COUNTY OF SIMCOE ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR LE COMTÉ DE SIMCOE
TOWNSHIP OF ORO
TOWNSHIP OF MEDONTE
COUNTY OF SIMCOE TRANSITION COMMITTEE
ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
CONTENTS
Wednesday 25 August 1993
County of Simcoe Act, 1993, Bill 51
Town of Wasaga Beach
James Abbs, planner
Peter Stransky
Township of Nottawasaga
Carol A. Currie, reeve
Village of Creemore
Ralph MacDonald, reeve
Township of Sunnidale
Burnfield Wines, reeve
Township of Clearview
Ted Hannan, administrator-designate
Bob Giffen; Frank Hamilton
Town of Collingwood
Joseph Sheffer, deputy administrator
Township of Oro; Township of Medonte
Robert Drury, reeve, Oro
Ian Beard, reeve, Medonte
Chris Menzies, planner, Oro
Township of Orillia
William J. Gowanlock, reeve
John A. Fountain, former reeve
County of Simcoe
Ross Hastings, warden
County of Simcoe Transition Committee
Ron Stevens, chair
Joan Sutherland, chair, waste management, county of Simcoe
Janine Kilburn, county transition coordinator
J.G. Adam
Frank T.L. Hughes
Ontario Provincial Police Association
John Miller, director
Township of Matchedash
John Niddery, councillor
Phil Sled, deputy reeve
Town of New Tecumseth
Brian A. Gauley, director, personnel and community services
Joan Sutherland, deputy mayor
Continued overleaf
Continued from overleaf
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
*Chair / Président: Beer, Charles (York North/-Nord L)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Eddy, Ron (Brant-Haldimand L)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)
Cunningham, Dianne (London North/-Nord PC)
Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent ND)
Martin, Tony (Sault Ste Marie ND)
McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South/-Sud L)
*O'Connor, Larry (Durham-York ND)
O'Neill, Yvonne (Ottawa-Rideau L)
*Owens, Stephen (Scarborough Centre ND)
*Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND)
*Wilson, Jim (Simcoe West/-Ouest PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North/-Nord L) for Mrs O'Neill
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Ms Carter
McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC) for Mrs Cunningham
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne ND) for Mr Hope
Wessenger, Paul (Simcoe Centre ND) for Mr Martin
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Ministry of Municipal Affairs:
Griggs, Jeremy, fact-finding officer, municipal boundaries branch
Hayes, Pat, parliamentary assistant to the minister
Perron, Linda, solicitor
Clerk / Greffier: Arnott, Doug
The committee met at 0903 in the Royal Canadian Legion Hall, Collingwood.
COUNTY OF SIMCOE ACT, 1993 / LOI DE 1993 SUR LE COMTÉ DE SIMCOE
Consideration of Bill 51, An Act respecting the Restructuring of the County of Simcoe / Loi concernant la restructuration du comté de Simcoe.
TOWN OF WASAGA BEACH
The Chair (Mr Charles Beer): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This meeting of the standing committee on social development reviewing Bill 51, An Act respecting the Restructuring of the County of Simcoe, is now in session. We're pleased to be here in Collingwood for our hearings this morning.
We have a very full agenda and so, without further ado, I would call upon Mr James Abbs, a planner for the town of Wasaga Beach, if he would be good enough to come forward. Welcome to the committee, Mr Abbs. It's going to be a warm day. We appreciate your taking the time to come. Please go ahead.
Mr James Abbs: I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to present the view of the town concerning this restructuring.
The town of Wasaga Beach has been undergoing restructuring in one form or another since being created by the province in 1974. The town was created by amalgamating the original village and parts of the townships of Flos, Sunnidale and Nottawasaga. The restructuring of the administration of this area was partially undertaken to facilitate the creation of the provincial park.
At that time, there was some resentment between the various areas of the new municipality, and over the past number of years the town has been concerned with those rivalries and has taken care that improvements and developments take place with no regard to former township boundaries and with the best interests of the town in mind. With the assistance of various community groups, a responsive council and the passage of time, these rivalries have diminished to a point where they no longer exist and it can be truly said that the town of Wasaga Beach is a community.
