Dartmouth Cove Infill - QP

THE SPEAKER: The honourable Leader of the NDP.

CLAUDIA CHENDER: I’m lucky to represent the area that includes Dartmouth Cove. Dartmouth Cove is a beautiful trail along the waterfront that borders the Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship, which is home to millions of dollars of government investment, as well as Maritime Search and Rescue operations, all of which - the trail, the neighbourhood, the centre - would be imperilled by the proposed infill in the pre-Confederation water lot adjacent to that path.

The Minister said earlier there is no provincial angle. That is inaccurate. In fact, Build Nova Scotia owns a parcel of land over which this developer would require an easement to undertake any dumping operations.

Now Build Nova Scotia has publicly stated that they would not entertain an application for that easement until all approvals were granted - federal and CN and municipal.

My question to the minister is: Now that this developer has acted in such bad faith, blocking that trail, will the minister commit to directing Build Nova Scotia to finally and permanently deny the easement?

THE SPEAKER: I asked that everybody stay within their minute - sorry, 50 seconds. I slipped a little bit today, but I won’t again. I will cut off people if they don’t have the question out in time.

HON. KIM MASLAND: As the member knows, when those blockades were put up on Build Nova Scotia’s property, we acted immediately and asked the contractor who was in there to remove those. If they wouldn’t remove them, we would remove them and charge them for the cost of removal.

As far as the easement goes, as we stand right now their application is still in with the federal government and until we know what they’re doing, this is where we stand.

CLAUDIA CHENDER: That marks almost two years, essentially, of inaction on this file that is so important because it represents a Wild West approach to infilling.

This government is presiding over a building boom. We have a new hospital being built. We have lots of cranes in the sky. The Premier likes to talk about this and yet we have no plan for the pyritic slate that needs to be sequestered.

The Port of Halifax will dispose of that slate for a fee, but this leads to people like the developers in question here buying pre-Confederation water lots in the middle of downtown Dartmouth and deciding to turn them into a dump.

My question to the minister is: Will this government take a proactive stance against this kind of behaviour, prevent this project permanently, and regulate infill and come up with a plan for what we’re going to do with this slate?

KIM MASLAND: I appreciate the question. The thing is that infilling into our water comes from a federal government application - a regulatory approval from the federal government. It’s the federal government’s jurisdiction, not ours.