Government coastal protection radio ad 'a waste of money,' 'ridiculous,' say opposition leaders

Nova Scotia's opposition leaders say a radio ad featuring Environment Minister Tim Halman promoting his government's approach to coastal protection amounts to a waste of money and old-style campaigning.

The ad has been running periodically on commercial stations around the province since March, with a cost to date of more than $76,000 for five weeks in total.

In it, Halman talks about how Nova Scotians love the coastline and "share the sense of personal responsibility and collective pride in doing what is right, whether it be protecting the coastline or supporting a neighbour."

"That's why government has made the decision to trust local communities and Nova Scotians when it comes to coastal protection."

The government's plan "empowers" property owners and municipalities with the tools they need to protect the coast, Halman says in the ad.

The government also spent $60,330 on digital marketing throughout March and $16,500 on newspaper ads for a week in March.

Act abandoned in February

The Tory government's plan followed several years of promising to proclaim the Coastal Protection Act, legislation that was passed with all-party support in 2019 but never made law.

After missing multiple self-imposed deadlines since becoming minister in 2021 and a round of public consultation that failed to produce any demonstrable opposition to the legislation, Halman announced in February that his government was abandoning the act.

Rather than setting a standard to be followed across the province for protecting existing structures and future development from the threats of climate change and protecting the coastline, the province instead released several tools intended to help with education and deferred to municipalities to create their own laws and rules governing coastal development and protection.

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NDP Leader Claudia Chender said the ad is an example of how the government's priority seems to be on shifting public opinion in its favour at the expense of doing the work of governing.

She called the ad "ridiculous" and "old-style campaigning."

"And I certainly hope that people aren't fooled by it," she told reporters in Halifax on Thursday.

Chender said that as she travels from one end of the province to the other, she continues to encounter people who want the Coastal Protection Act made law, particularly municipal leaders who are confronted with the threat of extreme weather in climate change in their respective communities.

"Many municipalities do not have the resources to do this work themselves," she said.

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Coastal property owners and researchers are expressing frustration with the provincial government's approach to safeguarding the coast. Some say there needs to be more leadership from the province after abandoning the Coastal Protection Act.

In April, Halman announced funding for the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities to hire a coastal protection co-ordinator who will, among other things, help with the creation of an example land-use bylaw that municipalities can use now that responsibility for protecting the coast has washed up on their shores.

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill told reporters that the ads are "a waste of taxpayer money" and "dishonest."

"This government broke a commitment to proclaim the Coastal Protection Act," he said.

With what some experts have predicted could be one of the province's worst hurricane seasons on the horizon, Churchill said the government is not doing enough to protect the coastline.

"And yet they're willing to spend public dollars to convince people that they are. I think that is fundamentally wrong."

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Halman told reporters that the ad is intended to inform the public about the government's coastal protection action plan and make sure they have the correct information.

"We are protecting our coastline in Nova Scotia and we're doing it through supportive, informed decision-making, supporting municipal leadership and deploying resources," he told reporters following a cabinet meeting.

"So what this ad does is it points, specifically, property owners in the right direction to access information on the coastal protection action plan."

It's common for the government to take such an approach, he said, comparing it to advertising campaigns related to the Tories' plan for health care and climate change mitigation.