The Grand Parade

Strong mayor powers, bike lanes and sexism, a July 7 - 11 council recap

We are back with another full show covering last Tuesday's (and Thursday's) council meeting.

Halifax may become sustainable, a Jun 30 - July 4 recap

Hello it's summer vacation season and I've been taking full advantage. This is a live to tape episode with a recap of last week's one meeting and a preview of Tuesday's council meeting.

A programming note, not a June 23 - 27 council recap

Just a quick programming note from Matt this week

Grand Parade goes to Quebec

On Saturday May 31, 2025 Halifax Wanderers travelled to Quebec City, to play York United in a Canadian Premier League on tour, regular season game. The Halifax Wanderers put on a bus to Quebec City. Grand Parade reporter Matt Stickland embedded with the fans and watched the game. This is that story.

All planning no results, A June 16-20 council recap

As promised during the episode, here is how, in my opinion, the Traffic Calming Administrative Order should be amended. It would be beneficial to get rid of the TCAO all together so road safety money could be spend on more efficient strategies, like the Integrated Mobility Plan, however, since politicans seem to want to keep it, clause 21 of the TCAO should be amended (changes in bold) to read “staff shall prepare a n evidence based traffic calming plan, in line with the Road Safety Strategy and...

Andy Fillmore must be stopped

Enough is enough please share this episode with everyone you know in Halifax.

Councillors consider killing taxi industry, May 19 - 23 council recap

In this podcast Grand Parade's city hall reporter Matt Stickland recaps what went down at city hall last week. There's a development on a heritage property, Halifax is making slow progress police reform thanks to an unlikely hero. And there's also a pop quiz! We trust you can find any legislation yourself, and if you can't, you should be able to, but otherwise here are the sources mentioned in the show: https://timharford.com/2023/07/cautionary-tales-the-v2-trilogy/ https://www.smithsonianbooks....

Scooters, taxes and sidewalks, oh my! May 12 - 16 council recap

In this episode a recap of everything that happened last week. Can you tell that I'm writing this blurb too late on a Sunday? Yes, probably. For more info about city hall, head over to www.grandparade.news To follow Matt on Social media, find him @landofsticks Tootles

One advisory committee meeting

Short one this week as the Board of Police Commissioners meeting was cancelled.

Downtown's burden and core municipal services, April 28 - May 2 Recap

Hey folks, bit of a lighter show notes this week because I've done a bonus show and had to put a newspaper to bed. See ya next week, don't forget to grab a copy of the first issue of the paper this week at Atlantic News in Halifax and The Dart Gallery in Dartmouth

Homework: How to fix Halifax's BRT /w HFX By Bike

Since journalism is homework the job, after last episode where I explained in great details the issues with the HRM's planning, I felt obligated to explain how I'd fix it. For this bonus episode I invited Kevin Wilson aka HFX By Bike and the two of us work through fixing the BRT. Over on his YouTube Channel, Kevin does this sort of thing on a regular basis in his let's fix video. Recently he took a look at the Halifax Commons. Check it out: https://youtu.be/iwIj95vOHpY?si=_mZ6A-pb-O1zzqkV In thi...

Halifax's Bus Rapid Transit is designed to fail, council update April 21 - 25

I suspect most people don't usually read the show notes, but if you're here for the study, scroll down. If you're here for information in this episode Matt Stickland, recaps council and goes deep into the weeds of Halifax's Bus Rapid Transit Plan. Here's the promised study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1361920919314026?via%3Dihub

Parking minimums and traffic planning: April 14 - 17 Council recap

Bit of a light week at city hall and since I forgot it was Good Friday, a bit of a lighter episode. Councillor Janet Steele is trying to get the city to protect and create more heritage districts. Councillor Cathy Deagle Gammon is trying to remove parking spots in land use bylaws because toddlers don't drive cars. All of that and a deep dive into the difference between Halifax's transportation planning and that of the Dutch. Here's a link to the YouTube video referenced in the podcast: https://w...

Fiscal reform and systemic racism: April 7 - 11 council recap

Last week was a relatively slow one as far as the schedule was concerned, with only a Tuesday council meeting and Thursday’s African descent advisory committee. Halifax now has a budget, and thanks to Mayor Andy Fillmore, next year’s budget will be wildly different from this year's. Also, last week, Halifax once again found itself standing in the long shadow of its more than slightly racist history.

Domestic Violence and the Green Network Plan: Mar 31 - April 4 counil recap

In a week dominated by breathless international news Halifax's city hall had a relatively slow week. This week there were only two meetings of consequence, which allowed the Board of Police Commissioners to do a deep dive into intimate partner violence and the Envrionment and Sustainability Committee to learn about the failures of the green network plan.

Audits, horse hearing and a beach bus: Mar 24-28 council recap

Now that budget season is done, as threatened, this show will now become a weekly roundup of what happened at City Hall last week. The obvious high/lowlight of last week was when council finished the budget adjustment list debates on Wednesday, March 26, but did you know that other meetings also happened last week? There was an audit that missed some key financial information, public housing grants were awarded, and next summer, there might be a bus to HRM’s beaches! This weekly recap show takes...

