2024 Halifax Mayoral Candidates Andy Fillmore, Waye Mason, Pam Lovelace, and Zoran Jokic

Welcome to our 2024 Halifax Mayoral Candidate Special! Recorded at Great Roads Brewing in Lower Sackville.

We go through a selection of beers from Great Roads with four of the mayoral candidates for this upcoming Halifax election. We  spend the first 5 minutes getting to know each candidate before we take 10 more minutes drawing random questions from 'The Bucket of Democracy." Thank you very much to our listeners, previous guests and friends who helped with questions for our bucket, giving each candidate session a slightly different but fair experience.

We  encourage you to listen to the entire show but below is the order of appearance each candidate appeared.

Andy Fillmore
Waye Mason
Pam Lovelace
Zoran Jokic

PLEASE VOTE

In 2020, only 40% of eligible residents voted. It's been a crazy few years since then. Below are the opportunities you have to have a say in the future of Halifax.

Oct. 8-16 2024 | Advance online and telephone voting
During alternative voting days, residents can vote before election day electronically or by phone.

Oct. 12 and 15, 2024 | Advance in-person voting
During advance polling days, residents can vote before election day at one of the municipality’s polling stations.

Oct. 19, 2024 | Election day
In-person voting will be available for eligible residents across the municipality's 16 electoral districts.

We do understand there are more mayoral candidates and we appreciate anyone who cares enough for their city to run. If you are a candidate who wants to speak on our platform before the election, let us know and we will do our best to get you for a quick chat on Zoom and share on our socials. Thank you.

Your Dream Home Does Not Have to Be Just A Dream. Today's show is brought to you by Kimia Nejat of Exit Reality Metro. Kimia is the realtor who knows how to get things done. Buying or Selling? Go to afternoonpint.ca/kimia and we will set up an introduction

Does Your Business Need a Boost With Foot traffic? Hosts for An Event? Or Even Actors For A Production? Or the Production itself? Go to https://www.afternoonpint.ca/services and see some of the services that the Afternoon Pint team offers. 

Transcript

Great Roads Brewery Mayoral Candidates Interview

Speaker 1 0:14

This is Mike here and Matt Conrad's here, of course.

Speaker 2 0:17

And Matt, what are we calling this one? This is Great Roads Brewery Presents a Flight of Beers with a Flight of Mayoral.

Speaker 1 0:23

Candidates? Absolutely so. Matt helped source the mares and I think I largely helped sort the bucket of democracy. Yes, you did.

Speaker 2 0:30

That was a great idea.

Speaker 1 0:31

I love it. So Matt went and found four of the mayoral candidates, I think three of the top mayoral candidates and a fourth who's very has a cool story, Very cool story. And in addition to that we went and asked questions to our listeners, to our guests, friends of the show, and we got a big old bucket of questions that we just kind of pulled at random to ask each candidate.

Speaker 2 0:54

Yeah, so thanks to everyone who sent in something like that. You may kind of have a passion or a specific interest or expertise in, yeah, so thank you for that.

Speaker 1 1:02

Yeah, and I think our candidates did a pretty good job, answering them to the best they could. I was impressed by each candidate.

Speaker 2 1:07

After sitting down with them, honestly I can say I like them all as people Absolutely.

Speaker 1 1:11

Same here.

Speaker 2 1:12

Yeah, so I think that's good. It's important to note this is not a debate. Yeah, note this is not a debate. This is just a way for us to have some fun with these candidates so that people they can answer some serious questions, some fun questions. You get an idea to kind of see who they are as people get as well as seeing their plans for the city, but you get to see their sense of humor and their personality a little bit more and for you, the listener, this is a really cool way to learn your candidates.

Speaker 1 1:32

If you're getting out there to vote, which you should be doing Absolutely- Really need to get out 100%.

Speaker 1 1:36

So, yeah, please get out and vote. Matt and I we're an independent podcast. We pull these because we're just passionate about what we do. So please, if you can subscribe to the show, share the show. Yes, friends, followers, the more we gather, the stronger we can get these candidates out there for more people to hear. Hopefully, the more people will show up to the polls and vote this election. That's right, all right. Well, that's good. That's good, all right. Enjoy the show, cheers cheers, cheers, friends.

Speaker 3 2:18

welcome to the afternoon, andy, nice to be here with you.

Speaker 2 2:21

So we have Andy Fillmore here. He's our first on deck for our Flight of Mayer and Flight of Beers. We are drinking Sackville's Smashing Good Blonde. Here at Great Roads, they are hosting us. Let's see.

Speaker 3 2:32

Let's see here oh, smashing Good, there you go. Fantastic, all right, we're digging that already. Awesome, it is a really easy drinking beer, really smooth.

Speaker 2 2:43

So, yeah, thanks for coming on, and we really wanted to have you on to talk about yourself a little bit, about what you have planned. Obviously, we know you're running for mayor. Why don't you give the folks a little bit of background on yourself? What kind of led up to politics?

Speaker 3 2:59

yeah, sure, and you give me a like a hurry up the clock. I don't want to talk all day on this, but yeah, I well, I grew up in halifax, I, I raised my daughter here. She's just left for university in montreal, so, um, a lot of life has happened. This summer. I I finished being the mp, yeah, for halifax after nine years. Uh, that's how my week started and then the week ended with my daughter leaving and me becoming an empty nester and then getting deep into this campaign. So lots of stuff going on.

Speaker 3 3:26

But my career for almost 25 years, before I even had a thought about politics, was city and community planning. And I did that. I studied here at Dalhousie for that and had an opportunity to work down in Boston on the big dig for a number of years and kind of began my professional career there. But, like most of us, when we go away from here the homing beacon goes off. And I got I heard that call to come back and work for the city where I was a planner for about eight years and led the downtown plan, the HRM by design downtown plan. That kind of blew the lid off of development downtown and got that renaissance going.

Speaker 3 4:02

And then, in the middle of all that, in 2015, I got an invitation to consider becoming a candidate, and I was looking around the country at that time as a planner and seeing that basic community infrastructure like housing and transit was being underinvested in by the federal government and I thought, well, maybe this is an opportunity to get in there and help to change that. And ultimately that's what happened. I got elected and the government ended up rolling out one of the biggest reinvestments in Canadian communities in the history of the country. So we've been able to revolutionize transit and community services in a whole bunch of ways and I'm really proud of that record cool so, and the right uh, so obviously that's what you have been doing the last few years.

Speaker 2 4:44

You originally got elected, so you've been an mp up until you decided to resign and run for mayor. Exactly, uh, you've been there since 2015 uh, that's right.

Speaker 3 4:52

So nine years in fact. The municipal election on october 19th. It will be the ninth anniversary to the day of my election as. Mp in 2015. Isn't that interesting.

Speaker 1 5:01

Wow, it is Okay. So, first hundred days, what do you want to do as mayor of Halifax?

Speaker 3 5:05

Okay, listen, first day I am calling premier Tim Houston and letting him know that he's got a partner in me and in the municipal council and in the municipal organization to solve the housing crisis, to to uh to phase out the encampments and to get those people that are the, that are deserve better, that are living in uh, living in the tents and living rough, into the care and and more dignified solutions that they need uh and then to build uh 10 000 homes a year, as you know, as fast as we possibly can for at least 10 years to catch up on the backlog. Um, and I believe what I believe, what I'm hearing and seeing, is that the province is ready for a partner like that in the municipality that they may not necessarily have had recently.

Speaker 1 5:46

Okay, for sure, for sure for sure.

Speaker 3 5:47

What do?

Speaker 2 5:47

those houses just quickly. What do those houses look? Like Big houses or like tiny houses?

Speaker 3 5:51

Across the spectrum Like we need. You know. I think of housing as a continuum. You need to be building deeply affordable, like 30% of household income homes.

