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.
Suzanne Lohnes-Croft currently sits as a councillor on Mahone Bay town council. She was elected during a by-election in November 2022. From 2013-2022, Lohnes-Croft served as the Liberal MLA for the electoral district of Lunenburg.
Our interview with the other mayoral candidate in Mahone Bay, Tony Sampson, is available here.
The interview is available in full either in audio or the transcription below.
Time Stamps
0:02:00 Coastal Protection
0:06:55 Housing
0:11:46 Anti-racism coordinator and committee
0:19:02 Policing and community safety
0:24:50 Public transit and transportation
0:28:14 Climate Change
0:33:57 Conclusion
This interview has been edited for style and clarity.
Barnacle: Well, thanks for sitting down this afternoon with me, Suzanne.
I just want to start off by asking you if you can tell me about a part of Mahone Bay that makes you proud to live in this town.
Suzanne Lohnes-Croft: I love how it, everybody, when you say you’re from Mahone Bay, they say, oh how fortunate you are that you live in Mahone Bay. I just, I love visiting that town and I, or some people say, oh I, I used to vacation there when I was a child, or you know, oh I have a friend that lives there and I love coming to visit, and people love the Mahone Bay experience.
It’s a small town, it’s very walkable, you know, it has unique shops, wonderful restaurants, the people are friendly. Like sometimes if you’re walking down the street and you say hello to a tourist, they sort of stop and they give you a funny look because they’re not used to people just randomly saying hello. Often you can strike up a great conversation with somebody from another province or town or country and, it’s all because, you know, the friendly environment Mahone Bay is.
: Now my first question has to do with coastal protection. About five years ago the provincial government passed the Coastal Protection Act that sort of had two goals.
One, to protect our coastal environments, but also to protect new developments from the coastal threats, such as sea level rise, coastal flooding and erosion, and storm surge. As we know, that has since been scrapped. Surrounding municipalities, notably MODL, has passed their own revisions to their land use bylaw and municipal planning to implement their own coastal protection.
And Mahone Bay seems to be leading in some of the forward-thinking projects on coastal protection. Right. I’m thinking mainly about the living shoreline here in town.
I know you weren’t necessarily there at the beginning of this project, but can you talk about about the shoreline project, how that’s been working on that and what the reception of town has been?
L-C: Sure. It’s rather interesting to look at it, isn’t it? To figure out why this works and why it doesn’t work. But, and I don’t know all the secrets behind that, but we were approached by BayCat to try it, to see how, a trial and, and it, the first part has been done.
And it has, we did see, you know, through some of our water issues last summer, which, and hurricanes, we, we did see that it held up. So, it’s quite interesting that people couldn’t believe that, you know, that natural type of mitigation would work. A lot of naysayers, but I think people see how it has worked.
The town of Mahone Bay does not have their own plan, but they feel that they have included it in their land use documents. And that they know the specific problems in Mahone Bay and they want to deal with it as a town. It came as a surprise that the government did shut it down.
I think a lot of people feel very strongly that it needs to be put in place. That won’t happen. And I, of course, was in the government at the time that they passed that.
And, I have to say, I was disappointed to see that, it was at the stage of working out the regulations and including a lot of public consultation because sometimes things have to be individualized for the community. Some communities have more coastal issues than, than others and, and a lot of problems. Like in MODL they’ve remedied it themselves.
They’ve had to really because they couldn’t depend on, you know, being able to control some of the building that has been going on. So, we are going to be adding to that. So, we feel it’s been successful and next year we are doing Edgewater Street and part of that Living Shoreline.
We’re going to do another section of it. So, we feel it’s successful and we really think that this, it’s, it’s more economic, but it’s also a natural type of mitigation for our erosion. It won’t solve every erosion problem.
You’re going to get freak storms, you know, these hundred year storms and whatnot that come in that are going to do damage that you can’t stop, but for the most part it seems to be working.
: Do you plan or how would you plan to collaborate with neighboring municipalities to encourage proactive and collaborative coastal protection?
L-C: That would have to go to the, to the council, to decide if, if they felt they had the need. I feel right now the feel of the council is that they have addressed it in their own land use bylaws and they feel they have what’s needed in Mahone Bay, they’re addressing it.
