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Everything You Need to Know About the HRM Mayoral Election

  • Rowan Helmer
  • Oct 3, 2024
  • 5 min read

The municipal election for the Halifax Regional Municipality is coming up on October 19th! Here’s everything you need to know to be an informed voter. 


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Eligibility

In order to be eligible to vote in the HRM municipal election, you must be 18 years of age or older, a Canadian citizen on the first advanced polling day, and meet the residency requirements. Nova Scotia residency is established if you have been a resident in Nova Scotia for six months immediately before first advanced polling, and you have been a resident of the HRM since immediately before the first advanced polling day.


Students that attend any of the province's eight post-secondary institutions are able to vote in the mayoral election provided they meet the basic voter eligibility. If you meet basic voter eligibility requirements, you are considered a resident of where your family home is located or where you are attending school, but not both (HRM). Residents are only permitted to vote in one municipal election in Nova Scotia. 


If you are eligible and want to vote in the upcoming municipal election you must be on the elector’s list for the 2024 municipal election. You can confirm that you are on the list here. If you’re not on the list and would like to be, reach out at (902) 490-VOTE (8683)! 


Online and telephone voting are available alongside in-person voting. This can be done by reaching out via phone at (902) 490-VOTE (8683) to request a PIN that can be used for telephone and online voting. 


Now that you know if you’re eligible to vote, let’s figure out what district you’re in!


Districts

The HRM municipal election elects both the mayor and district councillors. All voters can vote for a candidate to represent their district, and vote for their choice of mayoral candidate.


Most of the HRM peninsula is covered by districts 7, 8, and 9. If you are a student living on the peninsula, there is a high chance you live in one of these districts! To verify what district you are located in, you may refer to the interactive map tool. 


The list of district candidates is available here. Prior research on candidate platforms is encouraged in order to ensure that you are informed before you head to the polls. 




Mayoral Candidates

Since all eligible HRM voters have the chance to vote for the Mayor, let us look into some of the candidates. 


Past Mayor Mike Savage announced his retirement earlier this year and is thus not re-running as a candidate this year. 


There are 16 mayoral candidates this year - I will be focusing on 3 candidates who have been making recent headlines and who have clear campaign objectives. The entire list of mayoral candidates can be found here. 


Andy Fillmore

Andy Fillmore is a lifelong Liberal and was a member of Parliament representing Halifax in Ottawa for 9 years. He also has experience as a city planner in Halifax. This summer, Fillmore announced his mayoral candidacy and his shift from federal to municipal politics. 


Fillmore’s background in rural and urban city planning translates to his campaign goals. He focuses on managing the HRM’s rapid population growth. While the population increase is positive in many ways, it also contributes to many existing issues such as the housing crisis, deteriorating roads, and transit issues. 


Fillmore focuses on the importance of building more houses and apartments in an attempt to battle the housing crisis and the lack of affordable housing. 


He acknowledges that affordability is a main issue for constituents, and plans to bring this to the council and try to make life more affordable for HRM residents. 


Fillmore’s transportation plan focuses on improving roads, filling potholes, making transit more reliable, and reducing traffic congestion. 


Overall, Fillmore is clear that he is focused on all of HRM, not just downtown Halifax. He aims to connect with and serve all members of HRM equally, whether they live in urban, suburban, or rural areas. 


Andy Fillmore’s campaign website can be found here for more information. 


Pam Lovelace

Pam Lovelace has been a Halifax Councillor since 2020 and served as Deputy Mayor of Halifax from 2020-2021. She currently serves as a councillor for District 13 (Hammonds Plains-St. Margaret’s). She has experience working for CBC doing communications and project management, and has taught at both Dalhousie and Mount Saint Vincent Universities. 


Lovelace’s campaign slogan is, “Build Smarter, Grow Stronger and Live Better”. “Build Smarter”, Lovelace explains, refers to the fact that she wishes to increase housing by simplifying the regulations that building houses and apartments entails. This would mean that more builds would be approved, and houses and apartments could be built at a faster rate. She emphasizes that buildings need to be planned effectively for safe and sustainable communities. 


Lovelace’s campaign also emphasizes the need for a better transit system in Halifax. She aims to expand the ferry services and invest in a light rail system in the HRM and states the need for “connected regional transit” so that constituents can quickly, affordably, and safely, travel between different regions. 


Lovelace promises to transform Halifax into a “world-class city”. For more on her campaign, find her website here.


Waye Mason

Waye Mason has been on the Halifax Municipal Council for 12 years. 


In terms of the housing crisis, Mason plans to make the housing market faster. Mason plans to reduce building permit wait times and other logistical processes (or ‘red tape’) involved with building affordable and market-price housing, to make more options available quickly for renters and buyers. 


Mason is the only candidate who substantially addresses climate change in his platform. He outlines his plans to protect and expand the protection of coastal and inland wildlife areas. He also plans to be a zero-waste province, make solar energy more affordable for all via interest-free loans, provide grants to protect heritage properties from climate change, work on infrastructure to combat rising sea levels, and much more. 


Mason has clear ideas about how to make Halifax more affordable - this includes expanding the Affordable Access Program, expanding property tax assistance, adjusting rural taxes to meet services these areas receive, and “eliminating property taxes for not-for-profits that deliver municipal services on behalf of HRM”. 


Mason plans to improve transit by increasing the frequency of popular transit lines, increasing airport bus to every 30 minutes instead of every 60, creating better shelters at popular bus stops, expanding free student bus passes to anyone under the age of 18, and reorganizing bus lanes and prioritizing bus lane construction to make sure buses aren't late as often. 


Mason’s campaign outlines equity, accessibility, and inclusion, and states that he will return “control of Africville lands to former residents and descendants”. He plans on continuing to implement Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations and making HRM more accessible to all. To implement community safety, he plans to create and support a civilian response team for those experiencing addiction, homelessness, and mental health crises. A police reform process will be completed to ensure safe and equitable policing in HRM.


Overall, Waye Mason’s campaign platform is much longer than any of the other candidates. His website includes his overall campaign goals, as well as a fully fleshed-out explanation of how he plans to achieve these goals. You can find Mason’s whole platform PDF here, and his campaign website here. 


Conclusion

Overall, while these three candidates focus on some of the same main issues, they all have different ideas about how to solve them. This article is a brief jumping-off point for beginning to engage with municipal and mayoral politics this year. Remember to do research about who you want to represent your district in council, as well as on any other mayoral candidates you are interested in hearing from! Now that you know more about three of the top contenders for the mayoral position this year, I hope you feel more ready to vote in this year’s election on Oct. 19th. 


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