It is because of that spirit of community that the council of the town of Wasaga Beach asked for an amendment to the proposed County of Simcoe Act to retain the right to choose the way municipal councillors are elected.
One main reason for the restructuring of the county is to alleviate any inequities at that level of government. Apparently, the concern that all municipal government is not responsive has filtered through to affect the way representation is provided at the municipal level. The proposed County of Simcoe Act will require that municipalities identify wards for the next municipal election. A change like this is understandable in some areas, because serious reorganization is taking place, and in those areas a ward system of elections may provide a more appropriate form of representation.
However, through this restructuring program the town of Wasaga Beach will experience an increase in population of approximately 600 persons and even fewer electors. It is apparent that a small change such as this does not warrant the reformatting of the town's electoral structure.
Another reason that a ward system should not be applied to Wasaga Beach is that the council of the town does not wish to identify areas of special interest within the town. Whether the new wards are based on population, geography or history, it is inevitable that the wards will become areas of special interest, each representative concerned only with the benefits provided to the residents of that particular ward and with little concern for the best interests of the town.
It is well known that all councillors elected within the town of Wasaga Beach are equally accountable to all residents. In a small town this ensures that the resident has more than the ear of just one representative on council. The councillors are responsible to each resident, not just to those electors in one specific area.
On February 9, 1993, the council of the town of Wasaga Beach passed a resolution requesting an amendment to Bill 51 to allow the town to continue to elect municipal councillors at large rather than through the ward system. At the March 23, 1993, meeting of county council, a resolution was passed requesting that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs amend Bill 51 to allow the town of Wasaga Beach the opportunity to choose the system of electing municipal councillors.
It was felt at this time that the town's electoral system would not be required to change after the restructuring had taken place. The proposed County of Simcoe Act has now received second reading and it does not appear that the requested amendment regarding the system of elections in the town has been included.
In 1974 the province created the town of Wasaga Beach as a municipality. A great deal of time, commitment and caring has turned that municipality into a viable community. Splitting this community into districts, each with its own special interest, may revert the town to a municipality again with no sense of community.
Therefore, I request that the proposed County of Simcoe Act be amended to include the provision for the choice of the type of electoral system available to the town of Wasaga Beach.
Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): Thank you very much for your presentation. You're dealing with the one point that has been requested all along by Wasaga Beach, and that is to maintain the status quo with respect to the election of councillors. I have an amendment to put forward tomorrow in clause-by-clause to that effect, but it is my understanding -- and perhaps I'll just ask the parliamentary assistant to clarify -- that the government is friendly to that amendment to this legislation. Is that true?
Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): I think, as we stated before, especially as it's the county council's restructuring plan, that it has supported that. So we can certainly look favourably upon that.
Mr Jim Wilson: Mission accomplished, I suppose. Thank you very much.
Interjection.
Mr Jim Wilson: It's sitting in the back seat of my car, if you'd like me to go out and get it.
Mr Abbs: Can I have a copy?
Mr Jim Wilson: Yes. It was faxed to me last night.
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): A good submission; a good response. We're making some progress.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Abbs.
0910
PETER STRANSKY
The Chair: Our next witness is Mr Peter Stransky. Welcome to the committee, Mr Stransky, and please make yourself comfortable.
Mr Peter Stransky: It's nice to be the skunk at the garden party. It seems to me to be quite an irony that a government which has a $10-billion one-year deficit is coming here to advise us about running a county government with its dog and pony show.
Mr Chairman, Mr Clerk, members of the committee, fellow laymen, my name is Peter Stransky. I live and have lived in Nottawasaga for 25 years, in the northern- and westernmost part of Nottawasaga, a locale currently destined to a be a part of Collingwood. I do not accept that fate and that is why I am here, among other reasons.
My needs, and I believe the needs of a large percentage of Nottawasaga people, are adequately served by the frame of rural government that has existed for over 150 years. I can recall hardly anything that has been highly bothersome that has taken place in Nottawasaga government in the 25 years I've been a resident. I like rural government because it is efficient, simple and less complex than a town or urban government.
