Foreign Land Ownership in Nova Scotia

If you've ever though of buying a nice piece of oceanfront property in Nova Scotia, you'd better have a very thick wallet. And if you currently own some, or your parents do, you'd better have a thick wallet to pay the outrageous taxes.

The major reason for this - foreign ownership of our coastline areas. This has driven up the value of seaside property making it unaffordable for most Nova Scotians. In the past, our low dollar made property relatively cheap for Germans and Americans, who have bought up the prime land in our province.

PEI discovered that something had to be done, and instituted laws to prevent non-residents from buying up their province. Efforts to do the same in NS resulted in a task force that published its final report in Dec 2001. See http://www.gov.ns.ca/vp/nonres/fr.pdf

Here is a quote from the report - "The provincial government’s background information on non-resident land ownership in Nova Scotia identified non-residents as owning 6.4 per cent of the Province,16 per cent of the coastline and 6.8 per cent of non-coastal waterfront land. On the high side of the range, Digby, Annapolis, and Shelburne counties report non-resident ownership approaching 30 per cent of the coastline."

The outcome of this report was a complete disappointment for Nova Scotians who want to limit the detrimental effects of unchecked foreign ownership. Any measure to control foreign ownership was shot down.

I spoke to a German about buying 14 acres of undeveloped land he owned near Margaretsville in Annapolis County. This man also owned land in Lunenburg Co. He told me he is holding it as an investment, "Money in the bank" he said. Well, it sits there unused until he sells it to another German. It does not generate any economic activity, and denies Nova Scotians the opportunity to build and live there. And if it does get developed, the Germans will only visit it a few weeks a year, then go back home. This provides very little economic benefit for Nova Scotia for the rest of the year (supporting businesses, paying taxes, etc).

It's time our leaders stand up for Nova Scotians, to ensure foreigners are limited in the amount of acreage they can own, and to make them pay much higher taxes to compensate our province for lost economic activity. It is also important to ensure existing Nova Scotia landowners are protected from skyrocketing property assessments due to the deleterious effects of foreign landowners .

Commonwealth Games in Halifax - R.I.P.

The $1.7B games are dead, killed by the mayor of HRM and the premier. Halifax will no longer get to be a "world class city" saddled with debt. The taxpayers of Nova Scotia will get a break, as will their children and grandchildren.

Nova Scotians have substandard health care, substandard roads, substandard educational funding (my niece had to share her worn out textbooks in high school with several other kids), the highest university tuition in Canada, etc. How can you justify spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers money on a sporting event when situations like this exist? You can't. Then the cost ballooned to almost $2 billion. You'd think they were hosting the Olympics!

For once we're getting responsible political leadership. Hats off to mayor Kelly.

Love Affair With Salt

One thing you'll notice here in the winter is the excessive use of salt on roads. So much is used that the roads appear as white as snow in some places. It isn't uncommon to see a cloud of dried salt rising up behind vehicles. Vehicles are crusted with salt for months.

The Dept. of Highways will dump loads of salt on the highways here even when its unnecessary. (They also "plow" the roads when there is no need to, which is another story). Cars rot out here due to corrosion within 10 years unless you have the vehicle sprayed with an anti-corrosion treatment (i.e. Krown).

All this salt damages the environment, and the water table has been ruined in many places along the roads. On Hwy 1 there are numerous places where salt is not used due to this, likely people have complained about salty well water. In these areas, road signs warn you that sand is used. I've never seen any problems with the roads in these places in the winter. So why not do more sanding, less salting, and protect the environment?

Just how much money does Nova Scotia spend on road salt? Is there a program in place to reduce road salting, and educate highway workers? How about alternatives?

Dumping Garbage

Living in rural Nova Scotia has many rewards, but a walk in the woods can quickly dispel the myth that the people here respect their environment. The forests are full of illegal dumps where ignorant people dump their trash.

Now and then, well meaning people get together and clean up these sites. It doesn't take long for garbage to start reappearing afterwards.

The schools here should teach children here to respect the environment. Offenders should be given stiff fines.