Matt Stickland's Take on City Hall, The Mayor, Taxes and Transportation

Traffic, housing, and taxes are not separate problems. They are one big system, and once you see the wiring, you cannot unsee it. Over beers, we sit down at Quinns Arm Pubwith journalist Matt Stickland, a former Navy tech who has spent years watching Halifax city hall up close, to unpack why municipal politics quietly shapes your daily life more than any other level of government. 

We talk about how council decisions steer the physical city through zoning, right of way, and service planning, then dig into what that means for housing affordability in Halifax. Matt explains the logic behind the Centre Plan and why “more housing” only helps if we build it where services already exist. We also get into the uncomfortable incentives around property taxes and housing as an investment asset, plus why some neighbourhoods cost the city more than they generate. 

From there, we shift into transportation and road safety. You will hear why congestion is exponential, why a small mode shift can have outsized impact, and why bus lanes can actually be a smart “efficient tax spending” move. We cover scramble crossings, driver risk, the real cost of car ownership, and how e-bikes and shared micromobility can change what it feels like to move through Halifax. 

If you care about Halifax municipal politics, urban planning, transit, bike lanes, road safety, zoning reform, or housing policy, this one will give you new language and better questions to ask. Subscribe, share this with a friend who is stuck in traffic, and leave a review with the one change you would make first.

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Cheers. Cheers. Welcome to the afternoon pint. I'm Mike Tobin.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

I am Matt Conrad. And who do we have with us today? Taking a drink of beer is Matt Stickland.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Matt Stickland. Welcome to the show. Thank you. So were you the angry Reddit guy? Because there's a when we did the Fillmore episode the other week, there was a

Cold Open And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:15

couple well, there was a couple Angry Reddit people. And respectfully, I I want to talk to people that don't agree with whatever we're doing. I think that's just as important. So was that you?

SPEAKER_02 0:24

No, I I was angry enough that I went direct to your inbox and I was like, look, man, you gotta have me on the show because Fillmore referred to single family housing as ground-based housing. And unless I misunderstand what foundations are, every single housing is ground-based housing.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Well, yeah, I mean, well, condominiums are still ground-based housing, I I guess. First level is.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Exactly, right? It's based on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

What does ground-based mean? Cloud City, though. I wanted us in blimp housing. Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking we should have trying to be on the land. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Water-based housing, boat house, boat, house, boat house, boat houses. Oh my god. Yeah. House boats. There we go. Yeah. A whole boat host community would be pretty wild. It would be. Yeah, yeah. Drowning risk is really high though.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So seriously, yeah. So you're you're a journalist. I am. Um you've been in the Navy. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

I did that as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

You've had an acting career or a motor career.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

More of a technician, and I did fail out pretty early at that one, but yeah. And then you became a journalist, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

It seems like a pretty cool resume

Why City Hall Matters Most

SPEAKER_00 1:16

to become a journalist. That's a lot of different perspectives and a lot of uh lived experiences. Yeah. And you were with a coast for a pretty good period of time, eh?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

I was with a co yeah. So when I got out of the Navy, I was going, I went back to J School. I finished or went back to school for journalism at King's. And when I finished doing that, I was like, what do I do with myself? So I was starting, I tried to start a publication called Committee Trawler, where as the name suggests, I was going to committee meetings and just trawling it for information. And then it it failed. I couldn't I ran out of runway. My I had to pay my really what happened is my editor's SERB payments ran out, and he was like, You gotta pay me real wage. And I was like, Well, I guess we're done here. Right. And then right around that, right around the time that happened, Overstory Media Group bought the coast and they were looking for a city hall reporter because their city hall reporter had just left to go somewhere. I don't actually know where she went. Excuse me. And then so they brought me in as a city hall reporter, and I was running for the coast from 2015.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

I gotta ask why out of journalism school would you go immediately to the council, right? Or go to see these, you know, tr to troll city hall. Like to me, that's like be the most boring place to go.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Oh, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

You know, top of mind, right? No offense, but just just in my mind. But that wouldn't be in Matt's mind, you'd probably find it highly interesting, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

I mean, yeah, I mean, I like politics quite a bit. That being said, though, City Council is like filled with rage baits.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

So I mean so so why did you pick that man like ro right out of right out of college?

SPEAKER_02 2:41

So there's two there's two reasons. The first is that have you ever heard the expression everything is political or everything is politics?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

So City Hall, City, the City Council, City Hall, wherever you are, well not wherever you are, in Canada, they fundamentally shape how the city looks. They control, they have almost exclusive jurisdiction over zoning and transportation right of way. So like the physical city, however the physical city looks, city council is the one that has the power over that. And those decisions have huge impacts on people's lives. Like just astronomically, you don't even think about it a lot of the time. And we can talk about CAA studies, which I find really fascinating about what do Canadians think costs more groceries or their car, for example.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

But then the other thing that's cool about City Hall is that like you can call city councillors and they'll answer their phone and you can talk to them. And sometimes. Well, more often than not, though, like could you call Tim Houston and be like, yo, Tim, what's up? Whereas I can call, I think, probably not Fillmore, but any of the other counselors, I can call them and be like, hey, I have a question about the thing you said or this motion that you have, and they'll answer.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

And I think that's so those two things. One, the huge amount of power city council has over the city that's largely invisible that people don't think about, I find very fascinating or interesting.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I do think that City Council, uh like like the any wherever you are across the country, your municipal council affects your day-to-day more than anything else.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

More than anything else, yeah. 100%. And like if you dig down deep enough, everything is like a real estate story or a land use story. Like if you are you guys familiar with Andy Warhol and the artistic scene out of the out of New York there?

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Like that is at its core a real estate story. Because the factories, people didn't want to live next to factories anymore, so they moved the factories out into industrial zones. That was generally a good move, I think, for pollution and things like that, things like that. But then you had a bunch of factory buildings that couldn't be used. They weren't zoned for anything, so they were very cheap. And who doesn't have a lot of money? Artists. So artists started living in these buildings because it was the only real estate they could afford. And because it was so cheap, and because they had these huge studio spaces, because warehouses are huge buildings that they were getting for like 25 cents a month or something stupid like that. You just have this huge incubator for art because we wanted to move the factory, they wanted to move the factories out of downtown because it they pollute a lot. Like that's a real estate story, that's a land use story. Andy Warhol exists in New York, the Soho art scene, I think it's Soho art scene, that only exists because of like land use bylaws.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Which is a council decision. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Got it. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, yeah. When you drill down deep enough, everything is council's fault, basically.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Right. Or or or or good. Or you get that. So I mean, in terms of council high level now, for and like uh respectfully, my my hope is that people are listening to this show that don't know a lot about city council. They're like me. They're they might vote even. I vote, but I might be not always being even informed of my own vote. I might vote out of the person's face I like the most, right? Or whatever. Or the person who answers the phone. Or the person who answers the phone.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

But I mean, that's I mean, policy aside, that's important because if you have an issue and you need help, you want to know that the person your representative you can reach, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Like, well, I mean, I you know, we we had Steve Adams on the on the show, and you know, I've known Steve a long time, and I can tell you a large

Council Culture And The Mayor Factor

SPEAKER_01 6:07

thing about him that you hear even to this day, is that he answered his phone, he answered his emails, he got back to people, right? It counts for a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

It really does. So I that's not a that's not a that to me is a fine reason to vote for someone. Sure. Not the reasons I choose to vote for people, but how do you feel our council is today?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

How do you think we're doing it in council? Like, do you think we have a great team assembled? I mean, because you know, you hear people that are very critical of council today. I mean, I mean I I feel I I feel quite critical of council sometimes. I don't particularly like what's going on in my community at all. I mean, there's there's some decisions being made where I'm scratching my head. That's right. You know?

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah, so I think on on balance, I think we have a slight majority of mostly competent counselors that are making mostly good decisions most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

That's a pretty good get, I would say. The most thing. Is there a problem now, I guess, you know, with with I mean, I I it seems to me like everyone's really at odds with Andy, especially in year one. Now, how is that from your perspective this year from last year, where it seemed like Council and Andy were at total odds?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

The I don't I don't know. Fillmore, it seemed and I'm an outside observer here, like as much as I go to all the meetings, I'm not like in their offices and stuff, so I can't tell you what's going on behind the scenes or whatever. But there's just a bunch of things that kind of indicate to me that Fillmore, you know, he got all his experience in federal politics, and federal politics just is a very different beast than municipal politics. Yeah. And you there are still there are signs for me that Fillmore is still kind of like playing that game. He's still playing the federal political game instead of the municipal political game, which leads to a bunch of tension and stuff. Like a lot of the debates that he'll have that with the council will have, his remarks will be like prepared statements and won't really respond to the debate itself. And most everyone else flies by the seat of their pants. They might have their if there's a motion they're bringing to council, they'll probably have the like intro, the thing, because they'll speak first, they'll put it on the floor, they'll speak first. So that that first bit will be scripted, or so they'll make sure they say all the things they want to say. Yeah, yeah. But then as the debate goes on, our council tends to listen to each other. And then they'll be like, oh, that's a good point, or that's not a good point, or I disagree with you here. And then when the council, whoever the counselor is who's putting forward their motion, goes to make closing arguments, they'll be like, you know, Austin made a good point, and it was this, and Cuddle made a bad point, and I don't agree with it, I respect it, and but I'm or and like White made a decision, or White made an argument that although I understand I disagree with, so I'm going like it's a good argument.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

And you think it's a civil argument that usually happens in council?

