The Grand Parade

It's been a busy start to the new year with with a few big ticket events for the hosts Matt Stickland and Martin Baumen to break down. The Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, December 8th, was one of the best meetings in HRM's recent history, which included five little piggies and some light-hearted civil disobedience. Matt's been doing a lot of research into road safety and tells...

In this episode of the Grand Parade Matt and Martin look back at the past two weeks in municipal politics and answer some hard hitting questions like: Will transit ever get better in this city? How do you cook a crow? And is there any point to the city's advisory committees? Plus, we also have a new show format! Except for the any other business segment at the end your listening experience should...

At long last Coast reporter Martin is back after his paternity leave and he joins Coast city hall reporter Matt Stickland to catch up on everything he'd missed since being out. In this episode, the two talk about how the council is shaping up three meetings into their term. Which councillors are making mistakes? Who's looking promising? The conversation then turns to the HRM's committees and the u...

After an impromptu summer break the Grand Parade is back! Host Matt Stickland sits down with the owner of Atlantic New Chris Greene to talk about how to interview candidates for the upcoming fall election. Chris will be sitting down the candidates of District 7 to interview them and find out who would be the best candidate for his district and wanted to advice. Happy to oblige, Matt explains how h...

In what was supposed to be the last episode of the HFX Votes 2024 election podcast series The Coast's city hall reporter Matt Stickland sat down with The Coast’s newsletter editor Julie Lawrence to answer some listener questions.  The conversation bounces around as the two try to answer as many questions as possible. There are a bunch of simple questions like “Does Halifax have enough parking?” th...

There are two types of people in this world. There are people who think that headline is needlessly dramatic, and then there are people who understand risk management. The Coast has covered risk management extensively since Halifax’s Auditor General released his scathing indictments of the city’s Risk Management Team, but this is one of those things that just can’t be talked about enough until the...

In this penultimate episode of the HFX Votes 2024 election explainer series, Matt interviews Risk Management expert Bruce Manion. This episode is a direct result of Halifax’s Auditor General’s recent audits in which he found the HRM’s risk management framework to be a bit of a hot mess.  In this episode, Bruce explains to Matt how the city should be thinking about Risk Management and the problem w...

The HFX Votes 2024 series is in the process of wrapping up, with three episodes recorded yesterday to be released over the next few days. Up first is an interview with Céo Gaudet, a former member of the Regional Watersheds Advisory Board.  For a little bit of history, the RWAB had a predecessor, the Dartmouth Lakes Advisory Board, which started in the 1970s. At the time, there was a lot of develop...

In this episode of the Grand Parade Matt Stickland sits down with Wes Marshall, the author of Killed by a Traffic Engineer. His book is a meta analysis of traffic engineering studies, and he tells Matt how to determine if Halifax's traffic engineers are doing a good job. Just one note: In the episode Matt says that the HRM has made it's traffic impact statements better, and Wes points out that if...

In this edition of HFX Votes 2024 I sit down with two of the authors of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report: Building Inclusive Communities: A Policy Agenda for Nova Scotia Municipalities that Leaves No One Behind.   In this conversation, Christine Saulnier the CCPA’s Nova Scotia director, explains how the city could save a lot of money by bringing services, like snow clearing, in-h...

In this episode of the Grand Parade's ongoing series of municipal issues explainer, I sit down with mayor Mike Savage to find out what the mayor does. This conversation bounces around from the fiscal challenges facing the city, some practical advice for running a good meeting and an answer to the question: Does Mike find it weird that people call him "Your Worship?"

In part 2 of the HFX Votes 2024 episode on property taxes I sat down with Darrell Dexter, the former premier of Nova Scotia to ask him about why we have a property tax cap in the first place. This conversation went off the rails almost immediately in the best possible way. Dexter explains that the property tax cap is doing its job, protecting people from being gouged by the market.  Dexter makes t...

The Coast’s municipal election podcast explainers continue with a deep dive into property taxes and the property tax cap. In this episode, Matt sits down with local economist Deny Sullivan to ask him some questions like: What is the property tax cap? How does it work? Is our council penny-wise and pound-foolish?  The two get sidetracked a little bit when the conversation veers into the new road sa...

In this week's episode, The Coast's Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman discuss HRM staff's eyebrow-raising plans for redesigning the Windsor Street Exchange while making transit worse, plus how councillors aren't using the powers they have at their disposal. Also, if you have any issues you want Matt to look into for the upcoming municipal election please email them to hfxvotes2024@thecoast.ca

In part two of the Halifax Votes Transit episode Matt sits down with Reece Martin of RM Transit to help explain some of the choices Halifax Transit is making. For example, in yesterday's episode It's More Than Busses ' Douglas Wetmore proposed that Halifax Transit would be better served by switching to a headway bus service instead of a scheduled one. Reece Martin explains why a transit service wo...

In this edition of HFX Votes 2024, The Coast's special municipal election coverage, Matt sits down with Douglas Wetmore of It's More than Busses. In part one of a two-part series Matt finds out what exactly's going wrong with Halifax's beleaguered bus system. Wetmore explains the issues facing transit, some of the issues created by Halifax Transit, and some potential fixes. It's everything you nee...

In this episode Matt Stickland sat down with the CEO of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission, Paul MacKinnon in what is the first in a series of explainers leading up to the municipal election. MacKinnon is a guy who knows what a downtown needs to succeed. We talk about the challenges of making unpopular decisions and how downtowns make money for the city. MacKinnon also tells me about the new...

In this week’s episode, The Coast’s Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman discuss HRM council’s unanimous passing of federally-prompted zoning reforms and how that will shape the city to come. Plus, Halifax has an emergency response… emergency… and the region’s transportation plans still don’t make sense.

In this week’s episode of The Grand Parade podcast, Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman chat with economist Deny Sullivan about Halifax’s HAF blunders and why a labour shortage isn’t to blame for the city’s housing crisis. Plus, they delve into Halifax’s deferred plans to abandon its Strategic Road Safety Framework in favour of a new plan that is worse than the old one.

In this edition of the Grand Parade Matt tells Martin all about his interview with Halifax's CAO Cathie O'Toole and director of the Department of Public Works Brad Anguish. Matt explains why this interview left him feeling a bit like a Philadelphia 76ers fan circa 2013 . After a break, Matt gives each councillor a rating for their performance during Halifax's budget season

In this episode of the Grand Parade the boys take a break from the budget as Matt grapples with learning new information about the city's transportation planning.

In this episode Coast reporters Matt Stickland and Martin Bauman give 110% as they reach into their bag of sports metaphors to talk about municipal politics in a podcast of two halves. In the first half, Matt gives Martin the lowdown on the civil unrest growing in rural parts of the HRM. Also a look into the frustrating parts of municipal planning. Not to be all doom and gloom, in the second half,...

In this episode Matt and Martin talk about public safety: the JustFOOD program and police reform. This show notes are abridged due to budget season.

In this episode of the Grand Parade Matt and Martin talk about stories Matt is working on. The Macdonald bike connection is moving forward, but there are some issues with the design, and how the design came to be in the first place. After the ad break, Matt pitches a test for local government to see if they're ready to respond to the climate emergency.

The New Year always comes with the worst hangovers, doesn’t it? When HRM council resumes on Tuesday, Jan. 9, Halifax’s councillors will be confronted once again with a thorny problem: How to dig the region out of a $68.7 million deficit that no-one on council seems to know how to wriggle out from under. (That is, without taking a popularity hit by raising taxes or cutting key services.) In this we...