CBRM councillors object to minister's take on viability study
Two Cape Breton regional councillors are disappointed with Municipal Affairs Minister Chuck Porter's reaction to a viability study.
The independent study says the municipality won't last in the long run, unless it gets outside help reversing population decline and controlling revenues and expenses.
Porter said last week the municipality needs to put more focus on cost efficiency and invest in infrastructure.
Porter met with Mayor Cecil Clarke and the two agreed the province would work with the municipality to identify infrastructure project funding.
Coun. Earlene MacMullin, a member of CBRM's viability study committee, said the province should offer that help to all municipalities, but it hasn't always done so.
She said CBRM put in an application for provincial and federal funding for a new library earlier this year, but the province rejected it.
Systemic underfunding ignored
MacMullin said the minister's help is welcome, but ignoring systemic underfunding at the same time will not solve the municipality's problems.
"To me, it's just a way to, like, sideline your concern," she said.
"You know, we're not going to address the municipal operating grant, but we'll do this instead."
The viability study says CBRM is required to send an increasing amount of local tax money to the province every year for housing, corrections and education, which are areas of provincial jurisdiction.
At the same time, the municipal operating grant — also known as the equalization grant — has remained frozen for the last five years.
Despite the study, Porter said CBRM is viable.
"It doesn't matter what anyone says," MacMullin said.
"It's there in black and white. The numbers are there, so currently, I would agree that we are viable, but barely.
"But that's not going to continue as we continue to have a decline in our population and in our tax base. We're just not going to be able to keep up."
Coun. Eldon MacDonald, also a member of CBRM's viability committee, agreed.
He said the province needs to provide more equalization money — or lower mandatory costs — so CBRM can afford to pay for its share of infrastructure projects.
"They put these funding mechanisms in place and then they put handcuffs on us," he said.
MacDonald cited public transit as an example.
"We need to have money to invest in our transit system, and we need to have it not only to invest in buses and capital improvements," he said.
"We need to be able to change hours, change routes, frequency of pickups."
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