Halifax Is About to Boom Again — Mayor Andy Fillmore Says the Real Risk Is Saying No

Halifax is growing fast — and Mayor Andy Fillmore says the real danger is not growth itself, but being unprepared for it.

In this episode of Afternoon Pint, we sit down with Mayor Fillmore at City Hall following his State of the Municipality address to talk about what comes next for Halifax and the wider HRM. We dig into the pressure points residents are already feeling: housing costs, congestion, infrastructure delays, Halifax Water, suburban growth, affordability, and whether City Hall is moving quickly enough to meet the moment.

The Mayor lays out why major national defence investment could bring another wave of economic growth to Halifax, including the possibility of the city becoming home port for Canada’s future submarine fleet. But with that opportunity comes a hard question: can we build the housing, transit, water systems, and public trust needed to make growth work for everyone — not just the downtown core?

This is a candid, long-form conversation about the future of Halifax: what we’ve done well, where the systems are struggling, and why the next few years may define the city for decades.

And because it’s still Afternoon Pint, we wrap things up with a round of “Around Halifax,” testing the Mayor on local landmarks, communities, food spots, history, and one very famous turtle.

A thoughtful, honest, and fun conversation about the city we love — and the choices we need to make before the next boom arrives.

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

Cheers And A Dry City Hall

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Nice to have you back in City Hall. Welcome back to the African Punch. Thank you very much. And what are we enjoying today? Yeah, this is Chill Street's mixed collection. So it's a Cafe Mocha martini. Non-alcoholic, of course. Non-alcoholic to observe our dry city hall rules. Well, thank you very much. That's great.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

It's my first taste of it. It's not bad. It's kind of like it's fizzy. I wasn't expecting it to be carbonated.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

I wasn't expecting it to be carbonated or clear. But it does, you know what? It actually kind of tastes like a iced cappuccino. Yeah. Pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

With salsa water in it.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Yeah. New combination. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

That is a new combination. We are here because you just did a state of the municipality. And there was lots of stuff in there that I think a lot of people would really like to hear and kind of talk about it in like long form, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yeah.

State Of The Municipality Stakes

SPEAKER_02 0:50

So this was my second state of the municipality. My mayoralty is coming up on its second year birthday, but that that's enough time to have two of those uh addresses in it. And yeah, let's talk about what's what's talking, let's talk about what's going on in Halifax. There's uh the answer is a lot. There is a lot cooking right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Yeah. I mean, last time we were here, even just quickly, we talked a little bit about the the investments that's coming with military, yeah, but more has obviously come out then. So there's going to be some heavy military investment that's going to happen in the city.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

That's really the the headline here. So, you know, Halifax uh and HR all of HRM has been growing at a record-breaking pace for about the the last decade. We we really are the either the fastest or one of the fastest growing cities in the country, depending on when you when you take the temperature, what time of year you take the temperature. And there was a sense that maybe we're going into a bit of a lull or a break from that growth. And my my my feel my strong feeling is that if there is a little bit of a lull, it's not going to last long. And so we have a bit of a window right now to get ready for the next wave. And that next wave of investment and growth is really going to be rooted in these incredible investments in national defense.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

Now, you did say in your speech that there were some brutal facts that we had to face as Nova Scotians. What did you mean by that when you said brutal facts? What were you what were you kind of talking about?

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah, well, let me let me uh bring the frame back. So Admiral James Stockdale, he was the most senior U.S. officer that was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. He was in prison for seven years. And when he when he

Stockdale Paradox And Brutal Facts

SPEAKER_02 2:20

was released and made it back home and began to talk about his experience, he was asked how he survived. And he said, the only way that I was able to survive was to be able to hold two truths at once. One was the ability to face the brutal facts of the reality of my situation that I was in. Prisoner of war, life is at risk every single day. The other thing I needed to hold was unwavering faith that I would prevail, that I would survive and get out of there. And the way he told the story was his other prisoners of war that he was in there with, uh his colleagues, if they only held one of those truths, they didn't get out. They didn't make it back alive. They they they they passed away and they didn't get home. So you had to have both. So I I used it's called the Stockdale paradox. So I framed the whole speech around the Stockdale paradox. The only way that we can meet the opportunities that are coming our way and have optimism and faith that we will capitalize on them is to acknowledge the brutal facts of our situation. Yep. And so what are the brutal facts? Maybe that was really your question. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got we've got all these opportunities and we're at risk of deflecting them or having to say no to them because, in large part, our infrastructure is hasn't been able to keep up with the pace of growth over the last number of years.

SPEAKER_05 3:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

I'll I'll be as frank as I was in the speech. The the the this is mainly to do with Halifax Waters' ability to get infrastructure in the ground. They're engaged in a multi-year integrated resource plan, and it's their position at the moment that they don't want to build any new infrastructure until they complete that two-year planning process, which means two years of opportunity may well be turned away. And my message was we need to be able to do two things at once here. We need to be able to do the long-term planning while also saying yes to opportunity today, not two years from now. Right. So that's one example of a brutal truth. Another one is we still, although we've made improvements in how quickly we approve development, and I'm really proud of our planning team for those improvements. Uh, we we still have lots of room to do better. We're working on something right now called the suburban plan, which folks might uh remember the regional that it was called the center plan. Well, that's for the urban core. We've now we're now going out of ring because out into the suburbs because the center plan's done. Now the next bite is the is the suburban plan. And our planning department, largely because of the Halifax water constraints, are saying we don't want to approve new development in the suburban area for about two years until the suburban plan's done and the water plan is done. So that's again, we're saying no to opportunity today, but we should be doing our planning and saying yes at the same time.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

