HRM and 2019

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I thought councillors were not in the plan? Why was Hendsbee asking to be let in a few years ago?

Because he did not join the plan when he had the opportunity. He wanted to join retroactively and have HRM and himself share the cost for the years he was not a member.
Councillors should have the option to have the HRM contribution and his contribution paid into a locked in RRSP and then seek professional advice as to where to invest the money.
I generally tell young people to invest in the top 3 banks and sign up for the dividend re-investment plan. And to open a TFSA and do the same - income from a TFSA is not taxable.
Mayors & members of council were in the pension plan for many years when they were supposed to have 33.333% of their pay as non-taxable and therefore their contributions to the pension plan would be based on 66.66% of their compensation. The payments into the pension plan for councillors was improperly based on 100% of the basic compensation. In essence, the taxpayer paid more into the pension fund than the admin order allowed. I had some written exchanges with an HRM staff member re the issue and whilst he failed to admit the mistake he made sure the issue was corrected when the by-law/admin order was amended over a year ago to allow automatic annual increases in council pay based on the average wage in HRM.
I have a copy of the old admin order as well as the staff report he helped write when the new admin order was debated and passed in August 2017.

https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default...-laws/AO17.pdf

Councillor McCluskey was not in the pension plan because of her age.

[Keith P.]

I did not know councillors were in the pension plan. I totally agree with Colin that they should not be as they are not employees. They are more akin to Board directors.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I did not know councillors were in the pension plan. I totally agree with Colin that they should not be as they are not employees. They are more akin to Board directors.

Look at page 37 : https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default...5rc123pres.pdf

Estimated cost increase in 2022 : $19.8 million, shared 50/50 between taxpayers and employees ( includes increase in CPP premiums).
The council did not get this information until Friday January 11, along with all the other documents for the January 15 council meeting.

[Keith P.]

The one thing this Council is good at doing is causing pain, both financial and otherwise, for taxpayers. Tomorrow Mancini wants to ban plastic shopping bags after the committee that looked into it recommended a much more gradual phase-out. I suspect the idiots on Council will go along with him. And Austin wants to drop $24 million on blue and black monster truck-sized wheeled bins for garbage and recycling, the very definition of a solution that it looking for a problem. All that comes after the great expense and difficult change of forcing residents to use clear plastic garbage bags a couple of years ago after adopting arcane rules for what is garbage and what isn't, all of which would now presumably go out the window. This bunch must go.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

The one thing this Council is good at doing is causing pain, both financial and otherwise, for taxpayers. Tomorrow Mancini wants to ban plastic shopping bags after the committee that looked into it recommended a much more gradual phase-out. I suspect the idiots on Council will go along with him. And Austin wants to drop $24 million on blue and black monster truck-sized wheeled bins for garbage and recycling, the very definition of a solution that it looking for a problem. All that comes after the great expense and difficult change of forcing residents to use clear plastic garbage bags a couple of years ago after adopting arcane rules for what is garbage and what isn't, all of which would now presumably go out the window. This bunch must go.

How much does a single blue garbage bag weigh - 1 gramme ?
How much does a wheelie bin weigh - 4,500 grammes ?
Apparently there is a one person truck with an arm that reaches out to pick up the blue bin and empty the contents without the driver getting out of the cab. Don't know how an automated system decides that a bin contains items that are not allowed in a recycling bin.
Blue bags cost 23 cents each. So we have Councillor Austin talking on Rick Howe show about this idea but ignoring the expensive problem with the pension plan of which he is a member. $20,000,000 for SGR and then $24,000,000 for blue bag bins, soon you are talking real money, whilst ignoring the elephant in the room.
Pandering to voters is important the year before an election.

[Colin May]

More councillors talked and asked questions regarding banning plastic bags than the issue of the massive cost of the HRM pension plan.
Mason and Austin had big smiles when they said that they transferred their money to the HRM plan from the provincial and the federal plan, they know the HRM plan is a great deal for them, and to hell with the taxpayer.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Colin May

More councillors talked and asked questions regarding banning plastic bags than the issue of the massive cost of the HRM pension plan.
Mason and Austin had big smiles when they said that they transferred their money to the HRM plan from the provincial and the federal plan, they know the HRM plan is a great deal for them, and to hell with the taxpayer.

Shameful behavior.

