Each year, the Province of Nova Scotia provides equalization grants to municipalities with less-than-average fiscal capacity. The unconditional transfer is based on a formula that compares a municipality's needs and ability to pay. In the current fiscal year, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality received $16.7 million, which amounted to 52 percent of all the equalization money given out in the entire province. The next largest recipients were Amherst at $1.2 million, and New Glasgow at $1.0 million. Put another way, CBRM got 14 times as much money as the next largest recipient. The numbers for 2009-2010 are expected to be similar....

18 December, 2009
The Supreme Court of Canada refusal to hear the Cape Breton Regional Municipality's equalization lawsuit was not as predictable as the rising of the sun this morning. But it was close. The lawsuit was cynical ploy by a mayor who likes to posture as a scrapper for the little guy, but refuses to do the hard work needed to reach political solutions to the little guy's problems.
  • Contrary to popular belief, even a total victory for CBRM would not have brought the municipality a single dime. It didn't even ask for money.
  • In any case, the lawsuit had no chance of success. Aside from Mayor John Morgan and his pricey Toronto constitutional lawyer, Contrarian has been unable to find a single lawyer who thought it had any chance of success.
  • Although the case suffered a mercifully early death—it was thrown out before trial—the mayor's insistence on appealing to the highest court in the land frittered away at least $500,000 in legal bills, and wasted three five years that could better have been spent seeking a political solution. During that time, CBRM ran up another $60 million $100 million in debt its citizens cannot afford.
  • The mayor now says he will seek a political solution, but he is playing a weaker hand, having demonstrated that his constitutional claims lack legal validity.
I believe the municipality has a case for greater provincial assistance in meeting basic service needs. I hope the Dexter Government, financially strapped as it is, gives the problem a fair hearing. But the mayor's legal adventure not only delayed a solution, it encouraged the worst impulses of Cape Breton's culture of dependency, and it reinforced the rest of the world's weary stereotype of Cape Bretoners as people with their hands out. In all these respects, it did a disservice to the very citizens Morgan claims to champion. Elaboration after the jump.

18 December, 2009

Contrarian reader Kirby McVicar offers an interesting take on Mayor John Morgan's problems with the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society: "The mainlanders are out to screw us all!" This is what I call Mayor Morgan's race card. Morgan says the Halifax/Ottawa bunch are keeping Cape Breton down with unfair distribution of wealth, with judges who are political appointees, and by using ECBC as a political tool that lets "outsiders" and "mainlanders" have it all. Cries of "Go, John, go!" can be heard from 80% of the kitchens in CBRM. And when the mainland media take on Johnny-Boy's opinions, you'll hear this same group say,...

17 November, 2009

Jane Purves writes: I'm amazed that a man who has been mayor, i.e., in the higher echelons of the establishment, for what? ten years? can still get away with being considered anti-establishment....

16 November, 2009

CBRM Mayor John Morgan has convinced Jim Meek of the Chronicle-Herald, Wendy Bergfeldt of CBC-Cape Breton, and Gillian Cormier of AllNovaScotia.com that the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society is trying to punish him for criticizing a judicial decision. Nonsense. Anyone can criticize a judicial decision. Lawyers do it all the time. Even the most cursory review of Morgan's comments makes it clear that his offense was not criticizing a decision but impugning the impartiality of Nova Scotia judges in general, and Supreme Justice John Murphy in particular. Morgan's comments came in an interview with CBC-Cape Breton's Information Morning host Steve Sutherland on April...

15 November, 2009