One thing has become rather clear in the three months since Andy Fillmore was sworn in as Halifax’s latest mayor: The man does not like to lose. Can’t accept it, it seems. Since taking over from Mike Savage on November 6, 2024, riding a campaign where the former Ottawa backbencher claimed 42% of the mayoral vote—and after winning election three times as a Liberal MP during the party’s turn in government—it might be reasonable to conclude that Fillmore has forgotten the feeling entirely, like a New Year’s Resolutioner on their first January jog in 10 years. Because twice in (almost) as many weeks now, Fillmore has had to sit with things not going his way. And the latest instance bodes ill for how he plans to lead the HRM council in the years to come.
This Tuesday, as The Coast’s Matt Stickland reported, Fillmore found himself on the losing end of a contested vote over the Windsor Street Exchange redesign proposal. The project had been debated since 2019, first as a (mostly federally-funded) means of moving more transport trucks in and out of Fairview Cove, and later swelling to include Halifax Water infrastructure upgrades and—as HRM council’s thinking on issues like climate change and road use evolved—a new look that would prioritize buses, bikes and people over cars to align with Halifax’s big-picture plan to make itself a sustainable city.
As the Windsor Street Exchange plan grew in scope, so did its budget—from roughly $46 million (of which Halifax would pay $10 million) to $89 million (of which Halifax would foot nearly $54 million, a fivefold increase). The sticker shock proved too bitter a pill to swallow for a majority of councillors. In the end, council sided 8-6 in favour of scrapping the redesign, based on concerns that, in addition to the project’s ballooning costs, the most recent design renderings still failed to meet HRM council’s priorities—a point council thought they had expressed to HRM staff last summer.
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Fillmore was among the six who voted to go ahead with the Windsor Street Exchange, costs be damned, along with councillors Patty Cuttell, Nancy Hartling, David Hendsbee, Trish Purdy and Janet Steele. Their prevailing argument was that a plan—any plan, even a flawed one—was better than doing nothing. Especially if it meant losing out on $36 million of federal funding. (Councillors Sam Austin, Shawn Cleary, Virginia Hinch, Tony Mancini, Kathryn Morse, Jean St-Amand, Laura White and John A. Young voted to ditch the WSX redesign. Councillors Cathie Deagle Gammon, Becky Kent and Billy Gillis were absent.)
Fillmore’s vote, in itself, isn’t the issue. We elect our mayor and council and trust that, after enough debate and provided with the right information, they will make the best call for Halifax. There’s plenty of room for disagreement within that social contract. And there is even room for second thought: Councillor Hendsbee has already motioned to revisit the vote on the grounds that three councillors were absent for it. Council will debate whether another vote is necessary at their next meeting. What’s more concerning—and frankly, embarrassing—is that Fillmore wasn’t content to lose the vote and regroup. He had to make a Facebook video about it.
The video
On Thursday, Fillmore posted a minute-long video to his Facebook and Instagram pages and their combined 26,000 followers. It was his first video since election day. “I am checking in with folks” on the Windsor Street Exchange, he wrote in an accompanying caption, “as I believe that residents want to see this Council take action and solve problems.”
Fillmore framed his video as a poll: “What do you think of this past Tuesday’s Halifax Council vote to scrap the overhaul of the Windsor Street Exchange?” he asked. Only it took about eight seconds of the video to conclude that, instead of seeking any input, Fillmore wanted a specific kind of input: Confirmation that he was right, and that his council colleagues fumbled the ball. He called the Windsor Street Exchange vote’s results “inexplicable,” and added that he was “quite shocked and disappointed” by the outcome.
“A hundred and seventy-five thousand vehicles a day pass through there,” he said. (Regional staff have actually put the number at 90,000 to 110,000 vehicles, but that is another matter.) “We need to do something now or it’ll only get worse. We need to do something now or it’ll only get more expensive.” He concluded by encouraging his followers to reach out to their respective councillors “and tell them what you think about this.”
Set aside the man-in-his-car staging of the video, and the optics are still more than a bit odd: A mayor willing his followers to email his coworkers to tell them why he was right. It’s giving… Elon Musk vibes, if I’m honest. And not the early 2000s kind, when we didn’t know better. Fillmore’s post-vote trial balloon is like the kid who loses a game of pick-up basketball and takes the ball home with him. It reads most of all like a page from Fillmore’s past playbook as an MP.
Losing and calling “foul” might make sense in Fillmore’s old job, where debates over issues often fall along party lines and otherwise reasonable politicians, once entering office, succumb to the allure of “dunking” on their opponents, even when their opponent’s policy is the better one. But Fillmore isn’t in Ottawa anymore. And he and his councillors are meant to be a team, not adversaries. Using the same House of Commons tactics makes no sense at City Hall. It may already have caused a rift, however small or temporary, within his council.
“It’s a weird move to try and now orchestrate a pressure campaign when in the moment where it really mattered he said nothing at all,” councillor Sam Austin wrote on Reddit.
Fillmore campaigned on bringing change to City Hall. Sometimes, change starts from within.
This article appears in Feb 1-28, 2025.
Where did you get the numbers? They’re different from what has reported elsewhere
It’s a mistake by those who voted no. It will only get more expensive as well as losing out on federal money. Politics is the art of compromise and the naysayers haven’t learned that lesson.