CBRM is overly reliant on property tax revenue. We need to explore alternative revenue sources if we are ever going to be able to deliver better municipal services without digging into the pockets of our citizens.
Some municipalities in Nova Scotia own and operate their own utilities. Some of these municipal-owned utilities purchase power from Nova Scotia Power (NSP) at wholesale rates and then sell to their users at a reduced rate while creating municipal revenue outside of property taxes.
Nova Scotia announced it's Community Solar Program in March 2024. Under this Provincial Community Solar Program, eligible applicants (municipalities included), can apply for funding to create community-owned solar gardens. This could help us to achieve sustainability goals, help to address energy poverty, and create new municipal revenue.
We can look to the success of the town of Antigonish to see how beneficial municipal-owned utilities can be for the financial well-being of our municipality and citizens. Antigonish is the largest of the six municipal-owned utilities in Nova Scotia. The town of Antigonish generates more than $12,000,000 in annual gross revenue for their municipality through their Electric Utility service. Antigonish expanded their Electric Utility through investment in wind farming approximately 10 years ago.
There are additional federal tax incentive programs for municipalities interested in investing in green energy. We don't need higher taxes, we need to diversify our municipal revenue sources. Once we build alternative revenue sources, we can lower property taxes to be more in line with national averages. We need to find ways to source new revenue before cutting the revenue we rely on to deliver essential municipal services like road maintenance.
A municipal owned energy utility could offer more stable electricity prices and help to address Energy Poverty (spending more than 6% of income on utilities) in CBRM. The 2023 Strategic Task Force Report, which was written in collaboration with 50 community members, noted that 41% of Nova Scotians live in energy poverty. You can read the Task Force's recommendations on page 103. The task force mentioned better greater promotion of provincial and federal energy programs for individuals. A municipal-owned energy utility could offer a more significant impact, particularly if CBRM could offer cheaper and stable rates, unlike NS Power, while creating municipal revenue separate from property taxes so we can lower taxation rates.
We can do better with better leadership.
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