Speaker 3 6:04

And we know we have a terrible deficit of that in HRM right now. People haven't been building those in decades, so we need to catch up on that. But we also need to catch up on market apartments and multi-res buildings. We need to catch up on townhomes and, ultimately, single family homes as well, because there's churn right Someone might want to move out of a $200,000 home into a $400,000 home and that opens up that $200,000 home for somebody else to come in behind them right.

Speaker 3 6:29

Likewise with apartments and the way the rents work. So we want to keep that conveyor belt moving all the time.

Speaker 1 6:34

Okay, so now's the time where we dive into our bucket of democracy. These are questions, again from friends of the show, listeners and previous guests. You can answer them. You can decline to answer them. If you don't feel like you want to answer them, we will give you a point. I don't know how we're going to score these points, but we're just going to have some fun.

Speaker 2 6:52

Think who's on it anyway?

Speaker 5 6:54

Yeah, that's right the points don't really matter, talk about democracy.

Speaker 3 6:57

Let's mix it up here.

Speaker 1 6:59

Okay, question one there are polarizing views on the need for growth or, more specifically, the need for immigration. Coming to Halifax, what do you think is best for the city?

Speaker 3 7:10

So it was really clear after what was called the Now or Never report about a decade or so ago.

Speaker 2 7:16

Thank you, for listening to the Afternoon.

Speaker 3 7:18

Point.

Urban Development and Civic Issues

Speaker 2 7:20

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Speaker 3 7:28

We'd love to hear from you To build the tax base, to build the homes, to do the healthcare jobs, because we just didn't have the population here present to be able to do that. Why? Because we had been very much an aging population here in Nova Scotia and we had far more people of retirement age than historically we've ever had and far fewer people of working age to sort of support the folks in their retirement through the tax base. So that immigration did happen and it launched. You know, a number of things happened all at once to launch the economy of Nova Scotia. The growth of HRM itself was one of those things.

Speaker 3 8:03

We just mentioned the downtown plan, but immigration helped that as well. I think balancing that now is we're clearly struggling under the strain of rapid growth and there is a sense in the community that hey, you know, let's take a breath, let's catch up on the health care situation and build that out. So we're supporting people the way they need to be, let's build the homes, and then we can reassess and see if we need to carry on with the immigration levels that we've been seeing.

Speaker 1 8:28

Cool. So you do feel kind of take that slow, catch up a little bit and then keep going, yeah, because it doesn't do anybody, I do, I do.

Speaker 3 8:35

Let's take a breath, catch up, and anybody I do. Yeah, let's take a breath, catch up and then keep going. So it doesn't do anybody any good to keep the faucet on while we can't provide the supports for people, including homes awesome, I'll give you a point for that answer.

Speaker 1 8:44

All right, you go with the point.

Speaker 2 8:45

I'm good with the point, all right, cool, all right, my turn now. Okay, all right, so we're reading from who it's from. Right. So we have a drag queen who's a former guest called Davis Station. Aha, very good. Yeah, so you've met them.

Speaker 3 9:01

Yeah, absolutely, yep.

Speaker 2 9:03

So they feel that there is a concerning rise in hatred towards the 2SLGBTQA plus community. Many of those targeted are not only demeaned but are concerned for their personal safety. What do you plan to do as mayor to stand up for these citizens and hold those who cross the line into hatred accountable?

Speaker 3 9:22

Look, whether it's here in Halifax or anywhere in the country. We are the country of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are the country that legalized same-sex marriage well ahead of any other westernized country. Um, this is a diverse country. That's our beauty. And all those things that I just said are also true of hrm. So we have an incredible queer community here in hrm. Um, they are organized, they are part of the fabric you know with with pride. Every year, they, they really um, are a wonderful asset to the putting on all kinds of cultural events and just like part of the beautiful mosaic of who we are. And you know, one of the beautiful things of all this is that we all get to love who we want to love.

Speaker 3 10:05

So I have also noticed that there is a rising intolerance. That is really really profoundly worrying to me and I struggle to understand the reasons for it. Certainly, social media certainly the kind of extreme right rising around the world is part of it. People are feeling a little more like they have permission to air their dark views on this topic, which is really disappointing. So any leader, whether it's a mayor or a councillor or a premier or a prime minister, is going to have to be really diligent about making sure that the charter always comes first and that everybody has the protections that they're accorded, that they are accorded the protections that they're due. And then we continue to make sure that queer communities are part of the beautiful vision of Canada.

Speaker 1 10:56

Awesome, awesome Point. Yeah, I'd say, that's a point, that's a point, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 11:02

Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 11:03

My mom used to say I had a point. She said if you comb your hair just right, I could see it Telling me I had a pointed head. That's when I had hair, though. Yeah, okay, question number five.

Speaker 1 11:12

This one doesn't have a name on it, but I might have forgot to put it on there. I apologize. Areas like Quinnpool are severely bottlenecked.

Speaker 4 11:19

Oh, this was a Facebook question.

Speaker 1 11:20

Yeah, and in this very area, side streets are closed on key hours. Why are we doing this, and would it help to take advantage of these streets for everyone?

Speaker 3 11:30

My goodness, We've all had that moment where we're in rush hour traffic and we come across a construction zone and you say to yourself why is this happening at four o'clock on a Friday afternoon? Why is this lane shut down? Why is this street closed? Why isn't it happening in the middle of the night or on a Saturday or Sunday morning? So we can do way better on those temporary street closures for construction. I think your question might have been more about the permanent closures.

Speaker 2 11:55

The permanent closures, yeah, you know, like you go up Quimple and you can't turn right on like three or four streets between 7 and 9, which is rush hour.

Speaker 3 12:03

Yeah, so here's the planner in me, right? The beauty of a grid is that it always provides you an alternative path.

Speaker 1 12:09

Right, whether it's construction.

Speaker 3 12:10

Whether it's congestion, or whether it's construction or an accident or an ambulance or something, you always have another. It's like water flowing through a maze you can always find another way to go. But when we start to close the side streets and funnel traffic back to the main roads, we're creating what's almost more like a suburban kind of style of hierarchical streets where you know, ultimately everybody winds up on the main road and then that's an absolute bottleneck. Yeah, Commerce comes to a halt, people's days stop. It's like reaching into people's pocket and taking up money and time and it's not fair. So the larger point I want to respond to is like congestion is off the hook right now in HRM and we can do way better.

Speaker 1 12:50

Yeah.

Speaker 3 12:55

So do you think opening up these streets S on that Around that area? Look, every situation is different and you know, sometimes streets are closed as a pilot, sometimes they're closed permanently but it's learned later that maybe that wasn't the right one, so we open them again and we try something else. I'm all for that kind of experimentation and there is something about closing streets in the right way to allow for block parties and safe access.

Speaker 3 13:16

For sure. The important thing is to get that balance right. We have to keep the city moving, but we also have to make it livable for people that live there.

Speaker 2 13:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:22

I agree that's a fair answer.

Speaker 2 13:23

That's a really good answer.

Speaker 1 13:24

All right, there we go. Okay, on to the next one.

Speaker 3 13:26

That sounds like a point to me guys.

Speaker 4 13:28

It's my turn. Is it your turn here?

Speaker 2 13:30

give me that, that's a definite point actually, I think that was the best answer. Oh, okay, this one's actually from Dr Sylvain Chalabois.

Speaker 3 14:03

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 14:04

Yeah, so there are urban food deserts currently, right now in HRM. How can the city improve and increase food retail options for Halifax?

Urban Cleanup and Civic Leadership

Speaker 3 14:14

Yeah, this is a rich topic area. I was involved in helping to find a new home for the Common Roots Urban Farm when it had to leave the hospital site and go to Bihai Park, and we searched everywhere with the urban farm management at the time, jamie Melrose. She's fantastic. She now runs a beautiful flower shop in the North End and we had a lot of doors closed in our face and finally landed on the by high site and it's actually turned out to be super great. So I was at the uh fairview farmers market about four days ago and I bought three bags of lettuce that had all been grown at by heart, by high park, like in the middle of those highway loops, you know yeah, so that's amazing.

