With just days to go before Nova Scotians elect their next provincial government, 15 acres of land in Bayers Lake is stirring up some controversy on the campaign trail.
In April, 10 days before calling an election, Stephen McNeil announced the province had spent $7.5 million dollars to buy land just off Susie Lake Crescent.
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The goal is to put a Community Outpatient Centre on the site, which will replace some of the services that are currently offered at the VG but will be lost during the redevelopment of the QE2 Health Sciences Centre.
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PC Leader Jamie Baillie says the party submitted a Freedom of Information Request to the Nova Scotia Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, looking for all correspondence regarding the decision not to tender the purchase of land in Bayers Lake, and the process used to select the property.
The response the PCs got back was that there were “no records responsive to your application.”
“It just doesn’t add up,” Baillie told Global News on Saturday.
“The premier told us there was a legitimate process for buying those lands in Bayers Lake. The mayor of Halifax said it didn’t make sense, we say it doesn’t make sense. Now, we find out there was no process at all.”
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Baillie says there should be a paper trail and is calling the purchase a political move.
“Mr. McNeil’s really letting us down here. He actually stood on that site and made a political, pre-election announcement that it was the right place. The mayor of Halifax said it isn’t, and now we know that they didn’t even have a process to pick it,” said Baillie.
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McNeil said the government looked at 15 different parcels of land before deciding which one to purchase.
As for the request for documents, McNeil says the Freedom of Information Request asked for information related to tending — but there is no process for tendering land.
“It’s just Jamie, just ignoring the facts,” said McNeil.
“He’ll say anything at this point. He’s just trying to say anything to grab some attention.”
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McNeil said Baillie is looking for any reason for the Bayers Lake site not to work.
“You know what, every Nova Scotian that I’ve talked to is excited about this, except for one,” said McNeil.
“This is unfortunate, that what is a good news story for this province is that we’re getting a chance to re-deploy our health-care services in HRM, that they’ve continued to look for political reasons for this reason,” he said. “There’s nothing there. I wasn’t involved in it. It didn’t come to me.”
Election day is May 30.
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