Those two must go next election. Mason was a known quantity and got re-elected anyway. Austin is his mini-me and has been a huge disappointment.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Interesting discussion. Brings to light a lot of points about the pension plan that I didn't realize.

Regarding the plastic bag ban, it's the way of the world, unfortunately but there really isn't a good solution IMHO.

Ban retail plastic bags, so those who used them to line their small garbage cans will still have to buy plastic bags, and then put them in single-use garbage bags at the curb. Buy plastic bags to place recyclable paper in for curbside pickup. Not to mention single-use blue bags.

So, what alternative will the stores have for customers who aren't able to or don't remember to carry reusable bags around with them? It looks like paper, but as mentioned in this article:

According to the previously cited U.K. study, it takes three reuses of a paper bag to neutralize its environmental impact, relative to plastic. A bag’s impact is more than just its associated carbon emissions: Manufacturing a paper bag requires about four times as much water as a plastic bag. Additionally, the fertilizers and other chemicals used in tree farming and paper manufacturing contribute to acid rain and eutrophication of waterways at higher rates.

And don't attempt to carry your groceries home in paper bags during a rainstorm (it doesn't rain much in Halifax, does it?)...

The article also states:

As mentioned in our essential answer, above, an average cotton shopping bag would need to be reused 131 times to account for its higher impact on the production side.

So, if somehow we figure out a way for everybody to carry numerous reusable bags around with them... maybe somebody will make it trendy or chic to carry a back pack stuffed with reusable grocery bags... they probably still won't see sufficient reuse to justify their existence. Or, if people are unaware of the propensity to grow bacteria, will it result in people being sick more often, causing increased use of our health care system and decreased productivity in the workplace?

Nonwoven polypropylene bags seem to be a better, but not perfect, alternative:

Nonwoven PP, on the other hand, is less costly than cotton. These bags need to be reused only 11 times to break even with the conventional plastic (according to the same U.K. study).

I'm not sure if they are the same ones that you can buy in grocery stores around here, though, as those ones seem to be manufactured of differing materials, with handles and linings/edgings sewn onto them. Are they even recyclable?

I'm a little perplexed as to why there seems to have been no process in place for this decision... it's just like they want to appear to be hip and green without thinking it over much.

Like, how about compostable plastic bags? Has anybody considered alternatives before jumping into a ban? The ban really isn't my concern here... it's the lack of process and procedures involved - just pick an idea out of a hat and vote on it.

Ah well, it is politics after all. Do what makes you look good to the masses without really thinking it through. In the end, if a proper alternative isn't decided upon, we could potentially be doing the environment more harm than we already are...

[ILoveHalifax]

I understood that the bags that look like plastic at Pete's are not really plastic and are bio degradable - they may cost a little more but the supermarkets should be able to absorb a fraction of a cent each to provide convenience to their customers

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Interesting discussion.

So, what alternative will the stores have for customers who aren't able to or don't remember to carry reusable bags around with them? It looks like paper, but as mentioned in this article:

I'm a little perplexed as to why there seems to have been no process in place for this decision... it's just like they want to appear to be hip and green without thinking it over much.

Ah well, it is politics after all. Do what makes you look good to the masses without really thinking it through.

Hit the nail on the head. I think it is known as 'virtue signalling'.
During the presentation from the CEO of the pension plan the CEO frequently read parts of the presentation but when it came to the part on page 8 where its stated : " HRM Plan provides more generous features than the vast majority of plans across the country
• After considering CPP and OAS many HRM Plan Members retire with more net cash flow than they had preretirement "
He removed the word 'generous', even though the word is accurate.
Therefore any media clip used for broadcast will not include the word.
As for plastic bags, I suppose cereal manufacturers will no longer be able to sell their product in HRM unless they eliminate the plastic bag from the cardboard box.
Today they spent more time nit-picking the proposed budget for the Legal Department.

[Keith P.]

HRM Council is totally out to lunch (that is on our nickel as well).

The lack of process around the bag issue Mark noted is quite troubling. It takes years for someone wanting to invest millions to construct a new building in HRM to work through the process, meanwhile this goes through like you-know-what through a goose. Then we have Smilin' Sam wanting to spend 10s of millions of dollars on plastic bins for waste. The mind boggles.

BTW: for those mentioning the compostable plastic-like bags, those are banned from HRM's compost stream. The mega-million-dollar compost program that produces hundreds of tons of largely unmarketable compost each year does not work well enough to break those bags down. So forget that good idea.