Speaker 3 14:55

That's local food security yeah so uh sure we need to be figuring out more solutions like Hope Blooms.

Speaker 2 15:02

I love Hope Blooms. Isn't it amazing? I absolutely love it. They've done so well.

Speaker 3 15:05

In fact, I'm now drinking their mushroom-infused coffee in the morning. Oh, cool it takes that jittery edge off I highly recommend it. It's super good.

Speaker 1 15:13

You don't see any rainbows or anything.

Speaker 3 15:14

It's regular mushrooms. Okay, cool, I mean, maybe I didn't drink enough of it, I don't know. All right, cool.

Speaker 1 15:25

Okay, we might get two more in. We'll see how quick you can go here. We got a few minutes left, okay. So okay, listener, mike Durling recently got back from a trip in Calgary, alberta, and he was astounded by how clean the city was compared to Halifax. He feels that there's litter and trash everywhere he looks. What could be done about this to reduce pollution and keep our streets clean?

Speaker 3 15:42

What a great question. So you know, the first impression that people get of a place is the lasting one, right?

Speaker 3 15:47

And we're in the business right now in HRM of trying to attract as many visitors, tourism, as we can, as many people, making locational. You know people want to be in Halifax. They've discovered us right. We want to draw companies, we want to draw employees and be attractive to all those people. And when people come into the downtown or into any of the communities all across HRM and see if there is a lack of care which isn't true everywhere, but you do see it in some places right Then that's a signal to them like, oh, do they care for this place? Would they care for me if I moved here or visited here? I give really big credit to the Downtown Halifax Business Commission. They've got that team in the red golf shirts that clean up constantly.

Speaker 3 16:28

Oh, yes, but not every location has the means to hire those students to do that. So I think the city has a role there for sure.

Speaker 1 16:36

And, in more rural areas, part of HRM as well. Like you know, I see some things dumped sometimes in more rural communities.

Speaker 3 16:43

I just can't believe I see on the street.

Speaker 3 16:44

Well, I was visiting uh muscataba harbor a few days ago and talking to some folks and they have a beautiful main street there right um, but no one to the municipality is not picking up after it, so they're actually volunteers that are going out and picking up the garbage, even emptying the bags out of the municipal trash receptacles. The way I'll close on this question is right now there's frustration with the council because they raised the tax rate last year, in the midst of an affordability crisis, to spend money on things like support for the encampments, which is not the right solution for the homeless, not a dignified solution for them, while basic services are going unmet, filling the potholes.

Speaker 1 17:24

I've noticed a difference this year in my own home, on my own property right outside of it 100%.

Speaker 3 17:28

So we need to refocus the council and the city on the core services that they should be doing.

Speaker 1 17:33

Excellent answer. You will get the point for that 100%. Okay that puts us right at 15 minutes, andy, so we do have to. Cheers you, my friend.

Speaker 4 17:40

All right, cheers man. Thank you so much. Really good to be here. Yeah, this is awesome, thank you for taking time.

Speaker 1 17:43

And thank you and we hope to talk to you again.

Speaker 3 17:46

I would look forward to that. Welcome back any time.

Speaker 2 17:50

Maybe I'll have you at.

Speaker 1 17:52

City Hall if all goes well. Cheers, cheers. Welcome to the Afternoon Pint Way. Mason, great to be here. Yeah, great to have you here. So I understand you are also running for mayor. Yes, I am, amazing Way, I would love. You're from Dartmouth, my neck of the woods, right, which is a great thing. Please tell me a little bit more about yourself so, like you say, I grew up in dartmouth.

Speaker 5 18:23

My dad was in the navy, though, so we moved in and out, which has been really good when you're running for office, especially in dartmouth. Uh, you know, uh, people like to know that you're very local, you know. So I there's. We had five different houses in dartmouth that they bought and sold as we got posted to Toronto and Ottawa, norfolk and London, england, so almost any part of Dartmouth they can be like. Why would I vote for you? You live in the south end. I'm like I lived over there. I went to Creighton Park School.

Speaker 4 18:48

I went to Ellenvale and, as you know, being from Dartmouth.

Speaker 5 18:50

That works, that's great. But that history I came back here to go to university at Dow and a long time ago, a couple of decades ago and that history is useful now as a politician and a municipality, I've lived in other cities and I see what that looks like. I chose to come back. I always called Dartmouth home Halifax. Sometimes they didn't know where Dartmouth was, depending on how far away we were, and uh, and and it's just uh, you know, uh, that experience of living in other cities informs you know, things that I would like to see and things I don't want to see here in HRM. And then, like, how I got into politics is actually not how people would expect, sure.

Speaker 1 19:31

How'd you get into?

Speaker 5 19:31

politics. I was always active in my community, but they tried to close my kid's school in 2006. Okay, so you may remember when the school board got fired by the minister and they put Howard Windsor in there, so I was the leader of the group that was fighting to keep them from closing La Merchant.

Speaker 1 19:47

Interesting Okay.

Speaker 5 19:48

And while they largely got themselves fired because of the racism around Doug Sparks, the African Nova Scotian member, we definitely goosed that along Like we were right in there, and I worked for about three years with that community group and in 2008 people were saying you should run against Sue and I was like no, we haven't saved the school yet. Fast forward to 2012,. We'd saved the school. We had a promise to build a new school. School was promised when my son was in first grade.

Speaker 5 20:14

It was built when he was in third year university and opened.

Speaker 1 20:16

So that's like you know, that's the scale of things Still a great accomplishment.

Speaker 5 20:19

The school is there and it's amazing. It's weird that it is a portable already but still brand new school. And then 2012,.

Speaker 1 20:27

I ran against SUUTEC because you may remember, I do a lot of lectures, guest lectures at SUUTEC. Who's been on our show?

Speaker 5 20:34

Yeah, SUUTEC was the council for district before we went from 23 councillors down to 16. And you know there was a lot of concerns about the direction of the municipality at the time. You may remember, we had the concert scandal in 2011. The population actually went down. There was a vibe like all of our kids are going to grow up in Fort McMurray or move to Fort McMurray for a job. The centre of business was moving to Moncton in New Brunswick, and so I was really worried about the city at the time and so, uh, that motivated a lot of people. You know, steve craig, we're in sackville right now. That's why he ran at the time, that's why mike savage ran, and I think we turned it around like that was our main focus okay, and I forgot to get to the beer.

Speaker 1 21:12

So every, every, every flight, we introduced the beer. So this one is our seven day ipa at great roads, roads, brewing. What do you think?

Speaker 5 21:17

Well, so it's funny this is the third time I've been to Great Roads in the last like eight weeks.

Speaker 5 21:22

I met the owner here like right near the start of the campaign or like I guess it would have been like four months ago now, five months ago, okay. And then I met with my campaign manager here, who's from Sackville, the other day and, yeah, what a great. The beer here is excellent, a wonderful ipa and uh, yeah, I think this place is fantastic. The nachos here are worth the trip super and uh, it's the last question.

Speaker 1 21:44

We got about a minute here before we get into the bucket of democracy. Um, what, uh? First 100 days as mayor, what do you think you would like to do?

Local Brewery Promotions, Light Pollution Fix' Simplify This Chapter Title Into 6 Words or Less

Speaker 5 21:53

well, I think the big thing that needs to happen is, before you're even sworn in is you need to meet with all the new counselors and find out what they promised and look at what your platform was. And uh, you know my plan that's different from what has happened in these last three elections, uh, uh, or ever in halifax is to uh, come forward on the first council day in november 12th with a plan for what needs to happen and when and give clear direction with timelines to staff. This is not my idea. Cecil Clark did this in 2012 in CBRM, but I think what's really important what didn't happen last election, when we had eight new councillors, has to happen this time, because we're probably going to have eight new councillors again, and some of the councillors even now.

