Eager to get their concerns in front of a new Progressive Conservative government, Minto council will request meetings with three provincial ministries at the 2018 Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference.
On June 19 council directed staff to request meetings with officials from the ministries of municipal affairs; finance; and agriculture, food and rural affairs at the conference, set for Aug. 19 to 22 in Ottawa.
“2018 is the first one I’ve ever been to that there’s a government other than a Liberal government, so it will be interesting,” said CAO Bill White.
“What’s the saying? … Strike the iron while it’s hot.”
In a report to council White provided a list of six possible topics for delegations, outlining the municipality’s concerns regarding:
– Bill 148 the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act;
– Bill 68 Modernizing Municipal Legislation;
– approach to funding through programs such as the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF), Ontario Community Investment Fund (OCIF), Connecting Link fund, provincial gas tax and others;
– Ontario Building Code amendments focusing on energy efficiency and climate change;
– the impact of the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe; and
– delays in implementing legislated actions regarding municipal drains due to the involvement of Oceans and Fisheries Canada.
“Since 2011 Minto has expressed concern with some of the previous government’s initiatives. So none of these things are going to be a surprise,” said White, noting the list involves, “six areas we’ve kind of hammered on over the years.”
White told council legislation such as Bills 148 and 168, plus the province’s complicated formulas for grant applications and reporting requirements “have all added to our costs … staff costs or consultant costs.”
White noted attempts to deal with other issues such as joint and several liability regulations, which result in municipalities bearing an excessive share of lawsuit damages, have been unsuccessful in recent years.
“We got that (joint and several liability) to AMO one year and abruptly at that conference in, I think 2014, the premier cut that off right at the knees,” said White.
“It was the only time I ever heard a minister booed at AMO,” noted Mayor George Bridge.
“So I think it’s time to talk to them about those things and what better time than now?” said White.
Regarding Bill 148, White said, “The main one for us that’s of concern is the call-in obligations … I think we should think about a delegation to the Minister of Municipal Affairs to get an immediate exemption for all municipal workers and volunteer firefighters from all obligations under Bill 148.”
White pointed out council had objected to sections of Bill 68 they felt resulted in “decreased local autonomy and increased oversight, reporting and bureaucracy brought on by requiring an integrity commissioner be hired, and granting that position authority and responsibility already incumbent upon staff, all members of council and local boards, Ministry of Municipal Affairs staff and the Ombudsman.
“It would be nice to ask the minister to put a moratorium on all these Bill 68 implementation things for a couple of years until they figure out what’s going on.”
White suggested the town push for stabilization of funding through OMPF, OCIF, Connecting Link, gas tax and other funding.
“The idea here would be maybe they would freeze it at least at this year’s levels and then look at cost of living increases rather than re-inventing formulas,” White told council.
“One of the concerns that I have is, having lived through when (former PC premier) Mike Harris came in, there was a lot of axe and slash, particularly with municipalities and I think we’d like to get in front of them and talk about a measured, more reasoned approach. The other thing we always hammered home here was merit-based versus formula-based funding. And we’ve done pretty well on the merit-based, but I think if they are able to move all this over to formula-based we might be able to grow our annual contributions to a couple of million dollars a year and then I think this council and future councils could do quite a bit of planning with that kind of money guaranteed.”
While Minto receives $260,000 in federal gas tax annually, rural municipalities do not have access to provincial gas tax, which is targeted to transit initiatives.
“The province could add to the ‘formula based’ funding for rural municipalities by opening the provincial gas tax to non-transit projects,” White stated in his report.
Regarding the Greater Golden Horseshoe growth plan, White said, “A lot of good work has been done there. But remember, the rules are different on one side of the highway from the other so how about we look at just making that a guideline and we can all follow provincial policy as it was in 2014 … or, if not, at least have an exemption for places like us that are very small and 50 kilometres away from an urban centre.”
“Or an appeal process,” suggested deputy mayor Ron Faulkner.
White also recommended a five-year postponement of further building code amendments until the cost-benefit of imposed energy requirements can be re-assessed.
“The building code is no longer about having a safe home. It’s about driving a climate change initiative,” he stated.
Councillor Ron Elliott suggested cutting red tape for municipalities should be a key element of any delegation, noting processes like grant applications “should be a lot quicker and more efficient.”
Noting premier-elect Doug Ford has already announced a public service hiring freeze, Bridge said he expects Ford to look for efficiencies through cutting regulations.
“If he’s going to try and find any savings, he’s going to have to find it by eliminating some of these regulations …” said Bridge.
“There’s a bunch that are coming in and that’s going to be more reports that we have to do – and not only do we have to do the report, they’ve got to have somebody checking the report – although I’m not sure that happens … So if he’s going to cut back on that $4 billion I think was promised without cutting jobs per se (actually Ford stated he would find $6 billion in “efficiencies” during the election campaign) … he’s going to have to cut back on some of these regulations or at least slow them down … They come at us so fast and no cheque comes with them.”
Faulkner suggested the drainage issue was “pretty critical.”
“Council received a number of complaints about how long municipal drains take to go through the drainage act process. The reasons for these delays are changing, unreliable or unreasonable comments from some agencies, in particular the Department of Fisheries,” White stated in his report.
Councillor Mary Lou Colwell suggested stabilizing OMPF funding was key.
“If we had a regulated amount that we knew we would be getting it would just make life so much easier,” she said.
White suggested council request an audience with OMAFRA on the drainage issues and another with the finance ministry on OMPF funding. He said a third delegation to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs on streamlining of regulations would allow local officials to combine some areas of concern.
Council directed staff to request delegations to those ministries.
