Andy Fillmore is going to City Hall as Halifax’s new mayor with the support of just 15.6% of eligible voters. Credit: The Coast

  District 14 was held most recently by Lisa Blackburn who is leaving municipal politics, leaving her seat empty. This district still spans the north western communities in the HRM including places like the Plains of Hammonds, upper and regular, and the Sackvilles middle and upper.

This district is also home to Lucasville, one of Nova Scotia’s long standing African Nova Scotian communities which was founded by Black Loyalists after the War of 1812. When Halifax was amalgamated in 1996 lines were drawn on maps to demark where communities, towns and villages were prior to amalgamation. Those blue signs throughout the HRM welcoming you to various communities are a result of that late ’90s mapping exercise.

Unfortunately, in 1996, the lines were drawn incorrectly, which was discovered by community members Debra Lucas and Iris Drummond when they tried to get the HRM to put up some of those blue “Welcome to Lucasville” signs. After some organizing and lobbying, the city corrected the boundaries for Lucasville in 2016.

In order to determine which candidates running in District 14 would pay attention to detail and prevent past issues like bad mapping from causing issues in the future, The Coast sent out a substantial questionnaire to Candidates to see what each candidate knows about the issues facing the city ahead of the municipal election on Oct. 19. The Coast followed up with more detailed questions to test each candidate’s policy chops.

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Unfortunately, none of the candidates in district 14 bothered to fill it out. But hey, at least The Coast is not the only ones being ignored by these candidates.

John A. Young

John A. Young is a retired public servant having worked in provincial government for 24 years. He is currently the executive director of the Lucasville Greenway Society. He responded to our survey well after the deadline, but The Coast’s Brendyn Creamer has provided this summary of his answers.

Young failed the most basic test—a true or false on whether our changing climate is an urgent issue that needs addressing, to which he answered false. While he argued we should inspect municipal infrastructure before committing to new development, such as reducing traffic congestion, he didn’t state how he would address these issues. He also showed a distinct lack of understanding of major municipal issues, such as the regional plan review. To his benefit, he took a thoughtful approach to policing reform, stating that police should work with communities and collaborate with mental health services to find the best approach. He also focused quite heavily on Halifax’s homelessness issue, creating distinct categories for unhoused and homeless people without explaining why. His idea is to subsidize units in each new development for the former, while the latter would live on crown land that has mental health, addiction, and employability services available. This categorization is genuinely concerning, as it seems Young would want to create a two-tiered system for an already vulnerable sect of Halifax’s population, and his suggestions would require support from other levels of government—a fact he fails to mention in the survey.

John A. Young’s website can be found here: Facebook

John Martin Walker

Has not completed The Coast’s candidate questionnaire. If candidates complete the questionnaire after the deadline of September 18, The Coast will attempt to complete a review in time for October’s election. Until then, we cannot determine if this candidate is worth your vote. If you would like The Coast to assess John Martin Walker’s potential as a councillor, please ask him to complete the questionnaire.

John Martin Walker’s website can be found here: Facebook

Edward Giles

Has not completed The Coast’s candidate questionnaire. If candidates complete the questionnaire after the deadline of September 18, The Coast will attempt to complete a review in time for October’s election. Until then, we cannot determine if this candidate is worth your vote. If you would like The Coast to assess Edward Giles’ potential as a councillor, please ask him to complete the questionnaire.

Edward Giles does not appear to have a website.

Analysis

John A. Young’s campaign has an official agent that is not himself, and his Facebook has been updated more recently than Sept. 4, 2024. This implies Young’s campaign is the most organized and most likely to win. But this is a wild guess due to a relatively poor showing from District 14.

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This article appears in Oct 1 – Nov 6, 2024.

Matt spent 10 years in the Navy where he deployed to Libya with HMCS Charlottetown and then became a submariner until ‘retiring’ in 2018. In 2019 he completed his Bachelor of Journalism from the University...

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