A movement towards Cape Breton's "autonomy"—by becoming a province or a territory—has seen a resurgence of interest. It's partially responsible for giving rise to controversial mayoral candidates Archie MacKinnon and Chris Abbass. Using PEI as an analogous economy, many contemplate the potential advantages of operating separately from mainland Nova Scotia.

If you're wondering if this is possible, the short answer is: definitely not.

Disclaimer: As a candidate for District 6, I do not believe the pursuit of territorial status is the right strategy. I think it's certain to fail and is a distraction that keeps us from focusing on the real economic reforms we need. The best form of autonomy is increasing our municipal powers through al la carte amendments to the MGA (Municipal Government Act), a municipal charter, or revisions to the MGA that apply to all municipalities in the province. On my website, you can learn more about my how I propose to use increased provincial operating grants (Equalization) to reduce our taxes, and to create a boom in local construction by creating a 0% tax on new homes built, phased back in over 10-years.

I've long felt that the key problem with such a strategy was that it would (a) take too long if it were possible to achieve in the first place, and (b) that there wouldn't be the depth of professional leadership required to take over all the responsibilities that Cape Breton as a province or territory would require. In fact, we'd probably be better off joining PEI than trying to operate ourselves.

The leading proponent of this interest group is Mark MacNeill. He's done extensive research into the options. However, in this clip from a podcast interview with the Cape Breton Situation Room below, MacNeill talks about how achieving provincial status is almost impossible. Likewise, he says that the federal parliamentary act to become a territory could be vetoed by the province—even if they actually managed to get that far (which is highly unlikely). Once again, that's not going to happen.

MacNeill's resulting strategy—when faced with the realization that achieving either provincial or territorial status is highly unlikely—is to get fellow supporters elected into government roles across the island, and then push for a plebiscite to force the province's hand.

But that reveals the fatal flaw: Candidates like Abbass and MacKinnon who are supportive are in the midst of crash and burn campaigns. Not only will they almost certainly fail in their bids for mayor, but they'll scare away any other community leaders that might otherwise be supportive. Nobody wants to be guilty by association with these campaigns.

[Authorized by Joe Ward]