So it's a bit of a, I guess like you said, a paradox. We're playing we're playing ketchup while we need to grow.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

That's that well, so that's my point. We have this little bit of a window here where it feels like growth has slowed down a little bit. Yeah, it's eased off. Let's right now get all of our ducks in a row, get the infrastructure in the ground, complete the plans, say yes to opportunity, get the transit system working, improve our approvals processes, capitalize on other means of financing our expensive infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure projects so they don't go on the backs of the taxpayers, for example, public-private partnerships, and and get ready for this wave that's coming.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

So, like, why do you think why do you think Halifax is growing so much? Like, did we plan for this? Are we being really reactive?

SPEAKER_02 5:40

There's a little bit of both. So if you folks might remember 15 years ago, Halifax was not growing. We were we were like 1% a year, 1.5% a year when I was a planner at the city and was charged with leading the creation of the downtown Halifax plan. Uh we had boarded up windows on Barrington Street. Remember, remember tumble tumbleweeds blowing down. Oh, it was like Barrington Street looked pretty sad for a while. It really did. And so no one was investing. So the whole point of that plan and the economic development strategy that was that was developed alongside the downtown plan, purposefully and integrated with, that set the stage for the renaissance that the city's been enjoying for the last decade or so.

SPEAKER_05 6:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

So we were expecting growth. A lot of people worked really hard to create the opportunity, the conditions for that growth. We succeeded beyond our expectations. And and and then COVID came and the world found us as a as an alternative place to live with a great lifestyle. So that compounded it. And and now this wave of defense investments is just going to keep that ball rolling. So we were very fortunate. It feels like it's success, but I will I will say, and this is uh something I said in the speech too, that success isn't automatic. It's like we have we didn't win a lottery, we we have uh earned the right the right to win a lottery by doing the hard work that's required to be ready to to receive this growth.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Well, that makes a lot

Halifax Water And Planning Gridlock

SPEAKER_03 7:05

of sense. And so uh just to kind of touch on that a little bit, like what does that military investment look like to Heligonians? Like how are they gonna benefit from it?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

For sure. Well, the I'll start with this. Every every one of the millions of dollars that are gonna get invested by the federal government in Halifax for DD is gonna filter its way through local businesses, through our main streets, through restaurants, through service providers. It's gonna be in uh housing, the housing market. It's gonna be in people buying dishwashers and building materials and all those things. So it has enormous impact as we grow, as we grow the economy and grow the population. Specifically, what is the what are the investments? Well, it's it's extremely likely that Halifax will be named as the home port for Canada's new patrol submarine fleet. Um right. And that if you remember back to when Halifax won the contract to build the October C offshore patrol ships and the and the uh river class destroyers we're building now, yeah, that was a that's a $35 billion injection in our local economy over about 30 years. This is the submarines are that scale again, uh, and maybe even more.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

We actually just talked to Daryl Dexter, he was just on our episode that we released last week. The premier who was at the helm when we did the ship start here, can't we? That's right. That's right. Right. Yeah. So yeah, so it's like you know, part two kind of thing. Yeah. With with the investment, that's what you're talking about, and the growth and opportunity though. How do we people are obviously gonna start worrying about like, okay, more people, uh, rents can go up, congestion can go up. That's obviously a thing. Like, yeah, how do we prevent this opportunity from being frustrations?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Exactly right. So, great question. I had identified in last year's state of the municipality address the the three main priorities that we had to contend with affordability, mobility, which includes transit and congestion, and housing. Those three things are still true. We we need to uh build an affordable city where we can house people and people can get around and goods can get around. This year, because of this the prospect of these investments and our lack of progress on some of the things like infrastructure and transit improvements, I've had to add a fourth priority, and that is infrastructure readiness. So the only way that we can receive this growth in a way that doesn't drive everybody crazy or leave people behind is to be ready for it, to to improve the transit system quickly. That includes bus rapid transit. It includes things like the traffic signal modernization pilot that was just announced. Yeah, it's uh coming across the bridge. Smart signals, yeah, exactly right. Three signals on the Nantucket side, uh, Nantucket uh street side, and uh five on the North Street side that that'll make a smooth flowing corridor, and then we'll roll that out to further corridors. So that's another improvement. Getting the Windsor Street Exchange done is a massive thing. So, right? We've got there's a long list of things we can do for transit and transportation to to improve the situation. The same is true in housing. We need to be uh zoning low-cost land to make it affordable. The cost of land is a huge proport, a huge component of the cost of rent or of mortgage when you when you're building a home, and and then service that land by Halifax water and by transit. So those are the things we we need to be doing now. That was my call to action in the state of the municipality address. And if we do those things, then we should all be able to enjoy Halifax and HRM's success together and not feel like, oh man, it's just one damn thing after another around here.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

