ANTIGONISH: With the Town of Antigonish set to dissolve, the town and the Municipality of the County of Antigonish are requesting the province draft special legislation that will guide the consolidation transition process.
Despite growing opposition in the weeks and months leading up to the vote, during two separate special council meetings on Oct. 20, both municipal councils, narrowly voted in favour of moving forward with consolidation.
Both councils passed a motion requesting the provincial government consolidate the municipality and the 133-year-old town into one municipal unit through special legislation.
“We’ll inform the Minister of Municipal Affairs that both councils passed motions to go into the consolidation phase,” Warden Owen McCarron told reporters in a joint press conference at the municipal building following the vote. “The next steps will really be the province creating special legislation toward the consolidation between the town and county.”
The vote in the Town of Antigonish passed 4-3 with councillors Andrew Murray, Mary Farrell, Deputy Mayor Willie Cormier, and Mayor Laurie Boucher voting in favour of the motion. Councillors Sean Cameron, Diane Roberts, and Donnie MacInnis voted against the motion.
“I will also be voting no,” MacInnis said, which was welcomed by the gallery. “I have three concerns over the whole process, this all started as a merger, it’s now changed from a consolidation to a dissolution process. The second is we have not seen any draft financial statements. And lastly, it’s evident to me that the people want to have a plebiscite. This should not be a decision of two councils but a decision of the people.”
The municipality also voted in favour of the motion, passing it 5-3. Warden Owen McCarron, Deputy Warden Hughie Stewart, and councillors Bill MacFarlane, Remi Deveau and Donnie MacDonald voted in favour of the motion.
Councillors Mary MacLellan, John Dunbar, and Gary Mattie voted against the motion, while councillors Shawn Brophy and Harris McNamara, who said he was being forced against his wishes, declared a conflict of interest and abstained from the vote.
In a Facebook post, four days before the vote, Dunbar explained he found the “What We Heard Report” to be thorough and did capture the various views, but he had some issues with it.
“The number of attendees stated in the report at some meetings seemed to be low. My other issue was that the report seems to give equal weight to the numbers for and against consolidation, and for and against having a plebiscite on the issue,” he said in his post. “I don’t think it was a 50/50 split for either, and certainly not in District 7. My intention since the beginning was to keep an open mind on this issue.”
Many county residents reached out to him through phone calls, emails, and messages, he said, and in turn, he reached out to a number of people in his district who he hadn’t had a chance to talk with, to ask for their views.
“As of today, Oct. 16, I feel comfortable saying that while there are residents of District 7 who agree with consolidation and do not want a plebiscite, there is a strong majority of residents who do not want to see the county and the town consolidate into one unit, and also want to have a plebiscite on this issue,” his post states. “I’m on record stating I will support what the majority of District 7 residents want, and I stand by this.”
Prior to the start of the town’s meeting, Boucher explained they arrived at the decision after 13 months of research, community engagement, discussion and reflection; which resulted in laughs coming from the gallery.
Addressing the gallery, that was standing-room only, the mayor advised that the RCMP and their Bylaw Enforcement Officers were present because in advance of the meeting, some members of council received threatening remarks from residents.
With council approving their one-item agenda, councillor Cameron tried to submit a legal opinion to council, but through a motion, council defeated it with Boucher, Cormier, Murray, and Farrell voting against it.
The same legal opinion was also attempted to be submitted to county council by councillor Mattie, however it was also defeated by council with McCarron, Stewart, MacFarlane, Deveau, and MacDonald voting against it.
The legal opinion from MacPherson MacNeil Macdonald, which was provided to The Reporter, does not and is not intended to address the merits or advisability of the consolidation, but only with the legal basis for the motion.
“In summary, I have concluded that the consolidation process is not authorized by the Municipal Government Act (MGA), which contains a complete code on municipal reorganization,” Donald Macdonald said in his opinion. “Further, there is nothing in the act which would allow for such a process to be inferred.”
During his discussion around the motion, Cameron highlighted the MGA provides two distinct processes to join municipalities.
“The first under s.358, which has been ignored and the second under s.372 which is heavily political in nature,” Cameron said. “And where the minister must recommend to the Governor in Council the creation of a regional municipality. Both of these processes require seeking the support of the electors as expressed in a plebiscite.”
With temperatures rising inside council chambers at town hall, as it became clear the motion was going to pass, gallery members started to lash out against the councillors who were in support of the motion.
As Jack Sullivan, who chaired the Antigonish amalgamation committee in the early 2000s, was escorted out by RCMP, he stopped at the council table and told councillors “if you’re not up for the job, resign,” which received thunderous applause from the gallery.
Another gallery member, Jack MacPherson, who was a town councillor for 16 years, kicked himself out of the meeting after he had enough of council’s mistreatment of the issue.
Let Antigonish Decide, the community group that’s opposed to the consolidation process and is demanding a plebiscite, protested at both council meetings.
According to the group, 60 people were inside the town’s council chambers, with 15 in the hallway, and another 45 outside; at the municipal office 60 were inside the chambers with an additional 100 in the lobby.
Chants of “Let Us Vote,” and “Plebiscite,” echoed throughout the town’s council chambers from the protestors outside during the hour-long meeting.
Last month, the Town of Antigonish and the Municipality of the County of Antigonish, issued a joint release announcing that if both municipalities were to dissolve and a new consolidated municipal unit was formed, it would result in an increase of $1 million a year in policing costs.
