Proposed RDA Workshop

*****TRANSFORMING CLIENTS INTO CITIZENS******

QUESTIONS ... QUESTIONS ... AND MORE QUESTIONS

Mayor Delaney, Warden Embree and others at the meeting on Friday with the two Ministers had lots of questions for the new Minister of Economic Development and Rural Development.

* Mayor Delaney suggested that the Minister's department participate in a workshop here in September to respond to questions about a new RDA, and Warden Embree wanted to know what the Government's views were on a new RDA. Both reasonable questions and suggestions and I hope the answers are eventually forthcoming.....

* Personally, I would like folks in our community to have a substantive discussion about the manner in which we want to manage our future development. The meeting should talk about what organizations or personnel we should have in place to assist us here, in Halifax or elsewhere.... before we have more discussions ... with either the Provincial Government or the folks from Yarmouth and Clare.

* In the mid-90s the new Savage government was told by people across Nova Scotia that they wanted a local pool of talent to provide technical assistance and training to local populations so we could manage our own socio-economic development. That's what RDAs were supposed to provide.

Instead ..... RDAs hijacked the portfolio (and the project money) and became development czars, dictating to local populations what was going to get done and what wasn't....

*interjecting themselves between citizens and their elected officials and civil servants....

* conducting business in secret and encouraging municipal officials to do the same thing......

* and in so doing... reducing the ability of local populations to manage their own priorities, intervene with government agencies directly and get things done by ensuring those elected and hired to work for us were accountable.

1. Moreover, RDAs who were supposed to be managed by representatives from the community with a minority of seats reserved for municipal officials, were permitted to operate as Societies thereby letting municipal governments usurp the role of representatives from the general population ... stacking the Board of RDAs with politicians.

2. Compounding this problem, Municipalities who were told specifically under the MGA that they were not to divest themselves of land by giving it to RDAs, "because RDAs are not allowed to own land..."... got around the rule by operating as Societies.

3. Municipalities were further complicit in corrupting the intended role of RDAs by handing over land to groups who claimed to be RDAs but who were incorporated under the Societies Act and therefore not bound by the RDA Act. The Provincial Government did the same unloading land they owned and making municipalities responsible for the new burden ... by handing it to the SWSDAs of this world.

4. Municipal officials who enjoyed the confidentiality coverage of these societies resisted becoming RDAs under the appropriate Act because it meant they could do things in secret that the MGA and FOIPOP would not permit them to engage in ..... keep the public in the dark.

In my opinion, I think the public was right in the mid-90s.

Had their demands been answered and not corrupted by municipal and provincial governments with the complicit support of ACOA, local communities and their populations would not only have experienced more socio-economic growth.... but also would have increased their capacity to partner with government agencies to get things done.

I think our workshop on RDAs should help us clarify the role that RDAs should play in our community and who should run them.

What do you think?