SPEAKER_02 8:37

More often than I mean the rules of decorum kind of make that happen. There's every now and again where like it's usually cleary. We'll say something that's Yep.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

He operates that online and in life. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Yeah, there was one but he just snaps back a little too hard. I I I don't watch counseling.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

It's just really rough around the edges, and he I you know, and I'll say my personal opinion is like he just thinks he's smarter than better than everybody in that room and talks to people that way. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

He's he is one of the better research counselors. I will give him that. But oh he's not an idiot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

No, but the yeah, there was this time when which uh region is he does he? He's Armdale. Not right here. Oh, he's right here where we're drinking today. Yeah, we're the Quinn's arm.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

We're shit talking him on his home turf.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Sorry, man. I don't know who you are if it makes you feel better. I honestly that one could cut either way. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Uh yeah, I don't know who anyone is. Yeah, yeah, he's informed.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

He's just I just don't like how he talks to people. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

No, there's a every now and again there's like there was one a year or two ago where Councillor Purdy for Cole Harbor was saying something, they had to make a decision, and Cleary just fired back. Look, it's time for us to put our big boy and big girl pants on and make a decision. And then it was like kind of like him.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

That's that's that's the first I'm getting to know about him. He will talk to you that way, though. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

He'll talk to his constituents that way, apparently, sometimes and I guess there's time and place for that kind of talk.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can respect that.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

It's an interesting thing. Okay, council, in my opinion, is is pretty chaotic. I mean, I think I I'm I'm a political optimist. I kind of feel that for the most part, people get into politics, you know, uh to do good and to try to do their best because they were motivated for some reason or other.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

So so Andy came from the House of Commons, where that's very like I I watched, I've watched a send like that stuff to me is so foolish sometimes, the way that they carry on and the way that they talk to and about each other. It's terrible. It almost becomes like a really wimpy WWC or WWE, right? Like no one's fighting, but they're just throwing stones at each other. And it's like WWE has much better writing as well. Yes, but but yeah, so so but the council is a much more mild version of that. But Andy kind of comes in with that. This is the way it has to be. Basically. And I mean, here's what I like about Andy, and I'm gonna say this, like uh please don't get mad at me, Reddit. Um he's a super passionate guy. I I I get like I I looked at him, I've talked to him now twice, looked in his eye, and I'm like, this is a guy that wants the city to do well. I know in his mind and heart he wants to do it. Whether he has all the right ideas, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to say I do know, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:19

The thing that really confuses me about Fulmore, and that and I I can't I can't figure it out I agree with you on that. Like I've talked to him a few times in Scrums, he's very knowledgeable, very passive. Like he obviously knowledgeable. He gives a shit.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

He knows what he's talking about, too. When you like, I mean, for a for a lot of the parts. Like he might have to have the ground housing thing down, right? But that that's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

That's the thing though, right? Because like he went to school, he went to Harvard for urban planning. Yeah, he was he went he was in charge of, or not in charge of, but played a key role in the center plan, which is arguably one of the best policies Council Halifax has put forward in the past 10 years. And what's that for people that don't know? So the center plan, suburbs,

Centre Plan And Building Density

SPEAKER_02 11:56

crazy expensive, but people don't want suburbs to change because everyone likes their house the way it is, type thing. Sure. And they needed the city essentially just needs money. So we either need to raise taxes, which is unpopular, or we need more people to pay taxes, which is popular as long as it's in someone else's backyard. And so the center plan was like, look, the peninsula and inside the circumferential highway, let's put density there. That's that's where all our services are, it's where we'll get the most bang for our buck for municipal services. And if you never really thought about it, like anytime the city spends money, it's far more efficient if you spend it downtown as opposed out in Cold Harbor. So like downtown is like Costco, and like the suburbs are like boutique shops, essentially. So the city's like, all right, let's put more housing in Costco because it's cheaper for us to do that. And so they just zoned it to allow huge amounts of density within the peninsula, which we know it can handle because in 1945 we had more people on the peninsula than we have right now on the peninsula. Really? Yeah, I mean that'll probably change when Richmond Yards and all these things finish getting built, but like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

People moved out of the peninsula. That's what I don't think people really really in 1955. And I think and I think people need to understand that we should be building up a lot more than we are even on the peninsula of Halifax.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

People must hate this because they see the transportation and they're just like, you know, like it's already absolutely brutal getting downtown Halifax, right? Pack a lunch if you've got to be at a meeting at four o'clock. Or ride a bike, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Or ride a bike.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah, but I and I think this is I'll be critical of all governments, I guess, in this sense, is that sometimes I it's better when you have a party because at least the party can, if they have a majority, they can work in the same direction that the party wants to go. When you have a council, the problem with it is that everyone represents kind of a sense of themselves, and you you can lose direction.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

I I think I disagree with you somewhat. I mean, I agree with you that that's the strength or benefit of parties.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

The issue comes like what happens if you're wrong, right? Like, yeah. And like if you you see that in Ontario right now with Doug Ford, who's like all of his transportation policies are like, we're gonna do these transportation policies and it's gonna fix congestion. And it's like, well, actually, if you do cursory research or have a cursory understanding of physics, you're making congestion worse right now.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, I'm not saying that the party is gonna get it right just because they're moving all in one direction. They can't be in the ro rowing in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

But go a lot rowing a lot faster.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah, it's it's one of those, it's just one of those things where it's like, I feel like they're sometimes we don't have the proper strategy in place where they're not really always thinking about like this will affect this and then this, like the butterfly effect of things, right? Right?

SPEAKER_02 14:36

No one ever thinks about that because they they don't they don't have to like at every level. I think to me though, that's more of how our politics is structured than the episode that came out today, June 14th. I don't know when this episode is coming out, but the June 14th episode of Your Guys' Show there, yeah, it's all about how we can change voting to make that happen. But like, sorry, I got lost there, but uh what were you just talking about?

SPEAKER_01 14:57

About the direction of council and how they can move in the same direction or not.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Oh, yeah, sorry. But our election cycles are four years. And we don't, we just you're not really incentivized as a politician to plan beyond that four-year mark. That's fair. You need to win that election. Yeah. So you can do things that sound good, and then as long as you do those things and you can win the next election, it's great. But if you look at like the cumulative effect of those decisions, it's like, oh, are we are we going in the right direction? I understand we're meeting our four-year targets here, but are we going in the right direction?

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah, and it's it's like this whole thing with this with stadium talk and things like that, right? It's like, okay, we're gonna have a stadium, but it's like, what's the long-term plan here?

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Are you talking

Stadium Talk And Real Transit Costs

SPEAKER_02 15:37

about the the actual one we're planning on the Wandering Grounds or that weird one, that proposal over the airport?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Uh honestly, I don't think it matters. I I think it's just no one's thinking of it, right? No one's really thinking of like what we need to do. Like, I I would argue with the stadium, the one out in the you know, airport.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

It's like, okay, you're it's gonna be the Ottawa Center Dissolve. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Fine. Correll Center or whatever it's called now. Well now now, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Now it's Scotia Bank Center, where it was Corel, and then it was Canadian Tire, and yeah, I became famous. But no, the thing with Ottawa, the problem with was, and this is the people say, like, oh, it's not that far away, but like it's true. The stadium, when they first built it, literally, like, I don't know, it was 20 years ago. I went and visited like in 2020 or 2007. And back then they were saying you gotta drive all the way out there. Yeah. And it it's no joke, it's a 25-minute drive on like a highway out there, right? Yeah, not that different than here that would be the leader. Or would you add that to the rest of your commute?

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Well, not only that, but like if there was nothing out there though. Well, there's nothing out there, so you can't like now they have a bit more stuff, but whatever. But the big thing with with arenas out there, especially if there's no public transit getting there, it's that everyone has to drive that. Exactly. And that just creates congestion.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

It creates congestion. You have drinking and driving issues, incentive incentives anyway. Yeah, right? Like there's there's these things types of things. Verse, and you're not really getting the economic turnout that you want. No, because what you want is you want to have a stadium where there's bars around, there's restaurants around, people are gonna go out, they're gonna spend money, and that's the issue. Now, Ottawa's okay now because Ottawa blew up.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Debatable, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

But I mean, at this point, there's houses around there now, right? And and and people aren't having the same complaints of like, I've got to go all the way there, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:25

This is Canada erasure.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

It's Canada, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But no, you're right, you're 100% right. So it kind of feels like a little bit like that because like I I I feel that Shannon Park was the perfect place for it. Ferry terminals, you could have transit, like all that stuff, and we blew that opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Shannon Park would be a good place for a stadium. To be honest, the Wanderergrounds is a great place for a stadium too. And I I do disagree with you a little bit, very, very slightly with the like the city is doing a lot of thinking about what what a like what the Wander Ground Stadium could be versus the one out by the airport. There is zero thought. It's just like someone's like, I want this, so I'm gonna tell a journalist I want this, and then journalists who are just like, oh, I gotta meet deadline start publishing stories, and then we're all asking Philmore about it, and he's like, bro, I don't bro, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

I mean, I would love to see something in the wanderers. They need a lot of work there though. Yeah, it's it's it's not everywhere. I mean, like, I go to the Wanderers Games and transit's atrocious on a good day, let alone during an event day. So, I mean, that's a whole other topic.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

It's all the same, but that's just it. It's all that's that's what I to go back to your original question, that's what I love about city politics, because it's all the same question. Yeah, how do you make our city work? Yeah, and like the I used to hate coming downtown. Like, I I hated it. I live out as far down the eastern shore as you guys live down the south shore. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Ish. And like driving down to the wanderer grounds, that's a huge hassle. Because for me, the wanderergrounds is the Corral Center in Canada, or but it's functionally the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

But then I bought a I sold my motorcycle because I wasn't riding it because I had a kid, whatever, and then I bought an e-bike, a stupid fucking e-bike, just like the worst. So impractical. It doesn't fit on any bike rack. I rode it one time and I was like, this is amazing.