We’ve got different areas that are being worked on this year, you know, I mean, it’s not just the coast, you know, we have our waterways that lead to the coast, you know, that are, we need to address because it starts up there and it comes, it’s not all that comes in from the ocean and through the bay. A lot of our erosion in town and flooding problems start up at the other end of the town.
So it’s not just what we see as coastal, but it’s a bigger issue than that.
: So speaking about collaboration. Affordable housing and housing is primarily the responsibility of the provincial government and municipal planners are severely restricted by the Municipal Government Act. But municipalities still have many tools that they can use to improve affordability and build complete communities.
Local politicians are being asked more and more, I hear most candidates are being asked at the doorstep what they’re going to do to improve housing and affordability.You know, there’s local groups working, I know in Mahone Bay, the Mahone Bay Community Land Cooperative entered into an MOU with the council to grow co-op housing in the area. First off, can you define what affordable or attainable housing means to you and what a complete community looks like?
L-C: Well, affordable housing means different things to different people.
A builder may, a developer may see it as another way. I look at how much of your income is going towards housing and utilities because I think you have to combine utilities and housing together because you can have a house, but you need your power and you need your water and everything. So those all have a cost as well.
So if you’re renting something that’s inclusive, you know, that makes it more affordable depending on the price tag, of course. You know, the co-op, I think that that’s a great way for a small town like Mahone Bay to be able to do some affordable housing and help them with their own regulations and maybe getting some land at a reasonable price or free. I don’t know the parameters completely around that, but working with a group like that, you get to hear the voices of people who are very sincere on affordable housing.
And, I’ve gone to some of the workshops that they’ve had and, and meetings and I think they’re on track and, you know, I really like when we are able to help them with trying to find a piece of land that’s suitable and, you know, I hope this really comes because we don’t have that step-down housing. We do have our seniors housing in Mahone Bay. That now belongs – we used to take care of that – but now it’s the province that looks after that and those. They’re pretty outdated and they’re not accessible.
And I think, I don’t know if it’s too expensive to [renovate]. They’ve already been renovated to some extent, but not necessarily for accessibility. Like with climate change too, you can’t put air conditioners in the windows, affordable air conditioners, you know, the ones that stand alone are much more expensive and you’re talking about people who have financial insecurities for the most part. So I would like to see something addressed there myself because when you retire, you’re on a fixed income and I’d like to see some work done on them if it’s viable or we need to look at another type of seniors housing here in Mahone Bay.
And, you know, just having some kind of, I look at myself, I’ve been here most of my life and I don’t know if you watch my video, but I want this to be my forever community. And there will come a time when I can’t stay in my home and I, where do I go? I don’t want to go to Bridgewater. I don’t want to go to Lunenburg.
I want to stay in Mahone Bay.
And it’s the same with having a grocery store in Mahone Bay. I say, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. Then where would people who don’t have transportation go to get their basic groceries, you know? So, I really would like to see us looking into a way of attracting a builder or whatnot.
We have Cara Lane. I don’t know if you know that project received federal and provincial funding with a private builder who, some of the units are subsidized. It’s a mixture and I sort of like it rather than putting everyone who is of low income in one place, you know, a segregation almost to my way of seeing things.
When you have a builder part of your agreement with them could be so many affordable apartments.
: So last year, five municipal units agreed to come together to unify their anti-racism and diversity efforts with a shared coordinator and a joint committee. The position for the coordinator was filled, but after less than a couple of months, that person did step down and the job has recently been reposted.
I just want to share a quote from the job posting. 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 community.
How do you see Mahone Bay maybe better engaging with this position to support their voice and vision fairly?
L-C: Well, one of our initiatives going on in town right now is with the Mahone Nursing Home and they have brought in people from Kenya and they’re housed in our community. They shop in our community. They work in our community. And I think that is a great starter for us to be more inclusive, welcoming, and think of the equity and inclusion parts that we may not always think of.
