Sal Falk, Editor-in-chief of the Lunenburg Barnacle, sat down with most of the mayoral candidates in Mahone Bay, Lunenburg and MODL to speak about some of the pressing issues in Lunenburg County.
Elspeth Maclean-Wile was the owner and operator of Wile’s Lake Farm Market for nearly three decades.
As of the end of September, Carolyn Bolivar-Getson, the incumbent mayor and Maclean-Wile’s opponent, has not returned a request for interview.
The interview is available in full either in audio or the transcription below.
Time Stamps
0:03:07 Coastal protection
0:08:05 Housing
0:18:22 Anti-racism coordinator and committee
0:24:28 Policing and community safety
0:29:20 Climate change
0:32:15 Public transit and transportation
This interview has been edited for style and clarity.
Barnacle: Are you ready? Yeah. Wonderful.
Maclean-Wile: Okay. Ready as I can be.
M-W: Oh my goodness. What makes me most proud? I think that just the natural beauty of our community. And, you know, this summer I’ve had a chance to travel the whole, the entirety of it.
And I’ve lived here for 40 years, so I thought I knew and could appreciate it. But when you get on every little back road and nook and cranny and see the diversity of topography, geography that we have from the northern part, which has lots of woodland, lakes, rolling hills. I’m a farmer, so, you know, the land is important, so I really notice the land and the topography.
And to think, and then we go to the coastline and see that. And to recognize that over the hundreds of years people have lived here, they’ve made good livings here. And that kind of inspires me about what opportunities lie ahead for us here, to capitalize on that.
And people have recognized and moved here and made great lives for themselves, because now with the technology we have, people can live here and enjoy all that and build a wonderful life for themselves and their families, surrounded by the natural beauty that we have. So I think that recognizing the traditions of forestry, agriculture, fishing, and be able to transition and still maintain that and transition to lives and creating lives here that are very different if you think about the technology we have, the kinds of manufacturing that go on.
We’re still able to do all that. So I think that transition is very subtle, but it is represented in what we see across the landscape of our community.
We know that in 2019, the province proposed the Coastal Protection Act, and it was supposed to, you know, prevent development that may damage our natural and dynamic landscape, but also protect new development from coastal threats like sea level rise. And earlier this year, MODL did implement their own revisions to the municipal planning strategy and a new municipal wide land use bylaw. And that includes really rigorous coastal protection regulations that are now in effect.
What are your thoughts on these coastal regulations?
M-W: Well, the one thing that I’ve learned over the lots of conversations I’ve had with people about this, and also following what’s happened at MODL, is that the coastal protection is really way more complex than most people recognize. So the municipality only has the, and I shouldn’t preface that by saying I shouldn’t have used the word only, but has the capacity to regulate the building structures that appear along the coastline. There are other departments, provincial and federal government departments, that have responsibility along the coastline.
So what’s triggered many people around coastal protection is when they see building and rock walls and work and excavation work that actually digs into the sand and the coastal area. But actually, that is beyond the responsibility of MODL. So I think MODL has done a really important step, first step, in this.
But there’s a huge amount of advocacy work that MODL and other municipalities need to do with the province and the federal government to ensure that the regulations that we need to protect the coast are in place. Because now you can build. MODL has regulations around the building structure, the distance from the coast, the kinds of buffer protection that needs to be along the coast.
But it doesn’t necessarily protect for infilling, rock wall construction, because that’s Department of Natural Resources and Department of Fisheries, Federal Department of Fisheries, all of those other departments come into play. So that the complexity of actually protecting the coast is much more than just what the municipality can do. It’s a very important step.
What we’ve done is a first step, but there’s need for protection of other waterways. Because coastal protection, as it’s set out for MODL, only protects the coast to the mouth of the rivers. And we’ve got tidal impact on the river systems, whether it be the Petite River, the Lahave River, or Martin’s River.
And those protections go as far as the mouth of the river. Further up the river, there isn’t the kind of protection. And I know that there was lots of discussion around that.
And I think MODL was trying to find the balance between what they could implement initially and what was needed long term. But they had to find common ground between the community taking this step and their own councillor members to find ways that they could do that and bring in some protection. So it is an important first step.
It isn’t the end. There’s a lot more work to be done on the rivers. And then we’ve got lakes.
Someone’s told me that there’s more than 100 lakes in Lunenburg County. I don’t know if that’s true or not.I know that there are lots. And so there’s protection that’s needed around those as well. If you think about the buffer zones protect the ecosystems of the animals and the plants and the insects and the waterways and what’s in those waterways.