E Bikes And Beating Congestion

SPEAKER_02 19:10

I need to do this all the time. And then so I was like, oh, I can probably ride this into town, but I couldn't find anything to carry it, so like I ended up getting a mini Japanese truck, and now I just like drive into Cold Harbor and run my bike in. And riding my bike into town is a fundamentally different experience.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

How'd you get the mini Japanese truck? That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

I ordered it on the internet. No, there's the bunch of Japanese. Did you build it in your grading assembled or you uh there's a bunch of people brokers, yeah, and you essentially you pay a broker fee and they get you access to the auctions and the Japanese auctions and they'll translate the auction sheets and then you what's your insurance premium is like with that thing? It's like six hundred bucks a year. Jeez, that's great. That's a $900 truck.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Anyway, but like, but the experience, if I if I don't have to deal with congestion, like if I'm riding my bike in, it be it becomes a whole different experience. And like coming to the Wanderers games now is just like I love it. I love it so much. I love the city so much more now that I've stopped driving in it. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Pretty cool. That's cool to say. And I mean it's something to think about. I mean, I don't think of riding the bike around ever because but but the thing is is what they could do, and I thought about this. It's like, so I live outside of where buses even are, right? Like outside of the big same area. We're all in that boat. But but like when I go closer into town, it'd be great if there was a place I could park for free or park in a secure place where I could go for the day. Like, Walmart's good about it. What? Walmart will be a good one. Yeah, Walmart, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Community center, like Cole Harbor. I'm lucky because Cold Harbor Place is a huge parking lot that you're not using. Oh, yeah. And like the so the thing is so frustrating.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

You need something like that in Sprite Town. Like, you know, it'd be nice to have a place you could park and park and go kind of deal. I'm sure the mall there would let you do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

No, well, not at first. If you get in trouble, then ask.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Okay. That parking lot's huge. It's like 25 like percent filled on the best of days.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Right, right. So I mean, and we're so close. Like, the city has so many pieces where it's just like it's kind of like we're doing a puzzle, yeah. And there are puzzle pieces that fit together, and they've just put them beside each other instead of like interlocking them. So, like, I'm gonna save that one for later. Yeah, I know where this one is, so I'm gonna do harder stuff first. Like, because we have the we have the bird bird scooters and bikes or whatever. Yeah. So there is no reason you couldn't just have a huge bird corral in Cole Harbor Place or these community centers that you could just drive in, and then you don't even need a bike. You could just drive into these parking lots, pick up a bike, and go.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Are we doing that?

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah nope. I keep looking to my left because I think I saw Tim Bousquet at the bar, and I thought it would be really awesome to have him here with the three of us today. I've been trying to get him on the show forever, eh? And I've been closed, but I can't get him on. So, anyways, you know, Tim, if you're listening, season season four. We're we're on our second last episode of this season. That's right. We're coming back in September, Tim. Yeah. If that's you at the bar today. You were looking at us. Maybe it's not you though, and that's just weird.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yes. No, so I mean I agree that now the now there's the flip side of it that I'll I'll fully admit I am not I am someone who you will be hard to get me out of my car.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

That's fine. Like it's it it's just how it is. I mean So here's one of the things that no one understands about congestion. It's exponential, it's not linear. So like you don't need to get that many people out of a car to have a noticeable impact on congestion. Like if we give five percent of people currently driving in bikes and buses, congestion drops like exponentially.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah.

Safer Streets With Better Intersections

SPEAKER_02 22:34

And no so like and yeah, there's a lot of people, especially people who live where we do. Yeah, yeah, most people are not gonna be like me who are gonna like deliberately choose to ride a bike because I just find it fun. Most people who live on the Eastern Shore are gonna drive all the time.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

You what you want to do is you want to get people who are downtown driving from Dartmouth to Quinnpool to not do that.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

You want to make it safe so that if someone is in Cole Harbor and they're going grocery shopping in Cole Harbor, they can do that by bike. So I don't need to try and be in congestion with them as I'm driving in on Cold Harbor Road.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Like Yeah, and I think that's another thing about like trying to build up the city as well, is like if you have people in the the kind of the irony of cities is that people in cities oftentimes tend to be like in better shape, thinner, because they're walking everywhere. Yep, right? They have to because it's like it doesn't make sense. You can literally walk in New York City faster than you can drive.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

But I'm out in the woods with my smoker. But that's the thing, is like so making ribs. Exactly. Yeah, we have all the space to cook. But it's true though, it's like people in cars, like when you get into like more rural areas and things like that, they tend to actually not be as thin, even though they have all the space in the world to run around and hike and do the outdoor activities, yeah. But they also are driving everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Yeah, and like there's a reason I choose to drive to Cole Harbor. Like, if I bike in from my house, oh, excuse me, drinking beers and burping all the time, I don't drink that much anymore. But the um, yeah, so like if I ride my bike in from from my house into downtown, it's like an hour and a half. If I drive to Cold Harbor and ride in from there, in my on average, my bike driving combo beats the just driving combo most days of the week, especially if I'm traveling at Russia.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

You're exercising as well, so I mean that's a bonus, right? We all got to do it. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

I used to be 350 pounds. Oh, really? Well, not yes, but more recently it was like 260, and now I'm down. Now I can't go above 220 because I just ride my bike too much. Good for you, man. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

There's a lot of weight loss. That's huge.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Yeah, yeah. Well, basic training helped. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

For sure, yeah, yeah. That's huge.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

That yeah, that no one is.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Yeah, I I got it. I got it. Nice. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I got that one too. Uh I said if I can get it.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Uh you got it, but it was delayed. The okay, kind of like I got notes here.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

I'm just gonna bring some up, but I mean, yeah, just keep on that's right.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're kinda like, we were kind of going off on a little bit of a tangent there, but anyway, it is what it is. That's what podcasts are for. That's a and so I agree with you in the sense that like you don't need to get that many people out of their cars. It's like in order to do that, you have to make it appealing. Yes, safe. Safe, agreed there. I mean, we've seen numerous of things happening with you know people getting hurt in all sorts of different ways. I mean, I have thoughts on that. I mean, I think we should look at Quebec and how they do their intersections. I kind of like that a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

I actually have no idea about the Quebec.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

So, like, I I like you can cross diagonally in Quebec.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Oh, like scramble crossings.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's just everything goes red, everyone can walk in any direction you want, all cars are stopped, and then cars can go. And then I like it because you know people are walking, but then when when you can't walk, people aren't walking. Cars can move. It's way better.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

What that also does too is a lot of times people will cross illegally because they don't want to wait for two or three intersection cycles to get where they want to go. And if you if every if every time the lights go red, there's a scramble, you just stop getting people walking dangerously because I mean, well, walking dangerously, talk about how the you know the only dangerous thing in our transportation infrastructure is driving, but like yeah, you're you're just reducing those interactions, and we're just not doing it.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

It makes a lot of like you can't turn right on reds because people are crossing, right? Yeah, but what that does mean is that you get longer greens and you can drive, and you don't have to actually watch people because they

Bus Lanes And Transit Efficiency

SPEAKER_01 26:20

shouldn't be moving, they are on the side of the room. In theory, that sounds awesome, but I just don't feel like it would work that way.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

People will still move.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

No, it does, it really does, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Really do? No, in Quebec, it's everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

And like the thing about traffic planning or transportation planning is it's so counterintuitive to us in North America because of like everything that we see as normal because of how our world is built. But like one of the best places to drive in the world is Amsterdam.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

And why is that?

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Because they because they plan their transportation network around moving people. So everywhere you are, anywhere you need to go, you have more than one option. So fewer people are choosing driving because realistically, driving is not the most convenient option, or at least it shouldn't be, especially for short trips.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Cycle cyclists have right-of-ways there. Possibly? It's insane like the amount of bikes in Amsterdam. Yeah, I've never seen so many personals. That could also be a reason.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

Another benefit. But no, the but like but if more people are choosing different options, and we're talking about the how traffic is exponential or congestion is exponential, you get like 60% of your people choosing a trip that isn't a car, and all of a sudden you have, and then that's the other thing, too. You save so much money, so their traffic signaling is better, so they're like they figure out they can sense when cars are coming so they can like shift the lights so that when you get to the light it's green, like because there's so few drivers that they're able to change the lights. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

So, like, aren't we testing that out on the ridges? Isn't that what's coming?