Speaker 5 22:36

Four years ago they haven't been able to see an impact in what's happening in HRM. So I think the mayor's job is to manage that, help those councillors be successful, bring it all together and have a plan and be clear to staff about what you want. You don't want to see like we've had a number of councillors this round bringing in stuff in the last six months just hoping to squeak it in before the election, which doesn't happen. So that's the plan is to very deliberately have an action plan to make sure everybody's at the table Love it.

Speaker 1 23:03

Okay, thank you, wayne and Matt. We're ready to go. Bucket of the month.

Speaker 2 23:07

All right, I get to go first. All right, Wade, let's see what you got here.

Speaker 1 23:11

Wade, wade, wade.

Speaker 5 23:12

I'm sorry, wade, and I think, before you read that I have an aunt-in-law who's been calling me Wade for 30 years and when I say to her oh, come on, virginia, it's Wade. She goes. I know Wade.

Speaker 1 23:25

Matt knows I'm the butcher of all names and all places, names and places and words. I'm just talking to Matt now. Yeah, exactly, there you go, matt. Take it over from here.

Speaker 2 23:34

Okay, okay, this is actually from Great Roads. Okay, hey, you know what? Okay, this is actually from Great Roads, okay, so Great Roads Brewing hopes to see a wider variety of local breweries represented or considered in cities, events and dealings. How can we open the gates to promote a wider variety of options for beer and other markets in the city?

Speaker 5 23:51

So that's not something I've ever thought about in the context of being a councillor, but when I ran the Halifax Pop Explosion, which sadly went out of business during COVID but was a big music festival here for 25 years, sometimes we had Molson as a sponsor, but one year we had and this is at the beginning of Kraft Brewing Propeller and Garrison.

Speaker 5 24:08

And then, after I left, they had a partnership with a whole bunch of different local brewers. So you know, I think it can be done. The capacity of large brewers to give big chunks of money often outstrips the ability of smaller brewers, but I think, if you had an alliance or a group of people and you actively supported them in doing that, that a lot of events could be supported by them.

Speaker 5 24:31

I mean it's just a matter of making sure that those events, those small community events, small and large community events aren't going to struggle to do the good thing that we want, which is to have awesome beer from local breweries.

Speaker 2 24:41

Yeah, good answer, that's a good answer. Give them a point? Oh, definitely, that's a point, okay great.

Speaker 1 24:44

Yeah, that's a point. All right, I'm winning now.

Speaker 5 24:46

Yeah, that's right, I'm winning the bucket of democracy.

Speaker 1 24:50

Oh gosh.

Speaker 5 24:54

Okay, we're going to those questions and by fluke we pulled the book. Is this also Great Roads?

Speaker 1 24:57

No, this one is from astronomer John Reid, who's been a guest on our show Excellent.

Speaker 5 25:02

Okay.

Speaker 1 25:03

Excessive artificial light emitted by bright street lights, industrial and residential lighting systems have a detrimental effect on both the mind and body. As the urbanization expands outward along areas such as Prospect Road, what are your plans to mitigate the harmful effects of light pollution and light trespass?

Speaker 5 25:22

So this is a great question and it's actually something I know a fair bit about, because a friend of mine, paul, was really involved with the Royal Astronomy Society that maintained or used the telescope at St Mary's in Loyola, and I met with those folks when we were putting in the LED lights, because the LED streetlights that we updated to about 10 years ago are full cut-off dark sky designs so we don't have the pollution from those anymore as much.

Speaker 5 25:52

They're still not necessarily exactly where the astronomers want them to be and improvements can always happen, but that was much better than the old orange high-pressure sodiums. Where we're missing it is we don't have rules around what lights have to look like on buildings and on parking lots and on private roads Right or on provincial roads. So what we could do and it's funny because lights on buildings are becoming a big deal I don't really care if there's lights and a big sign on a building downtown Right, or we're starting to see lights and big signs on a building on Sackville Drive or whatever, and I'm not sure that's necessarily what the community wants. We need to have a discussion about that as well. But I think you know we could impose standards to have those dark sky rules. And the other thing that's really cool about the lights that we have they're most of our lights.

Speaker 5 26:39

We got from LED Roadway Lighting, which is a company here in Nova Scotia, and they actually can be remote controlled right. They're like a Wi-Fi mesh network. So there's an interesting thing you can do where you could actually make them go dimmer at 1 o'clock in the morning in a suburban street. They'd burn less power. So there are options there. It's also interesting because we had this happen with one incident downtown where the police actually can control it and make it 20% brighter if they need the street lit up like an operating room, so there's a potential for some flexibility there. I haven't heard from them in about five years, so it's not something that's been top of the list, but I would love to talk to him about that.

Speaker 1 27:15

Interesting Point awarded. That was a good answer. That's a great answer. I feel like I'm cheating.

Speaker 5 27:20

You know I'm the biggest nerd on council after Sam Austin. Tell him I said that.

Speaker 2 27:25

Alright, my turn isn't it. Oh, this is one that we had to hand right in there because it was sent like last minute. How do you see short-term rentals like Airbnbs, etc. Playing a future role in Halifax?

Speaker 5 27:41

I think what we did. So we actually passed regulation to ban short-term rentals in residential zones, and that was hard because some people had invested, like not large institutional property owners, but some small, like I have one or two units people had. The only way they could afford that house was to have a short-term rental, so that was difficult. But we know that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of units that should have been available for people, young and old, to rent that had been turned into SDRs. You make way more money and the other problem with SDRs, other than keeping them out of the rental market, is that that higher amount of revenue being generated supports higher home sale costs, right, like, if a house can generate $7,000 a month and the mortgage on that is going to be that big right, $7,000 a month. So you know I think we did the right thing there what the real issue right now is that we brought that in and it's been very slow to start to weed out the people who are still doing it or maybe don't know that they're not supposed to be doing it.

Speaker 5 28:42

But some recent changes now the province changed the law and requires Airbnb and Vrbo and all those guys have to collect the marketing levy, which means that everybody has to have a registered number with the province and the city, which means that we know who they are and we can now look and see whether they're in an allowed to allowed zone. The whole which I hear from you know there's the citizens group that started in the North end about short term rentals is we still allow STRs in commercial zones and some people are uncomfortable with that. But in a commercial zone, if you're allowed to build a hotel like just to name names like the Dillon building where Night Magic Fashions used to be on Saffel Street, most of what's in there is a short-term rental. The guy who owns it is short-term renting it. But if we said you can't short-term rental, he could turn it into a hotel right, like that Right. So it's difficult, you know, but I know there's a concern about that. So you're always kind of looking to see if anyone's cracked that code.

Speaker 1 29:40

Sure, yeah, good answer. Moving on your turn.

Speaker 5 29:44

No point, Come on guys.

Speaker 1 29:45

Oh yeah, sorry, half point or full.

Speaker 4 29:49

It wouldn't be a full point if I hadn't been rude about it.

Speaker 2 29:53

He just lost half a point. Yeah, exactly, there you go.

Speaker 5 29:56

I'm putting myself in the penalty box. It's fine.

Speaker 1 29:58

Yeah, exactly there you go. I'm putting myself in the penalty box, it's fine. Okay, wait, listener Pam Copeland, she feels that it takes forever to get anywhere in HRM right now. You might have felt that getting here today, I don't know which route you came, but I was backed up. Yeah, what are your ideas to improve infrastructure, in particular traffic bottlenecks in areas such as HRM as Hammonds Plains, nova Scotia?

Speaker 2 30:20

bottlenecks in areas such of hrm as hammonds plains, nova scotia, yeah, so I'll throw in quimple there too sure a little self-centered action there.

Speaker 5 30:25

I need that fixed, mason no, so the uh fair, fair, the uh.