So, you know, it’s having people around your table with that lens because we have a lot of token multiculturalism on the South Shore completely. Because it’s only been in recent years that we’ve had a lot of migrant workers and people coming to live here and to work from various cultures because we’re bringing people in especially in the healthcare field and in the forestry. Healthcare is really big. And sometimes we’re nice but we’re not welcoming to the extent where you invite people to your table to eat. So I think setting up opportunities, you know, community potlucks
I’ve picked up several people who are coming from the grocery store at different times with heavy bags of groceries and they’re walking up the hill to where they’re living and it’s a real challenge for them. So I’ve pulled off and at first I think they’re a little shocked that you offer them a ride, but you can see they’re struggling with their heavy load and you’d stop for anybody else in town that you knew.
I’ve a couple times, so I’ve gotten to meet a lot of them by just doing little acts like that, but that’s, that’s who I am.
I would do that, I do that with lots of people I see who don’t have a car and are struggling with their loads.
I think too, our school is a great opportunity because I used to work at Bayview School and you had very few families with, with another culture and even recognizing that culture. I can’t tell you how, I’m an early childhood educator, so I’ve been, and I used to teach early childhood educators how to be inclusive and develop a curriculum in their facility, years ago.
So I was doing that kind of work well back in the 80s and so when I walked in my granddaughter’s pre-primary class, I just could not believe the diversity in that classroom that was so visible and so hands-on.
Every play centre had recognition of a culture, a lot of Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian activities going on in the classroom area. And there were drums in a corner that they could try. Every culture has drums, it’s one of the amazing things about music. It’s a great introduction- everything from the heartbeat of Mother Earth to ceremonial.
Every corner there were, there were pieces of different cultures. I thought this is the start, bring them while they’re young. It takes conversations at home at the table. They’ll try different foods that they’re not usually familiar with. But it starts great conversations in the home.
You have to have family on site too when you have children, you know, because they leave school and they go home, and there’s a great opportunity to work with families as well. When I walk down the halls of Bayview, I see so many diverse representation in the school now, and in the staff, and also with the student body.
So that has opened up a whole new world. When I grew up in Mahone Bay, you rarely had anyone from another culture, so we, we just didn’t have those experiences, but I think if your child’s sitting next to another child, they get along, they play. They’re not judgmental, they learn it, right? I think our school is doing a wonderful job.
: So specifically with this coordinator position then shared amongst five municipal units, there might be competing priorities in terms of what the goals are of that position.
How will you make sure that that person feels supported, and like, they’re implementing proactive and good work specifically in town here?
L-C: Oh, well, I don’t know how much a role the mayors play, or you know, I haven’t, there will be representation from Mahone Bay, but it would be having a strong relationship liaison with the representative from our area to make sure I really feel. Where we do have a group of newcomers here, you know, to make sure that what are they lacking, what do they need? Does the grocery store sell products that they’re used to cooking with? What about, we don’t have any clothing stores here, but finding ways for them to be able to still practice the way they dress here, you know, you may have to find some ways to be more diverse or have opportunities where we can share their, their needs, and I think it’s conversations with the people who we are trying to welcome, and I don’t want to use the word fit in, because they shouldn’t have to fit in, they should be able to be who they are and be accepted, right?
: So, moving on from that, Mahone Bay currently receives their policing services through the Provincial Police Service Agreement with the RCMP, which includes that 70-30 cost-sharing agreement with the municipalities. It’s a 20-year agreement that was signed. Is this for me? Yes, it is, yeah.
A 20-year agreement that started in 2012. In Mahone Bay, the budget has over $400,000 earmarked for the RCMP contract, which represents about 50% of the total budget, according to the website. Police advisory boards across the province were advised this summer that the province is currently going through a provincial policing review that’s going to re-examine the policing model in the province.
Additionally, the Mass Casualty Commission report came out with many recommendations and addressed the fact that the current contract and policing model is not necessarily addressing community safety. In Mahone Bay last year, the Town Council convened a special meeting on the topic to discuss and speak with the RCMP here about what services are they actually providing, and in preparation for that meeting, you actually said, quote, I think we’re going to see some real changes in people dropping out of the RCMP agreements, end quote. So, do you think that the current policing model and the service agreement is best serving and keeping Mahone Bay residents safe?
L-C: It’s a real challenge because you have a budget and you have to stay, I think it’s an affordability issue, it really comes down to that.