So those buffer zones become really important. So we’ve made a first step. But it is only the first step in what will be, I think, quite a long process over the next number of years to find the balance between protecting and allowing people to develop as they see we should develop our communities.
I’m very committed to that. So, yeah.
M-W: Well, now I’m not sure what we need. Because that Coastal Protection Act was developed and agreed to by three parties. Now they’ve downloaded it to municipalities. MODL has probably, and some other jurisdictions, municipalities have taken steps.
We’ve taken quite, I think, extensive steps. Some municipalities are holding back a little bit. So I think the whole issue has to be rethought about what needs to be done now.
Because we don’t want to rewrite it. I mean, here, I think that would be really unproductive. I think there’s a big conversation about some of the aspects of coastal protection that can be done. And that is under provincial jurisdiction. So I think if we’re going to do this properly, there has to be good cooperation between the municipality and the province. And the province needs to take responsibility for the things that they can do as we go forward on some of this protection around what we’ve got.
Which is an amazing coastline that is at risk.
And we know that municipalities are heavily restricted by the Municipal Government Act about what they can act on this. But at the doorstep, every candidate is hearing that it’s something they want at the municipal level for people to step in and support. We know there’s also a push and pull between different stakeholders in these communities.
An example being the proposed blockhouse development, which sees a significant number of units that could be built on Cornwall Road. And the developer states that it would be aimed at students and young professionals, all these units. But constituents have voiced concerns about environmental impacts, lacking infrastructure in the area for an increase in population, and a lack of commitment to affordable housing.
And we know that there’s a need for affordable housing. The most recent South Shore Open Door Association stats show 210 individuals who are experiencing homelessness on the South Shore. First off, can you define what affordable housing means to you?
M-W: Well, for me, you’re right in asking the question about housing because of any issue, it is the single biggest issue that has come up repeatedly.
I think housing, you know, we throw a lot of words around when we mention housing. You want to talk, you know, your question is about affordable housing. I’d rather address that in, kind of, four parts of what I’ve heard.
So there’s housing needs for seniors, which may or may not be classified as need for affordable housing. Some seniors need affordable housing. Some seniors don’t need [it], they need an alternative to the housing that they’re currently in, which may be a big house that they want to downsize from to something smaller and more manageable.
That’s one of the things. The second layer is for young couples and singles, young professionals, workers, laborers, whatever, that want to move into housing, move out of mom and dad’s basement and move into housing of their own. That’s another layer.
What I would say is when I’ve talked to people, that’s housing that’s in the, to buy a house would be in the $350,000 to $375,000 range, almost non-existent. So that’s a layer. The third layer would be the affordable, what we define as affordable housing.
And there’s many, many definitions for that. And I think that’s very confusing for people. So whatever we define affordable housing, I know you’ve asked me what I define it as.
Well, I go by, you know, you can go by definition that we shouldn’t be spending more than 30% of our gross income on housing. And here, if you do that, based on, you know, the average income for an individual in Lunenburg County is somewhere around $38,000 to $40,000 a year. So if you take 30% of that, that gives you an amount that’s like, there’s literally not a mortgage or a rental that’s available under that.
So the federal government defines it quite differently. So that’s affordable housing. The fourth layer that I see in that is deeply affordable, non-market housing, which will accommodate people who are in need, are basically on social assistance, some government assistance program, and those who are unhoused.
Which I think the unhoused should be separated out from the not-for-market, off-market housing. Because they need housing, but they need other services, and they need wraparound services that will support them, for whatever reason. Helping them get back into the labour market, helping with addiction issues, helping with mental health issues.
So I think we have to be really careful when we discuss housing to really segment it out and look at what we can do in our community. That sets it out, in my mind, to what are the issues in our community. What can municipal government do? Well, you know, when you talk about municipal government, many will say, well there’s not, you know, we can advocate, we can do this and that.
There’s not a lot we can do, but I think there is a lot more we can do. One thing is, we need to talk about in our community what communities can do. I think what we’ve done here, and I’ve been an advocate for this for many years, is we’ve relied on government too heavily to solve some of these problems, where I think communities can really get involved.
I think the municipality can have a really big role in helping conversation at the community level about what they see their housing needs to be. In the district of Lunenburg, I see Riverport, New Germany, Blockhouse area, potentially, and Petite as four areas that have growth.
They have infrastructure in place. New Germany is going to have a new school. And so, if you have a new school, that’s going to attract younger families.
And, what kind of housing are we going to have there? If you look at New Germany, that’s basically quite an old housing stock, but we have a lot of seniors there. What if they moved out? If we had housing for them, they could move out of the houses that they’re in now and into something that’s more aligned with their stage in life. And something where they could have a little garden and have independent living.
