Key takeaways from the first Atlantic Local Government Ministers' Meeting

Last week, municipal leaders from across Atlantic Canada met with provincial ministers to discuss the challenges and priorities facing communities across the region. Sacha Sen, Executive Director of the Federation of PEI Municipalities, joins us tonight to tell us more about the meeting and what it might mean for island communities. Good to see you. Good to see you too. So this was the first of its kind, this meeting. Tell us more about what was on the list of priorities. So, well, this was, you rightly mentioned, this was first of its kind. The four Atlantic associations from PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, we came together. We have been coming together to discuss shared priorities and, you know, shared municipal issues. And we decided to bring, you know, involve the provincial government into these conversations. So we had discussions ranging from harassment and civility in municipal governments to infrastructure and cell coverage, which is an important issue in rural Atlantic Canada. So these are some of the issues that we did discuss, and it was very productive discussions with the local government ministers and the government representatives. What is the idea behind sort of banding together, cooperating, and bringing in the governments to sort of really listen to some of those key concerns and shared concerns? I think it is about speaking as a unified voice of municipalities across the region because Atlantic Canada as a region, we have similar issues and concerns when it comes to municipal governments, be it infrastructure investments, be it harassment and incivility, which is also kind of common across the country from coast to coast to coast. But as a region, we are pretty unique. And we think that, you know, when we come together to discuss these issues, there might be a potential solution to some of these issues by working together, or at least we should have more robust conversations and collaborations in these areas. Stronger together. Stronger together, exactly. Did you feel like you were heard, that you were listened to at the meeting? I think so. I think this was very productive engagement with the provincial government. And I think we would like to see more and more of these engagements in the future because cell coverage is an important topic for rural Atlantic Canada where you don't have full coverage. And that's an economic issue as well. It's an economic infrastructure. So we need to come together to discuss, you know, like what are the ways we can advocate to the federal government and how to increase the investments or, you know, how to solve the issue of lack of cell coverage in rural Atlantic Canada. Boy, that's been a big issue for quite some time here on the island. Absolutely, yes. So it is an issue that also affects New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. So some of the other issues you mentioned, concerns about harassment, increasingly hostile public interactions. What needs to change to protect councillors and mayors and encourage people to put their name forward to run in the first place? I wish I had a clear answer for you here, Louise, but I think it's a systemic change which is required. We need to encourage people to have faith in democracy and representative democracy and decision-making, whether municipal, provincial or federal. I think politicians from all levels of government are facing harassment of some sort and incivility has increased. And that's not good for democracy in general. However, I think for municipal governments, since they're closest to the people, you can see it more in local council meetings, town hall meetings, where things can really become extremely difficult to manage. I think we need to think about policies and framework in place that will actually protect, you know, people running for municipal offices and acting as councillors and mayors. As communities face rising costs, of course, for infrastructure, roads, water, other services, are municipalities being given the funding and powers they need, or is there too much financial burden still being placed on especially smaller municipalities? Of course, there is, you know, the funding is always required. You know, there's not enough dollars on the table to provide all the services. However, as you know, in PEI, we have smaller municipalities with limited tax base, and that's not enough for them to provide all the services they need. And even with New Brunswick, with full municipal incorporations largely, and Nova Scotia, they still have infrastructure issues. And recent Atlantic Economic Panel reports suggest that infrastructure barriers can discourage investments, you know particularly in the in the businesses and and and my views is that you know if we need a stronger Atlantic Canada we need to look into infrastructure investments as something we need to do in the future to make sure that we have robust economic development in the future. What about the idea of pooling resources in terms of you know you mentioned Atlantic Canada, you meet as a whole small region of Canada. Do you have more strength working together and putting forward proposals sort of as a team, as an Atlantic team? Absolutely. We are stronger together. You know, look at, you know, if we really look at each of these provinces, we don't have the scale in order to advocate big in Ottawa. But when we come together, you know, together we have over 30 MPs from the region. We have over six cabinet ministers from the region. So we speak in one voice, we become more stronger. And Ottawa will listen to us when we speak in one voice. For example, you know, could there be an infrastructure fund dedicated to Atlantic Canada? Possibly, if we advocate together for that. The Atlantic Economic panel report suggested for one billion dollars of prosperity fund and that prosperity fund could include in infrastructure investment in the future and I strongly believe that you know Atlantic Canada as a region has a lot of potential that needs to be realized but that potential can only be realized when we stay stronger and speak in unified voice. Such as that, I appreciate you coming in thanks so much for your time. Thank you so much.