Cape Breton’s greenfield site deserves transparent, competitive process

Every year the Cape Bre­ton Regional Muni­cip­al­ity issues pub­lic tenders for everything from road pav­ing and snow removal to engin­eer­ing stud­ies and pub­lic build­ings.

They do so because com­pet­i­tion pro­motes trans­par­ency, encour­ages bet­ter ideas, strengthens pub­lic con­fid­ence in the work and in pub­lic insti­tu­tions, and helps to ensure the best value for tax­payer dol­lars. It is dif­fi­cult to ima­gine a muni­cipal asset more deserving of that same pro­cess than the green­field site.

In Janu­ary, coun­cil voted to end SHIP’S exclus­ive untendered con­tract for the mar­ket­ing of the green­field site.

This was a con­tract that began, in the words of SHIP major­ity share­holder Albert Bar­busci, with a hand­shake with the mayor 12 years ago. It was form­al­ized in 2015, renewed in 2018, renewed again in 2021, and expired in 2024. Coun­cil put a formal end to notions of another untendered con­tract with SHIP by vir­tue of a tie vote (that trans­lated to no exten­sion).

In Feb­ru­ary, Coun­cil­lor Steven Macneil put for­ward a motion to hold a coun­cil work­shop on ten­der­ing the mar­ket­ing of the green­field site.

The motion passed, but only after remind­ers from Coun­cil­lor Ear­lene Macmul­lin and Coun­cil­lor Steve Par­sons, that a work­shop allows coun­cil to think through what an expres­sion of interest (EOI) or a request for pro­pos­als (RFP) for the site should look like. Any actual EOI or RFP would have to come back to coun­cil for review and approval. We’ve heard noth­ing since.

PUBLICLY ANSWER QUESTIONS

A tender (by EOI or RFP) invites con­sid­er­a­tion of the green­field oppor­tun­ity from com­pan­ies around the world and allows the CBRM to choose the most qual­i­fied applic­ant. It also requires that the muni­cip­al­ity pub­licly answer some key ques­tions before any agree­ment is signed:

• How long will the tender be open for?
• Will it be a tender that is both pub­lic and with tar­geted invit­a­tions?
• If there are tar­geted invit­a­tions, what cri­teria is used in issu­ing a tar­geted invit­a­tion?
• What qual­i­fic­a­tions and port devel­op­ment exper­i­ence are applic­ants required to have?
• What is the length of the con­tract to be awar­ded and what are the fin­an­cial terms?
• What mile­stones have to be met throughout the con­tract to remain in good stand­ing?
• What kind of expert­ise does the CBRM need to bring in to help eval­u­ate pro­pos­als?
• If the mar­ket­ing con­tract could evolve into a devel­op­ment or oper­at­ing agree­ment, what expect­a­tions regard­ing envir­on­mental pro­tec­tion, com­munity bene­fit, fin­an­cial return, and pub­lic account­ab­il­ity will be estab­lished from the out­set?
• And per­haps, mostly import­antly of all: Will the port mar­keter have an option to pur­chase the Green­field site, or all but pur­chase it via a 99-year lease, as was the case in the SHIP con­tract?

DISCUSSION IS REASONABLE

At the June 23 meet­ing of coun­cil, Steven Macneil attemp­ted to get an update from CAO Demetri Kachafanas, but his request to have the port tender back on the coun­cil agenda was denied. It hardly seemed like an unreas­on­able request given that there has been no sub­stant­ive pub­lic dis­cus­sion of the green­field site since Feb­ru­ary.

Mr. Bar­busci, along with Chief Terry Paul rep­res­ent­ing Mem­ber­tou as a minor­ity share­holder, returned to CBC Inform­a­tion Morn­ing this week to dis­cuss off­shore wind and their part­ner­ship to par­ti­cip­ate in future off­shore wind devel­op­ment.

When the con­ver­sa­tion turned to the green­field site, Mr. Bar­busci, as he has done many times in the past, stressed the need for the CBRM to move as quickly as pos­sible. This has been a com­mon theme over the last dec­ade — the need for things to be rushed through coun­cil, only to be fol­lowed by years in which the green­field site remained unchanged.

All levels of gov­ern­ment should, of course, move quickly. But there is a dif­fer­ence between speed that has been built on clear, con­sist­ent, pub­lic pro­cess and speed that is the res­ult of pres­sure from out­side private sec­tor com­pan­ies.

The green­field site is a hard-won, com­mer­cially valu­able, glob­ally rel­ev­ant asset that the muni­cip­al­ity has owned for 15 years.

If, after 15 years, there is not a clear, con­sist­ent, pub­lic pro­cess for its mar­ket­ing and devel­op­ment, and if it remains as bar­ren as the day it was bought, we should think very care­fully before fol­low­ing any more dir­ec­tion from the few pub­lic offi­cials and private major­ity share­holder who have been the project’s most con­sist­ent rep­res­ent­at­ives.

We cer­tainly should not ask how high when the same major­ity share­holder tells us to jump again.

PROPERTY CLAIMS

Mr. Bar­busci also took the oppor­tun­ity to let the com­munity know that he believes the Green­field is leg­ally his now: “We’ve earned the right to use our own Nova­porte site because we’ve put in our own money and our own time … We have our option and lease agree­ment. We triggered it in 2024. They need to recog­nize that.”

His claim to the prop­erty comes as a bit of a sur­prise given that coun­cil voted not to renew SHIP’S con­tract and to move for­ward with a tender, and we’re near­ing two years since their pre­vi­ous agree­ment expired.

If SHIP believes it pos­sesses an enforce­able right to the green­field site, the muni­cip­al­ity owes the pub­lic a clear explan­a­tion of its legal pos­i­tion now that we are 20-months post-expiry.

If no such right exists, that too should be stated plainly. Because surely, Mr. Bar­busci hasn’t man­aged to take two of the CBRM’S most valu­able prop­er­ties (Sydport and the green­field site) from it in a span of two years.

For 15 years, we’ve been asked to trust in the agree­ments authored by the mayor, CAO, and Bar­busci. This has led us to the sur­prise sale of the Sydport lands, now the sub­ject of an offi­cial invest­ig­a­tion by the pro­vin­cial office of the ombuds­man, the lan­guish­ing of the green­field site, and pub­lic state­ments sug­gest­ing that a 99-year lease is in effect — claims that have yet to be pub­licly explained by the muni­cip­al­ity on an agree­ment that remains a com­plete mys­tery to the com­munity (for what pur­poses, with who, for how much, under what con­di­tions, and with what com­munity bene­fits).

Coun­cil has already taken the most import­ant first step by end­ing the exclus­ive arrange­ment and express­ing its inten­tion to move toward a pub­lic pro­cure­ment pro­cess. The next step is simply to fol­low through.

The green­field site is too import­ant to be gov­erned by pub­lic uncer­tainty, private expect­a­tions, and hand­shakes. It deserves a trans­par­ent, com­pet­it­ive pro­cess that estab­lishes the com­munity’s object­ives before invit­ing the world to help achieve them.

Erika Shea is the President and CEO of New Dawn Enterprises, Canada’s oldest non-profit community development corporation.

Cape Breton Post, July 11, 2026