Speaker 5 30:29

You know, the number one thing on my platform that I'm committing to is, uh, a uh, traffic uh operation center, which is, you know, when you ever watch a movie and there's a room with a bunch of people and all these cameras and you can see where the traffic's backing up and they zoom in and then they can change the lights, the signals. Yes, so the example of the worst I've ever seen traffic is uh, the province had bell road closed in front of the hospital we were doing the lights, atrium was doing the lights, and Barrington is closed. So there's only seven ways north-south of Quinpool, coburg. Three of them were closed at the same time. So it was completely bonkers Three hours backed up and people were losing their minds. If we had a traffic operations center, you could have said you know, the Robey north-south light at the Willow Tree, we're going to let that go for twice the length and clear twice as many cars All the way up. Right, you could have redone the entire thing. So I think that's our number one thing is to use those roads more efficiently.

Speaker 5 31:22

We need to identify where those bottlenecks are for sure. It's hard to fix those things as quickly as people want because there are a lot. The city, especially in the core, is very old and growing very quickly. I think another piece is that we need to be careful about where we grow right. There's a lot of pressure right now to add thousands of homes farther out the Hammonds Plains Road, in the Pockwalk area and up behind Westwood Hills. I don't know how they get to work right. We know that the highway and Hammonds Plains Road is already, so there's places where it's easier to put housing than others. Like least favorite of mine is the Enda Herring Cove Road. Slightly better is out on exit five. Awesome, I think is a coma on the other side of. Uh, there's a proposal for 300 acres on the other side of coal harbor and so you've got highway 7 and coal harbor road and all the connections that would go down through woodlawn like I think that's, that's, that's good, and there's other places like that.

Speaker 5 32:15

So where we grow, we have to be smart about it, and that's hard to do. And then the final thing is, on top of all those things, right, we want the province to widen the road. They own a lot of Hammonds Plains road. We can partner on that. But, but really it's also about investing in transit, both urban transit. Halifax transit needs a big change. It's pretty bad. It's bad. It should be 24 hour a day operation so you can get to the hospital, do your shift in the morning. We need to have, uh, uh, you know, the airport bus should go more than once an hour outside of rush hour. The corridor should be more frequent, uh, at peak. We need more articulated buses so we can have more capacity and that will get more people. If it's more reliable and has a higher capacity, that will get people out of cars and make room for those that can't. That's it. Yeah, you did amazing, but I want to do another bucket of.

Speaker 1 33:05

Yeah, but no, it was really nice meeting you. And regardless of what happens. We definitely welcome you back to come have another conversation with us. Okay, so pinky swear, okay, either way. Yeah, either way, come do a longer hang with us.

Speaker 2 33:19

I'll come back after.

Speaker 5 33:20

Win or Lose, and I can guarantee it'll be a totally different interview win or lose, but I'll come back.

Speaker 2 33:25

I love it. That's even better. Anyway, honestly, yeah, I think it would actually be really interesting. I mean, I would like to dedicate a much longer chat with you. Like I said, win or lose, because if you're years on council and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 33:39

I think, it'd be interesting. Yeah, fantastic, 100%. That's great. Nice meeting you, wayne.

Speaker 3 33:42

Nice meeting, you too, bub.

Speaker 2 34:00

Cheers.

Speaker 4 34:00

Cheers.

Speaker 2 34:00

Cheers, whoa, there we go. Spilled it there. Welcome to the Afternoon Pint. I am Matt Conrad.

Speaker 1 34:06

I'm Mike Dobin.

Speaker 2 34:07

And what mayoral candidate do we have here?

Speaker 4 34:09

Hey, I am Pam Lovelace and this is a really nice refreshing cider.

Speaker 2 34:33

Hey, you went right into it. It's like you've been on the show before.

Speaker 4 34:35

How do you like them apples? How do you like them apples? I love those apples.

Community Involvement and Civic Leadership

Speaker 2 34:40

Yeah, it's a dry cider. Great Roads did a great job at their first attempt. I don't even think they really need to improve it. Personally, I drink this all day.

Speaker 4 34:46

Well, here it is almost a month left before the election, right?

Speaker 1 34:50

Yeah.

Speaker 4 34:51

September 17th it's a hot day.

Speaker 1 34:53

Yes.

Speaker 4 34:54

And this is a nice cool cider. That's a good point.

Speaker 1 34:56

Very refreshing.

Speaker 2 34:57

Very refreshing For sure, pam. Let's get into this. We have a couple things that we want to learn about you. First thing what did you do before you got into politics? Because you've obviously been in politics.

Speaker 4 35:09

So I've worked with all orders of government and what I did before politics was the same thing that I did in politics, which is to work hard for my community, to work hard for my family and, obviously, make change. I'm a changemaker, so I reject status quo every chance I get. So I've done communications project manager, I've been a television producer, I've worked, actually started farmers markets. I have four farmers markets running.

Speaker 5 35:37

I'm putting one here in Sackville. That was about 10 years ago.

Speaker 4 35:40

And I've been able to do all kinds of different things, including building a veterans monument with an amazing group of volunteers in Hammonds Plains Actually received a commemoration from the Minister of Veterans Affairs for that. So I have been one of those people that is called to service, and when there's a project, there's Pam.

Speaker 4 36:07

And she's helping, she's leading, working at whatever it is that needs to be done, whether it's helping children and youth, homeless individuals, helping find access to grants for cultural organizations. I actually used to manage a 22-piece orchestra. Oh, okay, if you can believe that.

Speaker 1 36:27

There you go, so it's a long list of stuff. Very cool.

Speaker 4 36:30

And I started working when I was 13 years old, so if you know anything about the Old Orchard Inn and their lobster suppers- that's where I started, okay. So yeah, at the age of 16.

Speaker 2 36:43

Is it from the valley?

Speaker 4 36:44

Well, sort of Okay. Grew up in Edmonton, ended up back here, was born here, first generation Canadian of German descent, so I'm a German Canadian citizen. Okay cool, grew up speaking both languages. Do come in Ausgesangene Post. Just spoke German For context. Ausgesangene Post. Do you speak German?

Speaker 1 37:05

For context. I don't know what they're saying, but this is fun.

Speaker 4 37:09

So yeah, so I grew up speaking German and then, when I needed to learn French, je parle français. Maintenant je suis la liaison de francophone et acadéen For the municipality I'm the representative for Francophones and Acadian community. So now I'm just really excited about my future because here I am, I'm on the ballot for mayor, but I've also had the opportunity to be deputy mayor and I also teach local government at Dalhousie University and I've taught communications at Mount St Vincent University Cool. But I'm one of the very few people that's running for mayor that doesn't have a grade 12 education.

Speaker 2 37:52

Yeah, because.

Speaker 4 37:53

I left home and started working at the age of 16. I was working full time, and so that's how I found myself homeless in Montreal and here in Halifax, and then eventually got my Bachelor of Arts honours degree and my Master's Education from Mount St Vincent University. And here I am.

Speaker 2 38:13

Formidable story. That's a crazy great story and I definitely win, lose whatever. We want to definitely have you back in a full episode to talk more on that in great detail for sure I'm happy to.

Speaker 4 38:31

um, but, uh, your first hundred days in, uh, as as mayor, what do you want to do? Oh, first thing I'm going to do, the very first thing I'm going to do, is sit down with cabinet ministers and the premier and build a better relationship and build trust between the province and the municipality, and then we will move forward with establishing park and rides in communities such as Elmsdale, windsor, west Hands. Ensure that Bridgewater Chester have access to transit, because our biggest problem right now is the congestion.

Speaker 4 39:02

It's holding back our productivity as a municipality, because our biggest problem right now is the congestion. It's holding back our productivity as a municipality, it's one of the biggest time suckers and it's killing our quality of life. And in addition to that, people can't get to work on time, they can't pick up their kids from daycare, they can't get to their medical appointments or surgery appointments and so on.