Halifax’s budget: a political win and fiscal failure

Halifax's budget playoffs wrapped on Wednesday March 26 and Halifax has a budget! The budget itself was a political victory for our new mayor, Andy Fillmore, who promised to keep Halifax’s property tax rate flat, which the council did. However, property values went up by 4.7 percent, and so will property taxes. Those property taxes will pay for Halifax’s $1.3 billion operating budget and $318 million. Thanks to the final debate day in Halifax’s budget playoffs, we learned more about our new coun...

Halifax city council's making your life more expensive, a 3rd intermission update

Halifax council’s budget meeting on monday March 24th was a stinker, quite literally, and also because council almost voted to make Halifax’s poorest people just a little hungrier because of how Canadian governments divvied up their power and responsibilities. But the good news is that your odds of dying in a fire are going to decrease slightly in the next few years, probably. Still, the bad news is that your taxes in five years are going to be astronomically expensive. You’re not going to get b...

Library cuts and the police tank, 2nd intermission update

It's the second intermission of the budget playoffs and a lot happened in Friday's debate. Council approved an armoured personnel carrier, the central library got it's reserves cut and council avoided making a terrible cut. All that and more in this budget playoffs' second intermission update!

Budget Playoffs Intermission update

Budget playoffs and a new era

In this episode of the Grand Parade Matt flys solo to update folks on the future of the podcast and the future of Halifax's budget.

Halifax's budget season is finally here

The wait is over, it's finally here budget season started on Wednesday. In this episode Matt and Martin dive into what's being going on at city hall from strategic plans, to Windsor street exchange and of course, the start of budget season.

HALIFAX STRATEGIC PLAN EMERGENCY PODCAST

This past week has been a huge one in municipal politics with Halifax's city council getting an update about how their strategic planning is going. Spoiler alert, it's going very bad. In this emergency episode, Matt and Martin break down the failures of Halifax's bureaucracy

Five little piggies went to a public meeting

It's been a busy start to the new year with with a few big ticket events for the hosts Matt Stickland and Martin Baumen to break down. The Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, December 8th, was one of the best meetings in HRM's recent history, which included five little piggies and some light-hearted civil disobedience. Matt's been doing a lot of research into road safety and tells Martin all about how much liability the city might have been putting itself in for the past few deca...

Councillor Cuttell and the spanner wrench

In this episode of the Grand Parade Matt and Martin look back at the past two weeks in municipal politics and answer some hard hitting questions like: Will transit ever get better in this city? How do you cook a crow? And is there any point to the city's advisory committees? Plus, we also have a new show format! Except for the any other business segment at the end your listening experience should be largely unchanged but we'd like any feedback if you have any. Please send it to matt@thecoast.ca...

Committee rosters and budget preview

At long last Coast reporter Martin is back after his paternity leave and he joins Coast city hall reporter Matt Stickland to catch up on everything he'd missed since being out. In this episode, the two talk about how the council is shaping up three meetings into their term. Which councillors are making mistakes? Who's looking promising? The conversation then turns to the HRM's committees and the upcoming budget season. Matt explains why he's mostly optimistic about the city's future, even if som...

Municipal election primer

After an impromptu summer break the Grand Parade is back! Host Matt Stickland sits down with the owner of Atlantic New Chris Greene to talk about how to interview candidates for the upcoming fall election. Chris will be sitting down the candidates of District 7 to interview them and find out who would be the best candidate for his district and wanted to advice. Happy to oblige, Matt explains how he and The Coast are vetting candidates for the fall election.

HFX Votes 2024: Listener Questions

In what was supposed to be the last episode of the HFX Votes 2024 election podcast series The Coast's city hall reporter Matt Stickland sat down with The Coast’s newsletter editor Julie Lawrence to answer some listener questions. The conversation bounces around as the two try to answer as many questions as possible. There are a bunch of simple questions like “Does Halifax have enough parking?” that have relatively simple answers like “Yes.” But some questions sparked more interesting and nuanced...

Predicting the End of Canada's Oldest Colony.

There are two types of people in this world. There are people who think that headline is needlessly dramatic, and then there are people who understand risk management. The Coast has covered risk management extensively since Halifax’s Auditor General released his scathing indictments of the city’s Risk Management Team, but this is one of those things that just can’t be talked about enough until the issues are fixed. In this episode of the Grand Parade, Matt talks through his research to date from...

HFX Votes 2024: What is risk managment?

In this penultimate episode of the HFX Votes 2024 election explainer series, Matt interviews Risk Management expert Bruce Manion. This episode is a direct result of Halifax’s Auditor General’s recent audits in which he found the HRM’s risk management framework to be a bit of a hot mess. In this episode, Bruce explains to Matt how the city should be thinking about Risk Management and the problem with the city moving its risk management team from the accountants to the lawyers back in 2021. This c...