Editor’s Note: This is Part II of a series that will continue until I find some answers or give up, whichever comes first. You’ll find Part I here and Part III here.)
When last we met, it was August 1984, and Zutphen Brothers of Port Hood was sitting on a pile of construction materials at the corner of Pitt and Esplanade, waiting for the provincial government to greenlight a $5 million facelift for Charlotte Street, part of a $12 million downtown development project the federal government had promised to fund to the tune of $8 million.
Today’s article will cover events from September 1984 because I returned to CBU and read every edition of the Cape Breton Post from that month. I managed to focus pretty closely on my topic this time, so have less extraneous information to offer you, but “less” doesn’t mean “none” so let me start by saying that as the downtown development saga was unfolding, Donald Marshall Jr, acquitted of murdering Sandy Seale in 1983, had just received $270,000 in compensation from the provincial government for the 11 years he spent in prison; Sydney police were on strike; and Pope John Paul II was visiting Halifax (following an open-air mass on the Commons, $100,000 worth of unsold sandwiches had to be sent to the dump.) Princess Diana was in the news but so was Hurricane Diana and sometimes, I couldn’t tell from the headline—”Diana Continues Her Erratic Bursts”—which Diana was being referenced. (That particular headline was about the storm.)
Our Charlotte Street revamp story resumed in the September 1 edition of the Post, in an interview with Provincial Development Minister Rollie Thornhill, who said the province was “analyzing” the federal government’s offer and would decide whether to sign the $12 million federal-provincial agreement “as soon as it’s practicable.”
“We don’t normally react to pressure,” the development minister told the Post‘s Halifax Bureau (read: reporter Betsy Chambers). Asked if a decision could come before the federal election, scheduled for September 4, Thornhill said he:
…would think September 4 would be too soon. I presume we will have a Labour Day weekend ahead so it might be difficult to make our analysis and have some decision by then.
Sydney Mayor Manning MacDonald told the paper he’d discussed the project “on two separate occasions” with Premier John Buchanan (who, according to a separate story in the same edition of the Post, was Canada’s second-most-popular premier at the time, with a 58% approval rating), stressing how “vital” it was to the city. MacDonald said he’d been assured the issue would be given “high priority.”
Thornhill’s statement, however, confirmed for the Post “the generally held belief that a pre-election signing has never really been in the cards as far as the province is concerned.”
The desire to have the deal signed and sealed prior to the federal election was predicated on the fear that if the federal Liberals lost government, the incoming Tories, under Brian Mulroney, might rescind the funding. “Advocates” of the project assured the Post that any contract signed with the feds would be binding no matter which party won the fall elections.
While expressing support for the project, Mayor MacDonald also took the opportunity to “lament” the way the municipal government was “by-passed” in its planning:
It would have been nice if they’d put a copy of the plans or the agreement on my desk. I have yet to see any documentation on this whole deal.
September 1 was a Saturday, so the paper featured its weekly Between the Lines (BTL) gossip column (unsigned but penned by Post executive editor Ian MacNeil) which also addressed the Charlotte Street project:
The tragic foul-up on the Downtown Redevelopment plan is going to cost somebody in the vicinity of $300,000. The city can’t pay, the federal government won’t pay, so the mess appears to be left a the provincial government level. And Premier Buchanan says his government has no responsibility in the matter. What a mess! And yet, our gut feeling is that the project will proceed in the spring.
I believe the $300,000 must refer to the cost of the construction materials brought in by Zutphen Brothers, but the Between-the-Lines item is short on detail.
Canadians went to the polls on September 4 and the result, as the Post reported the next day, was the largest Tory majority in the party’s history. “Tories Sweep National Elections” blared the big, front-page headline; “Cape Breton Bucks Tide” replied the smaller type below the fold. Liberal incumbents Russell MacLellan and Dave Dingwall retained their seats although Allan J. MacEachen’s longtime riding of Cape Breton Canso turned blue, electing Tory Lawrence O’Neil.
The race was on to see if Buchanan could be convinced to sign the Sydney downtown development deal before Mulroney was sworn in as prime minister on Monday, September 17. On September 8, the Post reported that Cape Breton South MLA Vince MacLean had forwarded a letter to the premier, urging him to act:
“The City of Sydney is in desperate need of a facelift, and your money could begin the program,” MacLean said, “The only way the program can begin immediately is if you allow it to proceed as arranged.”
