The HFX Votes 2024 series is in the process of wrapping up, with three episodes recorded yesterday to be released over the next few days. Up first is an interview with Céo Gaudet, a former member of the Regional Watersheds Advisory Board. For a little bit of history, the RWAB had a predecessor, the Dartmouth Lakes Advisory Board, which started in the 1970s. At the time, there was a lot of development going on and very few, if any, environmental assessments of procedures. But what was noticeable ...
Jul 24, 2024•1 hr 2 min
In this episode of the Grand Parade Matt Stickland sits down with Wes Marshall, the author of Killed by a Traffic Engineer. His book is a meta analysis of traffic engineering studies, and he tells Matt how to determine if Halifax's traffic engineers are doing a good job. Just one note: In the episode Matt says that the HRM has made it's traffic impact statements better, and Wes points out that if they were an improvement they would consider safety. The good news is that the new traffic impact st...
Jul 18, 2024•56 min
In this edition of HFX Votes 2024 I sit down with two of the authors of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report: Building Inclusive Communities: A Policy Agenda for Nova Scotia Municipalities that Leaves No One Behind. In this conversation, Christine Saulnier the CCPA’s Nova Scotia director, explains how the city could save a lot of money by bringing services, like snow clearing, in-house. She also explains how the way we do snow removal might be a little bit sexist. The other other, ...
Jul 12, 2024•1 hr 1 min
In this episode of the Grand Parade's ongoing series of municipal issues explainer, I sit down with mayor Mike Savage to find out what the mayor does. This conversation bounces around from the fiscal challenges facing the city, some practical advice for running a good meeting and an answer to the question: Does Mike find it weird that people call him "Your Worship?"
Jul 09, 2024•47 min
In part 2 of the HFX Votes 2024 episode on property taxes I sat down with Darrell Dexter, the former premier of Nova Scotia to ask him about why we have a property tax cap in the first place. This conversation went off the rails almost immediately in the best possible way. Dexter explains that the property tax cap is doing its job, protecting people from being gouged by the market. Dexter makes the case that if a city needs money then it’s incumbent on councillors to use the other tools at their...
Jul 04, 2024•33 min
The Coast’s municipal election podcast explainers continue with a deep dive into property taxes and the property tax cap. In this episode, Matt sits down with local economist Deny Sullivan to ask him some questions like: What is the property tax cap? How does it work? Is our council penny-wise and pound-foolish? The two get sidetracked a little bit when the conversation veers into the new road safety framework and how it demonstrates a lack of fiscal responsibility by the city. Deny explains his...
Jul 03, 2024•51 min
In this week's episode, The Coast's Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman discuss HRM staff's eyebrow-raising plans for redesigning the Windsor Street Exchange while making transit worse, plus how councillors aren't using the powers they have at their disposal. Also, if you have any issues you want Matt to look into for the upcoming municipal election please email them to hfxvotes2024@thecoast.ca
Jun 27, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 36
In part two of the Halifax Votes Transit episode Matt sits down with Reece Martin of RM Transit to help explain some of the choices Halifax Transit is making. For example, in yesterday's episode It's More Than Busses ' Douglas Wetmore proposed that Halifax Transit would be better served by switching to a headway bus service instead of a scheduled one. Reece Martin explains why a transit service would want to use headway, and also what a headway is. For everything you ever needed to know about tr...
Jun 25, 2024•34 min
In this edition of HFX Votes 2024, The Coast's special municipal election coverage, Matt sits down with Douglas Wetmore of It's More than Busses. In part one of a two-part series Matt finds out what exactly's going wrong with Halifax's beleaguered bus system. Wetmore explains the issues facing transit, some of the issues created by Halifax Transit, and some potential fixes. It's everything you need to know about why your bus is late. In part two which will be out later this week. Matt will sit d...
Jun 24, 2024•56 min
In this episode Matt Stickland sat down with the CEO of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission, Paul MacKinnon in what is the first in a series of explainers leading up to the municipal election. MacKinnon is a guy who knows what a downtown needs to succeed. We talk about the challenges of making unpopular decisions and how downtowns make money for the city. MacKinnon also tells me about the new plan for downtown that his organization came up with: Vision 2030 ....
Jun 07, 2024•46 min
In this week’s episode, The Coast’s Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman discuss HRM council’s unanimous passing of federally-prompted zoning reforms and how that will shape the city to come. Plus, Halifax has an emergency response… emergency… and the region’s transportation plans still don’t make sense.
May 30, 2024•34 min•Season 1Ep. 35
In this week’s episode of The Grand Parade podcast, Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman chat with economist Deny Sullivan about Halifax’s HAF blunders and why a labour shortage isn’t to blame for the city’s housing crisis. Plus, they delve into Halifax’s deferred plans to abandon its Strategic Road Safety Framework in favour of a new plan that is worse than the old one.
May 01, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 34
In this edition of the Grand Parade Matt tells Martin all about his interview with Halifax's CAO Cathie O'Toole and director of the Department of Public Works Brad Anguish. Matt explains why this interview left him feeling a bit like a Philadelphia 76ers fan circa 2013 . After a break, Matt gives each councillor a rating for their performance during Halifax's budget season
Apr 12, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 33
In this episode of the Grand Parade the boys take a break from the budget as Matt grapples with learning new information about the city's transportation planning.