SPEAKER_02 27:45

Kind of it, yeah. Similar technology, yeah, very different design philosophy. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, so like it's crazy, and it's it's so counterintuitive. Everything that we think, like I was telling you or before I was telling Matt before we started recording here, like I used to be normal, relatively normal. I'm a goalie, I was a submariner, so not like so.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

You used to be normal, you say?

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah, like I didn't know how property taxes work.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

And like I was just like, oh, driving is a thing that we all do, it's fine, whatever. Like I just hadn't really thought about it. And then now ten years later, I'm a crazy person.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Just against driving.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Yeah, basically.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, yeah. I mean ban it all. No. I mean, it's perspective. I mean, it's something again, you're I'm a lot like uh you uh I never thought about it like that, right? I've always just thought that driving was the most efficient way to get from A to B, and and it's just because of a convenience option. I and I've only moved outside of the city within the last eight years, and I almost always had a vehicle, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Driving is absolutely the most convenient way to get from point A to point B if you have money.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

For me, parking is the worst thing in existence. I hate trying to find a place to park more than most things.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Like, but here's the thing though, how our lives are, you and me, yeah, that's never a problem because we our life is not downtown. No. We go from out on the outskirts to close to Bears Lake.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yeah, yeah, we yeah, pretty much my entire yeah, I don't have to come downtown very often. We we choose to come downtown, yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_01 29:14

We choose to come down, we come, you know, we came here for a podcast. I took you know, on the weekend I took my kid to the public library kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. You know, I drive an EV and you can charge for free there outside of paying for parking. So there's that. But it's like, you know, I choose to come downtown when I want to.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah, but those people are probably not the problem, right? You know, like guys like you and I go in from you know, Sanbro or wherever to traffic for the most part. We're going to have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

We're not we're not in rush hour traffic.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

It it depends. It really depends. It's so situational. Because like there was a thing, there was a study that came out after COVID, after the lockdowns, and people were working from home and stuff, right? And congestion got worse because a lot of people were not doing the normal because we've planned our whole transportation system like driving from the suburbs to downtown. Yeah, and then all of a sudden everyone's working from home, and then in the middle of the day, they're like, uh, you want to know what? I'm gonna go do my groceries. Yes. And so like congestion got way worse in all these streets that were designed for like low traffic because all of a sudden everyone's doing their groceries on their lunch break. So it's really situational.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really cool that you you've kind of really broken this down. I love the perspective, by the way. And I mean, we've previously kind of even talked on this show of not being pro-bicycle, right? Bike lanes and stuff in the city. And we I've been kind of negative because I haven't really taken much time to understand it. And as a lot of me, probably like a if I'm just being honest with you, I'm like a lot of other cars on the road. You see, cyclists sometimes is an annoyance, they're they're weaning in front of you, you're afraid you're going to hit them. You don't want to hurt them, yeah. But you're actually kind of frustrated. I'm like, are you on the sidewalk? Now you're on the road. What are you doing, buddy?

SPEAKER_02 30:46

I think for me to me as a driver is very frustrating, right? And it's because you know you've been scammed. As soon as you see that, you know you've been scammed. Like you see the car commercials, like driver, it's driving is freedom, driving is freedom. It's like, I'm I'm not free. I'm stuck. I'm stuck in this this guy. He's doing whatever he wants.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

He's in like a unicorn carriage or something.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

I think I think the big thing that I really kind of have is like the like undefined hybrid nature of what a cyclist is on the road. So it's like you should be stopping at red lights and stop signs.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Oh, definitely not. I love my life.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

But it's like you're doing so good at winning this argument. Now I think whoever's listening, they're just like, ah, okay, hear me, hear me out, hear me out. That's what puts us back at square one with you. Like, you know, people, we all have to. I mean, you have I mean, should you have insurance if you're riding a bicycle? What if you're an idiot? Like, there are idiot bicycle riders, just like there's idiot.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

100%, but right, but what's what is insurance for? What? What's insurance for? Liability. Yeah, yeah. But so like liability if you can't afford it, right? Right. So if you're a if you're a bike rider riding a $200 bike and you're risking your own life, why do you need insurance?

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Okay. I break heavy, I or break hard at uh because the right lights turn a red, a bicycle smashes into the back of me because they don't see me in time. Yeah. Right? They're all jigged up and they can't walk anymore, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Yeah. Like But that's not that's not you. That that the cyclist would need their own like personal injury insurance. They they don't need like the reason we have car insurance or auto insurance is because cars can do so much damage that helmets smashed my headlight. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

But it but like the insurance. Maybe that was a poor one, but I think there are instances where these folks should be. I mean, we a vehicle, I mean, I don't think it should be nearly a premium of uh auto policy or nearly the you know, but there should be some sort of registration, I think. If you're there are situations where cyclists could hit a pedestrian and cause damage and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah, that's yeah, that's that's a situation that like I think it's an edge case, and there is and so much of an edge case that there are no recorded incidents of that happening in the city's data going back to when we started collecting it of 45. Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Yeah. You can like to that data data?

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Yeah, it's the road safety the road safety dashboard or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

So a cyclist has never hurt a human being in Halifax?

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Not to the level where it would reach the reportable levels, which is like $2,000 worth of damage or an injury.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

I I would believe that though, because I mean, like, yeah, the the chances are like I mean, even that situation in in Dartmouth where that guy who was riding the cycles, who was riding a cycle his cycle, and hit he hit the car, went over top of the hood, and I think he died or got seriously injured. The guy that went over the car wise right now. No, it's like seven maybe it was, but it was like years ago, before COVID, right? Okay, and yeah, like something he was seriously injured, and I remember there was a whole bunch of talk about, you know, obviously people blame the car first, turns out no, he did hit the car and he got hurt. Which to your point, that's that's a valid argument against it to say that.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

And like the city of Toronto tried to do it, yeah, and they they did a whole bunch of work into it, and now they have a frequently asked questions about why don't we have bicycle registration and insurance. And the thing is, the the real complicating factor is children. How do you insure or license children?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

And that's fair. I mean, that that's uh also another it's it's a really complicated situation because I I recognize that the kids can because I would say the same thing. That that was an argument that I see all the time is like, you know, your 10-year-old's out riding the bike, how do they insure that? Yeah, he can't, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

These e-scooters, I think, are a great idea in the city. Yeah, these new form of kind of getting around.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Those are, yeah. That's the bird scooters that we were talking about.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

They're super popular. Um did we always talk about that? Yeah, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Yeah, we were saying it would be great to have them like en masse, like in certain places.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah, yeah. In Moncton they were very accessible, and you could get around that city super easily with them. Like it's like it was made for it.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's like, yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy that our transportation system is the way it is because it's just so inefficient.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

It's fragmented, like you said, it's just not it's not easy. So if it's not easy, people won't do it. I don't think it's as easy as it can be.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Yeah, and and people just people just don't think about it. Like you you see counselor Trish Purdy talk about this all the time. She's Cole Harbor Counselor, and there was a lane drop in Cold Harbor where like one of the lanes were gone for construction and congestion was brutal. Yeah, and then so she was like, Well, I can't even we can't put a bus lane in there because when we had when we got rid of one lane and replaced it with nothing, congestion got way worse, and it's like, well, yeah, that that makes sense. Yeah, but if you do the math, like how many people live in Cold Harbor, the size of the car, and even without taking into account stopping distances and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

If you took like just general math, working age population, 60% of the population of Coal Harbor, divide it up by like three-hour departure windows, and split it between Main Street and Cold Harbor, Coal Harbor Road from Forest Hills Parkway to the circumferential highway would need to be three lanes wide to accommodate every single person who was leaving in Cole Harbor, working person who was leaving Cole Harbor if they all drove. Yeah, wow. Because it's like 10 kilometers worth of car is one-sixth of the working age population of Coal Harbor. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

It's crazy, man.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

You cannot build enough road if everyone drives.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

No, and that and that is true. I mean, and I mean, not everyone, as you said, like not everyone can afford a car. Yeah. Right? And that's a very valid thing, and I think that's why transit's so important in a in a in a like a sustainable, viable city. You need proper transportation, and we don't have that.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

No, we do not.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

It's garbage, right? And I mean, I'll sh I'll give a little shout-out to my mother because she's super cranky right now. She's been trying to call Patty and all this other stuff and everything, and because she had three buses go by or four buses go by her that were going 70% of the way her way, yeah, and no buses of the one that she wanted to come on, and then it showed up like an hour late and all this stuff, and she's like and she was I and I had to I had to tell her, it's like, like, don't get mad at the bus driver. It's not the bus driver's fault. Correct. It's the system's fault.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

The people who do transit should not be having three or four buses that are going to a like basically not all the way down before one comes to see you and take you all the way to the end of the route, type of thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Oh man, there we you want to talk transit? Because we can talk transit too.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

The map about transit is wild. Like the city of Halifax, it's like 25% of the time our buses aren't doing anything. Yep. They're waiting. Yes. They're driving they're driving across town in the road.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

That's assistit.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

It's something like 25%. Wow. There's a local.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Oh, they're always on the side of the road. On Fat at Fatherby, I guarantee you there's oftentimes you will see two, at least one, sometimes two, sometimes three buses waiting at Fatherby. Yeah. Waiting.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Yeah. Like we just spend so much time having our buses wait or whatever. And like the thing that is crazy about the math of buses is most of our transit costs are labor. Like and so if you're if you if you're paying your bus drivers to wait, you're like literally just wasting money. And here's the crazy thing that people this is where it's people start losing their minds. But like, as soon as you start converting car lanes to bus lanes, you double your your efficiency of your transit spending immediately. Because the labor, it becomes more effective if they don't need to wait in congestion. Like there's a local guy, Kevin, he runs a YouTube channel called HFX by Bike. And he did the math, is doing the math. I'm not sure how much of this is public yet or whatever, but the 9AB is late 99% of the time because it gets caught in congestion.

unknown 38:20

Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

It's probably the 9B, because that's one that goes over the Herring Cove. It's both of them.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Oh, it's both of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, there you go. Cool. They both go downtown in the same choke point.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

It's the stupidest route. It's 9A9B. They run almost identical routes, except one doesn't go as far.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Really?