And then those houses would be freed up in that community for younger families. The community needs to be involved in those discussions. I don’t think it should be top-down.
I think it has to be bottom-up. And I think that the role the municipality can play is in helping facilitate those discussions, helping outline what are some alternatives to what we currently think are housing options, and then helping to leverage the community into thinking about what funds might be available. In some of these segments we’ve talked about, there’s cash flow there from rentals that people will pay to rent these places that can help finance it.
So it can be not-for-profit, it can be co-op housing. These are alternatives we haven’t talked about a lot. Many people don’t understand how that can happen.
But the municipality can help do that and help leverage money to do that. So, I think we haven’t dug into this enough at the municipal level. We haven’t allocated anybody.
This is not somebody’s responsibility on their day-to-day work schedule at the municipality. And I think we have to look at how some of this work is being done on the corner of people’s desks, rather than devoting actual full-time resources to it. I think we’re at a stage where we have to do that.
That’s one of the things that I’ve said I’m quite committed to, is conversation to see how can we allocate some resources to dedicate it to housing. And then really work with communities to build up what they think are the things that will really serve them well now and into the future. It’s not going to be solved in a year.
It’s probably not going to be solved in a couple of years. But if we don’t address it, it’s going to limit our ability to grow as a community and really offer the kind of alternatives for people. And I’ve seen a lot of people living in travel trailers.
I’ve been a bit shocked by the numbers. I knew it was out there. But when you start going on the back roads of Lunenburg County, you’ll see many more than you realized are out there.
I know that was a long answer, but it’s a complex issue. And I don’t think we can treat the housing issue as one single issue. I think we have to really break it down and look at it for the various segments that I see.
And there may be others within the community, but that’s the way I think it has to be and the way that I’m committed to work on it.
And it’s certainly not something I think that’s being discussed necessarily at the municipal level at MODL.
M-W: And I think that the need for cooperation, particularly around the unhoused and the low-market or off-market housing, that has to be a cooperative effort. I don’t think that one municipality should deal with that.
If you look at in Bridgewater, because I did some volunteering with the shelter there last winter and providing food. And when you talk to them and look at the numbers, half of the people that are going to the shelter are from outside the Town of Bridgewater. So we’re kind of pushing the problem to the more concentrated municipalities where there’s a town and people are close to work and all of those things and some of the services that are needed.
But those are residents from the municipality that we need to take care of. And I don’t think one municipality should be working on it independently of the other. So that collaboration and cooperation to solve that issue I think are really necessary, particularly on the unsheltered residents that we have.
And it states, quote, the anti-racism and diversity coordinator will lead the development and implementation of proactive diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives. The coordinator will work with the Lunenburg County Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination Committee to develop and implement a strategic plan to address racism and discrimination within our communities, end quote.
What do you see as the major challenges to address diversity, equity, and inclusion in MODL?
M-W: I think the biggest challenge is trying to find a structure that will allow the person and the committee to do the work that they think is needed. I think it’s a really awkward system.
And, you know, I did have conversations with the person that held that position and met with him in concert with the Lunenburg County Community Fund because that was something we were concerned about. And had really, really good, I was really impressed with his capacity, his understanding, and his experience in the work.
I don’t know all the reasons why he chose to leave, but I think that the structure, when you’re responsible to five municipal units and have five, you know, groups challenging the work, and I would say that those probably the municipalities are, those five municipal units, are at different levels of understanding and appreciation of what is needed to be done.
I think it’s really an awkward structure to work in. And I don’t know what the answer to that is. But I think that it does point to some of the challenges of doing the work.
I’m big on shared service. I’m very committed to that. But I think for this kind of position, it was very, it’s a very difficult structure to work within.
Beyond that, the issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion in our community are big issues. I hear it. I’ve heard it when I talk to people on the doorsteps.
It’s very subtle, the kind of, you know, undertone of racism that we hear, but it does exist here. We’ve seen evidence of it in some of the activities this summer in the town of Bridgewater, painting of the steps, and those kinds of things. It does need to be addressed, but I think at the government level, we have to, I think, really rethink how we’re going to manage a person between the units like that.
Whether you can set it up and give it more, the position more autonomy with a responsibility to a committee, I don’t know that. Those are details that are covered under Municipal Government Act. I’ve looked at it, but I haven’t studied that.
But I think that, I hope someone’s done a really good exit interview to find out what are the underlying issues so that that can be addressed as we go forward.
M-W: I’m not sure I have a good answer for that.