It was interesting yesterday to hear the howls of protest from Council when the reality that all their "progressive" projects like bike flyover ramps and car-free streets downtown could not be funded due to pesky projects like fixing the roofs of city buildings and repair of other HRM facilities that are making the employees sick. Meanwhile a handful of members were asking where the money to repair roads and sidewalks went. It was a remarkable display of what happens when reality meets fantasy.

It would not be tragic if this entire Council was tossed out on their collective duffs next election.

[OldDartmouthMark]

FWIW, I was musing about requiring the stores to use compostable bags to allow people to bring their groceries home, with the idea that wherever they end up they will eventually break down rather than exist 'forever'. I wasn't suggesting that we use them for compost, which already has a system in place with the green bins, etc.

Interestingly, I heard a comment from one of the ecology action people on the radio this morning in defense of the plastic bag ban. He said something to the effect that chips already come in a plastic bag, so why put them in another. That's all well and good when you buy 1 item, but as soon as the number of items becomes greater than the number of hands you have available, you need some method of carrying them... it just seems like they only have the ability to look at things in the most simplistic of terms.

So, plastic bags are not ideal and they cause environmental problems. I get that... but are the alternatives better? You have to look at it from manufacture to end point, such as the paper bag situation in my above post. Are we really better off cutting down trees and dealing with the environmental fallout from the pulp and paper industry than making plastic bags? It appears to be questionable at best... but HRM is not asking questions.

Maybe HRM should look at what problems the bags are causing and start by considering ways to deal with that. Are bags from HRM ending up in the ocean? If so, then how many and why? Once they determine this then make changes to the processes that allow this to happen, or create stiff penalties for people who are doing it... meanwhile do research to determine the best future option for its citizens and the environment.

We need processes and procedures, not actions based on emotions - that's why we elect them to run things for us... so that good decisions will be made using the appropriate processes, not what they are doing now.

All the other items that Keith and Colin have discussed makes it appear that city government has become quite dysfunctional these days and needs to get their act together.

[Phalanx]

Regarding paper grocery bags... These can be made from recycled paper, and even when not, trees are a renewable resource and can be harvested sustainably (though they often aren't). Processing is still an issue, but one of the reasons that brown paper bags are brown is because there's less (cheaper) processing involved.

Stores could also make used shipping boxes available for customers instead of tossing them, but storage/time would be a factor.

Ultimately the best solution is reusable fabric bags. Sure, forgetting them is a problem, but one of the things that will help you remember is having to carry stuff without a bag or pay for a replacement at the checkout...

Another thing that could be done would be handling more plastic recycling locally. It's not economically viable here for the most part, which is why so much of our plastic was shipped overseas to be 'recycled', but... The longer we wait, the more expensive the solutions get, and the more difficult they are to implement. Recycling isn't a perfect solution, either since only a portion of what's sent in can actually be reused. It just minimizes the impact. Anyway, a nonstarter here, I'm sure, given how much everyone complains about how much things cost.

And yes, solutions cost money, but it's our own damn fault, so we have to suck it up at some point, or just accept that things are going to keep getting worse.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Recycling paper doesn't mean it's a clean or "free" process. While I'm not an expert, it appears that its main benefit is to reuse paper products so that less trees are cut down (which is good, since the "renewable" resource takes several decades to renew, removes the ability of the tree to process CO2 when cut down, and destroys the habitat for wildlife living there in the mean time - not to mention all the fuel burned to cut down the trees and transport them to the pulp and paper plant). There is still impact on the environment from the recycling process (from wikipedia):

The process of waste paper recycling most often involves mixing used/old paper with water and chemicals to break it down. It is then chopped up and heated, which breaks it down further into strands of cellulose, a type of organic plant material; this resulting mixture is called pulp, or slurry. It is strained through screens, which remove any glue or plastic (especially from plastic-coated paper) that may still be in the mixture then cleaned, de-inked, bleached, and mixed with water. Then it can be made into new recycled paper.

Presumably making it into "new recycled" paper involves many of the same processes as making "new" paper? Is there actually an energy/water/pollution savings/benefit to this?