MacLean worried the new Progressive Conservative government would “put everything on hold for review” when it took office. He argued that the Treasury Board had approved the $8 million federal contribution and John Turner’s Liberals, in office for a few more days, had “every legal right” to sign an agreement with the province. The MLA said he’d spoken to Cape Breton-The Sydneys MP Russell MacLellan who’d assured him the feds were ready to sign before the end of the week.
Eight days after entering office, Mulroney went to Washington to meet US President Reagan.
MacLean also pointed out that if Buchanan’s goal in delaying the deal had been to hamper MacLellan’s re-election, it had failed, as the Liberal had managed to retain his seat. MacLean viewed this as “a firm indication that Sydney residents didn’t appreciate the premier’s actions.”
But on September 13, Buchanan told reporters it was “pretty irresponsible” and, in fact, “extraordinary” for the federal Liberals to have signed contracts on downtown Sydney development “without first having the required provincial consent.” Buchanan said (and you have to love this) that the scheme “just smacked very loudly of politics.” The premier told the Post that while he wouldn’t say the project was a “very low priority” for his government, they were going to take “a good long look at it.”
September 13 also saw Sydney’s City Council agreeing to petition the premier to “sign the necessary documents” to get the $12 million development project under way. The resolution was put forward by Alderman and development committee chair John Kennedy, who also proposed forming a committee to look at the mandate of the Downtown Parking and Development Corporation (DPDC), the organization formed in the early ’80s to oversee Sydney’s Mainstreet projects. Mayor MacDonald pre-empted the establishment of a committee to look into a corporation by telling council a meeting had already been arranged between council and corporation representatives.
Several aldermen, reported the Post, expressed frustration at being unable to explain to citizens how the project “got to the construction stage” with “mayor and council knowing so little about it.” Alderman John Nardocchio wanted to know “who the hell was responsible” and who was going to “pay the piper,” meaning the Zutphen Brothers. The mayor assured him the city had no responsibility for this, adding he “couldn’t explain how all that material and equipment got to the corner of Pitt and Charlotte without any reference to council.”
And contrary to what the Post‘s source in the Downtown Parking and Development Corporation had been telling it in August—namely, that the redevelopment project had been planned hand-in-hand with the province and that the city had been kept informed through its many representatives on the corporation’s board—the mayor now told council the development corporation was also in the dark and “had never met to deal with the controversial project.”
Alderman Kennedy and Alderman Vince MacNeil, council representatives on the DPDC board, said they’d never been called to a meeting to deal with the $12 million development project “or anything else.” Kennedy said he agreed with the “depoliticizing intent” of the DPDC but “there was no doubt in his mind politics had played a role in the “Charlotte Street mix-up.” (To which a 2022 observer can only say, “Ya think?”)
Alderman Archie MacRury said the DPDC system had succeeded only in keeping municipal politicians “in the dark.”
Elsewhere, Vince MacLean told the Post he’d had the opportunity to have a “15-minute chat” with Premier Buchanan in Sydney and had, again, pressed him to sign the deal. MacLean said Buchanan was “doubtful” of the $8 million federal commitment, but MacLean assured him the Turner government was standing by the agreement. MacLean said Buchanan had agreed to talk to Thornhill, with whom he (MacLean) had first discussed the project 15 months earlier, but said the proposal had to go before the provincial management board and cabinet.
On Friday, September 15, Sydney’s police constables went on strike and the RCMP moved in to preserve law and order. (The Post had, for some days previous, been featuring photos of merchants on Charlotte Street and Victoria Road boarding up their windows in preparation for the strike but the paper reported the first night had passed without incident.)
On the eve of the new federal government taking office, the Post had a feature interview with MP Russell MacLellan, who said he felt the Liberal government’s decentralization program, which included moving Citizenship and Immigration jobs to Sydney, was “too far advanced to kill” and that the same applied to downtown development. MacLellan told the Post he was giving Buchanan “the benefit of the doubt,” but if he “dumps” the project, “you’ll be hearing from me.”
The next day was a Saturday and Between-the-Lines added a new twist to the story, reporting that Buchanan was now favoring a downtown development plan for Sydney drafted two years earlier by New Brunswick developer John Rocca of Rocca Group Limited (RGL), the company behind Saint John’s Market Square. Rocca, sounding every inch the private developer, told Between-the-Lines:
More than any other community in the Maritimes, Sydney lends itself to the kind of plan we have in mind.
Rocca added that his plan was “broader” and “more stylish” than the plan being pushed by the federal government. A later BTL column would offer some further detail:
Mr Rocca’s plan is to start south of the Vogue Theatre and work along to Townsend Street and through to the Esplanade.
