Storm brewing over Coastal Protection Act

Protesters send government a message

If Tim Houston’s government thought opposition to their abandonment of the Coastal Protection Act would just go away, they should think again.

This thing is lingering like a bad smell for the Conservatives.

This week a group of coastal

nd advocates descended on Province House to rally in front of news cameras and reporters. They are telling the government to take responsibility for protecting the 13,000 kilometres of shoreline in the province.

In March they formed a Facebook group called NS Coastal Protection Act Now! that has almost 1,000 members. They have made lawn signs, available at more than 50 locations. There is also a petition circulating.

This grassroots group activated to protest the government’s decision.

‘SPECTACULAR CHANGE OF HEART’

After voting in favour when it passed in the House in 2019 and then promising to declare it when they came to power in 2021, the Conservatives had a spectacular change of heart in February.

The government chose to throw out the act and download the job to individual landowners and municipalities.

Rather than bring in a uniform set of regulations to protect the coast, the government issued a set of guidelines that property owners could use to make decisions on how development should happen near shorelines.

They also created an interactive map that allows users to zoom in and show how coastal property will look in the year 2100, but it is incomplete and not user-friendly for people who are not digitally savvy.

Municipalities will receive templates to draft bylaws that they will have to enforce.

VOTERS EXPRESS ANGER

Members of the crowd down at Province House raised signs, chanted and made speeches demanding that the province take control of coastal development. Many were landowners who have witnessed the erosion of their properties and the loss of beaches during storms.

Municipalities were also at the rally. With the provincial decision to dump the act, municipalities are doing the heavy lifting to protect coastlines, salt marshes, dunes and other lands vulnerable to storms and erosion.

They do not have the same resources as the provincial government to enforce coastal protection bylaws.

I daresay the province knew this when they dropped the act. By under-resourcing coastal protection efforts, they are protecting independent property owners who do not want the government telling them what they can and can’t do with their land.

FIRECE STORMS MAIN CULPRIT

The main culprit of coastal erosion is fierce storms, which have generated angry ocean waves that have walloped properties and taken chunks out of land.

Scientists have predicted more intense storms and rising sea levels that will pose a further threat in years to come as we see the consequences of climate change.

This coastal deterioration is also helped along by unregulated development and the construction of armour walls, which temporarily protect shorelines until another storm comes along and wrecks the walls, throwing boulders all over beaches and shorelines and contributing to further erosion.

Many protesters were on the front lines of the damage wreaked by post-tropical storm Fiona, which tore apart coastlines in the province in 2022.

CONSULTATION ‘STRANGE’

The strangest part of the Conservatives’ handling of this issue was the consultation. After two previous rounds that showed support for the act by Nova Scotians, the Houston government wanted one more consultation at the end of last year. This survey was sent out to 100,000 coastal property owners, but it only received 1,070 responses.

The government interpreted the result as opposition, and that was enough to finish the act.

We know that Houston has shown a willingness to change his mind. He did this recently with the subsidy to wine bottlers after farm wineries in the province said it would destroy the industry.

The protest this week sends a message to the government.