Environment committee  Jen is the brains of the operation, and I'm the voice. I am reading from her submission. For the past two years, Jen has been coordinating the Our HRM Alliance through the Ecology Action Centre. The Ecology Action Centre is Nova Scotia’s oldest and most respected environmental a

Environment committee  What we're seeing in Halifax is that the city has grown in ways that is costing us financially and environmentally, and some of the suburban and rural areas are losing the qualities that they value. You talked about hunting and fishing. A lot of the members of our group are rural

Environment committee  You're quite right. We are known as Canada's ocean playground and coasts are really important to us, so as part of greenbelting or protecting our green spaces, protecting our coast and making sure that we have enough coastal parks so that people can go to the beach is of central

Environment committee  What we've done is put an alliance together of very different groups—business groups, environmental groups, health groups—that for various reasons all support greenbelting and all support good planning. We now have, as part of this work, three large protected areas within 15 to 2

Environment committee  If the plan is good, then stick to it, because it was created for a reason. As I think we all believe, if you're going to have a plan, stick to it and follow it. We just had our municipal election on Saturday. One of the big themes right across the board, I think, was that we n

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  Thank you. There's a lot of hope now.

Environment committee  Well, it's a key point. It's about creating opportunities for people to enhance their quality of life by having natural opportunities on their doorstep. You talk about St. Margaret's Bay, a place with a lot of history and beauty, and the efforts of the community and other partner

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. We're just going to confer for a second. That's a big question. There is a reduced role, in some ways, for the federal government in urban planning. A lot of the important decisions about how and where our cities grow have to be made by the municip

Environment committee  The answer is yes. Using mechanisms, as the previous speaker mentioned, such as tax credits, is attractive and encourages activity. Tax credits now exist for physical activity, but expanding those tax credits would be good. The Rouge Park is an exciting initiative, and it perhap

Environment committee  Thank you for this opportunity. My presentation will be under five minutes. The Ecology Action Centre has been actively involved in protecting Sable Island for over a decade. We've been a member of the government-led Sable Island stakeholder advisory committee for many years. We

Environment committee  Yes, but as I said in my presentation, it's unfortunate we're in this situation of having to choose between delaying the park and limiting or allowing oil and gas activity.

Environment committee  I'd like to see the parties come together and agree to not do any exploration on the island, and I'd like to see parties come together to agree to either move the exclusion zone further out or leave it where it is and not allow horizontal drilling.

Environment committee  I would agree with Mr. Miller, and I would suggest four or five nautical miles from the island.

Environment committee  I think I'm less concerned about the fact that they might be drilling under the island since, as Mr. Barry said, that's fairly far down. It's a fact though that the drilling in the end is attached to the drill platform. If the drill platform is close to the island, it brings with