Speaker 4 39:21

It's really killing our economy and just our social wellness. So creating those park and rides is, right off the bat, going to remove some of that congestion from our highways and our streets. In addition to that, within the 100 days, so work with the premier, work with the neighboring municipalities, and the other thing I'm going to do is sit down with every single stakeholder that's engaged and the landowner within the harbor and begin the project to build a harbor plan, because we've got Windsor Street Exchange which needs to be rehabilitated.

Speaker 1 39:50

Right.

Speaker 4 39:50

We also have the McKay Bridge, which needs to be rehabilitated.

Speaker 1 39:54

Okay.

Speaker 4 39:54

And we've got international shipping lines that are choosing St John Harbor over Halifax Harbor. Okay, and that's a problem.

Speaker 1 40:01

Yeah. So now we're going to get to the bucket, right, I've already drawn a question there because I want everyone to get a fair amount of time to answer these questions here. So the bucket of democracy, question number one. This is from a listener and friend of the show, Sean Rosvold what are your short and long-term plans to deal with the unhoused?

Speaker 4 40:18

Oh, thank you, Sean. That's a great question. So, short-term, what I've been working on is getting a lived advisory committee in place for Halifax Council.

Speaker 4 40:36

So, that's been an incredible opportunity to actually communicate needs from people who are unhoused and living in encampments, and it's really changed how council and senior staff are actually responding to the needs and working collaboratively with the province to address housing, which is not just the only thing. So a lot of people say we've got a housing crisis. We actually have a health care crisis in the encampments. We have people who are disabled, people who are at end of life and need end-of-life care and palliative care. We have people that are families and that are in need of housing, and we have workers who are working full-time but they can't afford. So I really believe that our biggest issue is the affordability crisis and on top of, of course, housing. So the short term is to bring the partners together to make sure that we've got access to the services that people actually need.

Speaker 4 41:26

Mental health care, detox Great example. Detox is four days. That's not enough. When people are coming out of detox, they're going right back onto the street and that's not how you help a person and I'm so sorry to interrupt Long term.

Speaker 1 41:40

Just to go back to the question. We do have other questions with other themes. So just on the unhoused issue, like you know, short-term, long-term, what's your best idea there?

Speaker 4 41:50

Right. So exactly Back to the detox thing. The problem is that people aren't getting the services that they need. So, working with Department of Health, working with our federal partners to ensure that we have the services that we need from a social and transitional housing, that community housing, and work to build the capacity within the community housing sector.

Speaker 4 42:11

Now obviously that's long term, but this fall we're going to hold a housing summit, and that housing summit will bring absolutely all the stakeholders together to identify solutions. We've got to stop just talking about the problems and actually work towards implementing creative solutions to fix this.

Speaker 1 42:26

Okay, good for the point. Good for the point, you got the point. There you go. Thank you so much. All right, matt, your turn, buddy.

Speaker 2 42:31

All right and the points don't actually count.

Speaker 4 42:33

I was going to say I didn't know that there were points.

Speaker 2 42:36

Yeah, we're not, really we're just making this up as we go. Oh, george Hanna. So past guest George Hanna feels that most downtown bicycle lanes are not being utilized. He asked do you think there are other strategies that we can use to make options better for all when we're heading downtown?

Speaker 4 42:55

So I absolutely agree with you, george. In fact, what I've suggested is that we need to decommission and transform Halifax Transit and create a Capital Region. Transportation Commission and partnering with the neighbouring municipalities will be able to do that by investing in light rail, partnering with the province and the federal government to remove people from their single occupancy vehicles but make it affordable to come in as well.

Speaker 4 43:20

And I want to touch on the bike lanes, because part of the issue here is that we've prioritized bike lanes downtown rather than actually focused on the mass transit for the mass population that actually needs it, because we need that corridor from Truro down to HRM to be used for mass transit. So not only do we need the park and rides, we need the light rail. In addition to that, we have to think about you know, you know that active transit downtown. We also need it within our communities.

Speaker 4 43:48

So, community of hubbards with the hubbard streetscape project for example, they want to have sidewalks so the kids can actually walk to school, but it's a provincial highway. So, again, what we need to do is sit down with our partners out the province and say, say, look, here's the priorities for this municipality. And we have to say that to the federal government as well, because they come to us with our money telling us what our priorities are. And that's why we have bike lanes right now. I'm not opposed to bike lanes, I'm actually in favor of open streets, which is what Montreal has, and it's beautiful, it's working. It's actually increasing the number of people who are hanging out downtown and purchasing goods and going to restaurants and so on and so forth. Is there another question?

Speaker 2 44:29

Oh, there's lots of questions.

Speaker 1 44:30

We've got lots. Okay, my turn, your turn.

Speaker 4 44:32

So for folks that can't see this, this bucket of democracy is extremely impressive.

Speaker 1 44:38

Oh yes, thank you, my arts and craft. I showed your arts and craft department. Okay, so the next question. This is from here Great Roads.

Speaker 2 44:46

Brewing had a few questions.

Speaker 3 44:46

Yay, Great Roads.

Speaker 1 44:47

They feel that the business community in Lower Sackville is well worth checking out and experiencing. What could be done to promote smaller HRM communities outside the downtown core to help promote growth.

Speaker 4 44:58

Well, thank you, exactly what I've been talking about. Suburban and rural communities have been ignored since the Malcolmation. What I've been talking about suburban and rural communities have been ignored since amalgamation. Halifax County had an opportunity way back when to support the development of these towns. On amalgamation, we lost the towns, we lost the villages, so people couldn't work and live and play and thrive in the same community.

Speaker 4 45:20

I'm focused on bringing that back. I think that people need to be able to have job creation opportunities, and for small businesses in particular. I am committed to removing the provincial area rate of education off the commercial property tax bill and, in addition to that, forcing the federal government to stop taking our carbon tax dollars from our property tax bills. So there's millions of dollars leaving here, hrm and going to Ottawa every year and in fact, what we need is to be investing that money, because we are doing incredible work with climate change and so we know that our small businesses here need people to get to work. That means transit affordable and reliable transit, which you don't have when you've got congestion, because there's no guarantee that you're going to get to work on time or that the bus is going to show up.

Speaker 4 46:10

Absolutely so we need reliable transit options.

Speaker 1 46:13

Okay, ready for another one.

Speaker 4 46:16

This is the firing line, guys. Oh yeah, this is fun.

Speaker 1 46:19

You're doing great, though, all right.

Speaker 2 46:21

Number four this is an interesting one. So this is from Bill DeLuni. He feels there's a lack of baseball fields and centers in HRM, especially in comparison to smaller communities like Moncton. I don't know if you've ever seen those in.

Speaker 4 46:32

Moncton, but they're amazing.

Speaker 2 46:34

I have. The leagues that play in these fields help the downtown core because they spend money and draw a crowd. Are there plans to have more baseball fields in HRM for recreational areas? Are there plans to have more baseball fields in HRM for recreational areas?

Speaker 4 46:44

I'm so glad that you raised this bill. So just to let you know visually I've got cider in one hand and an IPA in the other, so I'm ready to answer this question First.

Speaker 5 46:53

Double fister.

Quality of Construction in HRM

Speaker 4 46:55

So here's the thing about baseball fields. Last year the Canadian Women's World Championship came here they were here over in Sackville and Upper Sackville and the response was incredible. We want to be able to bring more large tournaments here.

Speaker 1 47:07

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 47:09

I live in Hammers Plains so I'm just going to give a shout-out to Hammers Plains A's and I know that a lot of parents are trying to maintain those fields. They're out there cleaning them up, picking up garbage, mowing and preparing the infield and the outfield. And the problem with that is that we haven't had a clear understanding from park staff as far as what is that rural and regional recreation opportunity? So they came forward with a staff report, they came forward with a plan for rural recreation and at the end of the day, as I said in council, it's flat.

Speaker 4 47:40

It's not enough. So, bill, I agree with you we need to do more, and, in fact, that opportunity to create amateur sports leads to professional sports. And that's what we should be focused on.

