'The cost is significant': Premiers to take legal action over isthmus funding

With a day to spare, the premiers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have decided to apply for national funding to help protect the Chignecto Isthmus, a crucial piece of land that connects the two provinces.

The news came following a leadership committee meeting on the Atlantic Growth Strategy at a downtown Moncton hotel.

Nova Scotia Premier, Tim Houston, and New Brunswick Premier, Blaine Higgs, believe the federal government should pay for all the work to protect the area from future storms, not the fifty per cent Ottawa has offered through a disaster mitigation program.

“We will be applying for it to meet the deadlines that have been put forward. At the same time, we will be seeking clarification and legal interpretation of the Constitution,” said Higgs.

Houston called the area a “nationally significant trade corridor” with $35 billion worth of goods flowing through the Amherst, N.S. and Sackville, N.B. area every year.

On the same page, Houston and Higgs are so convinced that they're prepared to take legal action over it.

“The federal government has dug in and they said no, apply under the program for half. So we'll do that, but it's also important, certainly for our region, just to get a reference from the court on whose responsibility this really is,” said Houston. “It’s a shame that we are where we are. It’s not a good outcome for Nova Scotians to apply under this program.”

The Trans-Canada Highway, a CN Rail line, and a system of dikes are all located in the Chignecto Isthmus.

Funding would go toward improvements to the dike system which would protect the trade corridor from major storms.

Three separate projects in the area were once believed to be between the $300 and $400 million range, but the estimate has since sky rocketed.

“The cost is significant,” said Houston. “The most recent estimates are six to seven hundred million dollars.”

Higgs was asked if suing the federal government while applying for funding would be detrimental to the project.

“No, I think the discussions we've had to date are both an interpretation of what we believe in one sense of the Constitution and what my federal counterpart believes [Dominic LeBlanc] is what the Constitution says. So getting a legal interpretation and applying for that directly is a prudent thing to do,” said Higgs.

Federal Infrastructure Minister, Dominic LeBlanc, met with Higgs and Houston on Monday and understands there has been an escalation in cost.

“But I've said consistently and I will repeat it again, that this is for us a priority project for the reasons Premier Houston and Premier Higgs shared,” said LeBlanc. “Its importance to the economy of the region, its importance in terms of a trade corridor. Its importance in terms of protecting the municipal infrastructure that might theoretically fail in the case of an extreme weather event.”

At a funding announcement in Dieppe Monday, LeBlanc said a lawsuit against the federal government over funding for the isthmus would be “frivolous” and a waste of tax payers’ dollars.

When asked if he felt the same way a day later, LeBlanc answered with an emphatic “yes”.

Topics discussed during the Atlantic Growth Strategy Leadership Committee between federal ministers and Atlantic premiers included the environment, the economy, population growth and tourism.