Even the former mayor of one of Nova Scotia’s largest municipalities can’t escape the high unemployment rate.

John Morgan, the former mayor of Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) has become the reluctant poster boy for the issues he tried to fight against his entire political career.

Last week, Morgan’s home was listed in the foreclosure notices in a local newspaper.

“It was very sad,” said Jim Guy, a professor emeritus at Cape Breton University about his reaction to the news. “He’s a mayor that served our community – he was a controversial mayor, but he was a good mayor.”

After only two year out of office, Morgan, who was known for his battle to get a bigger slice of the federal pie for CBRM, is suffering from the same financial fate as many of the citizens he worked to protect.

Current financial troubles

“Sadly, I have only been able to get part-time temporary work locally,” Morgan said via email to The Chronicle Herald. “It is a very difficult time for me and my family.”

The home he owns with his wife Alana, is located at 29 Riverdale Drive and is valued at $121,700, according to property records.

A former lawyer, Morgan told the newspaper he was teaching paralegals part-time at one of the local colleges, but to get any permanent work in the legal field, they’d have to leave the island.

Despite having a salary of around $100,000 during his last year in office, the former mayor still hit financial troubles with Cape Breton’s current economy.

In June 2013, the license for his personal law office, John W. Morgan Law Office Incorporated, was “revoked for non-payment.”

Morgan couldn’t be reached for comment prior to publication.

Mayoral legacy

During his tenure, Morgan became known as “the man of the people.”

In early 2006, just after winning his second mayoral election, the then-mayor started a battle many didn’t think was possible: he filed a lawsuit against the province, alleging it wasn’t doling out the amount of money owed to CBRM outlined in the constitution.

It was a controversial battle, said Guy.

“There were mixed opinions,” he said. Some people questioned Morgan’s decision to “turn the noses” of the politicians who, in the end, control the money and municipal support.

“They thought that Morgan’s strategy was a counter-productive way of dealing with it,” he said.

But, Guy believes Morgan’s intentions and perspective were distinctive.

“He felt that a legal decision trumps a political decision,” he said.

If Morgan could get the courts to agree that the Nova Scotia government wasn’t living up to what is set out in the constitution, the politics of the situation wouldn’t matter anymore – the province would have to cough up what Morgan believed was the right amount of cash for the ailing municipality.

But that wasn’t the case.

The Nova Scotia Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit in 2008.

After an interview with a CBC Cape Breton radio host about the decision, Morgan faced accusations of professional misconduct for his criticism of the justice system.

In the interview he characterized the Nova Scotia justices as an “endemic” part of “the political structure” and claimed the presiding judge in the case “had ties to the Conservative party,” among other accusations, according to disciplinary hearing documents.

While the Nova Scotia Barrister’s Society panel found him guilty of professional misconduct, he was not penalized for his actions because he was not acting as a lawyer during the interview, but was acting as the mayor.

But Morgan’s battle didn’t end there – he took the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court of Canada also dismissed the case.

After 12 years in office, the long-time mayor made the snap announcement in August 2012 that he would not be seeking re-election that fall.

“It is something that I have loved, but it is something that I have done for a long time now,” he told CBC Cape Breton’s Mainstreet, just after his announcement. During his time in office, he wasn’t as “present” with family and friends as he wanted.

“It’s something that can’t last forever,” he said. “You have to move on to other things.”

Island unemployment numbers

High unemployment rates on the island aren’t a new phenomenon, according to data from Statistics Canada.

In recent years, the numbers have been getting better – but the rate is still far behind the provincial and national average.

The most recent unemployment rate released for Cape Breton was 15.5 per cent, nearly seven percentage points higher than the provincial rate.

 

 

 

A new report about the Nova Scotia economy released recently rings the alarm bells for the entire province.

The report, entitled Now of Never: an urgent call to action for Nova Scotians, said the entire province is in such bad shape, it can barely support the standard of living now.

Now or Never Short Ivany Report (Text)
If the local economy stays on its current path, the population is expected to drastically decrease, the report estimates in the next 20 years, there will be 100,000 fewer working age people in 2030s than now.

And that’s a particular problem for smaller municipalities such as Cape Breton, according to Guy.

When a municipality tax rate is higher than the average and it still can’t afford to keep up the standard of living, it doesn’t exactly bolster the local economy, he said.

“Industry doesn’t come, business don’t start up because you’re living in a community that is in visible decay,” said Guy.

“If we don’t get enough support to govern ourselves, whose going to want to live here?” he said. “We’re falling apart.”

The situation on the island is exactly what Morgan predicted and fought against, said Guy. Even Morgan couldn’t escape it.

Rethinking municipal support

While Morgan’s long-term political fight to get more money out of the province didn’t pan out the way he imagined – both politically and personally – the fight hasn’t stopped.

Rethinking municipal support is the goal of a report from the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, an association of smaller Nova Scotian municipal leaders.

The report assesses how effective the current payments are that trickle down from the federal and provincial governments to Nova Scotia municipalities and how the formula could be improved, said Betty MacDonald, the executive director of Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities.

The province is currently considering the draft report.  MacDonald hopes to have a final report to release by the end of September, she said.