SPEAKER_01 38:39

That's crazy. It's the most inefficient thing. It used to be the 20 Herring Cove that would go all the way, and the 20 Herring Cove covered 9A and B. And they decided, nah, let's have two buses do this same thing. But not as efficiently. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

But like as soon as you start talking about taking a lane away from cars, even if it's parking to give it to buses, people are like, well, no, I can't, we can't have it. We can't have it. It's like, well, do you like efficient tax spending? Yes. Okay, so we should No! No, I don't I don't like efficient tax spending in this case because people and then people just don't understand that.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Like as soon as What if you just took one of those buses and had to go around the loop? Well, that's another thing. They've been trying to get they've been trying to make that efficient for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Loops are loops are a whole thing. Loops versus straight lines and use it's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

It makes so much sense though to do that. Put put put a stop because the other thing that would do is if you had an hour, you'd slow the traffic down there because the traffic goes way too fast down parts of that that road. Like they can go 120 on this little road because not many vehicles, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:36

I'm gonna I'm gonna make a very clear statement here. As someone who I said earlier is gonna be very hard to get me out of my car, I am all for better transit because that means I get to stay in my car and go faster. Because more people are taking the bus. Yes, yeah, yeah. And I live in prospect. I need my car. If you have a bus route, use it, people.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

Yeah, and the other thing that the other thing too is like if you if you care about building the city and having a strong economic base for the city, we talked about how cars are expensive in passing earlier, but like the numbers on that are crazy. Most the average new car is the same as the median average salary of a Nova Scotian. Right. So if you all of a sudden give people reliable transit and they don't have to spend a year's worth of salary on just the purchase price. And we're not talking insurance, we're not talking gas, we're not talking any of that. Right. If you take that budget out of their budget, that spending out of their budget, they have so much more money to spend in things like local small businesses. So it's like, it's just so. But then we run into the political problem where everyone's like, I don't understand it, and I have to drive, or I've already bought a car and I don't want to waste this money. So air go, give me more car lanes

Car Costs And Local Economy

SPEAKER_02 40:44

because that's what I have. So we're just stuck in this cycle where people are advocating in what they whatever it's like. The common knowledge is you're advocating for your own self-interest, but as soon as you break down the numbers or start pushing at it at all, it's like, oh, actually, your self-interest, if you were advocating for your own self-interest, either more money or better less congestion or whatever, you'd be advocating for bus and bike lanes.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

And this thing, I think a lot of it is like we have a lot of people who are from like who were born, raised here, and haven't really really lived anywhere else. And I'm gonna say you know, a bad word that is a bad word here, and that is let's look at Toronto. I know I hear online all the time in the comments, but we don't want to be another Toronto. Well, guess what? We should be Edmonton or Montreal. But yeah, that's fine. But even still, we're going up. We are becoming a bigger city. Toronto wasn't Toronto 40 years ago, yeah, and it is what it is. So we're we're having a couple of years. Calgary exploded, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Calgary's got light rail though.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Well, yeah. Calgary has light rail. They also have that's super convenient. You can go around the whole city without having to go through the city, you can go around the city, which is smart.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

I didn't have a car for most autonomous in Calgary because because their transit was so good, it was it seems stupid.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

I know people who've moved to Toronto and they they're they're like, do I keep my car? Like the the odd time that you're gonna be like, hey, I want to go to like Lasega Beach, they rent a communal car or something.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Yeah, yeah. And you get you get all these arguments too where people are like, oh, I need I need to carry stuff. It's like, sure. You know you can like rent a truck from Home Depot though, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Like Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Yeah, it's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

I'm pondering buying a truck like as we speak this week.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Do you need to tow anything? What? Do you need to tow anything?

SPEAKER_00 42:24

It's gonna move on to the next pitch. You should get a key truck.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

I'm saying you should get a key truck.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

It's just in my heart, dude. You know, some things you just want in life, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

I know me too, but I ended up with a key truck and I love it. I kind of like that idea. That's what I think. That's what I'm asking. If you don't need to tow anything, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

No, I I mean I'm not sure yet. Yeah, I mean to be honest. I mean, I like to. The answer is no, you don't need to tow anything. No, well, I'd like I'd like to get maybe a small little camper for the family over the next couple years. Just one of those small pop-up ones. So I would say. You're asked if you would carry that. Yeah, stop. Stop. Ease the truck.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

You're part of the problem.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Yeah, I know, I know. And I don't want to be, but it's like, you know, but that's I guess I am part of the problem though, and I agree with you. Like, I mean, the the the comfort the comfort in driving alone is it I mean, I don't want to really go on a bus that badly. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Do you hate you don't like your money?

SPEAKER_00 43:12

No, I love my money. I love it. But but it's just I don't know. But I I mean I am the people you're trying to convince that like Matt that's trying to like that are stuck in their vehicles, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:21

I am, but you know what? I I will admit that switching to an EV has drastically reduced my crazy, it's crazy, yeah. Like I I I'm looking at a hybrid, by the way, truck. So I I I have I had an Audi that I did not have a car payment on.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Since trading that in and going EV, yeah, the car payment on the new like well, it's not new, but it's used, but it's the new to me car for EV, is I spend like a hundred and fifty to maybe two hundred dollars less on the car payment than I did on the gas alone with the with. the audio.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

It's crazy, man. It's crazy. If you ever sit down and do your budget, it is nuts how much goes to goes to the car. Like when I like when I was switching to riding an e-bike, I got a key truck and those things are like you buy them at auction, I like I paid $900 for mine.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

$900 for a truck.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

$5,000 shipping, but yeah, $900 for the truck itself.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Okay, that's the real price of the vehicle that I've got to do it.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Yeah, so but like all in, I got a truck for you know seven grand. Whereas in the straight off, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Sit in the straight for two years before you get it now.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

But and then but then I started riding my bike and so like my transportation costs went from about like $1700 a month to $150. Decent. And like I have not had this much money in my bank account since I quit smoking and drinking. There you go. Like it's crazy. It's crazy. That is the whole point.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

True that that's the fastest way to put a you know a to give yourself a raise.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

I mean yeah I mean here's the thing that if there was a way that I could get shuttle to and from my home I'd absolutely love it. But it'd have to be 100% you know you know I would have to be somewhat convenient because my job's somewhat nuanced. I might have to be in a different place every morning. Right?

SPEAKER_02 45:07

So yeah I mean I it and my solution won't work for everyone I understand that but like most of everywhere I need to go is in town. Yeah. And now that I've ridden a bike in town I will never drive in town again if I can avoid it. It sucks so bad. Like I I can suck I went from the West into here at 4 30 in the afternoon. I made that trip in five minutes. Yeah I I don't think I think the truck on Lower Water Street that I initially passed is still there.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

I will say in 2008 I I worked downtown. Yeah it's the only time I worked downtown and I worked right on Spring Garden Road and I did take a bus in because the car like one I didn't want to pay for parking downtown and and then yeah I just didn't really like waiting something like that. Also was a big fan of Rogues Roost. I worked almost across the street it's the best place in the world but it's gone now so it does I can say that now. Yeah but I was at Rogues Roost about four days a week after work. So you know the other benefit is that I you know as a 23 year old I could go and have three or four beer supporting your local small business that's right exactly going for a bite to eat with all the disposable income I had because that's all I had you know support local business and get a bit of a buzz on and just get home safely it's a good life.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

It's awesome. Like as soon as you if you are ever in a situation where you can get rid of a car for like get rid of a car out of your routine you will never go back if you can avoid it. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

I think the title of this this episode it seems like the theme of this episode is going to be leave your car. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

I mean isn't this a podcast that tacitly encourages drinking shouldn't that always be yeah yeah yeah that's true drink more folks goes hand in hand yeah leave the car behind and have a drink there you go support your local small business exactly 100% exactly okay so I actually want to make sure we don't miss Halifax Parade.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Okay I mean I've I mean I'm pretty fascinated I mean you know obviously you're you're you're well researched in in council yeah uh you spent a lot of time there yes I do you have a a a very interesting somewhat ranty podcast is that an accurate statement do you feel is that is that a harsh state that's my mental health that's okay I do that for my mental health I do that too I yell into a microphone once a week and it's great. Yeah okay but I actually encourage people to check that out I mean you know it might give you some perspective it might be a little little little bit of swearing and cursing but it's passion right passion sometimes has a few F1s I've started yeah yeah I got feedback that I was swearing too much and I I think that was valid.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