BTL said the premier liked the idea of the “influx of private capital” the Rocca project would (supposedly) bring with it. The Mayor was also interested in the plan, and BTL (whose “gut” feeling just a week earlier had been that work on the existing plan would begin in the spring) was now encouraging Charlotte Street merchants to “take a hard look” at the Rocca proposal.
This terrible photo of developer Pat Rocca (brother of John) with a scale model of Market Square appeared in a 2017 CBC article marking his death.
On September 18, Russell MacLellan told the Post he feared Buchanan was about to convince Sydney to swap a downtown development project that was “construction ready” (the phrase “shovel-ready” wouldn’t come into vogue for a few years yet) for “an iffy proposition that’s barely into the conceptual stage.” MacLellan said it would be “criminal” if the City were talked into turning down an “assured” $12 million project requiring only the premier’s signature to proceed to construction in favor of a scheme he claimed to have discussed with Buchanan in 1982.
MacLellan said Buchanan had asked him to “press for some federal money” for the Rocca project, but insisted the MP keep the matter “between themselves” because he “didn’t want the Mayor to know about it at that stage.”
The problem with the Rocca scheme, said MacLellan, was that “the Rocca people weren’t interested unless there were to be a sizeable government subsidy involved.” (Funny how often this is the case with “private sector” developments.)
MacLellan said he’d told Buchanan he’d do what he could and nothing more came of the project—until now:
It’s obvious to me the premier is reviving it to get out of signing the Charlotte Street deal.
Asked why, post-election, Buchanan would continue to stall, MacLellan theorized that it was the “old divide Cape Bretoners game.”
On Saturday, September 22, Between-the-Lines noted that one federal project planned for Cape Breton (a community center in Glace Bay) had already been canceled and “everything else placed on hold.” (Being BTL, it followed this up with the exciting revelation that TV cook Madame Benoit was coming to town.)
On September 24, Betsy Chambers reported that Alderman Charlie Palmer had confronted Rollie Thornhill about the Charlotte Street project during a meeting of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities.
Thornhill, wrote Chambers, had been “extolling the virtues” of the province’s Mainstreet program, proclaiming it a “lasting testimonial to what communities can do when they work together.” This proved too much for Palmer, who called out from the back of the room, “We really wonder what’s going on.”
Thornhill told Chambers later he was not sure the federal money for the Sydney project was still available or whether it had been approved by the Treasury Board. “We are assessing the situation,” he said.
Asked afterward [if] approval for the Charlotte Street project might be given in time for a widely expected provincial [provincial] election this fall, Mr. Thornhill smiled and chided, “Now, now.”
On September 25, the new federal government imposed a partial hiring and spending freeze.
On September 28, the Post reported that the $12 million downtown development scheme for Sydney sounded “more certainly defunct” with each new remark from Premier Buchanan, whose new line to the paper was not that the deal was “under consideration” but that it was “never there” in the first place.
It was a political scam, nothing but. If there is a problem, Russell MacLellan better clear it up. He’s responsible.
Buchanan declared himself ready to negotiate a “responsible, reliable, right” deal for downtown development and mentioned the Rocca plan, saying he’d be talking to that group soon.
John Rocca (CBC Photo)
He stressed there had been no agreement on downtown development between the province and the feds and the MacLellan plan “came out of left field.”
That Saturday (September 29th), the Post reported that Buchanan had called a provincial election for November 6 and BTL claimed the $8 million from the feds for the project was “still in place” but said there was no indication the province was willing to participate. BTL suggested Buchanan and Mayor MacDonald would now move for “closer consultation” with the Rocca Group “in an effort to get private capital into the project.”
Although the federal money is in place, the matter still must be reviewed by Minister [Sinclair] Stevens.
Stevens had been named Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion (DRIE) in Mulroney’s cabinet.
And that brings us to the end of September 1984.
I am going to return to the microfilm to read what happened in October 1984 because I’m curious to know if there was a definitive rejection of the Charlotte Street plan or if it just kind of petered out. I am also curious to know what happened to the Rocca Group plan.
And I’ve tracked down the City of Sydney Council minutes for 1984—they’re stored by the CBRM in Glace Bay and can be seen by appointment only (the Municipal Clerk has to have the requested volumes sent to the Civic Centre for viewing).
I think this is a terrible system but it’s the only one we’ve got, so I’ll just have to make it work.