As a way to solve this problem, they announced that keeping the name Municipality of the County of Antigonish wouldn’t change the current funding formula of a 70/30 split with the creation of a new regional municipality.
“If we can’t find a way to get beyond that, I wasn’t prepared to plunge our community into spending $1 million extra for no additional service,” McCarron said. “Throughout the course of the year we were looking and trying to find possibilities and it wasn’t until almost June that we actually found the work-around and it really was retaining the name.”
As for what’s next, a transition committee will be formed once the provincial legislation is passed later this spring, which will hire a CAO and design a new administrative structure for the consolidated municipality.
During the transition phase, current councils will remain and continue to oversee operations for the existing municipal units, and staff will remain in their current positions while the new organizational structure is determined.
“Tomorrow we’ll get up and we continue to run our two municipalities, nothing changes overnight; we’re both operational as we were today,” McCarron said. “But going forward after special legislation is put through the legislature this spring, the transition team will be struck, and at that point the building of a new municipal structure will start to take place.”
Antigonish Mayor Laurie Boucher explained the town arrived at the consolidation decision after 13 months of research, community engagement, discussion, and reflection.
As for what the new consolidated municipality will look like, in terms of council size, the warden advised that will be the work of the transition team, but they have numerous examples to take inspiration from.
The committee, along with current councils and the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (UARB) will undertake another community engagement phase to identify new electoral boundaries, with the consolidated municipal unit being in operation on April 1, 2025.
“We would look at an extension of this current municipal term. Municipal affairs, in previous conversations, prefers municipalities to be stood up on a fiscal year, which is April 1. Therefore, to allow enough time for the structure to be created,” McCarron said. “There wouldn’t be enough time to make it between now and the next municipal election given that the special legislation wouldn’t get put through the house until the spring, it wouldn’t allow you enough time to build that structure.”
Which would mean the current members of town and county councils, will have their terms extended by an extra six months, to accommodate the creation of the consolidated municipality.
Both the warden and mayor have disputed the reasoning for a plebiscite, something that would have come with a price tag of approximately $103,000, as divisive.
But when asked if the process became divisive at all, Boucher advised it was a very passionate subject as they saw in the early 2000s with the annexation amalgamation that didn’t get UARB approval.
“We know that our citizens are very proud citizens, but we decided to go the consolidation method because we wanted to have control over what our municipality looks like,” Boucher said at the municipal building shortly after the vote was finalized. “In an amalgamation, that does not happen. It’s done by the UARB. We wanted to do it through a consolidation because we want to have an input on building the next Antigonish for future generations. And in that consolidation process a plebiscite is not necessary.”
As far as both councils are concerned, the mayor said they have voted in favour of consolidation and noted nothing from the municipalities can go backward.
“Right from the beginning, we said this was not a downsizing exercise. This was an exercise to reduce redundancies so we can create more capacity in the consolidated municipality,” Boucher said. “We have our seven guiding principles that we will reconstruct this municipality and we will follow them very closely. We value our staff; we recognize the good work they do for us, and we will do our very best to have a spot for everybody within the new organization.”
The warden explained that over the 13 month journey, some people may feel it was rushed but they feel as though they carried out an extensive consultation and in a process like this, he said, you try to reach as many people as possible.
“We put out information packages to over 9,800 homes in the municipality, which would almost represent the entire population,” McCarron said. “We have lots of communication to happen with our community and that communication will start tomorrow. I’m prepared to go out into parts of the community to have conversations about what this looks like.”
He suggested it was time they started to look at the future.
“This is not about me, I’m 60-years-old; this is about the next generation; putting our community in a position where we are relevant, where we can be sustainable on our own and not be a victim of another level of government deciding to put us into a spot we don’t want,” McCarron said. “We have a lot of commonalities and a lot of strengths, and I think the process has given everybody an opportunity to get involved and I’m pretty happy with that.”
While a question regarding taxes was raised once again, Boucher reiterated that through the exploration of consolidation, it showed them that taxes won’t increase.
“Now we can’t say taxes are not going to go up, because we don’t know the outside implications or factors that might do that. An increase in gas prices, an increase in tar, or asphalt to pave the roads,” she said. “We have no idea what tax rates will be, but we do know that if they go up next year, it will not be because of consolidation, and history shows us that.”
With high emotions shown throughout the consolidation process, the warden suggested it’s nice to see the passion within the community.
“I’ve been around municipal politics for 28 years. We’ve delivered a high level of service and I wouldn’t enter into something that I thought would change the service level to either community,” McCarron said. “And I think this is a great opportunity to move forward.”
Following the warden’s comments, Boucher added that they’re seeing more pressures being put on municipalities, and there are different expectations than there were 15 years ago, as they’re expected to work on affordable housing, the health care system, climate change, and accessibility, to name a few.
“These lenses put additional stress or pressures on the municipality,” Boucher said. “We believe that we are in a much better situation to work through these pressures as a consolidated unit, because it increases our capacity to do so.”
As for the divisiveness that’s occurred within the Antigonish community over the course of the consolidation process, the mayor advised it’s now about moving forward together.
“The job of leaders at this point is bringing our communities back together. We knew from the beginning, that this could be divisive; we know people have polarizing ideas and beliefs,” Boucher said. “Both the warden and I have to work together to bring both communities together and prove to them that this is going to be a good thing, prove to the people that have concerns that those concerns will be met and that’s the job of our councils right now.”