We got feedback really early on in our show too that we were swearing too much the taxes episode was heavy okay which oh yeah yeah yeah so tell me about the taxes episode that one was pretty heavy with the uh with cursing and everything and I mean I'm not someone who's offended so I don't really care that much more so what was the what was the beat or what will we have got out if we listened to the taxes are too low.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Too low yeah oh yeah by so by it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

And it's making housing unaffordable taxes are too low when it's making houses unaffordable I know I didn't

Property Taxes And Housing Financialization

SPEAKER_00 48:11

I can barely afford the property tax now it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Did you buy recently I we bought in well we bought in 20 uh 2018 20 uh recent enough yeah so then there's a whole bunch of reasons like I think I in that episode I tried to caveat this like the property tax cap makes this a really complicated equation but the very short version is we all kind of know that housing has been financialized and it is now a commodities market which means I don't think we all actually know that I think but I think that's something I don't I don't disagree with you though but I mean I've been l I've been I've been drinking the same Kool-Aid recently so I don't I really don't disagree well I I think I think the world is seeing that right I mean like the way the way tourism is being affected because of the commodity how housing is being treated as a commodity you know like there's protests in Barcelona where basically like tourists are being like chased out.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

And I mean there were some issues in Portugal I'm going to Portugal this year and that was kind of like are we going to be okay? It's gotten better but it's the same thing like everyone buying these short term rentals I mean to a degree some long term rentals too that's an issue but the short term rentals have been a major issue. Right. Yeah at least at least long term rentals you've given someone to a place to live but but but what do you mean though?

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Well I mean what what I just mean generally housing has been financialized. Like this started after World War II there's a whole history that I'm not going to go into because whatever but the after World War I there was a bunch of soldiers that came back and were like and then there was a Great Depression which sucked and then so there's a bunch of dudes who didn't have any economic future and had just done violence for four years and they caused some social issues. And then so after World War II the government was like let's maybe not do that and we see if we can avoid it. So they did a makework project and this is how we got all these strawberry box homes and World War II housing and what that did is it a kept the GIs and the people came home employed but it also gave people a stake in the housing market. Everyone got a house and then people started over time realized that the value of the property was going up and people were like oh actually I can use the value of my house to retire on and that so most people even if they're living in their house somewhere in their mind are thinking oh this is an asset that I have that I can sell to fund my retirement. Yeah. So it's part of your retirement portfolio. And that and then but larger companies are like oh hold on now it makes sense for us to get for the same reason. It's a good investment.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Right oh absolutely and I mean like we have a very small afternoon punk business and we want to do that. Like we want to have an investment like that because we we we think it makes sense to grow and we're not thinking residential though. Yeah yeah but like you know but still same same same idea.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

But if so and then but the thing is if you compare housing to a traditional investment vehicle housing grows much much faster like mutual funds or stock market index funds or whatever they tend to grow about seven to nine percent a year.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

My house personally has grown about 15% a year since I bought it.

SPEAKER_03 51:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Which is double the return of a normal investment. Yeah and large companies see this as well. So they buy up properties which then makes housing more valuable or at least drives up the demand for housing which increases the price of housing because it's such a valuable investment.

SPEAKER_03 51:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

And then the federal government's not blameless here because they're like oh we're gonna make housing affordable by giving people access to more money which then just drives up the prices even more.

SPEAKER_03 51:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

So one of the ways you can And then COVID.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

And then COVID yeah that was another huge demand yeah demand at least here it forced a lot of people from other provinces that where housing was already more to sell their homes and then come here and outbid people.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Okay but but but back to the property tax increasing thing.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

Like I mean on a tradition I'm gonna get in there.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah okay this is all backstory.

SPEAKER_02 51:47

Alright sorry and then so on a traditional investment fund or whatever you pay broker fees and stuff right your only fee that you pay to own a house is property taxes. So if you're a huge investment company you can buy up all these properties you see these returns of 15% and every single year at budget season council's like let's keep those investment let's keep those investment portfolio fees super low as low as we can which makes it a more attractive investment which drives up the cost of housing.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Okay I don't disagree with that sounds like a very good thesis if you will I don't know the science behind it so I don't want to officiate or anything here. I'm sure you've done research a lot of research onto this one so going going back a bit though like I mean here to me the homeowner I'm not looking at buying up housing I'm looking at keeping my home yes because I mean I've worked hard and I want a certain condition of life. I chose to leave the city and live where I live and you don't pay enough in taxes for that no no well just just just just give me a minute here. Like I mean I drive in the city I get my groceries I drive like it's not like anything's convenient to me a kid goes to lessons it's a 20 kilometer trip each way to get her to her piano or or she has a piano but you know anyway guitar. Thank you. But but uh but I think you know where I'm going with this man like I mean it's like I think you know and and I mean we're making an okay income but we're not making like a a a crazy amount of income like you know increasing in property tax I do think would eventually force us to have to leave our home.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

And to be fair in Nova Scotia the property tax cap makes this super awkward. Right. Because for me I pay two that less I think this year I might pay $2,000 a year in property taxes. I pay I pay over because you bought more recently yeah so I'm capped so even though my house can sell that stupid isn't it crazy.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Like if you talk to Tim Houston you should talk about that I called him he won't pick up the phone you know yeah that's I can get is yeah never mind uh but uh no but uh but no I I really think that uh I really think that's a problem and I think and like you know thinking and listening very carefully to everything you just said my thought is like well how about like the first house that you own as a human being your family owns is at a reduced rate the second third fourth that's when you have to start paying the piper.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

That'd be awesome. But but the other thing too though is we don't as a city and one of the things that really complicates this and I've done a whole bunch of research into amalgamation too so I'm happy to go in the weeds here as well but like the the the thing that really complicates this is most of the districts in the city are a net drain on city finances. Meaning no matter how high your property taxes are they're not actually enough to cover the services that you do get they only get the compost dude I know yeah and your roads roads is the big one yeah roadkill really

Suburbs That Lose Money

SPEAKER_02 54:44

the roads are so expensive it's crazy. It's like $1.2 million per kilometer or something stupid like that. Per kilometer? And we have like 3,000 kilometers.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

That's property but also like some of those are provincial roads though see our our roads depend yeah but like the city has three thousand dollars a road that would be in in a less traveled community would be as expensive. You'd be surprised really yes because it's not it's not vehicle traffic it's weather yeah really I mean I'm not I'm not I mean I'm not really disagreeing because I mean yeah yeah I can see how terrible the weather can be and how fast the roads can open button takes a year or two.

SPEAKER_02 55:16

I I literally this morning I was at I was chaperoning a field trip to my kid at the Shubi Park there. Yeah yeah nice and they were taught given the history of the building the locks do you know why the locks ran out of money in the 18 whatever's no the freeze thaw cycles they kept trying to build them build the locks out of stones in the same way that they we did in Europe but it didn't work because our climate is different so the rocks kept right blowing up it's the same thing with our roads. Yeah and so you're right like out down the eastern shore and out your way a lot of the roads are provincial. But eventually those just get so bad they become K-class roads and then they just take them off the books and don't maintain them. That's that's fun too.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

Yeah I'm wow I'm gonna I'm gonna give a shout out maybe to like I don't know man like prospect roads are pretty freaking good.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

Maybe it's just because it's the road to Peggy's Cove my road like I mean once you get through like a per there's a subsection of Heron Cove that's always bad but then after that it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

But the but the point is though like roads are crazy expensive to maintain because of the weather predominantly so like it doesn't really matter how much you're driving on it you need to pay for roads you need to pay for garbage pickup you need sure rec services cost more money because like yes you have to drive 20 kilometers for it but there's so few people spread out that like the amount of people who can pay for that service just aren't there so like but this is a Canadian problem.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Very much North America really I mean yeah it is North America I mean because we're so large and they have certain names but it it seems like United I mean United States have more people so they can they have the exact same issues. They have the same issues but I'm just saying they've they've literally 10 times the amount of people and their countries are slightly smaller so we I'm just saying like we have a much heavier burden of taking care of a much larger like a larger country with so fewer people right but we have we don't develop we haven't developed as much of it though. That's fair that's true. And the northern part is not as much it's true.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

And most of this research that I'm referencing comes out of the states like because they yeah because they're the ones who identify because they have way more roads. So the amount of a lot of roads so their tax burden for each individual person is way way way higher.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

Interesting okay yeah yeah that's super interesting but like like I think of okay those property tax we also pay sales tax we also pay federal tax provincial tax like you know so they stack up you know so it's like are there any of the other buckets we can we can pull from to to help with our roads to keep property taxes down in the meantime to solve this equation or yeah yeah there's a few things we could do none of them are super popular.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