Collingwood, in the 30 years I've been living around here, has had a continuing mediocrity in government. It is costing its taxpayers dearly. I happen to be a self-employed businessperson with a business location within one kilometre of this site and I can't get services from the town like patching the road or getting the bylaw enforcement officer to do his job, the planner to do her job or the police to do their job.
My place was broken into -- a break and enter -- over three months ago. The police have a pretty good idea who it was. No charge has been laid. It's puzzling. Yet I'm supposed to pay my $110 a week in taxes and keep my mouth shut or be asked to leave town by the reeve. If you'd like to know what that's about, see exhibit A over on my U board at some point in time, a rather unique way of handling people who differ with the establishment.
I'm a Nottawasaga resident by choice and have a pride and interest in my home community. What is wrong with that? In the course of my business, which is dealing with rural people around the province engaged in agriculture and the forest products game, I know a good many reeves and councillors in rural government. Mostly, I consider them very adequate and capable, unlike the Collingwood people, who are barely making the grade. I point you to exhibit B on my U board.
There was something unique in one of the town papers, ratings of the various town councillors. It's interesting: "`We don't expect any opposition,' said Mr Ellmen. `Is your mind already made up?' `The signs all point to the bill not being contested.'" I'm quoting Eugene Ellmen, spokesperson for Ed Philip, Minister of Municipal Affairs. See exhibit C. That quote is attributed to him on my U board. From nearly day one, when the former Minister of Municipal Affairs addressed a hostile crowd 15 to 18 months ago and told an audience at the Simcoe county buildings -- I refer to Mr Dave Cooke -- provincial government people have not been listening to the people of Nottawasaga.
The voting structure for Simcoe county at county level is flawed. The larger communities have the clout. To fix that problem by the proposed scheme is not just. If the voting formula had been fixed, and not the proposed restructuring, we'd have few people up in arms.
In the case of Nottawasaga, the system has served the people well for over 150 years. As they say, when it ain't broke, why fix it? I can't help but feel that the same applies to various other of the municipalities, except for Collingwood. They have a hard time making anything work well.
Is it not perhaps time that the higher levels of government started listening to the people and not just the politicians? This provincial government has succeeded in getting a lot of people mad at it. Could this be an opportunity to have a turnaround that's overdue? As a business person, I have always believed, "Give them what they want, because if you don't, someone else will."
Since a first meeting of the county restructure committee, with two county council people on it, just about two years ago exactly, a quarter of a mile from here at Sunset Manor, the people of Nottawasaga have been enraged about this matter. If there are communities that are cooperating and not opposed to restructuring, here's an idea for you. Why don't you take them to the altar only, those that want restructuring? To those communities that don't want a shotgun wedding like Nottawasaga, please leave us alone.
When people like the reeve of Collingwood come out and say things like, "Nobody in Collingwood is against restructuring," I say he's not living in the same world. That's quoted from a local paper on here. He was quoted as saying this at a council meeting last April.
The town of Collingwood, or at least its elected reps and some department heads, have delusions of grandeur, talking of Japanese sister cities, sending the skull and bones of the Collingwood shipyards from Moose Jaw to Moncton to soothe the ego of the museum's curator, just because there's funding by the feds to the tune of $165,000. Funding is talked about as though it's that new species of tree that grows money.
A local park has spent $225,000, $250,000, an absurdity of the parks and recreation department. It's newly recognized as not up to standards or unsafe. Instead of dismissing the department head for dereliction of duty or incompetence, the town will do nothing. I believe this town needs a couple of firings at department-head level to electrify it so that it can render services at realistic cost and with efficiency.
I read you a brief letter here that has a little eloquence, I believe, on the matter from a Nottawasaga resident:
"We are writing to express our opinion regarding the proposed restructuring plan.
"We are aghast at the temerity of anyone, particularly one whose purpose is to represent the interests of their constituency, to be a party to the generation of such a massive and unjustifiable realignment of powers and boundaries, without having the common decency to directly consult those who would be significantly and unalterably impacted. If this had been an environmental issue, we would have been surveyed and consulted to distraction. However, since the issue involves mere humans and not chipmunks and wild flowers, it is deemed not necessary to consult us. Mother Nature has all the rights; taxpayers apparently have none. Seems things are normal in good old Ontariario.