Yeah. I'd like to just zero in on housing for a second. I read this morning, actually, Halifax Examiner, Suzanne Rent wrote an article where she spoke with a few counselors and just tried to get a few criticisms of the speech and you know what people thought and such, right? But one of them was the speech mentioned, you know, more than 68,000 new housing units are needed by 2032, which last year fewer than 7,000 were started. Catherine Morris, counselor Catherine Morris, just said that this was the first time she heard the target number and raised concerns about what the regulations would be or how they would be loosened to reach that number.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Yeah, so that the number comes from CMHC. And when you take CMHC's number and you back out the 7,000 starts, you're left that that we had last year, you're left with 68,000. So that's that's where that number comes from. Those are those are very reliable numbers. And look, we can choose to meet that uh that demand or not. Right. And if we if we don't meet it, then we are gonna have that frustration. We're gonna have higher home prices, we're gonna have more people having to leave here because they can't afford to stay here or find a place to live. Obviously, that's not the outcome I'm looking for as mayor. So for me, it's all hands on deck to get those homes built, to finish the suburban plan, to finish Halifax's water, Halifax Waters Integrated Resource Plan, to say yes to opportunity while those plans are being completed and make sure that we continue to have a livable, affordable municipality.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

So, what does that housing look like? Yeah. Because we, you know, obviously you want to build homes because people want to build homes and have homes, but you can't have everyone living in a house. It doesn't always meet their lifestyle, their affordability, or all the different things that can fit in.

SPEAKER_04 12:03

Or vice versa, right? Or vice versa. If you got a lot of high trade sky scale tradespeople, they might want to have a you know a home outside. They may want to have a home, right?

SPEAKER_03 12:09

But

Why Halifax Keeps Growing

SPEAKER_03 12:10

I mean, there's people who want to live in the city that because that's what they like, or whatever. Like, what is that? What do do you guys have a really firm understanding of the breakdown of like, okay, we need this many houses versus townhouses versus apartments or so the mayor's office has done that work.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

We we uh so I know the answer to that and I'm gonna share it with you. I I'm working with the planning department. They they're aware of the CMHC numbers, they have objectives and and and growth projections in their regional plan, of which the suburban plan is a subset, of which the in also the center plan is a subset of the regional plan. The regional plan is like the mothership of all the plans. Right. And then beneath that is the center plan, the the suburban plan, and in the future the rural plan when we finish the suburban plan. Anyway, so they they uh the planning department has uh growth projections. Here's what we've we've learned. We've learned that of the 7,000 units that were started last year, uh, fewer than 100 were what we call ground-based units. So imagine a town home or a single family home. Fewer than a hundred of 7,000. We are building multi-unit res, high-rise apartments, et cetera, like crazy. And and the market is screaming out for ground-based units. This is why single-family homes are so expensive right now. 800,000 for a single family home. It's a simple supply and demand equation right now. There's hardly anything on the market. We've got major home builders who don't have any approved land to build a single family home on right now because they're waiting for water, waiting for the suburban plan to be done. And so all that's left to build are are these are these other multi-reses. The market is the market is just very displeased with that. The market that's a way of saying people, like people who live here are are crying out for those single family home options.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

And when we and when we can build more of those, the price will come down because of supply and so what what barriers need to be taken down and what barriers need to remain to kind of protect homeowners and people that already live here? But like what which barriers do you think we need to really get rid of?

SPEAKER_02 14:08

So the barriers are uh let I want to come to that, but let me say one more thing because it gives some context. Yeah, sure, yeah. So you you remember that the provincial government created something called SPAs, special planning areas. Right. Yeah, yeah. And that was a way of trying to encourage HRM and Halifax Water to move faster on allowing home growth. There are a hundred thousand units tied up in those SPAs, which are all stalled right now because of those two reasons. I I said the uh the the water service and the and the suburban plan. 100,000 units, and it looks to according to our research, 60, 65% of those are ground-based. So we have we know what the answer is. It's within our reach. We just have to now do it. So, should we if we are able to remove the barriers, which is say yes to growth while we finish the suburban plan and water plan, then then we get to your question. Like, what do we have anything to worry about? Not really. The barriers are zoning that land that's tied up in the SPAs for for development to make it developable, because that is low-cost land, and that's the that's bringing down one vector of price. Another vector of price is how quickly, how how long a builder has to carry the costs of development. That is, own the land without it making any revenue. Right. That is the construction loans that are required, the financing, that is all the materials they have to pay for and labor they have to pay for for in many cases years before someone pays a rent check or or puts a mortgage on that house. So those are the carrying costs. So the shorter we can make all that period, in other words, faster approvals, that also reduces cost. So that's the second lever we have on reducing cost. The third thing that's in HRM's control is to allow through our bylaws and such really innovative construction techniques. So there are still are some lingering barriers to things like mass timber construction, prefab construction, factory-built homes, modular homes. Um, so we need to remove those vestigial blockages from an era of planning that just wasn't hospitable to factory built. It used to have a kind of a stigma about it, but now though it's what the world is doing for the reason that it brings down cost.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

How is insurance in that though? Is it still a bit of a challenge, right? Sometimes with insurance? No, it's getting better, though. It's getting easier. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Slowly.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Yeah. Certain things, obviously, like you know, weather is a huge impact. Uh yeah, that's true. Weather's a big thing when it comes to the insurance side of things. But yeah, for homeowners, they have their challenges for sure, right?

SPEAKER_04 16:31

Like it's it's yeah, they're just yeah, they can get it.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

That's a totally different topic, and I know to talk to you about that. Oh, I know.