Mar 21, 2024•43 min•Season 1Ep. 32
In this episode Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman give 110% as they reach into their bag of sports metaphors to talk about municipal politics in a podcast of two halves. In the first half, Matt gives Martin the lowdown on the civil unrest growing in rural parts of the HRM. Also a look into the frustrating parts of municipal planning. Not to be all doom and gloom, in the second half, Martin learns about all the genuinely good things taking shape for Halifax's future....
Feb 27, 2024•56 min•Season 1Ep. 31
In this episode Matt and Martin talk about public safety: the JustFOOD program and police reform. This show notes are abridged due to budget season.
Feb 09, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 30
In this episode of the Grand Parade Matt and Martin talk about stories Matt is working on. The Macdonald bike connection is moving forward, but there are some issues with the design, and how the design came to be in the first place. After the ad break, Matt pitches a test for local government to see if they're ready to respond to the climate emergency.
Jan 20, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 29
The New Year always comes with the worst hangovers, doesn’t it? When HRM council resumes on Tuesday, Jan. 9, Halifax’s councillors will be confronted once again with a thorny problem: How to dig the region out of a $68.7 million deficit that no-one on council seems to know how to wriggle out from under. (That is, without taking a popularity hit by raising taxes or cutting key services.) In this week’s episode of The Grand Parade, Coast city hall reporter Matt Stickland presents two paths for cou...
Jan 04, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 28
In this episode, Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman talk about Halifax's budget crunch, why Trish Purdy wants to cut back on the HRM's annual spending on vehicles and why the region is broke. The police budget looks like it'll resemble last year's—what does that mean? Also: Matt gushes about trains.
Dec 19, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 27
In this episode, Matt and Martin meet In Halifax Central Library to discuss what the city's budget process will look like this year. Thanks to a motion from councillor Tim Outhit this budget might be the first budget that the city passes in line with its strategic priorities. Also covered in this meeting, the potential of the Board of Police Commissioner's new budget process. Martin also asks Matt about the new study he's one of the authors of, and Matt discovers Martin rode his bike really, rea...
Dec 05, 2023•44 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Municipal engineer Paul Young has a vision for a “major behavioural change” within Halifax: Converting all urban speed limits in the HRM to 30 kilometres per hour. The reason? Not just to lower the likelihood of deadly collisions, which findings resoundingly show drop off significantly compared to 50km/h, but to cut back on things like traffic noise and pollution while promoting healthier, less costly alternatives. On Thursday, Nov. 16, Young gave his “Slow the Blazes Down” presentation to the H...
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 25
In this episode, Matt and Martin talk at great length about Otego Drive (https://maps.app.goo.gl/4VNHawhGx99YwVrr6) and what that little street can teach us about the dangers presented to us by our local government in the face of this climate emergency.
Nov 03, 2023•51 min•Season 1Ep. 25
In this Grand Parade episode, Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman dive into the HRM's Integrated Mobility Plan and what it secretly not-so-secretly suggests: Maybe Halifax would've been better off had the province not amalgamated the region in 1996? Matt fills Martin in on why John Lohr's housing power play is a recipe for abuse—if not by the current housing minister, then by his eventual successor. Also, the two discuss one of the biggest cracks in the foundation of the HRM's gover...
Oct 23, 2023•56 min•Season 1Ep. 23
In this week’s episode of The Grand Parade , Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman discuss Halifax’s Integrated Mobility Plan , and Matt convinces Martin that it’s already dead. Why? Because of the way the HRM sets its budget. Plus, the two detour onto the subjects of roads, and whether the provincial government’s plans to spend more than $1 billion to expand its highways* should qualify as an investment. (It shouldn’t. And it’s making Nova Scotia poorer.) Three cheers for the sunk-co...
Oct 06, 2023•49 min•Season 1Ep. 22
TKSHOWNOTES
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Halifax Wanderers CEO Derek Martin has dreams of a permanent 8,500-seat stadium in Halifax's downtown. Last week, the Canadian Premier League soccer club founder made his pitch to the HRM's Community Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee to overhaul the municipally-owned Wanderers Grounds—where his club plays—in favour of an all-purpose venue. The cost? An estimated $40-million, according to Martin. The Wanderers CEO has pledged that his club would be prepared to contribute "subst...
Sep 22, 2023•45 min
Matt and Martin are back to walk through the council's antics from last Tuesday's meeting. Was council's reaction just theatrics? Do they bear more responsibility than they know? Matt thinks so. There's also discussion about the end of the pizza wars, some transit critiques and building in flood zones. Unlike your boss, sometimes we even give you a bonus! Warning to Wanderer Ground listeners who (like me) get annoyed at hearing the same thing over again, Matt (also me) repeats an anecdote, that ...
Sep 15, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 20
In this epidsode of the Grand Parade Matt catches Martin up on all of things that have and have not been happening at city hall over the summer. The two talk about last week's council meeting where Shawn Cleary tried to make the housing crisis worse, and Dave Reage's lack of answers on tap pay. All that and more in this week's episode
Aug 26, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 19
During the live Grand Parade recording, two listeners asked what Matt thought Olivia Chow's election as mayor of Toronto would mean for the city. The answers on the day of the live show were lacking, so we went and found an expert. In this episode of The Grand Parade, host Matt brings on a fellow City Hall reporter named Matt—Matt Elliott of City Hall Watcher in Toronto. The two Matts spend an hour in the weeds of municipal politics comparing their respective city halls. One Matt explains how hi...
Aug 11, 2023•56 min•Season 1Ep. 18
TK SHOWNOTES
Jul 27, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 17