When we did have our own police service, then we had a joint police service with Lunenburg that worked very well, but what happens is what you’re mandated to do from the top, right? So, you have to have a certain type of facility for a jail, for holding people, you have to have a certain way of locking your weapons and equipment up so that they don’t get in the wrong hands or they’re really secure. You have a whole set of rules that are very expensive and to fall within what a small municipality like Mahone Bay can afford is the reality of it. It all comes down to money, so unless there’s going to be an influx of money to afford, I think people may take opportunities to look at smaller towns like we have here and try and combine.
I don’t think a town like Mahone Bay could on its own afford it, but share a service like maybe Bridgewater and Mahone Bay, that type of thing, and I think there’s been over the years some conversation in that way and some people feel good about it, some people don’t. We don’t have 24-hour service, we’re guaranteed emergency service, but I do know that we are now at full capacity with staffing. We went for a period of time in this local area with our RCMP protection and, you know, there are a lot of people off on sick leave and maternity leaves and now they are pretty full at the academy in Regina that they’re training people, so we are fortunate.
We have our policing requirements that were allotted here in Lunenburg County, so I’ve seen more coverage, but, you know, people have to understand too that when you have a call here, you know, you’re on the time clock for, if we’re allocated 40 hours a week of police service, you know, if you have three police answering a call because of the seriousness of there are calls that you have to have backup and whatnot, you know, so if you have three people, that’s three hours every hour of police service you’re getting, right, and though they won’t leave you, won’t say, well, we can’t come and serve you because you’ve used your X hours, but it would be, it would have to be leveled off somewhere else in the month, so if you have certain issues and that take a lot of time, that really changes your needs, right, so it’s real numbers. It’s a real numbers game. I think it takes more than a council to make a decision like that.
That would have to take the community having some real strong consultation to see if it is more expensive, are they willing to pay that expense, or, you know, do they want things to remain as they are? I’d like to see what some of the changes are that they’re bringing forward, and is that going to be spun down to the municipal units that require it? Are they, are we going to pay the price tag for those changes, or is that going to be paid by the province and the federal government? Because I don’t, if it’s really hefty, you know, we may have to cut back on our hours, who knows, you know, we only have X number of dollars, and we have to, you know, we’re not allowed to run a deficit, so we have to figure it out somehow.
: So currently a major gap in public transit is being filled by Lunenburg County Wheels on the south shore, and that’s a community group and a non-profit. The organization does receive significant funding from all levels of government, however, it also requires heavy lifting from a number of volunteers to make it all happen, and it’s not necessarily a complete solution to public transit.
Is developing a transit plan a priority for you, and if so, how can we develop a viable and sustainable transit option that connects all of our communities in Lunenburg County?
L-C: I don’t think we could ever have sustainable. That’s with the cost of operating a transit system. I’ve been sitting on a steering committee since well before 2015 when we brought the maritime bus down to the south shore, and we are, we’re finally doing well.
It’s taken that time that we’re doing okay, and it’s still, it’s still backed by the provincial government. The community wheels, it’s serving the purpose, but I think it’s more about providing transportation at a reasonable cost for citizens than having a complete transit system. Some places have the population.
When we’ve done surveys, you know, people will say, yes, we need transit. Would you use it? No. So you have to have usership to make it sustainable, and sometimes sustainable means a fee that some people don’t find affordable.
You know, it’s like housing too. You know, there’s affordable housing. Well, it’s affordable maybe for some people, but it isn’t for others, and I think that the way this is set up right now, it seems to be working.
Is it the best solution? It’s the best solution for us right now. We’ve tried, multiple people have tried and tried. You know, we’ve got some real advocates for public transit in this area, and they’ve been working at it for a long time.
They’ve done a wonderful job as far as I’m concerned. Is this the best solution? Maybe not. It’s working right now, and the take-up is unbelievable, so you never know.
And what does transit, does the transit have to look like a bus that goes around to a circle in the community? Is that what transit is, or is it the best, is it affordable transportation for people who want to be more environmentally friendly, or people who have no other means of transportation? So I think we have to look at what is transit, what do we think? Is it a transit bus like Halifax City Transit, or I know in the Valley they have a transit system. Bridgewater’s got a population enough to support theirs, but I’m sure they have struggles too. So I think we have to look at transportation connectors, and that seems to be working to get that rural piece in, and getting people around.
