AUDIO: Council pulls the plug on negotiations with SHIP/Novaporte

On January 20th, CBRM Council’s three-hour in-camera session and subsequent public vote ended up with a split decision on if they should continue negotiations with Sydney Harbour Investment Partners, meaning talks with the company are at an end for now.

The question is, what’s next for harbour development and the contract for marketing the Greenfield site? Mayor Cecil Clarke told CBC reporter Tom Ayers: “I won’t speculate on anything in term of what the next steps are … I’m going to rely on our legal and our administrative officials to provide their input and establish what are the options and/or matters for consideration by council.”

The Vote

CBRM council that voted in favour of continuing negotiations with SHIP/Novaporte: Mayor Cecil Clarke, Darren O’Quinn (Dist. 11), Eldon MacDonald (Dist. 5), Steve Parsons (Dist. 7), Esmond “Blue” Marshall (Dist. 3), Steve Gillespie (Dist. 4)

CBRM council that voted against continuing negotiations with SHIP/Novaporte: Dave MacKeigan (Dist. 9), Kim Sheppard-Campbell (Dist. 12), Earlene MacMullen (Dist. 2), Steven MacNeil (Dist. 8), Gordon MacDonald (Dist. 1), Deputy Mayor Glenn Paruch (Dist. 6)

Note: District 10 councillor, Paul Nickituk, is on a medical leave of absence.

SHIP/Novaporte’s first contract with CBRM was in 2017 and, as Tom Ayers pointed out, the company has not built anything on the site to date and has most recently been pursuing off-shore wind instead of a container terminal. The latest contract expired in November, 2024 and Mayor Clarke told Ayers the CBRM will need to do something with the land, but it’s not clear what that will be.

Next Steps: Tendering Process

As New Dawn’s President and CEO, Erika Shea, pointed out on Information Morning on January 20 (just hours before the council meeting), the Greenfield site is “a hard-won community asset.”

“A tender does a couple of things. One, it allows the community to see what is being called for, what the timeline and deliverables are. When a contract isn’t tendered, we don’t know any of that information. Two, it signals to government and private sector partners that we’re a contemporary government that follows good process consistently. And lastly, a tender protects people around the council table … they’ve followed good process, they’ve made it transparent, they’ve put it out to the world, they’ve evaluate the bids on the basis of criteria that they’ve established, and so they bear less personal responsibility for [potential] bad outcomes.”

“The community wants to know that the Greenfield site is going to continue to be owned by the community, that the community is going to benefit from the site’s ultimate development, and that there are going to be protections against environmental degradation now and for future generations,” Shea said.

As Tom Ayers concluded, there are a lot of unanswered questions and some answers will come from councillors as they share their reasons for voting as they did and their opinions on what should be done with the community asset.

Listen to Tom Ayers’s full coverage of the January 20 council meeting here.

Listen to Steve Sutherland’s full conversation with Erika Shea here.