Speaker 1 47:51

Love it, Okay, we probably can get one more in.

Speaker 4 47:53

Oh it's my turn, sorry. Okay, here we go. They're actually fighting about who's going to take the question.

Speaker 1 47:57

We're trying to take turns, we just forget the turns. Another one from Sean Roswell. The quality of construction with some of the newer buildings in HRM is diminished. What would you do as mayor to ensure that the new construction projects are being built with a high standard of quality?

Speaker 4 48:12

I'm so glad you asked that question, Sean. I think you should get an award for being a frequent question asker.

Speaker 4 48:20

So here's the thing about we're trying to build more faster, right, and also we've got this new building code that's supposed to be implemented. We're waiting for the province to implement that. At the same time, we have less than well, actually about 3,000 construction workers that we need right now, and when it comes to the quality of projects, because we're in a housing crisis, an affordability crisis, we're trying to build as cheap as possible and as quick as possible. So what I'm saying to you right now is think of a bell curve, right. So we're at the top.

Speaker 4 48:56

We're in desperate need for, actually, I guess, at the bottom we're in desperate need for changes and, at the same time, we need to be able to create a faster process to build by removing the bureaucracy and the red tape. I talk a lot about removing the red tape, and that means streamlining all the processes, using the digital mechanisms and AI technology to actually make it easier for the builder to say, oh geez, I just saved $50,000. And this is part of the process. Part of the problem with the process is they're spending money on the bureaucracy rather than actually putting money into the nice windows or to the nice designs and so on, and so forth.

Speaker 4 49:35

So it's about reprioritizing our communities.

Speaker 1 49:39

Well, perfect, that's 15 minutes. Thank you so much, it was really nice meeting you.

Speaker 2 49:43

Cheers to you.

Speaker 4 49:44

Best of luck.

Speaker 1 49:45

And, regardless what happens, we would love to have another chat with you.

Speaker 4 49:48

You guys drank a lot faster than I did. Yeah, we do that.

Speaker 1 49:51

Yeah, we've done a lot of these episodes.

Speaker 4 49:53

Great to see you.

Speaker 2 49:54

Thank you, take care.

Speaker 1 49:55

Bye-bye. Okay, cheers, cheers, cheers.

Speaker 2 50:15

Welcome. Welcome to the afternoon pint. Welcome to the afternoon pint.

Speaker 1 50:19

I forgot where I was at there for a second, zoran Jokic, another candidate that we have here for the upcoming election. How are you today? You know?

Speaker 6 50:27

what guys, every time in your company and around the beer, I'm good, okay, there you go. And speaking of beer, you chose our beer and we are getting funky.

Speaker 2 50:37

This is Funktown.

Speaker 1 50:38

Funktown.

Speaker 2 50:39

Funktown and should be the Funktown.

Speaker 1 50:40

Perfect. It's a nice tasting beer. It is indeed.

Speaker 2 50:43

Yeah, it's a good pale ale.

Speaker 1 50:49

So Matt knew a little bit about you. I want to learn a little bit more about you.

Speaker 6 50:54

I'd love to know just a little bit of your back story. I arrived in Canada back in 96 and I'd been in Halifax, living in Halifax or actually Fall River, I would say the last 28, 29 years. Originally I came from Croatia or former Yugoslavia. A lot of people know that better. The reason why I came here, of course you know 90s. We had a rough time in the Balkans. It was a Balkan war and I landed in Halifax to be honest, not by my choice. But you know what? I don't have any regrets.

Speaker 1 51:24

How many years ago was that?

Speaker 6 51:25

So 28, 29 years ago.

Speaker 1 51:27

Okay, wow.

Speaker 6 51:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1 51:28

Yeah, so I guess really what made you motivated to get into politics, or what's some of the stuff you've done here in the last so many years?

Speaker 6 51:42

So again, I kind of followed the lead of my grandfather. So he used to say to me there are three best jobs in the world Number one is a doctor, number two is a teacher and number three is a politician.

Speaker 6 51:54

wow so, you don't hear that, very so yeah so of course I questioned the last one, last choice, and I said, like grandpa, how come? He said all of them, they are serving public. Yep, okay, yep, and I was never a doctor, but I work in humanitarian aid in some very difficult parts of the world during the war conflict, and I deliver humanitarian aid or organize it for Somalia, rwanda, chechnya, kosovo, so all those war-torn countries and kind of close to the health aspects of the human being.

Speaker 6 52:39

I've been working as an instructor, teacher, educator, adult educator, whatever you want to call it last 25 years, and so now it's time for me to be in politics. I'm not a career politician, but I want to be in politics Fair, fair.

Speaker 1 52:56

Okay, I like it. So, your first 100 days in office.

Homelessness, Policing, and Recreation Facilities

Speaker 6 52:59

What would you plan to do when you become mayor of Halifax, the first 100 days, the first thing actually I am going to start negotiating anything that could bring better deals to people of HRM. So I recognize a few things, but one thing you know we're going to concentrate on HRM. I think us as Canadians, we started probably last five years paying five-star prices and receiving only two-star services. So if somebody goes in a restaurant and gets the, you know it's a good steak house and you go there and you know you pay five, five star price and you get only two star service and by service you mean the food quality or the server quality I'm just talking about services in general, the public services that we need to receive.

Speaker 6 53:57

I'm just kind of trying to draw the line between two. So one of the things that always we complain about homelessness, you know, and uh, and that's another thing, but in my opinion, you know, homelessness has to be registered. We have to kind of find variety of the reason why people are homeless. Right now, actually, I know what are the three reasons. Number one actually is mental health, mm-hmm. Number two it's a choice because people don't have any kind of you know, know, to look something, look forward to it.

Speaker 4 54:27

Yeah.

Speaker 6 54:28

And the last one actually is you know, really people can't afford it.

Speaker 1 54:36

Affordability, that's right, and addiction Absolutely. I mean number four.

Speaker 6 54:39

But you know the mental health and addiction they kind of come to under the same umbrella under the same umbrella. So you know, but also you know I look at we spend so much money on it and we don't have any type of, I would say, data, and we need to understand why somebody is homeless. We cannot treat them the same way?

Speaker 1 55:04

Okay.

Speaker 6 55:04

And that's another thing, uh, that I would concentrate on. I would actually, in the first hundred days, I would organize canadian homeless national team that would represent canada on homeless world cup fair enough in soccer, okay, all right.

Speaker 1 55:20

Well, this, now it's time to dive into our bucket of democracy. All right, let's go on with the first question.

Speaker 2 55:25

So here we go. Oh, this one's actually just from us.

Speaker 1 55:28

It's from us. Avering Pike question. Okay, we put in a few Cool.

Speaker 2 55:32

Can you provide specific examples of success in your past life experiences that can be seen from any area?

Speaker 6 55:39

Well, you know, I kind of always simplify things. So I as an adult educator educator I normally like to see people do better, and when I said better the better. I don't want to quantify by certain percentage, because you know it's individual, how better you want to be, but I think in my past life I deliver probably over 5,000 sessions and 90% of them they're small business of Nova Scotia and every single time when I go back to that business I know for the fact the employees, the management, they do at least 5% better without me being involved in the first place.

Speaker 1 56:26

Okay, Okay, ready right for next question well, is that a point?

Speaker 2 56:30

yeah, it's a point we're doing. Yeah, it's a point, we get points yeah, I kind of forget.

Speaker 1 56:34

We're kind of not really giving points, but we're giving points.

Speaker 2 56:37

It's kind of whose line is it anyway okay okay, okay, here's a question.

Speaker 1 56:42

This is from george hannah. What logistical improvements do you think could help the Halifax Regional Police in preventing urban crime such as stealing cars and violent attacks?