: So I know we talked about coastal protection at the beginning, but I also just want to touch on climate change as a larger issue. That is also another issue that requires collaboration from all levels of government who are working on different adaptation and mitigation strategies, and Mahone Bay was really innovative and forward-thinking. I think 2019, town declared a climate change emergency by resolution, and amended its strategic plan to recognize the need for change to address climate change.
You know, this year in January, the solar garden went live, there’s the Living Shoreline project, there’s lots of initiatives in town, but there are constituents who voice concerns. Oftentimes those concerns are about cost. How do you balance the need for innovative climate projects, and climate projects that help meet climate targets that have been set by those various levels of government, with those voices and with those concerns?
L-C: Climate change mitigation is going to cost.
It doesn’t matter if it’s infrastructure, and it will always cost. It’s not going to come free, and a lot of it has a heavy price tag, and we’ve seen things double and triple since the pandemic. It’s going to be more about doing the right thing, and addressing climate change instead of holding off, and finding there are different ways you can address it too.
It’s how each of us, and I think we can all promote better ways of ourselves. It doesn’t always have to be big moments. It can be what each of us are doing individually in our homes and in our yards, and awareness that way, because people still don’t recycle properly, right? So it’s little things can add up to big things, but we still have to have our eye on green energy.
We may not see the results immediately, and everything has growing pains. You have to understand technology is always changing, so you can start a project and someone’s saying, oh well you know that’s old stuff now. But once you start, you see a project through, and everything has hiccups, and the thing is it’s not to repeat those same mistakes going forward.
I don’t think you can stop moving forward and wait for some, I don’t know, big infusion of money.
You have to make some tough decisions, because now’s the time you can get some grant money. And I’ve seen municipalities, like when we were first doing wastewater work and way back in the eighties, not wanting to get on board because of the cost. And the cost really was scary for these small municipalities. So some of us, like Mahone Bay, did get on board in the early years when they were offering grant money and we got through it, you And, some was painful. There were some surcharges on our utility bills but we at least addressed it and [didn’t] wait for magic money to fall.
So, sometimes you have to make decisions and bite the bullet and climate change, we really have to address it. And if we’re not moving forward with it, we have got a climate change committee that is very active in our community. I don’t know if you remember the tree planting that went on with the anniversary of the incorporation. There are many initiatives that are taking place – our urban forest program. There are ways of us addressing climate change and some may not be big and thrilling. We’re aware of our canopy here in Mahone Bay and the importance of trees too. It’s not all coastal, but I think everything is growing pains and you’ll always have naysayers. I think you take the best information you get and you do your best. If there are mistakes and you have to learn from your mistakes, it’s about moving forward and not dwelling on the past.
So I think that’s the only way small communities can address it and sometimes the naysayers are noisier than the silent majority, but you know, I think down the road when everything is going forward, you know, our wind farm and our solar garden, we’ll get there. There may be some hiccups and whatnot. I wasn’t there for, you know, the solar garden bit.
I came in when it was almost ready to go. So it’s a way we have addressed, you know, our need for green energy and it was a forward thinking project and, you know, we’ll just keep pushing forward. Great.
: I want to thank you for sitting down with me this afternoon, Suzanne. I do want to give you the last word. Is there anything else you’d want to share about your campaign or your platform?
L-C: Well, I’m really excited to be, you know, moving in this direction myself. You know, I really love this town. I want the best for this town. I want the best for – I want to be here.
I don’t want to have to, at some point, make a decision to leave this community because it’s just too costly and I think that’s something I hear from a lot of people. They, you know, your utilities, the cost of everything, the fixing of infrastructure and changing things in adaptation for climate change, it’s all going to cost money. We’ve been fortunate.
We’ve received a lot of wonderful grant money from the province and the feds and that has helped us really to do some forward thinking and planning to mitigate some of these issues. But, I want to be here until I can’t be here any longer and I want that for other people too. I don’t want to have to worry at night about paying my bills because so many people are fixed incomes in Mahone Bay, because a lot of people have come here to retire or they’ve lived here all their life and if we can somehow manage to slow down, although the world is going that way too, so I’m not unrealistic with that. I’m very hopeful that when our solar garden kicks in and we can produce enough energy for our community, and we’ll see a big difference in not having to increase, when others do.