"Have the Simcoe county officials not learned anything from the recently expressed mood of the provincial electorate? Have they not learned from the mood of Canadians which overturned the Meech Lake accord? Have they not learned from the total disdain which is heaped on our" -- former -- "Prime Minister by the electorate? But what can we expect from them? Their proposed restructuring plan displays little intelligence and limited contact with reality.
"The restructuring plan shows no sensitivity to people nor to the public interest; is not progressive but is retrogressive in the extreme; will thrust one more layer of government into the lives of people who are already overgoverned; will increase the tax bite on a people who are already the most heavily taxed in the world; will slow down approvals dramatically to the point that nothing gets done; will remove local decision-making and make it remote and inaccessible; will discourage investment in Simcoe county and thus decrease employment opportunities for county residents; will discourage initiative and creativity and encourage the opposite; will destroy community identity and a sense of neighbourhood.
"The plan does not have a clear and credible objective and seems to be more driven by animosity than by cooperation."
In the course of preparation for this hearing, and I'm coming to an end shortly, I have come across something rather bothersome. I think I'd better say I'll take this up with the clerk after.
I will close by saying I hope you came here today to listen, and not with your minds made up like I fear. Remember these words that I spoke. I stood aside and watched as they trashed my country's heritage to remake it in their image. I stood aside and watched while a vocal few used free speech to deny it to others. I stood aside and watched as they talked about sharing and caring and stripped me of my rights as an individual. I will stand aside no longer. Nottawasagans, join me.
0920
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you, Mr Stransky, for your presentation. It's good of you to come and to put your views on the public record. You obviously have strong views with respect to the matter of restructuring. Those views, I gather, are shared by your neighbours. Have you talked to the people in your area?
Mr Stransky: Yes, I certainly have and I think I am in touch with the electorate. I ran, Mr Wilson, as you probably recall, unsuccessfully for the school board here a year and a half ago and managed to come second out of four. The person who got the job was the incumbent.
Mr Jim Wilson: As you know, one of my many concerns about restructuring has been the process to date. Where the people in the north part of Nottawasaga township clearly -- I think you'd probably agree they weren't listened to, but did you have an opportunity for input, up until this point, in the restructuring process?
Mr Stransky: Well, it was already a fait accompli, Mr Wilson. There were gatherings; there was a gathering here at Sunset Manor, 200 to 300 howling people two years ago exactly, very much against it, a gathering of 125 people in Nottawa at the town or township hall, very disturbed about this. It falls on deaf ears and that's my greatest fear here today. I feel there's been adequate communication but it's not -- their minds are made up.
Mr Jim Wilson: Was there a referendum held in the last municipal election? If so, what were the results? Do you know?
Mr Stransky: There was a referendum, as most of us know. On my board over here it shows a fax transmittal, copy from the clerk's office, of the 85% who were against restructuring and only the 15% who were for it.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Stransky, for coming today and also for bringing the information on your U board.
TOWNSHIP OF NOTTAWASAGA
The Chair: I now call the next witness, the reeve of the township of Nottawasaga, Carol Currie, if she would be good enough to come forward. Welcome to the committee.
Mrs Carol A. Currie: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman and members.
The Chair: Please make yourself comfortable. We have a copy of your submission.
Mrs Currie: Yes, you do.
Thank you, Mr Chairman and members of the committee, for allowing this time to once again express our opinions on restructuring as it applies to Bill 51. I want to touch on three small matters, but very significant to us and many of the presenters. One is the short notification period. Under the Municipal Act and the Planning Act, we're given lots of time, between two weeks, three weeks and 30 days, in which to have a notification period for any public meeting. I received the letter from this committee on August 16, had to apply for presentation on August 18 and prepare for perhaps Monday of this week. Even Bill 51 has provision for notification times of 30 days in some of the areas of it.
Number two, I think the time isn't quite cricket here. As you are all well aware, all of the three parties, the AMO conference is on in Hamilton. There's good representation of the over 800 municipalities in Hamilton at this time. I feel very strongly that this is not the time to be calling meetings when our representatives are at that conference. That date is set a year in advance.