I think that our discussions at the Lunenburg County Community Fund Board were around how do we get at some of these issues? And we have spent quite a bit of time trying to explore that with the Multicultural Association, with the person in the position with the municipal units. And with some other community groups like the YMCA that’s been doing some work as well. And we have, in doing that, you really start to realize that there’s probably a generational change that needs, if you deal with children and help them understand the value of a variety of people with different experiences, and different colored skin, different language, different choices in the life that they live and how they live their lives, then you recognize that that’s an education process that’s generational.
That’s a long-term investment. So I don’t think I personally have a really good answer for that. I think this is a conversation that you need to bring all of those groups together and start saying, okay, where do we work at dealing with this?
The other thing that I think was missing, a very big piece that’s missing in that strategy, is bringing in the business community.
Because if you look at where we’re starting to see some of that diversity within our workforce, there’s lots of things that are going on there that we perhaps need to support businesses in how they play a role in this. And I think they have the on-ground experience of finding housing, having people be retained, how they equip their own employees to deal with the kind of racist comments that sometimes surface when people are front-facing in a retail setting or in a service sector. I think businesses have a really key role to play in that.
And they’re not represented very well, I don’t think, in the current discussion.
The 2024 budget for MODL has over $10 million earmarked for protective services, the vast majority of which is for that RCMP contract. At the last Police Advisory Board meeting this summer, there was communication given to the board that their province is currently undergoing a policing review that will re-examine the provincial policing model. And also the Mass Casualty Commission report cites several ways in which the current policing model and contract is not adequately addressing community safety in our province.
Do you think that the current policing model and this service agreement is best serving and keeping MODL residents safe?
M-W: You know, a couple of my friends are retired police officers and have served in the police capacity. And a few of them have asked me, does policing ever come up in your discussion when you’re on the doorstep? And I can honestly say, I’ve canvassed now over 2,000 doors, or almost 2,000 doors. Policing has never once been raised.
We assume that we’re covered for police service. And I think that that, I think that points to an important point here, that we’re not really, from a community point of view, people assume we have the service. Whether we have the right service, whether, what reforms need to take place, I don’t really have a good answer for that.
I’ve talked to lots of people about, trying to even understand the arrangements that have been made between the province and the municipalities. It’s very complicated. I mean, we have an agreement, but here, you know, there’s lots of crossover between the town of, for example, the Town of Bridgewater and MODL in terms of service, because they have bought on to each other.
If there’s serious situations, often you’ll see both RCMP and town police. If it’s close to town, they’re both there. So from a resident’s point of view, they think, you know, that there’s, you know, good cooperation between all of that, that they’re going to be covered if they need to call.
And I’m probably not quite correct in saying I’ve not heard anything. I’ve heard a couple of incidents where people have long delays in getting RCMP to come to them, but generally it’s not really raised as an issue. So back to your real question about, you know, is this a good, I can’t answer that.
I don’t know. I think it’s a struggle to figure out what’s the best level of service we need. And I think the government has opened it up with a review of what services are needed and what that cost sharing is going to be.
I think that policing, and if you’ve talked to any police officer, they’ll tell you that policing has changed dramatically. We’ve got huge mental health issues. People get called out for, or police get called for mental health issues, safety checks, all kinds of issues that traditionally haven’t been in the line of police work.
And I think policing has to, there’s a training and need for how you deal with those situations and a different approach to what’s needed in communities. I hope that all of that will come under the discussion. I don’t think I have a really good answer, other than I understand it’s very complicated.
It is under review from the province. And I think there are issues at the municipal level with, you know, are all the positions at the municipal, in our municipality at the RCMP level, are they all being filled? My understanding is there’s a lot of positions that aren’t being filled because of the way the contract is set up. And so when we think we have full service from RCMP, we probably don’t on some days.
We probably don’t, is my understanding. So that points to some open, some need for really good discussion and renegotiation on what level of service we’re receiving for the money we’re spending. Are we getting full value for the almost, I think it’s almost $10 million, $9.4 million or something, million dollars that we’re spending for policing? Are we getting that full value? I can’t answer that, but that’s a question I think needs to be asked.
And I think if we’re not getting full value, then we need to figure out where are the weaknesses there? Where are the points where we’re not getting value? And how can that be addressed?
So what do you see as climate change’s biggest threat to MODL? And what role do you think municipal governments play in mitigating it?
M-W: MODL has sat as one of their strategic priorities in the last four years as climate change and declared a climate emergency. And I’ve thought a bit about that and dug into it a bit. Again, it’s a big issue.
