MacPolitics: Mayor Fillmore Welcomes Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Will Attend Tree Lighting Amid Trade Tensions
By Andrew Macdonald
For the first time since Nova Scotia began sending a Christmas tree to Boston as a thank-you for the help after the Halifax Explosion of 1917 killed 2,000 Haligonians, the mayor of Boston attended the tree’s cutting in Lunenburg County on Nov. 12.
Although the annual gift of a tree dates back over 50 years, this is the first time a mayor of Beantown attended the Nova Scotia ceremony. Mayor Michelle Wu also met with HRM Mayor Andy Fillmore on Nov. 10.
“It’s a very special day for Mayor Wu to be joining us from Boston,” said Fillmore.“It’s a distinct pleasure to welcome her and her team to City Hall.”
There is a shared history between Halifax and what Nova Scotians still call the Boston States. There has been a long trade between the two cities, and the political culture is similar. Since the turn of the previous century, many Nova Scotians would travel to Boston for work and create new lives there.
“I am so, so thankful for the many years of enduring friendship between Halifax and Boston that I have been honoured to take the baton on in the last four years,” Wu said, as per the Halifax Herald.
“It was important for me to be here this year, to bring a direct thanks on behalf of the people of Boston,” she said.
Despite growing tensions over tariffs between Canada and the United States, the relationship between Boston and Halifax remains strong, said The Herald report.
“Wu said Washington does not speak for Boston. As the local leader, she has had to fight decisions by the federal government both ‘in court and every day in the lives of our residents,” The Herald added.
“For me, this is a chance to make clear that the people of Boston feel very differently about the people of Halifax and the relationship that we might see from our federal politics in America at this moment,” she said.
Mayor Fillmore, who is a citizen of Canada and the United States, agreed with Wu when asked about his views on U.S. President Donald Trump,” the media outlet noted.
“I share the mayor’s perspective that the values being displayed through some of the significant policy decisions are not representative of the founding values of the United States,” he said. “And I am worried; I’m worried about the direction of this leadership.
“This is a way to remind the people that live in Boston and the people that live in Halifax that we’re really good friends, that we work together,” Fillmore said. “So, this is a reminder that friendships are important and we’re better when we’re together.”
The Macdonald Notebook spoke this week with Mayor Fillmore about the visit of Boston’s leader, and he plans to travel to the Christmas tree ceremony in Boston in early December.
He said he would attend the tree’s lighting in the Boston Commons. “This relationship is that important. I am glad you (describe) it as the ‘Boston States’, because as you know, people in this region and New England and Atlantic Canada have been calling those joint regions the Boston States for generation upon generation, upon generation. And there has been a fluid border with families and individuals moving back and forth over all those years. My family, going back a couple of hundred years, have done it. I myself lived in Boston for a while,” Fillmore tells The Notebook.
“So, to have Mayor Wu come as the first mayor of Boston to participate in the felling of the tree for Boston was such an important gesture. It solidifies the fact that our friendship between the two cities goes back hundreds of years. It was really strengthened at the time of the Halifax Explosion when, within 12 hours, Boston dispatched a train full of blankets, medicine and emergency supplies to Halifax.
“Our friendship is unshakable. It is stronger than any fleeting political problem that may exist between the two countries,” adds Fillmore.
While the Boston mayor did not apologize for the U.S. president’s tensions with Canada, “she clearly has a great level of discomfort with what the president is doing, and again I do not want to speak for her, but I can tell you she told me she is challenged each day with decisions that are happening in Washington and doing her best to provide for her citizens the best way she can, regardless of what what the federal government is doing in the United States.
Fillmore’s planned trip in Boston will see him meet again with Mayor Wu, and he has asked her to set up meetings with officials over water and wastewater, “because they have a very good operation going on there that we can learn from.”
The HRM mayor wants to talk to Wu’s team on public-private partnerships over Boston’s operations to create more opportunities for transit on Boston Harbour. “Think of water taxis and aqua shuttles that involve private capital and a public partnership with the transit authority. That is a great interest to me.”
Fillmore, in his winter State of the Union address, spoke of a dream that would create a network on Halifax Harbour criss-crossing the harbour to connect Bedford, Herring Cove and Shannon Park, so they do not have to drive cars on roads or take a bus in a congested transit system.”\
The Halifax mayor also plans to meet up with Bernadette Jordan, Canada’s consul general in Boston, when he attends the December tree lighting ceremony.
Although the annual gift of a tree for Boston dates back over 50 years, this is the first time a mayor of Beantown attended the Nova Scotia ceremony. Mayor Michelle Wu also met with HRM Mayor Andy Fillmore on Nov. 10. (Mayor of HRM picture).