Also, in giving credence to our people to be here to support us, for rural areas this is harvest time and when it's time to harvest, it's time to harvest. It's also holiday time.
The third thing which disturbed me greatly: The other night, at the heads-of-council meeting, Mayor Maynard of Stayner informed us that someone from the NDP government, and I do not have that name, had called him at least three weeks ago now and pleaded with him to appear before this committee and make a friendly presentation on restructuring. I don't feel it is right that any person, any committee member or any person who might make a presentation, should be notified ahead of anyone else. That information can be verified if you wish to do so by talking to the mayor of Stayner.
The introduction to my submission goes back somewhat to the history. I did courier to Mr Wilson, who is our member, some of the presentations that I or my council have made over the last four years, starting in 1989. Since the initiation of that study, Nottawasaga has chosen every opportunity it has had to speak out against restructuring and outlining all of the pros and cons as we could see them, and there weren't very many pros. I wanted to point out to you that, "Land use planning can be defined as a municipality's collective decision on how best to use its land base in order to provide for a safe, healthy and vibrant community which addresses the needs and desires of its present and future inhabitants." That's from the final report of the study committee of Simcoe county. I submit to you that Nottawasaga is still the best vehicle to address these "needs and desires of its present and future inhabitants."
The municipality applied for and was granted the right to have a referendum, as you well know and as was spoken to by the last speaker. The question as it was on the ballot was, "Are you in favour of restructuring (boundary) changes for the municipality of the township of Nottawasaga?" In excess of 85% of the people said no.
The backbone of any viable and vibrant community is its people, and the people have spoken. My question to you, honourable sirs, is, are you listening? Despite two weighted votes at the county level, approximately half of the municipalities, albeit the smaller ones, are still not in favour of restructuring. The last vote, and this is not taken from the county but just from my own notes, is referred to on one of the back pages in the addendum; 12 of those communities, small though they are, said, "No, we do not want restructuring." Interestingly enough, Tiny township, and I believe it was Mara, had a split decision, where the reeve voted one way and the deputy voted another way.
Most of the larger centres naturally voted for restructuring. Why not? Each of those municipalities have already been forcibly restructured by the provincial government -- New Tecumseth, Innisfil, Bradford West Gwillimbury -- or they are acquiring land and accompanying assessment: for example, Collingwood or Midland. The village has generally voted against restructuring and the municipalities around the edge of Lake Simcoe, close to Barrie and Orillia, saw amalgamation with each other as a vehicle to a stronger force against those cities.
Interestingly enough, when I checked with county this week, with Al Pelletier, who is the clerk, there was never a time when the restructuring of south Simcoe was debated on the floor of county council.
I have report 19 here which -- I don't have a copy for you, but if you are interested, Mr Chairman, you may have this copy of report 19, and all it is is a report received for information. This was the only way that county council dealt with the restructuring of south Simcoe.
The Chair: I will take that copy and make copies for members of the committee.
0930
Mrs Currie: I have also with it just the minutes so that it would verify the time of that. Some of the minutes at the back are irrelevant to this issue but do deal with the study committee and how they were voted on county council.
The Chair: Fine, thank you. I'll ask the clerk to get that.
Mrs Currie: So, in consequence, the south part of the county, when it came to the floor of the chambers, they all, except for Adjala, voted for restructuring. Naturally, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. How different that vote would have been if only the affected parties had participated.
In all fairness, Nottawasaga did agree with about 80 of the recommendations. How could we not agree? What decision is to be made about who has the dogcatcher in what community or whether we should implement a 911 or what we should do with reforestation? These were not issues. The issues, and still big issues, are the boundaries and amalgamations.
The issue of forced amalgamation and the loss of approximately 3,000 acres -- and that may not be an accurate figure because we do not know at the present time exactly where the boundaries are, but I know there's approximately 2,700 acres to Collingwood and 150 to 200, in that area, to Wasaga Beach. That may change a little here or there. But that is a big issue with us.
Our other real concerns have been documented with previous presentations, but no one, no one, no matter how many times we have asked, has addressed the intangible losses of our history, our roots, our name and our pride in community spirit. No one.