Yeah is the is the fracking no we want better roads we don't want to make the ground worse no but the uh choked on ice errors I guess I laugh great answer anyways yeah so the none of them are really popular one of the big things we can do is densify add more taxpayers so that the individual tax burden on each household goes down that's what that's a huge way to do that but that's super unpopular because everyone's like oh I don't want more neighbors because they might be renters and renters are the worst I don't know I might spend too much time on Facebook there for that one. No that's pretty accurate. Good impression the other thing that we could do that would actually be super helpful uh that which will never happen because counselors would need to do it and it would make a lot of them look like real bad but if we did our city budget where we were just like how much does it cost to give Coal Harbor everything it needs? And how much money does Coal Harbor bring in in taxes? Because if you do that math and I Cole Harbor's the one I'm most familiar with because it's the one I'm closest to although my district is $20 million if you do that math. District two loses the city $20 million a year. Really? Cole Harbor loses the city five million dollars a year district district two is huge though are there 100% yeah what's what district is doing it the best what district is losing the least amount of money yeah 78 7895 six because of burnside 78 yeah nine and 16 weirdly Bedford yeah that doesn't surprise me really Bedford is doing the best Bedford is like fifth yeah so it's the downtown ones and then district 16. Okay interesting and that was one of the things that they were supposed to do after amalgamation like if you read the amalgamation reports highly recommend phenomenal read only available at Province House in the library on the second floor. But the um the one of the big things that we did do was Bedford has a police police service Coal Harbor or not Coal Harbor Bedford has a police service Dartmouth has a police service Halifax has a police service that's a lot of inefficiency we can make one police service save a lot of money we did that. Cool. The other thing that the city was supposed to do was like okay everything inside the urban service boundary which is basically all the suburbs that exist not the rural areas that needs to be more city like maybe not downtown but like Laval. So if you picture and again I'm gonna do use coal harbor because that's just where I am most frequently but coal harbor is a bunch of strip malls if you turn that into like mixed density row housing coal harbor becomes solvent. Like it it you don't need to do much right but everyone sees like everyone hears oh we gotta do density and they're like I don't want to be downtown I moved to the suburbs like well you don't it's not we can be like Laval. Laval is fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

Yeah it's a suburb you know I've always felt that like if you're gonna build like mercantile occupancies that they should be almost forced to build residential on top. Right? It's like it just makes sense it it's like if you're gonna build a sobies you need four floors above it of residential living period why not period I love that idea. Why wouldn't you do it? Why wouldn't you do it right? We only have so much ground to go around anyway I know and all our housing is ground based.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

Exactly I love how much you love that ground based on my God it threw me for a loop man. It it it was a little stone that should be the episode title is just we talk ground based housing but no like that threw me for such a loop because when film was talking about oh we're we have these special planning areas and we're gonna build single family housing it's like that's that's not how we come that's not how we get flushed with cash.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

I mean it is the fence I'm sure he was just trying to give people like the assumption oh yeah more more sky rises going up people were probably everyone's uh afraid they're gonna see another tower right and he's probably trying to squash that of them no because there is there is strong demand for more single family housing because it's the Canadian dream right so like trying to sell people on let's do something else is a hard sell.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:37

It it's true but we you know what we unfortunately like need to do the other thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:40

Yeah exactly so anyways that but that was crazy and like we lose money on single low density single family housing. Yeah if you run a business and you're losing like I run a newspaper if I'm losing a dollar every newspaper I sell I can't make that up by selling more newspapers right that makes sense so if we keep doing like if we lose all these special planning areas that the province designated and we put all single family housing in there we're gonna be in a worse financial situation at the end of it. Not better. It's crazy. It's so crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

Yeah man we've been going over an hour already which is awesome. But we we I but you have notes that you didn't even look at it I had notes I didn't even look I I have so I have two questions.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:20

Okay just one at a time your first question okay your thoughts on amalgamation whether it was good or bad good yeah from the city would not survive if

Amalgamation And Starting A Newspaper

SPEAKER_02 1:02:31

it didn't if we didn't do it. I think we should have done the province should have taken a lot more care with the fact that like Gloria McCluskey very polarizing figure but she grew up in Dartmouth. She was the mayor of Dartmouth and after amalgamation the place where she is from no longer exists. And the province just kind of assumed everyone would be cool with that and people obviously were not yeah and so we didn't the province didn't consider that or didn't seem to consider that at all that was a huge mistake. Right because that if you read 9798's budgets which are available at the Central Library only in paper the first amalgamation budgets there like people are having shit fights about the budget and we're still these cities and blah blah blah. So that part was a mistake but actually doing it to make sure the city survived into the future very good idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Awesome here's the next question how in this world now did it make sense to you to start a newspaper I don't know I just I got I went when I was in the military I went to Libya I got real messed up and then I got medical doubt of the military.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:38

So luckily I'm in a position where I don't actually need to make money at this point in time and which is good because I'm not really if I had to take a salary this newspaper wouldn't wouldn't exist. Right. But no it just but I think that it's and I've also whatever I don't want to get into it too much but the there comes a lot of you know the House of Commons sent me over there 100% unanimous vote. Every party sent me there and then we went over there and we did the job for real and it was like Amnesty International wrote some reports about what we did and generally Amnesty International is writing reports about you it's like war crimes level shit. Yeah yeah so that there's a level of betrayal there because I joined you know I was very patriotic and you join me because you want to do good and then you go over there and you do decidedly not good. Yeah. And then you come home and like no one gives a shit and then you get a medal it's like this is fucked up. Yeah yeah and so I just got really angry. Wow man and then I needed something to do with that that was productive because I still want to be a good father, a good husband and all that so like and we're really lucky in Halifax that like CBC exists, the Examiner exists and all that and I really like working for the Coast because I could they're the you know all weekly where you can be kind of a brash and punchy and 100% yeah then when that fell apart I was like well I still need to do that. Yeah and that's to be honest that's why my podcast sounds the way it does because that that show is for me. Other people listen to it awesome but the journalism I'm really trying to do journalism is the paper. The podcast is for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:08

I respect that and I respect a lot you're well researched I mean this has been an I I told Matt you'd be great he didn't believe me he was kept kept having doubts and I was like I was like Matt trust me many just you cannot trust people named Matt no hunt no no yeah those guys are shady so no just joking but yeah so I had some fun questions so what we'll do is we'll roll them into our 10 questions Matt I have them but they're all fragmented so let's just make them up as we go. So we do our 10 questions this is I'm gonna bomb this test and not well research here. This is the dumb part right uh philosophical or whatever right so I'll kick it off so if you replace Marefilmore tomorrow what's the first thing you would do for the city it would change the road safety

Ten Questions And Rapid Takes

SPEAKER_00 1:05:51

strategy change the road safety strategy to what and what essentially the biggest risk factor in our this is sorry really nerdy really weedy I just wanted to

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Reform. I don't want to kiss babies, so I'd never actually run for mayor because I don't want to do any of the you know ceremonial stuff. But the tax reform or road safety, I think road safety was prime is a thing for me because our road safety strategy just kind of assumes that people can be safe drivers, and I'm I don't disagree that most people most of the time are safe drivers. Yep. But at the same time, every single collision that we have kept track of since January 1st has involved or been the cause by a driver. And there's a couple really good studies that say the increased exposure to driving increases your risk of being hurt by a driver, and our systemic road safety strategy just fundamentally ignores that risk, and I think that's a huge problem, both because people are dying preventable deaths, but also it's a liability issue for the city. Great answer. Yeah, that's what I would do day one, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

Matt should we have removed the tolls on the bridges?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:55

No. Absolutely not. We need to replace the McKay. Where's that money gonna come from?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:01

McKay's bigger bigger. Every time you pass the McKay Bridge, an artist loses its wings. Did you know that? You say an artist loses its wings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't laugh. It's not funny. It's uh, you know, it's uh I mean we could have used that money for the arts community. I'm a huge artsy guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:16

We could have used that money to replace the McKay Bridge.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:20

No. Well, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

We had a third one for all the cars.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:23

But you want to know what? It was never a sticking point with me that I had to use a Mac Bass, right? I didn't like it when it didn't work or when it fell in between the car seat and on the floor and one activate on the ship had a few of those curbier enthusiasm moments with it. But everyone in that, I mean it was it was it was fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:39

And now congestion is up because it's free, so more people are using it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

Yeah. I I will be completely transparent and say like I was happy about it because I was kind of like, yeah, you know what? Like, tolls are stupid. But at the same time, now hindsight being 2020, knowing like I thought we were doing that because the previous budget was a surplus. Yeah. Now we're running a big deficit. So my thing is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

Don't like don't do that. You want to's crazy? We make that $125, and congestion in the city goes away. Oh, does it? Yeah. That's true. I mean, yeah, I guess it's true. They'll go around the long way. It's yeah, it's congestion pricing, like it's like ghetto congestion pricing. And congestion pricing makes congestion go away. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

There's been a lot of deep conversations here. Something simple past the time. You said video games you mentioned just before the show. What video game are you playing right now? What's the video games that you like the most? Recent memory.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:31

I personally I like shooters, team-based shooters, and city and base building stuff. So right now I'm playing a game called Ground Evases, which is just like a very atmospheric. You run a uh airbase in World War II. Okay. I'm also playing Arc Raiders because I apparently love I'm a degenerate gambler. And uh that's just you go around opening boxes and open for rares. And I'm playing uh Path of Path of Exile 2 as well right now, because my friends are playing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

