AUDIO: Council pulls the plug on negotiations with SHIP

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 (SHIP), 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

Votes in favour of continuing negotiations with SHIP: 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)

Votes against continuing negotiations with SHIP: Dave MacKeigan (Dist. 9), Kim Sheppard-Campbell (Dist. 12), Earlene MacMullin (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’s first contract with CBRM was in 2015 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

District 2 councillor, Earlene MacMullin, brought the motion to the floor and voted against pursuing further contract talks with SHIP. On January 22, she said in an interview with CBC’s Steve Sutherland that she believes it’s time for an open process.

“There’s so much potential here right now that this seems like a perfect opportunity that if there was interest [from other companies], now’s the time to see,” she said, adding that SHIP no longer having an exclusivity agreement does not preclude the company from participating in an open tendering process. “You’ve got to remember, over ten years, when you give exclusivity, we had no opportunity to have conversations with anyone else. We were legally bound not to, so how do we know what’s out there?”

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 CBC reporter Tom Ayers concluded, there are a lot of unanswered questions after Tuesday’s council meeting.

District 5 councillor, Eldon MacDonald is opposed to a public tender. “For me, that’s starting over again. All of the relationships that are built go away; the process of discussions around the lands and negotiations with First Nations, that all starts over again; the permitting that’s already done and been in place by SHIP and the work that’s been done, that all goes away,” he said. When asked if SHIP could put in a proposal as part of a tender process, MacDonald said, “Yes, absolutely, if that would be considered.”

For MacMullin, it’s about due diligence. “We’re the protectors of that land that belongs to the residents — it’s taxpayer land — and we’re at the pinnacle now, at the point where significant financial investment could come, and I think we have the due diligence that we need to make sure we’re getting the best investment for that.”

Listen to the full interview with councillors Earlene MacMullin and Eldon MacDonald here.

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.