COMMUNITY NEWS

Crombie then spoke about her party’s vision for a “new deal”, assisting municipalities with housing, the opioid crisis, infrastructure, and community hospitals. Crombie focused on ensuring collaboration with municipalities.

Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner started his address on ensuring municipal elected officials serve in a respectful environment, and that he would “fix the broken fiscal framework”. Schreiner then announced the Ontario Green’s intent to also create a Ministry dedicated to helping the homeless. He described Ontario as having a “crisis of caring” and that we need a provincial government that cares about the people it serves. He also spoke of a “new deal”, focusing on climate-ready infrastructure, and building a fair and caring society.

Plenary Session - “The Bear Pit”

The “Bear Pit” (formally known as the Minister’s Forum) is a tradition at the AMO and ROMA conferences, a question and answer panel with all of the current ministers in the provincial government, where elected official delegates are able to ask impromptu questions of the ministers (conference attendees that are not elected officials are not permitted to ask questions) Typical rules require questions to not be of specific local issues but broader questions, though local context is permitted This also was the largest minister’s forum on record, with the last minute cabinet shuffle last Friday brought the number of ministers up to 37.

Two major highlights of the “Bear Pit” were the questions from Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward and Pickering Councillor Mara Nagy. Mayor Meed Ward, who is a member of Ontario Big City Mayors and co-founder of the “Stop the Crisis” campaign, asked the forum when

Ontario municipalities can expect the funding model to change, highlighting that the funding model is unchanged since the founding of Canada as an independent nation, and that municipalities are not equipped to handle issues like the mental health and addictions crisis. The Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy did not commit to changing the funding model. Secondly, Councillor Nagy got up to the microphone to ask Minister Calandra when Ontario municipalities can expect the government to release and pass their bill to address the harassment of municipal councillors and employees by their peers, detailing her experience after a fellow councillor on her council has encouraged harassment and death threats to be sent to Councillor Nagy. Minister Calandra insisted he still needed more time to “get it right” and that he has asked the Ontario integrity commissioner to come with recommendations that will withstand a charter challenge the first time a municipal official is removed from office for abusive behavior. This was the same question and answer given at last year’s conference, with the question at that time answered by former Minister of Municipal Affairs Steve Clark before his removal from that office following the Greenbelt scandal This provincial government has also been noted as stalling its bill to address this issue back in 2021, voting down Liberal MPP Stephen Blais’ variation of the Bill (Bill 5, which the County of Brant endorsed last year), and not yet confirming support of Ontario NDP MPP Jeff Burch’s iteration, Bill 217, that has had its first reading this year

The County of Brant had a very successful AMO 2024 Conference, and our Government Relations Committee (composed of Chair Jennifer Kyle, Mayor David Bailey, and myself) will be debriefing what we’ve learned to inform future advocacy and County policy objectives.