Defence Spending And Local Ripple Effects

SPEAKER_03 16:40

I'm a bit of an insurance geek, so I can talk to you about housing insurance and the fact that Halifax was actually deemed like the worst city to drive for frequency of accidents like three years in a row. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

So I don't like to hear that. Yeah, I can see why though. That's that's related to congestion. And that's probably related, I would say, to frustration. Yeah. Probably frustration, yeah. Road rage and so forth. A lot of road rage. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

So we we established this before that like all three levels of government have a part to play in building houses and getting housing done. And you've kind of laid out a little bit, you kind of jumped a little bit ahead and answered, like, you know, what your part is. But it's like people sometimes don't always understand like who is responsible for what when it comes to government. Like you must talk to young couples that say, like, I don't see housing as affordable. And I'm gonna kind of jump in there because like I know you're aware and had a good little laugh about the ad for Regina of trying to recruit people to go there to buy housing.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

Yeah, good comeback, by the way. Actually, I thought that was great. It was great. I it was take that, Regina. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but like it's all on good fun, you guys.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Of course, of course. It is just we're all Canada, it's all great, right? But I mean, still also stay here. But what do you say to those young people that you have those conversations with of like, you know, I they that they don't feel it's affordable?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

This is the the heart of it, isn't it? So affordability, building the housing, making sure those young people can get to and from work and school and places all they need to go. That that that is literally the job of City Hall. Yeah, easy to say, tougher to deliver.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

I was gonna say, do you think it's resonating with people when you're having those conversations?

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Well, what I liked about the um the conversations that came after the state of the municipality address is that there will there has been now a kind of a community-wide agreement on where we are now. Yeah. What actually is the state? The state is we have some challenges, we need to, so that gives us all a common starting point. And you know, I when I talk to uh my friends and colleagues in the provincial government, they're seeing that a clear path on how they're they want to work with our staff, how MLAs want to work with counselors to to move forward with this. But I really did put it at the heart of my speech the the struggle of particularly young people, particularly newcomers who simply are finding it unaffordable to be here. And the answer, the answer to that is to build faster and to capitalize on other means of financing, whether that's other federal and provincial programs to help pay for transit or for infrastructure, whether it's the Canada Infrastructure Bank that's itching to do business with HRM right now, including for water infrastructure. Um, and whether, or whether that's public-private partnerships to do to do projects much more intelligently, then perhaps we might, uh and I'll use the Halifax Forum as an example of that. Right now, that project is 100% planned to be on the back of municipal taxpayers. Where in the world are the private sector partners? Where where is the federal funding? We we have a we have a very likely a willing federal partner in the Department of National Defense who would love to have ice surfaces

Four Priorities Transit Housing Readiness

SPEAKER_02 19:45

integrated with their housing plans at Willow at Windsor Park. Um so we just need to to be smarter about these things.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Yeah. The uh going back to the water thing, I guess, is like because you can't where do you see because we were talking like the the 68,000 units by 2032, right? Where do you see Halifax water, like where do you think the infrastructure needs to reach in order to kind of like properly grow, right? I'm out in prospect. I don't see you getting out there, you know, in the next seven years.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

No, well, it needs to get to the designated growth areas in the regional plan, and it needs to get to the special planning areas designated by the province. That's that's the answer. Okay. Those are the places it needs to go to. Those choices, those uh locations have been chosen with great intention to be close to major interchanges between between highways, places where transit is already existing or is planned to exist, places where there might already be a grocery store and a school. So there are there you you always want to capitalize on the infrastructure you already have when you're deciding where to build. There might already be fire stations, that kind of thing. And these things are all very expensive to build in a greenfield somewhere, right? Oh, yeah. So so that's where the infrastructure needs to reach. We do have uh something in HRM called the service boundary within which transit and uh water and wastewater is meant to be offered. There are some gaps within the service boundary of missing transit and of missing water and wastewater.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

Yeah, like I know I'm like where we both are. I'm from, I don't live there, and I'm a prospect, but he's out in the loop, and I know like the Sambro loop, your prior previous ride.

SPEAKER_05 21:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Sewer water and transit is a hot topic in that area. Always, always, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Yep. So so we've got to service the service boundary. And then there are some areas just on just on the like sitting right on the service boundary, but maybe on the wrong side of the street from that boundary. I'll give you an example where Costco wants to get to build a place out of Margison Drive. That was in the news a while ago. It's just across the street from the service boundary, but they're getting the answer. Excuse me, they're getting the answer. No, you have to wait for the for the f for all these plans to be done before we run the pipe across the road. Wow. So that's crazy. It is crazy. Yeah, I as I listen to our conversation, I would like to make one one observation. And it's an important one. I I want to be really clear that my my framing of the brutal facts isn't a criticism of any person or any people. It's the systems that we've all that we've operated in, our system of doing capital planning in Halifax Water, our system of decision making at City Hall. These are all systems that were developed for a city half our size, growing at half our current pace. And they're just not standing up. It's not the people in them that are doing anything wrong. It's it's that we have to be clear-eyed and willing to change the systems we operate in. And in a bureaucracy, sometimes that's the hardest thing to ask.

SPEAKER_03 22:36

I didn't really like take it that way. Like I don't I didn't really feel like finger pointing was happening or like you know, these people aren't doing their jobs or anything like that. It is just like I think it's just a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 22:45

Well, I definitely feel Halifax Water is not going to like this episode. But that's true when that's fair.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

But even though it's not the people that are doing the servicing and the working at Halifax Water, it's really kind of so for Halifax Water, and I I mean is it what's the problem?