I like the idea about plastic recycling, though even recycling has an environmental penalty (i.e. energy use, chemical use required, etc. - but presumably benefits outweigh negatives). That system could be used to recycle all the other plastic packaging that still remains in many (most) products out there, because getting rid of plastic grocery bags doesn't get rid of the problem. HRM can ban grocery bags but products will still have plastic bags that are used to contain, keep fresh, keep sanitary, etc., the food products that the store sells. That stuff will continue to go to the land fill or get shipped overseas (how much energy is used to do that?) until somebody comes up with a better idea.

What about the issue of bacteria growth in the reusable bags? Is cleaning enough to remove/kill it? I'm guessing if your haddock fillets leak into your reusable grocery bag it will probably be the last time it's reused... then what? It will have to be recycled, or more likely tossed out, as even recycled items are required to be clean.

So yeah, make life more difficult for the average person just trying to get through their day, but don't worry about all the other stuff that also causes similar or worse issues. Honestly, to be effective this type of thing needs to be handled at the federal level - country wide, but our federal government is too busy buying pipelines to sell more oil, while at the same time charging carbon taxes to discourage people from using oil (seems a little hypocritical doesn't it?). The oil shipped overseas (using more fuel to ship) will still be burned and return pollution to the atmosphere that everybody on the planet shares. (sorry strayed a little off-topic there)

The whole environmental issue irks me, not because it changes things or makes things inconvenient, but because there doesn't seem to be any actual leadership involved, just a bunch of groups with conflicting agendas not actually accomplishing anything. The problem is much larger than just taking away the obvious things that people see and that become a popular target to complain about. And it has to be handled at a global level, with collaboration and work towards real solutions. The real solutions will involve solving problems at the root level, and not dealing with the by-products ad hoc.

We can do it, but it takes real work and real thought, not just a bunch of councilors patting themselves on the back because they banned plastic bags without doing any research and trying to work on other solutions. What it often seems to come down to is that people do whatever looks good to everybody else, without actually knowing whether it makes a real difference.

Anyhow, I fully expect to hear about the glut of reusable grocery bags in our landfill within a year or two... I hope I'm wrong.

[Phalanx]

I never meant to imply that recycling paper was chemical or energy free, just that it addressed the issue of cutting down more trees. At least in part.

As for re-usable bags... yes, putting them through the laundry should be enough. If you're worried about things leaking, then you can take a re-usable container (plastic, glass, whatever) to prevent it. Inconvenient? Sure, but convenience is part of the problem. We have to start adapting.

And I agree, we definitely need more leadership at higher levels, and that's the only way things are going to get better on a global scale... but in the absence of leadership and action at higher levels, someone still has to do something. Waiting for someone else to do it has gotten us nowhere.

[Colin May]

In Copenhagen they put it in a modern incinerator which just happens to be 800 feet from hundreds of apartments,8 storeys with a lot of bicycles parked outside. And 1,000 feet from a large yacht marina.
The incinerator has a ski slope from the top of the stack to the ground.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

I never meant to imply that recycling paper was chemical or energy free, just that it addressed the issue of cutting down more trees. At least in part.

As for re-usable bags... yes, putting them through the laundry should be enough. If you're worried about things leaking, then you can take a re-usable container (plastic, glass, whatever) to prevent it. Inconvenient? Sure, but convenience is part of the problem. We have to start adapting.

And I agree, we definitely need more leadership at higher levels, and that's the only way things are going to get better on a global scale... but in the absence of leadership and action at higher levels, someone still has to do something. Waiting for someone else to do it has gotten us nowhere.

Good points. I won't mention the water and energy used to wash the bags in the laundry...

I actually have some question as to whether putting plastic bags in the washing machine is a good idea, or if the fabric-ish bags would actually hold up to a washing, but I'll leave that to experience...

There are other aspects to plastic which I haven't heard addressed yet - and that's keeping food sanitary. The leaking issue I mentioned makes you ask... leaking from what? Well, the styrofoam platter wrapped in plastic - bad for the environment... but the alternative? I am old enough to remember a trip to the butcher's shop involved the meat being cut and wrapped in paper, which worked well with beef, though it would be soaked in blood and not recyclable.

Chicken? Chicken "juice" typically contains salmonella, which is not good to have leaking into other foods for obvious reasons... wrapping it in paper is not a way to keep it from leaking all over the place. what's the solution? Plastic (!) containers (glass is very heavy and breakable)? So carry your tupperware to the meat counter so the staff can slop a piece of raw chicken on it? What if it's too big? What if you are buying a whole chicken? I'm sure none of these are insurmountable, but some work (research and development) will be required to fix it...

