Relations between Guelph and Wellington County might be heading to a thaw this spring.
County council will consider a motion from its social services committee next month that could see the formation of a liaison committee with the city so the two groups can discuss common issues when it comes to social services.
The city and county have been at odds now for over two years about the running of social services. The county has provincial responsibility for that file, but Guelph, with more people using those services, pays the largest cost.
County social services committee chairman Gord Tosh told council on March 31 the committee had considered a motion to request Guelph city council to join in creating a joint liaison advisory committee for the purpose of providing the city and county council with a “proposal for a means to discuss common issues.”
Tosh told council the committee deferred the issue in order to ask the city for its help in setting up such a committee.
The county and city’s municipal officials have been talking to determine if they can find some common ground and start working together on social services and ambulance again.
The motion included that the committee investigate but not be limited to “forming a joint social services and ambulance committee or forming a joint liaison committee similar to the one that exists between Perth County, the city of Stratford, and the Town of St. Mary’s.”
That committee would submit its recommendations to Guelph and county councils.
There has been much rancor over the committees. Guelph left the joint social services committee in January 2010 to form its own committee, but only the county can approve the social services budget. Since then, the county has refused to allow its staff to attend the city’s social services committee meetings, stating that the county committee will welcome representatives from Guelph if they wish to take part.
Guelph attempted to have an arbitrator reassign the amounts payable so the county would pay more for social services. That bid was defeated.
Meanwhile, the county has no representation on the ambulance committee, because land ambulance is under Guelph’s jurisdiction. The county asked the province some years ago for some control over that file, and the province rejected that request. The city’s control of ambulances has hindered attempts by the county, and in particular Erin politicians, to obtain better ambulance service in Erin.
Since the split, Guelph has asked several times for information from the social services committee, and Tosh has stated when the county receives the information, it will pass it along to the city.
Notice of motion
In related business, county council unanimously approved councillor Lou Maieron’s notice of motion from the previous meeting. It stated, “That in the interest of Wellington County taxpayers, a method be developed by staff to receive regular information reports and updates for our ambulance service from our provincially appointed ambulance service provider, the City of Guelph.”
Maieron told council that the previous month he had been looking for information about Wellington Dufferin Guelph Public Health’s new buildings proposals on the internet, and instead discovered Guelph had reached an agreement with Dufferin County about ambulance services for Wellington and Guelph – in the form of a Newspaper report.
Maieron said the county used to receive regular reports about the ambulance service, and last fall he and then-Erin councillor Ken Chapman had asked to be a delegation at the city’s ambulance committee meeting, and had been put off.
He said he does not like the idea of reading council information in Newspaper reports before council gets it.
“With many years of cooperation, there must be a better way of getting information,” Maieron said.
Warden Chris White told him, “This ties in [talks with Guelph officials] with what we’re doing.”