All levels of government are addressing it. And for us, the two big areas probably are in emissions from cars and in emissions from energy use in our homes. Those are the two big areas at the municipal level where the municipal government here, MODL, has looked at and looking at how you address that.
In a rural community, that’s very challenging because we all drive to get to places.
I’ve heard lots about EV vehicles in my discussions with people. But I think that going forward, what MODL should do, because I’ve struggled a bit, I think that there are some, like housing is not a priority. And I think it needs to be a priority.
You can only have so many priorities. We only have so much resources to work with. But I think the climate change piece needs to now become a filter that whatever decisions MODL is doing, that filter of what are the implications for climate change in that decision? That’s a filter that we just automatically put on our decision making.
And then then you start to deal with those particular decisions and how that may be implicated. So, for example, on the housing issue, if we’re going to be involved in housing, what kind of housing? How can we put that climate change filter on development of housing? So then we look at alternative energy sources to deal with heating, home heating. That filter becomes the way we make decisions going forward, as opposed to separating out as a strategic initiative.
I think it should just be the filter we use.
This organization does receive significant funding from all levels of government, but as I mentioned, requires heavy lifting from community members to make it a complete solution. It’s not really a complete solution to public transit. Is developing some sort of transit plan with the other municipalities a priority for you? And if so, how can we develop a viable and sustainable transit option in our community? It is a priority for me.
Yeah, it’s one of the things that I’ve committed to. And on my website, you can read about public transit as one of the priorities. So, again, there’s been lots of work done.
And first of all, Community Wheels, an amazing organization. To me, they’ve really proved that the volunteer sector can figure ways to do things that government can’t. I think. End of story, you know, they’ve been able to figure that out.
And yes, they’ve been diligent, unbelievable amount of volunteer efforts gone into securing funding to expand the service. But we are, there’s still lots of areas that it needs to be expanded. We just completed, because I’m a volunteer at the YMCA board, we’ve just completed a study of the needs of recreation within the broader community, Lunenburg County, over the next 10 years.
Looking at what the Y does and how we can provide more service. And one of the barriers that has repeatedly come up in that, and that was through public, you know, some surveying that was done by the consultant that did the work, was transportation. And we know from our youth programming at the Y, that transportation is a limitation.
It’s great for the kids that are using the service in town. But we have lots of youth that would like to come to it that need to be transported from New Germany or Petite or Riverport or Blockhouse or any of the other communities, and transportation becomes a limitation. So, and we know from what the usage of Lunenburg Wheels is, that there are many people that need this kind of support as well.
So I think it is a really, and I think we need to stop thinking about it. I think we have to think about it as an investment in our community, as opposed to a cost. And it’s an investment in how we grow our community, and how we offer the services to people that are needed. Now, having said all that, there, I did listen to the council proceedings and read the report that was done that looked at how you could extend out the public’s transport system, using the town of Bridgewater as kind of the core, and then how you start to build it out from there.
And the building out means that you need to have fixed routes that look at capturing Hebbville, Wileville, and the Osprey Ridge development area. And how can we tie that into the Bridgewater system? Because I think it’s ridiculous if we think about duplicating service, and we need it to be, we need for the users, it has to be seamless. You could get Lunenburg County Wheels from New Germany, and hook into the system that could take you around town, or out to Osprey Village.
If you were in Petite, how you can hook in with Lunenburg Wheels, and get to town, and use the public service to get you perhaps out to Osprey Village. So, the study looked at how that could be. The work is done.
Now it’s a question of how you implement it. And that system, that the current study has looked at, isn’t about extending it completely outside. You have to start building, I think, it has to be built out in a very logical way, based on population density, and how you link up some of the other municipal units with it.
As well as looking at the density outside the town of Bridgewater, which are in the municipality, meaning Hebbville, Wileville, and the Osprey Village. I think the work, the initial work has been done. And I think it is a question of finding the cooperation between, establishing the cooperation between the town and the municipality, to see how they could put it together.
Because I think ideally, it would be a system that’s cooperatively done, between the town, and the municipality, and Lunenburg County Wheels. Great. Well that’s all I have, so I want to thank you so much, Alistair, for sitting down with me this morning.
M-W: Well, I mean, I spent 38 years running a business here, and listened to a lot of people. So I think I have a good understanding of what’s important to people.
And the knocking on doors has been, over the last couple of months, has been very valuable in kind of reinforcing what’s important to people. And I’ve also followed the council meetings for a year and a half, and listened to all the proceedings, and attended a lot of the meetings. So I think I’m pretty well versed on what has been done, and also what can be done, looking ahead, based on what work has been done.
So I think I’m ready to do this job, and I’d be delighted to be able to serve the community.