Maybe we could all become vegetarians, but the point is that there are some things that plastic is superior for, and keeping food sanitary is one of them. Again, this requires thought from the top in terms of money invested in research and development, and is not something that an activist group could likely solve on their own. City government would probably be most effective in lobbying higher levels of government to take leadership, rather than shooting arrows into the woods in hope that you hit something (not a very good analogy, admittedly...).

Probably one of the biggest environmental issues that is never addressed is continually expanding population. It doesn't take a PHD to figure out that the planet's environmental situation will not be improved by continually increasing the number of humans living on it to consume more of its resources...

[Phalanx]

Washing: I wouldn't wash the cheap ones (welded instead of stitched fabric) or plastic ones (like Sobeys), but the better quality ones can stand up to a washing just fine. And yep, it uses water, but presumably you wouldn't be washing it on its own, so it wouldn't be wasted water, either.

Meat trays: The 'styrofoam' isn't actually styrofoam. It's aerated plastic and has been for years. The same stuff that a lot of the grocery bags are made of, actually, and is recyclable (if you check the bottom, you'll see a recycling symbol). There can sometimes be an issue with the black trays because the automated sorting process can't pick up black for some reason. I know that's an issue in Ontario, but I haven't heard of it being an issue here?

And paper contaminated with food waste can go into the compost (in limited amounts).

And I'm not railing against all plastic, it's a fantastic resource, it's just abused resource. Single-use plastics need to be phased out wherever possible.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

Washing: I wouldn't wash the cheap ones (welded instead of stitched fabric) or plastic ones (like Sobeys), but the better quality ones can stand up to a washing just fine. And yep, it uses water, but presumably you wouldn't be washing it on its own, so it wouldn't be wasted water, either.

Meat trays: The 'styrofoam' isn't actually styrofoam. It's aerated plastic and has been for years. The same stuff that a lot of the grocery bags are made of, actually, and is recyclable (if you check the bottom, you'll see a recycling symbol). There can sometimes be an issue with the black trays because the automated sorting process can't pick up black for some reason. I know that's an issue in Ontario, but I haven't heard of it being an issue here?

And paper contaminated with food waste can go into the compost (in limited amounts).

And I'm not railing against all plastic, it's a fantastic resource, it's just abused resource. Single-use plastics need to be phased out wherever possible.

Again good points, and some information that I was not aware of. Thanks!

[OldDartmouthMark]

An interesting article:
https://business.financialpost.com/o...akes-us-sicker

Another study by professors at the University of Pennsylvania and George Mason University examined the connection between San Francisco’s plastic bag ban and bacteria-related illnesses. They concluded that “both deaths and ER visits spiked as soon as the ban went into effect. Relative to other counties, deaths in San Francisco increase by almost 50 per cent, and ER visits increase by a comparable amount. Subsequent bans by other cities in California appear to be associated with similar effects.”

But justifying bag bans on the grounds of saving the climate “(does) not withstand critical scrutiny,” writes economist E. Frank Stephenson in a book chapter published earlier this month by the Mercatus Center, a university think tank. Stephenson notes that if people switch to reusable plastic bags, carbon emissions might well increase since reusable bags are thicker.

Switching instead to paper bags could be worse. Stephenson cites evidence that “compared to paper grocery bags, plastic grocery bags consume 40 per cent less energy, generate 80 per cent less solid waste, produce 70 per cent fewer atmospheric emissions, and release up to 94 per cent fewer waterborne wastes.”

Another alternative, the reusable cloth bags favoured by environmentally-conscious shoppers, reports Stephenson, “need to be used about 130 times to be carbon equivalent with single-use plastic bags” and so sticking with plastic bags instead may result in lower emissions. And the plastic bags aren’t exactly filling up the landfills, either. Data from the Environmental Protection Agency suggests plastic bags account for only about 0.28 per cent, by weight, of municipal solid waste in America.

Given these facts, Stephenson concludes that the bans “appear to be victories of symbolism over sound policy” and that “predatory politics may often be found lurking beneath the green veneer of plastic bag bans.” Indeed, there is no better way to describe the politics of those who ban, without good reason, products shoppers want to use.