Welcome citizens of Halifax! My name is Don Mills, one of the founders and the Chair of the Steering Committee for Citizens for Halifax. Thank you all for taking the time to attend our first AGM. We would like to acknowledge Saint Mary’s University and its President, Colin Dodds, for their support for providing this venue for our first Annual General Meeting without fee. I would like to begin with a brief report of our activities of our Society over the past few months.
Nearly a year ago, a group of concerned citizens began meeting in my living room to discuss their frustration regarding the lack of vision for our community and what could be done to positively impact the future direction of Halifax. Nearly twelve years into amalgamation it was clear that little of substance had been achieved. Indeed, amalgamation has lead to the highest increase in property taxes in the history of the community, uncontrolled urban sprawl resulting in significant transportation challenges and traffic problems, a largely dysfunctional council not only divided along both geographical and parochial lines, but too often focused on the wrong issues with slow decision making the rule, increased concerns regarding public safety and crime, stalled development and declining population in the urban core, the loss of identity as a community with a confused brand positioning and most importantly no sense of where the community was going.
During our early discussions that included community leaders like Robbie Shaw, Robert Zed, Jim Mills, Chuck Bridges, Malcolm Fraser, Jamie Baillie, Neville Gilfoy and Ken Ozmon, it became clear that we all believed passionately in the future of Halifax, but feared that opportunity was being wasted due to a lack of leadership and direction. Barb Stegemann joined our group, bringing with her the experience of the Non-Partisan Association, a non-partisan civic group established in Vancouver more than seventy years ago. We decided that the establishment of a similar organization in Halifax would provide an opportunity for a voice for citizens regarding the future of our community. Donna Leadbetter joined our group to provide the much needed administrative support to allow us to begin to formalize our plans to launch Citizens for Halifax.
The vision of Citizens for Halifax is simple, build the most vibrant and liveable city in Canada. This is a big aspirational vision but needed to be defined, and whose definition will continue to be refined in the years ahead. We had two specific high level goals. One was to engage citizens in shaping the future of their city and the second was improve civic leadership by encouraging high quality candidates to run for municipal office. As well, we had identified five specific initial goals and developed a set of guiding principles for the society. This allowed us to attract more than five-hundred members to the society.
While we initially focused on the idea of finding candidates for office, it quickly became clear that we needed to determine what the society stood for before we could tackle the issue of encouraging quality candidates to run for office. With the assistance of a wider group of volunteers that included Patty Busby, Leslie Southwick-Trask, Iain Taylor, Paula Minnikin, Andrew Black, and Larry MacEachern among many others, we decided to undertake a series of public engagement sessions, using expert inputs, to help determine the initial positions for the new society. We will present these positions that were developed through this public process with our members for your endorsement today.
At the same time, we were developing our by-laws and constitution with the help of John Rogers and Kimberly Bungay at Stewart McKelvey. In fact, we received our certificate of incorporation earlier this month.
While it has taken some time to reach this point, we have already made an important contribution to the debate about the future of our community. We see real evidence both in the media and within council itself of a positive change in both the issues being addressed and the decisions being made. We have had many individuals approach us about running for either the school board or council. We have given some courage to step forward, knowing that there is a group of like-minded citizens prepared to stand behind them.
At the same time, we are realistic that positive change will take time and as such Citizens for Halifax has been developed for the long-term, not the short term. We are encouraged that the current council is paying attention to Citizens for Halifax.
We foresee a promising future for our city, but we must behave as a city, not a municipality. We must define what comprises our city and we must build a common sense of purpose and pride in building that city. That is what Citizens for Halifax is really all about. The election of our first Board of Directors and the adoption of our key positions represent an important milestone in building the most vibrant, and liveable city in Canada. We thank you for your support and encourage each of you to become personally and actively engaged in achieving that vision. I would also like to thank everyone who has already contributed their time and energy to get us to this important milestone.
Don Mills
Chair, Steering Committee
Citizens for Halifax
July 22, 2008