That's quite the lineup, man. That's pretty awesome. I really like playing video games. No, I do too. I don't get time, but I I love playing them when I can. I'm playing Witcher 3 now. That's like a 15-year-old game.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:06

Oh, man. But it's an amazing game. I didn't play Cyberpunk until like last year.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

And that's a phenomenal game.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

Oh yeah, no, I agree. I mean, uh yeah. They make I mean I I like the single player world to just kind of escape for a minute. Yeah, so I totally get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:18

But I mean Follow New Vegas is probably the best one in the genre.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

Yeah, and it's definitely all the follow-up games.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:23

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love the follow-up games. They're probably my favorite. That sounded like you guys are speaking Russian.

unknown 1:09:29

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:30

Uh you can ask a sports question. I mean, I don't know anything about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:34

You know, you got you got the sports thing world cover.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:36

Oh, you know what? Okay, I'll ask a fun question.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:38

England and Canada.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:39

No, no, we'll do this. Okay. The four major, like, kind of we'll call them boroughs of the HRM, which is Sackville, Bedford, Dartmouth, and Halifax. Okay. Assign each of them the best, like which community would be best at the four major American sports?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:56

Basketball, football, baseball, and hockey?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:01

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

You gotta get hockey to Dartmouth. We got a few breaks here.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:05

Yeah, yeah, especially well, and Cole Harbor. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, hockey to Dartmouth. I'd say Bedford is baseball. No, Sackville is baseball. Waterfall. Bedford is football. And Halifax is the other one. What's the other one? Baseball. Baseball. No, I said baseball. Basketball, sorry. Basketball, yeah. Halifax is yeah, basketball.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:25

Yeah, you know what? That's probably pretty legit.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:26

I probably agree with that. Love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

Really good.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:28

Vibes. That was a vibes-based choice thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:30

All right. I had a question here. I had one of these here. Okay. Do we know what number we're on for questions? Because I haven't count. Oh, that's four. We did four. We're doing thank you. Yeah, we did two each. Okay, so I if you had right now like a message for everyone from the theme of this show, I mean, what would you say to the citizens of Halifax? What would be what do you think they should be doing right now about council or about how they vote?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

To be honest, just a lot of people, I think the big issue right now, the big issue that I'm running into is just people just fundamentally do not understand how the city works, how the finances work, the physics of how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:07

And a fairness, to them, they're living their own lives. I was 21, so I I get it, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:11

2016, I didn't know any of this. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:13

So you get older and you get a little bit more activated in what's going on, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:18

You just start asking why is this like this. Yeah. Essentially, so ask why is this like this? And start trying to find answers. Cool. Actual answers. Not don't go, don't go on Facebook, go ask a librarian, you know. But no, just figuring out how your city works. Like I've probably said a lot of stuff here that people are here, and they're like, there's no way that's right. Okay, awesome. Prove me wrong. Matt at Gramprey.news, give me your sources. I would love to read them. I've been doing a lot of research. Like, yeah, if you say if I've said something that you don't agree with, go go go find the research and send it to me. I I've been wrong once, maybe twice before. I'm happy to be wrong again, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:51

Like I like that. Alright, next question. So yeah, we were at four, so this is the other. I'm on six. Okay. So you're a cyclist, like, you know, enthusiast. I want you to tell me a dream cyclist vacation that you'd like to go on.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:10

Oh, man, so I don't actually watch cycling at all, except for I now watch the Tour de France, but like, there's no way to say that without sounding pretentious. But I watch I saw ever since the that like drive to survive version of the Tour de France show or the Unchained or whatever. I would love to go ride that one of the one of those, like whatever ye whatever circuit they're doing that year with an e-bike. Obviously, I'm not like I really don't ride acoustics or whatever, but I would love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:39

Acoustics. Nice. You know, you went in a totally different direction. I was thinking, like, you know, a ride to the like take your bike through the like the vineyards of Bordeaux or something like that. You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:50

No, because I'm I'm a huge like I love sports too, though, right? So like as soon as I got put on to the to the Tour de France and the bike racing, like I can't watch the other ones. I don't find them all that interesting, but I'll, you know, find pirated versions of the Tour de France and watch them like from it starts in the end of June around Canada Day, but I'll watch it from like mid-July to probably late August, like one hour at a time, late at night type thing. Nice, nice. And I I would love to do that circuit because it just seems so fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:18

Yeah. Seven to you. Okay. Do you like music? Yeah. Yeah, okay. I mean, what's one of your favorite albums that you've been listened to recently, or just something that uh you kind of go back to an artist you go back to quite a bit?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:28

I so a lot of the music I listen to is for writing, so I l really like music that I can kind of tune out and ignore because I've heard it so many times. Yep. And so those albums for me, they can't my favorite album has got to be the Streets first album, A Grand Don't Come for Free. Oh, I listened to that. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's still one of my favorites. But I can't listen to that when I'm writing.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:47

With that. You like Buck 65 as well? He's a kind of a not really not a fan, eh? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:51

Well, when I got into the streets, I got into other like Loop Troop and a bunch of different like Euro trip hop type. Right on, yeah. But my main writing music is craft work or postal service. Pretty amazing. Or my brother had a band way back in the day called We Are the Take, and I've just listened to that album so many times that I can just I put it on. I it's really good. And you still do a music or whatever, but I that's one of my main go-to for because I just can ignore it because I've heard it so many times.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:18

Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:19

Great answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

That is good. Yeah. Alright. Let's see here now. Let's go kind of dig back into the roster, I guess, of things. In terms of would you are you the type of person that would prefer to constantly visit new places or go back to a place that you find like really comforting?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:38

Oh in terms of vacation. That depends. I honestly a mix of both. Yeah, I w I love going places repeatedly. Like we have a place in PEI. It's like in a walkable community, it's awesome. And like I go there and like the grocery store guy, it's an independent grocery store, it's not a Galen Wesson joint, you know. And I go in there and he's like, hey, how's it going? You're back, whatever. And so I love I love that feel I love being regular somewhere that's not home.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:07

But at the same time, it's the norm of the grocery store. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:11

But at the same time, I love exploring new places and seeing how they do things. So I'm just so curious about how the world works. So it's like, oh, how why why are they doing this here? Why why how did they end up doing that? So yeah, it's a bit it's honestly a mix both.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:24

We touched for like a second on that you did a theater, a bit of a theater background. If you had a chance to just kind of perform in one play or be part of one production, is there one that's dear to your heart that you'd love to do that you just haven't had a chance to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:39

Not really. Although I would love to be in a production of either Waiting for Godot or The Goat or Who is Sylvia. Because those are both crazy weird plays for their own, their own reason. Waiting for Godot is an absurdist one where they're just waiting and it's a play about nothing. It's like sign telled the play. And the goat or who is Sylvia is this crazy play where this guy is having an affair and you're like, oh man, it's crazy, he's having an affair, and then you learn halfway through that the person he's having an affair with is Sylvia, a goat. And it's like it's a crazy fucked up play. I would love to be part of any Pinter play too. I would love to be part of.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:15

Any play where I get to have relationships. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:18

I would want to be I would want to be the son in that play. I'm aged out of that role for sure, but or any Harold Pinter play, yeah, any absurdist theater, I just I find weird theater just to be so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:28

That's awesome. Great answers. Alright, I'm gonna feed off of the goat theme. Okay. If you had to deem someone who sits on council, past or present, the goat, who would it be? Oh fuck.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:43

That's tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:44

That is a tough one.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:47

They all listen to this. They'll they'll they could love or hate them next week.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:50

And they all kind of suck a little bit. Like as as great as they are, as great as they are, as great as the good ones are.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:56

The nice way you say it is they're all human beings, right? Sorry. They all stumble. That's that's the empathic.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:02

Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:03

I think right now though, it we oh man, I can't even name a goat. I can't even name a goat. I think right now our strongest are Laura White, Gene Saint-Damonde, and Sam Austin. Okay, but I don't know that we have goat. Because even the ones that were very strong are like Sean Cleary, really strong, kind of a dick. Way Mason, really strong, tried to ban pizza at 3 o'clock in the morning. So there's all everyone has their fatal flaw. So it's hard, it's hard to pick a goat for city politics. That's fair. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:31

All right, I think we're at our 10. That had to be 10. That's it. That was 10. Okay, awesome. So we always have a last call question, piece of advice you're giving in your lifetime. You've shared a lot of great insights today, but anything, any advice you're giving uh that you want to share, and then we'll wrap things up.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:45

Yeah, uh, I recently read a book called The Score, How to Stop Playing Someone Else's Game. Um, and this this life that we're

Last Call Advice And Wrap

SPEAKER_02 1:17:53

living is just it it the only meeting that matters is the one you give it, because you're the one living in your brain. No one else is living in your brain. So like if you're not having a good time, if your your framing is making you upset, like just it's it's just you. It's just you and your brain, and you've got to be happy.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:09

Well, you've convinced me to not buy a truck today. Uh he wants you to buy a Japanese one. Yeah, I do. I actually want you to buy a truck. They all are. You've done a great job and a lot of insights take home, so thank you very much, man. No problem.