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Is it an issue with staffing? Is it an issue with just manpower? Like it must be some sort of resource issue where they just actually can't physically do the work.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

It's all those things. So it's it's financial resources, which is why I'm which is why I'm trying to put them together with the Canada Infrastructure Bank. It's their governance structure, which is why I've asked the Municipal Auditor General to review, to audit them and to figure out uh if there are improvements we can make. It's their relationship with the utility and review board, which is extremely odious. It's very hard for Halifax Water to make make a much of a move to spend significant amounts of money or to change their their rate without going through a very complicated hearing process. It's it's not like that in most other most other jurisdictions. So it's again, it's so important. It's not the people doing these jobs, it's the systems in which they labor. Right. And we we we just have to say, okay, let's change them instead of we we're gonna defend these because it's the way we've always done it.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

That's yeah, that actually came up in conversation today during my my work day of like saying that's just how we've always done it is a terrible thing to say.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Yeah, yeah. We when I was a planner here, I was involved with a national group of other of other city planners, and we were trying to lead change in cities across Canada. And one of the things we used to say back then was that's the way we've always done it. Saying that should be a fireable offense.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Yeah. You know, of course. So you mentioned rates and things like that in UARB almost as a swear word, literally a four-letter word. But how do you balance the growth and the infrastructure and keeping that affordable so that people aren't getting priced out of water bills?

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yeah, so I mean, look, it's complex. Yeah, these are very complex interconnected systems, and they're all wrapped up in an economy that is unpredictable at the moment. Yeah, conflict uh overseas, supply of energy, interest rates, inflation, like we it's a complicated place right now. And so what what really can this council and this mayor, what levers do we have to pull? We we we do what we can. But for sure, the things we can control are reduce cost by increasing supply.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Economics 100 right there, economics 101. And we can approve things more quickly, and we can capitalize on funding programs of the federal government and funding partners from the private sector. And we're not doing enough of any of those things right now.

SPEAKER_04 25:28

Can we capitalize on our education as well? Get people like kids that are you know going through the school systems trying to get them into the right jobs, into the right fields that can help with this work?

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yeah, I love the work that NSCC has been doing over the last few years about you know how they're attracting people into trades, into building trades, and into healthcare trades. They are doing such beautiful work at destigmatizing career in the trades. Look, you know, there's a there was a study in the United States that said the 21st century millionaires are going to be plumbers and electricians. That's that's who's gonna be doing well. And I think the same is can be true here. So I remember talking to my daughter who is who's 19 now, and and her she's chosen a university path for the time being, but talking to her when she was in grade 10 or 11 about a career

68,000 Homes And What’s Missing

SPEAKER_02 26:10

in the trades. Like it's yeah, you it's fulfilling, the world needs you to do to do though that work. Hey, I can't do your job. Yeah, yeah, I can't do your job. Um, it pays well, yeah. You know, it's it's on good, hard, honest work.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's very true. So I I guess we've talked a little bit about Halifax, water, and infrastructure readiness, but and then I guess in we we had a section here where we want to talk about it, like affordability and trust. And there was a question we had in here that I think is a really important question, and that is do you think the people of HRM trust council?

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Look, I that's a you're asking me a very difficult question. Uh what I know is that everybody who put their name on a ballot and was elected to into that chamber did it because they want to serve their community. They they feel they have something to offer, they they believe in something, and they want to work to try to make life better. So I I I wouldn't I can never take that away from them. Whether, you know, whether we we work together in a way that allows us all to be our best selves every single day, that's that's a good question. And and what does it look like when you're a resident on the outside looking at a council meeting or looking at a council decision? Are you seeing a a body that is like working together, pull all the oars pulling in the same direction to achieve more affordable lifestyle and more homes and better congestion situation? Uh it probably doesn't always look that way. So I I I can't speak for whether people to whether people trust the council. Like my colleagues, I come to work every single day to do my best and and try to do what I said I to do what I told people I would come here to do.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Do you think that there's like do you think that there's opportunities where like the council or yourself, like you know, you're you're essentially this kind of the spokesperson of the city. Is there anything that you think that you guys are not communicating super well that you think you could work on to like to like help with that?

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Well, the state of the municipality address in a way was an attempt to do just that. You know, w one one thing that any large organization does, including a municipal bureaucracy, and and not just this one, is that when something goes wrong, you try to say it's okay, everything's all right, you know. What's the what's the mean? It's fine, everything's fine, and all around, you know, it's fine. So that's not really helpful. That that that's it's an instinctive reaction. And the bigger the organization, the more likely it is to happen because it's that's what large organisms do. But it's not helpful. So that's really what I tried to do with the confronting the brutal facts part of of the state of the municipality. That I think we can communicate more clearly about when there are challenges. We can bring the community along with how we're trying to address them. We can be open to suggestions from community on how to address them. We can take seriously when community members ha are experiencing friction or or a hardship and do our best to do all those things, to listen and to act and to be transparent.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

No, I think that's I think that's very valid. I think, yeah, recognizing the things is good is is a good thing.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

Yeah. On the affordability of trust, I'll jump in on one here that you know, this kind of mirrors the beginning of your theme. You know, let's endure these difficult times so we can kind of prosper in the future, right? I mean, you know, which is, you know, the plot of Animal Farm if you ever read the book. And so these are, you know, this is a tough thing for people to trust. This is a tough thing for even me to grasp, you know, middle. Oh, here we go again. Is this really going to work? Or is this really going to help me the guy that has his home and lives in a rural or you know, lives in the HRM, but in somewhat rural area, right? How does this benefit the that person?

