Labour Group Endorses Halifax Council Candidates That Support Living Wage, Oppose Contracting Out Services
HALIFAX — The Halifax-Dartmouth And District Labour Council has endorsed 13 candidates in the municipal election on October 17 but chose not to support any mayoral candidate.
The council is the central labour body in the Halifax Regional Municipality, representing more than 24,000 union members in the region.
Suzanne MacNeil, the organization’s president, says the Labour Council’s goal with its endorsements is to help “elect councilors who are progressive and who have a goal of making our city a more inclusive place.”
She says the organization believes council’s top priorities should be aggressively moving to create more affordable housing in the city, ending “racist police practices”, enacting a more robust living wage policy, and to stop contracting city services out to private companies, among others.
The organization’s endorsements mostly went to new candidates who are challenging sitting councilors, although it did throw its support behind four incumbents: Sam Austin, Lindell Smith, Shawn Cleary, and Lisa Blackburn.
MacNeil says those councilors got the nod in large part because they were “key people” pushing to pass a living wage policy through council.
The policy, passed during council’s last session before the election, mandates that the city will pay a living wage (approximately $21 an hour) to most of its contracted workers.
The other candidates the Labour Council supported, MacNeil says, are people the organization believes it can work with to pass legislation that advances labour priorities in the HRM.
While the organization identified 13 people it believes will do that, it didn’t find suitable candidates in every district.
In Districts 1 and 6 the organization declined to endorse any candidates at all. In District 1, incumbent Steve Stretch is facing challenges from three opponents and in District 6, Tony Mancini is defending his council seat against two opponents.
“We wish that we could make an endorsement in [these districts], but honestly we cannot,” the Labour Council said on its Facebook page, arguing it hasn’t seen any of the candidates make commitments to the initiatives it considers important.
Notably, the organization also skipped endorsing any of the candidates for mayor. The race for mayor will see Mike Savage defend his job against challenges from two-term councilor Matt Whitman and young entrepreneur and TikTok star Max Taylor.
“When you look at the overall track record, in particular some of the leadership coming from the mayor, there’s a few things that we would like to see improved next time around,” MacNeil says.
She says she would like to see the next mayor “challenging developers in the city a little more aggressively.”
“Halifax is an appealing place to do business, for sure, but just because it’s an appealing place to do business, and just because there are a lot of folks involved in investing and development, that does not mean that everybody is going to benefit necessarily,” she said.
She also said she wants to see the next mayor take “greater leadership” on issues related to affordability in the city, particularly when it comes to housing.
In an emailed statement, Mayor Mike Savage told Huddle he believes his values align more closely with the Labour Council’s than they give him credit for.
“The Council is under no obligation to endorse anyone, but I do invite them to read my platform and understand my record and my commitment. They may find we have more in common than not,” he said.
While MacNeil is hesitant to talk specifically about any of the mayoral candidates, the Labour Council is more outspoken on its Facebook page.
“We are not making an endorsement for Mayor in this election. That said, we look forward to seeing Matt Whitman relegated to the dustbin of history and hope to never hear his name again after October 17th,” the organization wrote.
MacNeil expands on the statement.
“When we think about the people on the previous council who were an ally to workers, who were calling for policies that bring about social justice in our community, we have unfortunately found ourselves on the opposite side of a number of issues with Matt Whitman. We’re not a fan of the vision that he brings for Halifax,” she said.
Whitman appeared unfazed by the criticism.
“Great quote [regarding] the dustbin. Classy! I would expect nothing more,” he wrote in a short email to Huddle.
See the complete list of candidates endorsed by the council on the Labour Council’s Facebook page.