Speaker 6 56:54

Well, again, you know the policing and the reasoning why that happens. Obviously, we have to look at the reason a little bit deeper. Preventing the crime is not going to be always the easiest thing. We can rely on technology, we can rely on cameras monitoring streets, the neighborhoods and stuff like that, but I think we have to find a reason why somebody is stealing, and I think that's what we need to do first. Like you know, they're talking about Halifax being one of the number one by small theft in the stores and stuff like that. You know why are people doing it? I don't believe that anybody goes in just, you know, for fun, as being a teenager and loosey-goosey do it, but now, like we have people that really need to do it, yeah, so we have to kind of look at that way too.

Speaker 1 57:45

It's a really good answer. Your turn, you got a point.

Speaker 4 57:48

My turn to draw. It's your turn to draw.

Speaker 2 57:49

Did I just read the last one? No, I did, I just read the. Halifax Police question oh yeah, you're right, that's a fall in the park.

Speaker 4 57:55

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 57:56

There you go, buddy, Come on question.

Speaker 2 58:04

This has been a running theme.

Speaker 1 58:05

question for so if you listen to our episode with Tim Houston or, I could assume, or Mike Savage, you would have heard this question, will your?

Speaker 2 58:13

plans for Halifax include building a bigger and better stadium in Halifax.

Speaker 6 58:18

You know what we have to model the stadium that actually has multi-purpose. The second we can look at actually stadiums around Europe when you do have hotels, when you do have, you know, apartments in the stadium and also businesses in the stadium. So it's a sponsorship type of thing and you know what I believe in any type of project and research that could come in Halifax and do something better for us here in HRM. Bring it on Cool.

Speaker 2 58:48

I'm giving them a point and a half for that. You like it? Yeah, I like that. All right, a point and a half A point and a half, because you know what I like the idea, because some people don't like taxpayer dollars going in, but if he puts hotels and other businesses, they can pay for the business, of course.

Speaker 1 59:00

Yeah, of course. Okay, cool, Cool. All right On to your next question what will your plan be to deal with fixed-term leases and their associated loopholes? Yeah, From Anonymous on Facebook.

Speaker 2 59:19

Oh yeah.

Speaker 6 59:19

That's right. That was just a question from Facebook, that's right. You know, again, fixed-term leases and stuff like that I believe in, in, in, you know, the, the free market. I don't think so that you know, freezing the leases are going to benefit anybody, because I seen what happens, like normally, uh, previous owner sells the building and comes somebody new one, they raise the rent and people they have to go. Yep, so really you know there's only one solution. Number one solution is overbuild. Do what Japan did overbuild, and it will actually help us with two things it will help us with homelessness, but also, at the same time, will help us with interest rates, of course, but also with inflation. Overbuild, overbuild, overbuild.

Speaker 1 1:00:06

Okay, next question. Yeah, very good, here we go, buddy. Oh yeah, george's Sure overbuild, overbuild.

Speaker 6 1:00:08

Okay.

Speaker 1 1:00:08

Next question yeah, okay, here we go, buddy, oh, he's gorgeous, sure, whatever. Yeah, sure it's fast. You're flying through these by the way, all right.

Speaker 2 1:00:17

Oh, this is Matt's question. No, this is just a funny question. Yeah, so keep in mind that I'm from Halifax and he's from Dartmouth. Oh, that's my question Halifax or Dartmouth? Which side of the bridge is?

Speaker 6 1:00:31

better. And why Dartmouth? Because I have a beautiful view to Halifax. Oh, Good answer.

Speaker 1 1:00:36

That was quick. Wow, that's a point.

Speaker 2 1:00:37

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 1:00:39

People are going to think that was planted, but that was a perfect answer.

Speaker 2 1:00:42

You get a point for that. Yeah, you know what. No one could have answered that one better. That's good, that was the best answer you could give. Yeah, that's true, okay.

Speaker 1 1:00:49

Okay, so this one here From our friends at Reddit oh, okay, yeah, so we got a little upset.

Speaker 4 1:00:54

We got a little upset we had.

Speaker 1 1:00:55

Tim.

Speaker 6 1:00:55

Houston on the other week and we didn't mean any harm. That is a tough one.

Speaker 1 1:01:07

Every welcome everybody. But this is actually, uh, from a news story from journalist jacob moore at acadia broadcast. Okay, okay, so a halifax librarian claimed that they witnessed three to four overdoses per week while at work. What would you do as mayor to better help folks struggling with addiction, and do you think we have good plate systems in place for these folks now?

Speaker 6 1:01:23

so it's kind of a two point question, but like well, again I'll go on a back reference to mental health. So again, we do have people here and I am actually friend with some of them in the mental health industry and I think that right now the private clinics are doing a good job, but our public mental health is not doing a good job. I think we're really having a struggle with the number of appointments the people normally go through the day.

Speaker 1 1:01:59

Right.

Speaker 6 1:02:00

So we are averaging. I think in the mental health public sector we're averaging 2.7 versus 6.8 in private sector. So I think our public sector needs to speed up Okay.

Speaker 1 1:02:14

Okay, wow, you are flying through these questions, by the way, yeah, you are yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 1:02:20

Next question no, that was the one they already asked there. Okay, let's see. No, that was the one they already asked there. Okay, let's see From our listener, rob Groom how are we correlating recreational facilities and centers to meet the growing demand of our bustling population?

Speaker 6 1:02:38

Well, that's very close to my heart. So anybody who knows me, I play diligently two sports and actually I coach soccer three different teams in three different categories. Also, I play pickleball, so it's a really tough when you have to get up at five o'clock and use some of the facility to play pickleball and I'm not early riser, so normally get up around seven, so first two hours you're really not worth it. So so again, the facilities that we do have in place with the population we have. It's a part of infrastructure that's never been appropriately. What really bugs me the most is Ivory Report. First time came in 1982, and then was recessed in 2014,. I think was kind of put in a little bit different perspective. And number one reason you know, at the time for Ivory Report is we need more people. And number one reason you know at the time for Iowa to report is we need more people.

Speaker 6 1:03:28

So we knew that for 40 some odd years, but we never been proactive, we always been reactive and I think you know that needs to change. So, yes, open it up more, but you know what you build infrastructure, build the schools, build the houses, and then, of course, you have to build that too. So I think that's what we fail and I think one of the parts. If I ever become a mayor in the city, in the municipality, that's the first thing I would do Build appropriately, build the schools together with subdivisions, build everything together. That's the only way.

Speaker 1 1:04:03

All right, we can do one more. I think you know what I got.

Speaker 2 1:04:06

one question for him no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 1:04:08

Stay on the get it's fair to everybody Okay. Oh my gosh, this one's from Facebook Artificial Intelligence Okay.

Speaker 4 1:04:15

Meta.

Candidate Appreciation & Podcast Promotion

Speaker 1 1:04:15

Meta asked this question. How would you best?

Speaker 6 1:04:20

describe your leadership style. You know what I believe in levels of leadership, so the political leadership and the leadership in general. It's almost the same but they have slight difference. So my leadership style is very democratic but very focused. So if we need to achieve the goal, then everybody is part of that leadership. And you know what I believe in leadership that it's not from the top. I believe that leadership is a flat line of people and only that way we can achieve better. So I'm not for any dictatorial. I'm not for any leadership that actually puts people behind. I'm very pragmatic and I'm very laser focused on fixing the things.

Speaker 1 1:05:17

Cheers to you, Zohar.

Speaker 6 1:05:18

Thank you.

Speaker 1 1:05:19

You did a fantastic job and I will say just for your own sake. So you know you did answer the most questions tonight out of all of our candidates.

Speaker 6 1:05:27

Quick and very proficient.

Speaker 2 1:05:28

Thank you, great job.

Speaker 1 1:05:29

Cheers.

Speaker 2 1:05:29

Cheers. Thank you for listening to the Afternoon Punt. We are an independent podcast and we need your support. Please take a moment to hit that like, follow and share button. Email us if you have an idea or suggestion for the show. Please send your feedback. We.