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Well, so the kind of growth and investment we're talking about is going to have a ripple effect throughout the economy. It's going to allow us to uh, for example, invest in better transit. It's going to allow us maybe even to invest in something, you know, like what there's been always been talk about an aquarium in Halifax. There's been talk about a stadium. I I'm not saying that that's a wise use of public dollars, but I will when when there uh when there are when there are large-scale investments in a community, it it creates wealth that can then be redeployed back into community. So maybe a better example would be rec centers, community centers. We uh the gosh knows the the community needs a 50-meter pool for the for the swimming community. People uh soccer is going through the roof, the popularity. There's not enough men and women's teams, they're losing that. There was a story today about not enough uh baseball fields in Dartmouth for that incredible league environment that they have over there. So the investment can help to achieve those things as well and ultimately make for a better quality of life. But it does take a good uh good long-range planning, which again we need to do while saying yes to those things in the short term.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

Yeah, I I agree with the investment in our in our city. So totally, but uh, but again, I the other part of it, the equation that I'm thinking is like folks again that are not in the city core, yeah, that's what I'm gonna say probably don't feel like they're gonna earn those same benefits. Because again, the person that's in Muscatompet Harbor or Sheet Harbor, or Ecum Secum. Ecum Secum, shout out to Ecum Secum. Yeah, you know, they might not feel they reap the same benefits, right? Yeah of the city doing better. And I know it does help all. I understand that, but it seems it might help one part more than the parts that are outside of the well, it's I don't know, it's hard to say.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

So these uh these defense investments, you know, if should the submarines come here, there'll be a significant installation built on the Dartmouth, on the Dartmouth side.

Faster Approvals New Building Methods

SPEAKER_02 31:45

They the military is already investing $240 million in Heartland Point out in Eastern Passage.

SPEAKER_05 31:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

There are there's a bunch of in uh investment being put in other uh gre CFB greenwood down in the valley. So that that money is being spread around. But to bring it back to HRM for a second, if you if you imagine that all this investment is going to create tax income for the municipality, and if the municipality is this organism that pumps blood out to its extremities, then we're gonna be pumping out rec centers and transit opportunity to all to those outlying areas with this with this newfound this newfound wealth and and revenue in a way that that would benefit benefit those areas. Now, we have to do it in a smart way. That's what the regional plan is for. I was mentioning earlier, like where we grow and where we invest infrastructure is important. You want to reinforce, uh you want to you want to grow in the designated growth nodes because then it becomes more affordable to service those growth nodes rather than all the all the separated and dispersed growth in between the growth nodes.

SPEAKER_04 32:45

Right. And I I remember when I mean I lived in Alberta in its most prosperous time many years ago. And one thing that we loved about living in Alberta was the taxes, right? Right at the time. And I mean ultimately, do you think that's kind of the goal for us to get to a place where we can I mean, I know that's not an immediate thing that you can promise, but is that the kind of the long-term goal here where we can actually get taxes, you know?

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Yeah, if we if we do this competitively we I think I think that's absolutely within reach. And I'll I'll I have to say, you've you've opened the door to to a conversation about the premier's uh ambitions for our energy future, our resource future. He's playing a very long game, a very important game about the long-term independence of the Nova Scotia economy. And you know, I was I was listening to the Prime Minister a few weeks ago talk about the creation of Canada's sovereign wealth fund. You were just mentioning Alberta, like the heritage fund. You remember the heritage funds based on their oil revenues? That Canada now is going to do something like that that would that would be that would help to build important pieces of national infrastructure. Well, imagine if Nova Scotia could create a sovereign wealth fund. Uh Denmark has done this. They live off the interests of the savings. They do.

SPEAKER_04 33:56

They do it in a different way. I was reading about that. They seem to invest outside of their own province or outside of their own country, sorry. And then the money comes back in, is how they kind of do it. They're not investing in their own infrastructure.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Well, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, have been for many years. And when they they that creates a lot of capital, that capital is going into an account, basically think of it as a savings account that bears interest, and they're running the country off the interest of that account. So they're not even touching the capital.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Well, I mean, that's kind of like what Saudi Arabia does. Like they don't pay taxes. Like the people don't pay taxes in Saudi Arabia. Listen, they have lots of faults, lots of faults, but no taxes would be pretty awesome. Yeah. Right? If we could do that, use our resources. I I pitched this, I don't know, I think it was maybe Claudia Chende we were talking to or whatever, but I was like, it would be great if we could get like you know, this wind power going and essentially say we're gonna sell it off. Meanwhile, we're not gonna charge anybody power in Nova Scotia because we're gonna make that much money off of it. Nova Scotia needs free power, but we'll sell it to the United States or New Brunswick or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

That could that could be a possibility in our in our energy future. I'm not the uh I'm not the energy expert, but yeah, but I but I listen to the to the research and the the projections like everybody else, and it sounds like that would be that would be a possibility.

SPEAKER_04 35:20

I love the idea of wind energy. I think it's brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

I really do. It makes so much sense the more you look at it. And you can make hydrogen out of it, green hydrogen, that hydrogen could be exported, yeah, all those things.

