CBRM to move some municipal services online

The Cape Breton Regional Municipality is working to develop a website that will allow residents to access a range of services online, including bill and ticket payment and permit applications.

The province is giving $262,500 to the municipality to fund the creation of the site.

The online portal, scheduled to go live in November 2023, is expected to provide a variety of services, including electronic bill delivery, building permits and application tracking.

CBRM deputy chief administration officer John MacKinnon called the site a "one-stop shop" for residents and said it will make services more accessible.

"You would be able to log into a municipal portal and be able to access, say, your tax and water bills," said MacKinnon.

"You could be able to apply for a building permit online. You could track the status of the building permit … if you wanted to, say, book time at one of our arenas that we manage — things like that."

More digital services could be on the way

MacKinnon called the project critical to the municipality's future and said it could lead to more services being offered online.

"It will be the framework and going forward the technology that we develop or that we create will become electronic, they will be added to it," he said. "I think of it as sort of like the paper clip that will hold everything together."

The provincial funding is provided under the municipal innovation program, intended to support the long-term sustainability of local governments. The province will cover 75 per cent of the new online portal, while the municipality will put up the remaining 25 per cent.