Bill No. 2 - Develop Nova Scotia Act. - Third Reading

MS. CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : I'm pleased to rise and say a few words about the Develop Nova Scotia Bill. As I said at third reading, I am interested and glad to see the place-making approach to economic development named and, at least to some extent, adopted by this government. That word is a bit of a buzzword right now, but it certainly signals an approach to economic development that focuses on building quality of life and attracting people and talent to come here, as the minister spoke about, focusing on communities. I have to say it does seem like a bit of a change of direction from the government's economic development strategy, which we heard this morning is based mostly on the Premier leaving Nova Scotia and going to China.

I hope this change in direction means that we'll be seeing investments in public services soon, to undo the cuts the government has delivered to the quality and affordability of life in Nova Scotia. I hope that paying attention to place-making will make the government reconsider a number of its policies, which are directly at odds with this idea, for example, around schools.

The province hasn't opened a single hub school. Hub schools are at the heart of something like a place-making strategy. They can create a bustling hub in a community with much-needed space for services, arts, and small business. Instead, the province continues to shut down small schools in favour of big schools, although I have to say we don't know what the province plans to do much at all with schools any more, nor do we have impact in that, without any thought to walkability, integrated mobility, or the province's role in community building.

It is disappointing, short-term thinking that is penny wise and pound foolish, and I certainly hope that Develop Nova Scotia signals a change to that.

I also very much support the expansion of the board to give regional representation, which is important, and I am disappointed the members did not choose to support my colleague's proposed amendment that would have made the commitment to regional representation explicit and legislated.

Develop Nova Scotia's new mandate is to be province-wide and it will be taking on problems that impact rural communities across the province, so there should be input from those regions all the way through the operations, including at its highest level.

The rural internet initiative is precisely that: a rural initiative. Having people on the board with local knowledge and local networks specific to each region of Nova Scotia will help make the best decisions and increase the likelihood that projects will be successful and responsive to local conditions.

We've heard from the minister, we've heard from Develop Nova Scotia in their consultations that this is exactly what they plan to do. They want to be responsive to projects, from those that are shovel-ready to those that have not even been contemplated yet. In order to do that, they have to understand the local circumstances on the ground, they have to understand the genesis of those projects, what the communities need, how those needs are best served.

I'd like to add that for the same reasons, I'd encourage Develop Nova Scotia to use proactive strategies to make sure there is diversity on the board and not just the usual suspects. With that said, I need to repeat, again, the deep concerns I have about the government's rural Internet plan altogether. As I've said before, Nova Scotia desperately needs to step up and take leadership with the rural Internet initiative, so I'm glad to see the investments that the government has announced and I'm glad to see the creation of Develop Nova Scotia.

Unfortunately, I fear this plan may be set up to replicate past failure. The minister said during Question Period in the last sitting that the infrastructure built with public money would be public infrastructure, but it has become clear that that is not the case. The minister also said this would not be a giveaway of public money to the big utilities, but there's nothing that we've seen in the mandate of Develop Nova Scotia or what we know of the Internet Funding Trust that gives us confidence in that assertion.

In 2007 when the Progressive Conservative Government spent $26 million to bring broadband to rural Nova Scotia, the majority of that money went to Eastlink and Seaside Wireless. The results were inadequate from the start and here we are still grappling with the same problem. Repeating the same market solutions to a textbook case of market failure, in the minister's words, doesn't make sense. The main difference between this plan and the 2007 plan is that the government is telling itself, and the rest of us, that it's going to negotiate better contracts than it did in 2007. Unfortunately, believing in being able to negotiate better contracts is a documented self-deception that governments across jurisdictions have told themselves, repeating past mistakes and entering into new public-private partnerships that waste public dollars.

Even if the Premier or the minister had been reading The Art of the Deal, it won't change the fact that in a fundamentally unprofitable market, again as acknowledged by the minister, there is no incentive for Eastlink, Bell, Seaside, or anyone else to significantly improve access or quality in the future. It's a market failure. Unfortunately, this is a recipe for endless government subsidy, high Internet prices, and poor service. It's sad because we don't have to look far, just to Saskatchewan, to see that SaskTel, a publicly-owned alternative, gives Saskatchewan the lowest prices and highest-rated customer satisfaction in Canada and delivers revenue to the province at the same time.

Internet affordability is a major issue in this province and we haven't heard the government say anything about it in their Internet strategy. We've heard about access but we have not heard about affordability. Even in the existing places where we do have access to Internet - like this House, as my colleague pointed out - we have some of the highest prices in the world. Canada has some of the highest prices in the world and Nova Scotia has some of the highest prices in Canada. This puts us at a disadvantage in the digital age, but there is no mention of affordability in Develop Nova Scotia's mandate regarding Internet, nor in any of the presentations that they made to the public.

The Eastern Ontario Regional Network, which members of the department have mentioned positively as a model for Nova Scotia, has a goal of delivering prices to rural residents that are comparable to urban residents, but that is an aspirational goal and not a commitment. We need it to be a commitment if we're going to say that we have addressed urban rural inequality in Internet access. Why would we spend all this money to bring Internet to the parts of the province that so badly need it if we can't be sure that they'll be able to afford it? And we shouldn't stop there. We should be lowering prices for all Nova Scotians.

In closing, I'm hopeful that the expanded scope of Develop Nova Scotia will have a positive impact for Nova Scotians. Unfortunately, in the area of rural Internet, I fear we're setting ourselves up to repeat the mistakes of the past. With those few comments, I'll take my seat.