Sometimes, like when it comes to housing, Halifax’s city council cares a lot about not straying into what is provincial jurisdiction. Sometimes, like when it comes to labour, Halifax’s city council is more than happy to waste our tax money on things that are under provincial jurisdiction. At Thursday’s Community Planning and Economic Development standing committee meeting, councillors got an update on the Skilled Talent and Recruitment Pilot Program.
For $208,572 the city hired someone to reach out to local businesses, develop a recruitment strategy and then travel to various international job fairs to try and find foreign workers to fill jobs that Canadians aren’t filling. The presenters told the councillors that they had some challenges, like the fact that our cost of living is high, taxes are high and wages are low. And that even if people did get hired for a job, they would have nowhere to live. But at the end of the day three people got a job offer, but there’s no data on whether or not the people accepted the job. Our taxes paid $69,524 per job offer to undercut Canadian labour.
Councillor Tim Outhit told the presenters that this was a pilot project and that generally pilot projects are trying to achieve something. He wanted to know what we were trying to do and if we achieved it. The presenters answered that all the city can do (because neither labour nor immigration is municipal jurisdiction) is to promote the city of Halifax, so as a result they didn’t really accomplish anything.
The presenters were quick to point out that the point of this spending was not, in fact, to hire people, but to create a funnel of immigrant labour coming to Halifax to work. But it is worth pointing out that if our wages are low (which they are) and our cost of living is high (which it is) then if the city of Halifax successfully creates a funnel of immigrants, that funnel will actually just funnel people through Halifax before they ultimately end up in places like Alberta with higher wages, lower taxes and a lower cost of living.
The presenters also pointed out that the people who primarily fund this program are the province and the federal government via the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). Which makes sense because labour and immigration are provincial and federal jurisdictions respectively.
The presenters did tell councillors that larger companies are having trouble recruiting people when the people they recruit have nowhere to live, so they’re trying to build on-site company housing. If the city cared about jurisdiction as much as they do when debating the unhoused file, a much better use of $208,572 would be to hire someone to update municipal bylaws to allow for construction companies to build company housing for their workers.
Also at this meeting the committee got an update on People. Planet, Prosperity: Halifax’s Inclusive Economic Strategy. It is worth pointing out that on Wednesday Halifax’s auditor general criticized municipal staff in the emergency management realm for writing reports that are surface level with little to no usable information. And earlier this year Liz Fraser of the Women’s Advisory Committee pointed out that the progress updates that come to the Women’s Advisory Committee are usually process updates, not progress updates. Meaning there are no updates on outcomes, no details, just information on municipal processes and intentions. This strategy update was also a process update. For example, item number nine: “Implement Halifax's Green Economy Strategy to grow innovative green businesses and jobs.” For the period of October 2023 to March 2024 staff have written: “Halifax Partnership's business attraction team actively promotes Halifax's green economy to national and international cleantech, climate tech and green economy related businesses.” What did they do to promote Halifax’s green economy? How successful was the promotion of Halifax’s green economy? Do we even have a green economy? What clean/climate/green economy-related businesses were promoted? What was the benefit of this promotion?
For their part councillors had no questions and were happy with the complete lack of information in the report and sent this along to council so that they too can be amazed at a report with such a high word count and so little usable information.
In some good community development news, the Mi’kmaq Friendship Centre wants to expand to a location on George Street in Lower Sackville. This was supported by the committee and will move ahead (but temper your expectations this is still years away from becoming a reality). The committee also supported the One Hubbards Plan, this too is years out from becoming a reality.