- HRM Votes: Nolan Greenough At 23 Years Old Youngest Contender for Mayor – Here is why he is running
By Andrew Macdonald
There are 16 candidates for HRM mayoral race, and its youngest would be mayor is Nolan Greenough, age 23.
Improving Metro Transit and building more bike lanes are the major policy platforms he is campaigning on.
An apprentice mechanic at a location in Bayers Lake, eight months ago he moved into a rent-to-own house in Woodlawn, a subdivision in Dartmouth.
The Macdonald Notebook’s comprehensive coverage of the mayoral race has seen us profile a number of candidates so far.
I decided to profile Greenough because he has been invited to some mayoral debates, including this past week at the Halifax Chamber of Commerce’s debate, where five of 16 candidates had been invited to participate.

Halifax mayoral candidate Nolan Greenlough, an apprentice mechanic, has campaigned for mayor on a pro-working class platform, citing his experience of striving for and eventually obtaining his own home. (The Notebook).
His mayoral campaign, however, is not registering in the polls.
Only four candidates for mayor have polling numbers: Andy Fillmore is leading the polls, while regional councillors Pam Lovelace and Waye Mason are currently fighting for second spot finish, and a retired cop is also polling in fourth spot, Jim Hoskins.
Greenough readily admits he is not going to win the mayor’s post, and jokes that means he can’t be a bad mayor.
I asked why he did not seek a safer seat and run for regional councillor, and he says he only moved to Woodlawn eight months ago and does not have the depth of knowledge to understand that area nor does he have an extensive network of its residents and what makes them tick.
He got beaten by the political bug, however, several years ago, when Southend Halifax councillor Waye Mason made headlines calling for reduced night hours for corner stores.
“The thing that got me into politics, I used to live on Brunswick Street a couple of years ago in Halifax and there was a by-law that passed that changed the enforceable hours of two convenience stores, Triple-A and Jubilee Injunction. That what was caught my attention”, and had him focusing on HRM policies and politics.
“My grandparents used to live in Hamilton, and I was always enamoured how late (the city ran). Everything stayed open late, even in Hamilton,” he explains.
“To see this motion get passed at (HRM council) to limit how late these corner stores could open, that kind of broke my heart. I knew these places. I used to deliver Skip the Dishes and I have met these people (shopkeepers) and I knew firsthand what they do for their communities,” he says.
That got him introduced to politics at HRM.
“Ever since then, that is how I familiarized myself, reading municipal documents and understanding how this kind of stuff works. And then seeing, ‘Oh this is an issue that the city is not working on. Oh, this is another problem and it is caused by this,’”. And that piqued is political interest in his city.
Back then he was 21.
I asked Greenough if he actually thinks he can win the mayoral race, or whether he’d have a better path to victory first running for regional councillor, at least if only to get his political feet wet.
“I know I am in know position to win the mayoral race, right? There are three very qualified candidates for that, and I know I am not really poised to win the election,” Greenough readily admits.
“But, I also did not feel right running for a regional seat. We live in Woodlawn now (with Megan Baker, his fiancée). When I put myself on the ballot (for mayor), we only lived here for about eight months. Frankly, this is the nicest place I ever lived. But I did not feel motivated to change anything here at the time and I did not feel I was going to be a good voice for these people here because I was brand new to the area.”
Creating a Political Name For Himself
“But something I did know is that if I ran for mayor now, I had a pretty low chance of winning, so I have a very low chance of being a bad mayor”, he says to chuckles. “But, it gets me rooted in the community and I get to meet people, and learn more and more behind the scenes. It has been very nice to at least meet Waye (Mason) and Pam (Lovelace).”
I asked the youthful political contender if he is running to create a political name for a run in four years as a regional councillor, or eventually taking a stab at becoming an MLA.
Greenough replies to The Macdonald Notebook: “Right now, I am only getting familiar with the municipal system. So, I am definitely considering a council seat the next time around (in four years time). I am tossing around the idea of running for MLA. It’s on the back burner of things I should do post-October (election)”.
He says his background of being a son of a single mother, who struggled financially has helped mould his take on political life. Growing up in a home where financial insecurity existed he says “was a precarious situation. There were times when we were not sure we’d be the next tent being pitched. When conversations about rent cap started coming off, we were not sure everytime it got discussed we were not sure if we would be homeless now. What is our future, it is scary. If we did not have rent cap as long as we had it, I’d be homeless right now. I don’t think I’d be able to claw out of that. It is tough.”

Nolan Greenough and his fiancee, Megan Baker, the latter who is his official agent for his HRM mayoral campaign. (Contributed).
But, he bought a rent-to-own home at a young age. “We secured a down payment. Our home is part of the rent-to-own program. How we got into that, our period is four years until we get into the steps of getting the mortgage on it proper. A large portion of what we pay every month is toward growing the down payment. The payment itself, mostly admittingly, it came out of Megan’s pocket. She had been saving for a long time before we had even met. Beyond that, even being able to afford payments month over month, myself, Megan, as well as my mother and my brother we are all paying into this month over month, each of us is putting in a $1,000 a month just to keep the place in our names. It was a consolidation of two households to get this done.”
Nolan Greenough Wants Metro Transit Improvements
A big part of his mayoral campaign is to bring awareness to transit in the city and improve it.

HRM mayoral contender Nolan Greenough says Metro Transit has to improve its offering. (Contributed).
He says he can’t get to work at 7:30 am on time, if he had to rely on transit, from his Woodlawn home to the work site at Bayers Lake, so he takes his car to work. He became a mechanic first, so he could do his own car repairs.
“The reason that I am focusing so much on transit – that is my biggest (policy) is that one of the first groups I met with is called, It’s More Than Buses. It’s a non-profit group. It’s an amazing group, and I met with Douglas and we went on a ride along in Downtown Halifax,” explains Greenough.
“Douglas pointed out a lot of things that Transit is doing wrong. He really had difficulty pointing out anything that transit does right, quite frankly.”
He says the big issues with transit “are on time performance, traffic congestion and getting rapid transit off the ground.
“There’s a lot of things we are missing out on transit. And, that I find is going to be a very key issue in regards to affordability and transportation, obviously,” Greenough tells The Macdonald Notebook.
“Quite frankly, car ownership is expensive. The only reason I am a mechanic is I couldn’t afford to pay someone to work on my car.”
“I get it. There are a lot of people who depend on buses and I think we’d be in a good spot if there were more (buses).”
Greenough is part of the age group, Gen Z and he says the cost of living and affordability are always on the minds of folks in his age group – and beyond.
“I do not think I know anybody under the age of 40 that thinks good things will ever happen again, frankly. It’s a tough climate out there for people our age. It’s draining.”