Nova Scotia Voluntary Planning Board

The Nova Scotia Voluntary Planning Board was established in 1963 to assist and advise the minister of finance in the development and implementation of measures to increase the rate of economic growth by means of voluntary economic planning. Beginning in 1970, the board's mandate expanded well beyond economic planning to embrace most areas of public policy. The board gradually began to act as a public policy forum for the private sector, while maintaining its prime function as an adviser to government on economic policy and its social and environmental impact. The board's committees addressed matters as diverse as governance and public administration, community development, labour market, workforce and human resources development, energy and environment, natural resources, taxation and public revenue, tourism, culture and heritage, and transportation. The board ceased to exist when the Voluntary Planning Act was repealed in 2011.

Notes: Authority record based on Statutes of Nova Scotia: 1963 c. 12, 2001 c. 4, 2011 c. 9; Anthony Lamport, Common Ground: 25 Years of Voluntary Planning in Nova Scotia (Halifax: N.S. Department of Small Business Development 1988), 224 p.