SPEAKER_04 35:29

Yeah, back to the the thing of uh you know Halifax, not just as a city core, but the the communities outside of it. Which urban core outside of like Halifax do you think has the most potential for growth? And I'm again talking about like the Muscadombits or the Ecum Secums or where do you think you could see a lot of growth potential?

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Oh wow. You're uh this is like a uh this is like a pop quiz. So I'm I'm imagining right now. Sorry, man.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

No, that's okay. I'm trying to imagine right now the there is a there is a beautiful map in the HRM regional plan. It's the it's the growth future growth nodes map. Yep. And it's it's it's a map of our region, but it's got these circles of different sizes located all around it. And those circles, the location of them and the size of them are based on the things we've been talking about. Is there a major intersection there? Is there already infrastructure existing? Can can buses get to it easily or not? Is there is there is there water in the ground to tap wells into? Can the can the soil support septic systems, that kind of thing? So these are all how we map where where growth should happen. So there are there are a number of them. We have there are a lot of growth nodes. I you're kind of asking me to pick favorites. I will say, you know, I spend uh I I have a lot of time for counselor Billy Gillis. He he rep he represents his uh community so well, and so does uh John Young. So I I imagine so I'm thinking about Sackville, that's why I mentioned their

Trust Transparency And Paying For Growth

SPEAKER_02 36:50

names. Yeah, cool. So I feel like Sackville's got a got a got huge potential right now. There is a tremendous amount of growth and development happening there, and it's gonna be important that it be in the right form. Like one of the one of the goals around these growth nodes is that it just not be housing, that it also have places of employment. So it needs to be mixed use so that you could actually live and work in that same community and not have to get on the road and drive to downtown Dartmouth or Halifax.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

That's the key, yeah, not funneling everyone to one center. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

That's I think one of the difficult things about you know being the mayor of Halifax is like because of amalgamation. It's massive. It's massive. You became the mayor of like, yes, the city core, and I think a lot of people outside of the city core, like the Sackville bed for Dartmouth Halifax, think a lot of focus gets on there, and like you know, people in the Eastern Shore, because that's where dominantly it kind of goes towards that they kind of don't get the same kind of love. But I mean, it's a beautiful spot out there, uh, you know, out to Eastern Shore. It's a beautiful drive. It sure is, it's gorgeous, beautiful drive. There's tons of opportunity out there. I mean, we've had some guests on there talking about some of the development that's going on out there, like the gold mine that's opening up and things like that that can create jobs.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

I visited last week, as a matter of fact. Yeah, yes, uh St. Barbara. Well, Sheet Harbor is doing that, isn't it? They've Sheet Harbor's they've got their own chamber of commerce, they've figured out how to attract their own doctors, they've got that Main Street beautification program. So they're that's a that's another community that's really kind of figured this out. But what's interesting is you know, we're celebrating this year the 30th anniversary of amalgamation.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

And what I've learned on my campaign to become mayor and since being mayor is that there are people out in what used to be Halifax County that are now within the amalgamated municipality for whom it amalgamation was never a good idea, and it still stings to this day as if it happened yesterday. Right. For sure, yeah. That's really that's really powerful. I didn't expect that, but it's true.

SPEAKER_03 38:38

Yeah, and I mean uh Sheet Harbor, honestly, I think she shout out to them because they punch above their weight class, like no, like really truly the and there's that microbrewery out there too. Sober Island Great spot, the Henley House, like it's it's it's a it honestly, it's a really great place to go visit. So I want to respect your time. So I know we uh we uh we covered off a lot of things here, so we're gonna move into some fun stuff.

SPEAKER_04 39:02

Just before, so this is like a pop, this is the true pop quiz. These are these are challenging questions all around HRM that we we wanted to try to stump you on. You'll I think you'll get most of them though. But before we do that, so before we do that, though, I just want to say like this is kind of your chance. Like, what do you really want to say to people listening? Whether you're yeah, you know, this show, I I hope people listening today aren't super invested in politics, and maybe this might be the only time they hear a politician speak. So, what do you want to say to them about what you believe and why they should believe in what you're trying to do for the city?

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Yeah, look, the uh the the strong theme through the state of the municipality address, and it's going to be available online. The Chamber will of commerce who who hosted it will put it online sometime shortly, I hope soon. People will be able to see it if they're interested. But the the strong theme I tried to expose in the speech was there are people in Halifax who right now are deciding whether or not to stay here. Yeah, very true. There is a there's somebody who wants to start a business, an entrepreneur who's who's trying to figure out if the red tape is just too much to do at Halifax and are they going to go to another province. There's a there's a business, there's a corporation somewhere out in the world who's looking at HRM right now and deciding whether or not to invest $100 million here, and they can't put they can't attach water to their to their plant, so they might make a decision to go somewhere else. I I my message is I am tuned into I am I'm I'm hearing those things. I am I am doing my job every day because I am listening to people in those situations. I am here for them. I'm here be for the love of this place, the way that we all love this place. And I go to sleep every night thinking about the challenges that we face and the solutions that I want to try to find partners to help me figure figure out and solve them. So I you're you're heard, you're you're being listened to. And my uh mayor at halifax.ca, I think I said that last time I was on with you. Love to hear from folks. Uh people are getting that message, and I do hear from them. I I get I get emails, good and bad, and I welcome them all and I respond to them all. So that's my message. My door is open, and I'm here for you. Awesome. Also, don't move to vagina. And don't go to regina.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

Stay away from our not 10 questions, but our our fun questions.

