***NSEF ALERT*** (Used in important public requests) The CBRM Council and Mayor will be holding an important vote in Council Chambers on Tuesday July 6th. The NSEF made a presentation a while back to ask the Council to seek answers from both levels of government regarding important equalization questions. We hope as residents of this community, you will send an email to your councillor and ask him or her to vote in favor of passing this motion presented by Councillor Gordon MacDonald to press the province and the federal government to provide clarification and answers to these important questions. The NSEF has been fighting for you and this community for over 25 years and this is something you can do to help us fight to be treated fairly by our government. Here are the questions that the NSEF seeks the answers to: 1). As one of the two government signatories to s.36 of the Constitution Act, 1982, why have five towns dissolved and so many other municipal units in financial trouble - including the second largest in the province, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality – if the constitution is being complied with by both levels of government? How many more municipal units will be sentenced to political death due to the underfunding by the provincial government despite the increasing yearly dollar amount provided through the federal Equalization program? 2). And how is this outcome of dissolving towns pursuant to s.36 when over 20% of the yearly billions of dollars ($2.315 billion – 2021-22) of the total Equalization transfers are generated by the “municipal deficiency in tax capacity related to property and miscellaneous revenues,” but have never been distributed to address this deficiency in tax capacity? Why? 3) As one of the two government signatories to s.36 of the Constitution Act, 1982, what is the federal and provincial government’s “factual evidence” from what is actually happening in rural Nova Scotia and in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality that the federal and provincial governments are still insisting both are complying with its constitutional obligation? When asked for this evidence, however, no response is provided. 4) After both levels of government’s enshrinement of this Equalization obligation in the Constitution Act, 1982, please cite what is the constitutional reference which legalizes/legalized these “unconditional” transfers? When this specific practice of the “unconditionality” of these Equalization transfers was being discussed via emails with a former provincial finance minister and I remarked that if the unconditional transfer was for the moment considered legal, does that mean the provincial government is exempt from complying with s.36 of the Constitution Act, 1982? His terse response was the government will take its advice from the N.S. Appeal Court. Well, that lower court decision overruled a 1950 Supreme Court Of Canada decision. 5) Both levels of government are obviously acting on the advice of the constitutionally incorrect “conclusion” of Chief Justice M. MacDonald of the 2009 N.S. Appeal Court Decision when he concluded: “[86] In an appropriate context, s. 36 might represent a justiciable commitment, but “ONLY” among the federal and provincial governments who were privy to the agreement that is represented by s. 36. (emphasis added) It is not actionable by an individual or municipality such as CBRM. Yet this is something the CBRM would have to establish if this matter were to proceed further. Therefore, this proposed interpretation respectfully offers no chance of success.” However, in this earlier 1950 Supreme Court of Canada constitutional case ( https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/6919/index.do) between the province of Nova Scotia and the federal government, the Supreme Court of Canada “clearly stated” on p. 34 the following: “The constitution of Canada does not belong either to Parliament, or to the Legislatures; it belongs to the country and it is there that the citizens of the country will find the protection of the rights to which they are entitled.” Since the Supreme Court of Canada decided not to decide when the CBRM sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, that legal path appears not to have been completely closed. And it is long past the time for both the federal and provincial levels of government to realize all governments, too, must comply with the supreme law of this land: The Constitution! In closing, if the CBRM after submitting these questions to both levels of government does not get either any response or, at best, an abrupt brush-off reply as the NSEF has received, this response has to be made public. Because this unconstitutional manipulation of billions of federal Equalization transfers over so many years has denied rural Nova Scotia and the CBRM residents of their constitutional entitlement. And this kind of government unaccountability and non-transparency should then help rural Nova Scotians and residents of the CBRM to realize the problem rests in the undemocratic hierarchical political control of, and by, the political party system. Here is the link to the NSEF presentation to CBRM on Feb 23, 2021, and we start at the 32:00 minute mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol7afntPcXE Here are the email addresses to contact your councillor and ask that they support Councillor Gordon MacDonald’s motion before council to approve the motion to move forward and have the province answer these important to our future, questions. Thank you. Gordon MacDonald [email protected] Earlene MacMullin [email protected] Cyril MacDonald [email protected] Steve Gillespie [email protected] Eldon MacDonald [email protected] Glenn Paruch [email protected] Steve Parsons [email protected] James Edwards [email protected] Ken Tracey [email protected] Darren Brusckwaiger [email protected] Darren O’Quinn [email protected] Lorne Green [email protected]