Halifax Could Be The ‘Most Desirable City On The Eastern Seaboard’ After Covid-19
HALIFAX — Halifax weathered Covid-19 better than most cities. Now, with the worst of the pandemic hopefully over, the city is preparing for what many hope will be a strong economic recovery.
Steering that recovery will be the Halifax Partnership, the public/private partnership created to foster economic development in the HRM.
On Tuesday, the Partnership’s CEO Wendy Luther and chief economist Ian Munro laid out how they will draft the city’s next five-year economic plan.
Halifax’s most recent economic plan expires at the end of 2021 and the Partnership has started the process of planning for the next five years.
On March 9, Luther and Munro presented their roadmap to council, along with an economic snapshot of where the city currently stands.
Munro told council economic indicators in the city are mostly promising.
Halifax’s population growth, for example, was “much better than expected.” Between July 2019 and June 2020, the city saw “another very good year of population growth, driven once more by very strong international migration figures.”
Munro said the number of new Haligonians was down only slightly from the prior, record-breaking year. However, due to the seasonal nature of the city’s population growth, those numbers might be lower the next time they are counted.
Meanwhile, the city’s GDP took a serious but expected hit.
According to the Conference Board of Canada, Halifax’s GDP contracted by 3.5 percent in 2020, which was the worst recession in the city’s history
However, Munro said a “strong rebound” is expected, with GPD growth reaching 4.6 percent this year and 3.9 percent in 2022. After that, Halifax’s GDP growth is expected to return to “more typical levels” of 1-2 percent a year.
Luther said there are other reasons to be optimistic about Halifax’s future economic growth, including how well Nova Scotia has handled the public health crisis brought on by Covid-19.
“Managing the health crisis is the fastest path to economic development and economic recovery, and we’re now world-renowned for how we’re doing,” she said.
She pointed to the fact that 16 companies came to Halifax during the pandemic and together they plan to hire more than 1,000 employees.
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Luther said people looking to relocate to a city like Halifax search primarily for good jobs, so having strong established companies and thriving new arrivals helps attract new residents.
She also said the worldwide switch to remote work positions Halifax to attract more remote workers from companies located outside Halifax. The Halifax Partnership team is in contact with individuals “every day” who have been given the green light to work remotely and want to do it from Halifax.
“There is one scenario that Halifax would be the most desirable city on the eastern seaboard coming out of Covid times,” Luther said.
Luther said that optimism is also shared by the city’s post-secondary institutions.
However, “they do feel time is of the essence around the optimism and taking advantage of our comparative advantages during this time.”
“We really need to keep our foot on the gas of promoting the opportunities that we have here because we’re in a unique moment of time,” she said. “We have an opportunity to even increase our competitiveness in international education and student retention, but we do have to keep our marketing strong.”
She pointed out that Canada has one of the best pathways in the world to transition international students to permeant residents but that policymakers need to ensure we give those students opportunities and motivation to stay.
Those considerations and others will be part of the Partnership’s 2022-2027 economic plan, which Luther said will build on the success (and shortcomings) of the previous plan.
According to a recent report from city staff, the previous five-year economic plan was largely a success.
“From the launch of the Economic Growth Plan until the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Halifax experienced consistent record-breaking population growth,” wrote Jake Whalen, a senior economic advisor with the city. He noted that if pre-Covid-19 trends had continued the city would have blown past its “ambitious” goal of 550,000 residents by 2031.
“Over the past five years, Halifax not only reduced its loss of youth to the rest of Canada but also helped make Nova Scotia a net importer of young people for the first time since 1985,” Whalen continued.
The report also highlighted Halifax’s steady GDP growth prior to Covid-19. However, it noted that, even before the pandemic hit, the growth trends in Halifax from 2016 through 2019 “were not enough to propel Halifax to [its goal] GDP of $30-billion by 2031.”
Whalen also pointed out that basic demographic challenges in the city remain, despite record population growth.
“We are still on track to have a population with a much larger share of older people who consume more expensive services like health care and generate fewer tax revenues than younger cohorts. Furthermore, rapid growth has brought new challenges: overcrowded schools, scarce housing, oversubscribed childcare and family doctor waitlists, and living costs quickly outpacing wage growth.”
Whalen said the next five-year strategy must address those challenges to ensure growth in the city is “sustainable, affordable, and includes all Halifax residents regardless of income or background.”
Both Luther and Munro recognize this fact and say their planning process for the upcoming economic plan takes it into account.
Munro said the Partnership is paying close attention to “who has been left behind” as the city’s economy grows.
“More people is what we wanted but that also has meant increased demand and hence lower availability of, and higher prices for, hosing,” he said.
“How do we ensure Halifax remains an attractive and affordable place to live? And how do we ensure that continued economic growth is complementary to, and not at the expense of, the achievement of environmental goals?”
Luther expressed similar sentiments.
“It’s not about growth for growth’s sake: it’s what can we do as a city when we reach 550,000 people. How can we get that right? And when we’re standing in 2031 and look back to today, what do we need to do now so that we’re incredibly proud when we’re in our future state and when we’ve met our goals?” she said.