Growth Nodes Energy Ideas And Regions

SPEAKER_03 41:20

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_04 41:20

You want to do y'all do number one.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Okay, go for it.

SPEAKER_04 41:23

This restored 200-year-old fishing village has a boardwalk, colorful shop, seafood, and sits at the entrance to the Halifax Harbor.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

Well, yeah, I love Fisherman's Village as much as anybody else. There you go. Correct answer is Fisherman's Cove. You're so close.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Well, no, it's just taste. Fisherman's Cove.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

That's a great spot. Great spot. Of course, yeah. Question, question, trivia question number two. So this community is home to a famous lighthouse with a with slippery rocks, which some folks are too stupid to stay away from. Stay off the black rocks at Peggy's Cove.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

There we go. That's number two. Easy, easy. And and and great work uh to uh to the folks who built that incredible viewing out there. It's absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

It's so great. And fully accessible to folks who are in a wheelchair. Exactly. People can see it now who've never been able to really experience it before.

SPEAKER_04 42:13

Okay, these guys don't know who I am, but it's one of my favorite places I ever ate. And I don't know if they're well known or not, but this is this is for them. This question, we'll see if you can get it, okay? Okay, so this restaurant in Dartmouth, known for its comfort food with Caribbean flavors, and it has a popular genre of music associated with its name. They won in the coast, Best Gold Caribbean restaurant. Oh my gosh. Best gold or gold, whatever you know. Main Street, way down. Okay. It's called RB Kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

RB Kitchen. I don't know I'm gonna have to go.

SPEAKER_04 42:46

You gotta go check them out, man. That food make us stop. It's insanely good. Oh, like yeah. They do mac and cheese, they do uh oxtail, they do all these crazy stuff. The guy's in there, they have a fun social media going as well and everything. Yeah, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

Yeah, all right, make sure that's a pretty cool spot. Thank you. So, question number four. So, this community uh name derives from the Mi'kmaq language. It is generally translates to meaning rolling out of the foam or beautiful water.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Do you know the the uh the name is rolling of foam or beautiful water? Yeah, and it's a Mi'kmaq name community. Well, I'm now I'm thinking of Mi'kmaq names on the coast and how about Muscatovin?

SPEAKER_03 43:25

Nail bingo.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Okay, good nail. Yeah, okay. Question number five.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

Okay. Established in 1924 as the Acadia Community Club Society. What is the name and community of the park that runs a Saturday farmers market?

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Can you repeat what was the Acadia connection to say that?

SPEAKER_04 43:43

Okay, so it was established in 1924 as the Acadia Community Club. It's now a park. What's the name of the park? And it um the hint is it runs a Saturday farmers market. Oh my goodness. Um it might be uh I might mess that question up. Oh, I got it right.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Well, I mean, you kind of gave the you messed it up, buddy.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

You kind of gave the answer away in

HRM Trivia Pop Quiz And Goodbye

SPEAKER_03 44:05

the question. It is Acadia Park in Sacramento. It's Acadia Park in Sacchy.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Oh my gosh. That park's incredible. It is incredible. It's an amazing park. Yeah. Yeah. And and I've been to the farmers market.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

I'm sure you have. I I uh I think I kind of bumbled the way I wrote that question. So I'll give you a pass of that way. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:20

All right. So this local legend is 103 years old and receives the gold award for the best local for uh character in the coast for in 2026. So who's that? Many a visit I've paid to Gus the Turtle at the Museum of Natural History.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 44:39

Yep. Okay, number seven. It is uncertain if this community was named after the massive amounts of herring once found at its shores, or if it was named after early settlers John and Tom Herring. And this place is a cove.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Yes. You got it correct. We love, we love Herring Cove.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

I'm from Herring Cove, so I would have been super mad if you didn't get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, established in 1755. This is one of Canada's oldest fishing villages and a major supplier of fish and lobster to the local global markets. Global markets, not local global markets.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

I I belie I could stand to be corrected, but I think our our best producer of lobster in HRM has got to be Sambro.

SPEAKER_04 45:19

Nail it. Bing, bing, bing. You got it. All right, man. You're doing awesome. Okay, okay. This community was settled in 1815 by black refugees from the war of 1812, making it one of the first historic African Canadian communities in Nova Scotia.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

That must be Preston. No Cherry Hill. No, Cherry Brook, rather.

SPEAKER_04 45:39

Nope. It's Upper Hammonds Plains. Upper Hammonds Plains. Yeah. That's a tough one. That was a real tough one.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

That was a dig deep.

SPEAKER_04 45:46

Yeah, I was I was trying to stump you, so but you did really well. So okay. So that's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 45:51

That's all we got, man.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

I think you did pretty good. Honestly.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

Thank you. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

You guys did all right too, I think. All right.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah, cool. Honestly, thank you so much for having us. We really appreciate your time and we appreciate you being able to do this.

SPEAKER_04 46:04

If we get to do this again, can we go to a real pub and have a real beer next time?

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Why don't we do that? Okay, that sounds way better.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

It's okay, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

Yeah. Yeah. Well we we can do uh we can m go down to uh the old triangle show. Sound sounds great. Hopefully you can do this again at the end of the year to see how things are going. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers, lads. Good to see you.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Same.