax rolls for too long.

The charter could establish and enable a Community Land Trust to cut through the cumbersome tax-sale system, take over vacant and tax-delinquent properties and accept property donations. The trust could fix and sell some properties, give away others with conditions, allow farmers and community groups to cultivate some of the land, and ultimately get these properties back on the tax rolls to generate money for the municipality.

Around the world, community land trusts have solid track records.

A charter won’t be everything and it won’t be perfect. But let’s make it more than symbolic and let’s get it done this year. It’s a move toward regional autonomy, to care for our resources and care for each other.

“A charter is not a grab bag for all good ideas.”