When Texas-based professor Heywood Sanders came to Halifax last November and spoke to city council about the state of the convention business, he was treated shabbily as a CFA who doesn’t know anything about Halifax. One objection that was raised several times was that Sanders might know a lot about the convention centre business in […]
convention
Posted inNews + Opinion
Rachel Brighton gets the convention centre entirely wrong
Rachel Brighton, publisher of Coastlands: The Maritimes Policy Review and columnist in the Chronicle-Herald, is a knowledgable and insightful commentator on Nova Scotia’s often-foolish attempts at economic development. So it’s with great disappointment to read her commentary in todays Chronicle-Herald, “Halifax convention centre looks like a good bet.” But, now that it looks like the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Feds give $51.4 million for Halifax convention centre
The federal government has committed $51.4 million for a new convention centre in Halifax. Defence minister Peter MacKay made the announcement this morning at an $80/plate Chamber of Commerce breakfast attended by about 200 of the business and political elite of Nova Scotia. Notably absent from the event were NDP MPs and MLAs from the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Percy Paris praises Scott Ferguson’s improper behaviour
How hard up is economic development minister Percy Paris for a new convention centre? So hard up that he’ll shove any impropriety on the part of Trade Centre Limited officials—financial, ethical, what have you—down the memory hole. Monday, I detailed how Scott Ferguson, president of TCL, had been warned by the TCL auditor to stop […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Does Trade Centre’s involvement kill convention centre proposal?
Trade Centre Limited president Scott Ferguson was fully aware of the city of Halifax’s back-door loan policy to Power Promotions, says Suzanne Fougere, Ferguson’s spokesperson. But TCL had no reason to suspect the loans were improper, says Fougere. “We were given direction by HRM to release the funds from the Metro Centre account. In the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The Halifax convention centre is dead in the water
Last week, CBC blogger and Twitterer extraordinaire Kady O’Malley chronicled an astonishing PR push by the federal conservatives, an unapologetic celebration of a spoils system of government. The Conservatives rolled out 70-80 Economic Action Plan celebrations, each in a Conservative riding. They ranged from an underpass in Horseshoe Bay, British Columbia to new locker rooms […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Feds still silent on convention centre funding
Update, Thursday 8am: The Chronicle-Herald is reporting that Saturday’s deadline has been extended for three months: http://bit.ly/hQ9JFq Developer Joe Ramia says that this Saturday, January 15, is the deadline for the three levels of government to agree to finance the convention centre he proposes to build in downtown Halifax. Weeks ago, Halifax city council and […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
City, province reach agreement on convention centre financing
[image-1] The city and province have signed a deal for financing for the proposed convention centre, Infrastructure minister Bill Estabrooks and mayor Peter Kelly announced today. The short of the agreement: the city completely backed down on two negotiating points, and nearly completely backed down on a third. As a result, the city faces potentially unlimited risk for funding continued convention centre operations, faces a potential $12 million to purchase the existing convention centre and has agreed to a confusing property tax formula that reduces city revenues from standard property tax assessments on commercial properties. The new deal is still
Posted inNews + Opinion
Risk is sticking point in convention centre negotiations
There’s still no deal between the city and province for financing the proposed new convention centre. Halifax council rejected a “compromise” offer from the province Tuesday, and sent staff negotiators back to the province with a counter offer. Council met in secret for over five hours Tuesday, the bulk of the time discussing the convention […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council votes to move forward with convention centre negotiations
I captured last night’s council meeting on video. Here’s the relevant 25 minutes, worth a watch: The Simpsons 412 I watched council deal with the issue for about 12 hours yesterday, until they kicked me out to go into secret deliberations. As council does after secret deliberations, they came back into public session and voted […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Halifax council debates convention centre
Halifax council is having an all-day meeting about all things convention centre. I’m live-blogging it via Twitter, at @twitcoast. Later today, I’ll have a blog post recapping the day. Related Stories
Posted inNews + Opinion
Trade Centre Limited losses skyrocket by half a million dollars, partly due to failed Halifax Common concerts
Trade Centre Limited, the provincial crown corporation that runs the convention centre, had an operating loss of $622,558 lat year, almost three times its budgeted loss and nearly six times the previous year’s loss of $109,969. Once depreciation is factored in, last year’s operating loss was $2.1 million, compared to a budgeted loss of $1.9 […]