Nottawasaga is 159 years old. The Currie family have been in Nottawasaga for 158. There is a lot of root still in our community. In 1984, we had 67 family farms over 100 years old that were still being passed down from father to son -- or daughter. We counted daughters in this day and age.
Bigger is not better; it's just bigger. Do you honestly think that anyone from near the Shell station on Highway 93, the other side of Angus, is going to call Carol Currie long distance to complain like they do now? Not likely. It is bigger. It's more arm's length from the people and it's bound to be expensive. We're having a great deal of difficulty getting a handle on just how expensive that will be.
No one has really addressed for us the benefits of restructuring. We've asked that question over and over. Why should we be out there looking for benefits for restructuring when we're adamantly opposed to it?
No one has told us what could be achieved by maintaining the status quo and working with our neighbours as we always have. Nottawasaga has eight municipalities on its boundaries, two other counties, three if you count the county of Simcoe, and two municipalities within its own borders. That's 13, and we get along very well with all of them except perhaps one where we have a difference of opinion occasionally.
Once again we want to register our strong opposition to restructuring and, therefore, in principle to Bill 51, An Act respecting the Restructuring of the County of Simcoe.
Are there any questions thus far, or would you like me just to continue, Mr Chairman?
The Chair: If you would complete your presentation and then we'll move to questions.
Mrs Currie: Thank you. The next section deals specifically with Bill 51 and some of the areas where we have some concerns or comments.
County council will be reduced from 37 members to 32 and the municipalities from 28 to 16. How is that going to save a lot of money? If there were one representative and 16 members, maybe you would start to see some savings as far as representation on the council itself. Perhaps in hindsight in this process the county should have been reduced to two, either north and south, or four municipalities if we're going to be restructured anyway, and then dissolve the county system as being redundant. Is it just another layer of bureaucracy? Social assistance is being taken over by the province, but we're getting downloaded on other things. My submission to you is that perhaps we don't need the county any more.
Part I, local municipalities: In the preparation of schedules, I understand that the maps are now out regarding the boundaries between Collingwood and Nottawasaga. I have not seen those. However, the metes and bounds and descriptions, as laid out by the schedules that came out in 1992, still do not reflect for Nottawasaga where exactly our boundary will be. We need to know that information if we are to abide by the minister's dates within Bill 51.
The town of Collingwood and the municipalities of Creemore, Stayner, Sunnidale and Nottawasaga made an agreement to straighten out the boundary. We would rather leave the boundary where it is to begin with, but we do not see, any of those municipalities, any sense in having a zigzag along the western section of our municipality. Not only that, but that zigzag takes a great deal of assessment from the township of Nottawasaga. If the boundary is County Road 32, which is Sixth Street coming out of Collingwood, it makes more sense to us. At least on a county road there would be no dispute; one municipality is on one side of the road and one is on the other.
That is also true of the roads. We have not definite agreement on all of the roads, but the town of Collingwood has indicated to us that it is willing to take possession of Poplar Side Road 39/40 and the Tenth Line and maintain and construct those.
We have one difference of opinion with the town of Wasaga Beach, and I would like to point that out to you. It is on the map at the very back, page 14. With new Highway 26 coming along, there is just a little tiny triangle of land. On one of the letters before, it says it's in yellow; it isn't. It's in green. It is the triangular shape. The new highway is the one with the bend, Highway 26, and it cuts off that little piece of land from Wasaga Beach.
Our proposal to them was to please include that in Nottawasaga, and then all of that would be Nottawasaga on that side of the road, but they did not agree with that proposal. That correspondence is there. It only makes sense to me. There's no access from that road. It's a limited-access highway to be built. It doesn't make any sense to have a little 30-acre parcel, albeit if you look on the map you can see the 100 acres that belongs to the McEacherns and whatever the other investment there is. It's not a very good map, but I think you can see that it does make a measure of sense there to include that.
Subsection 2(7) states that the minister shall prepare schedules before January 1, 1994. I'm dealing with section 44, on wards, which happens to be on page 33 of the bill. The municipality is to submit its ward proposals before December 1, 1993. What if the minister comes in on December 15 with the schedules? What if he comes in on December 31 with the schedules? How can our clerks finish the work that they have to do and have our ward lines and our population and the polls, all of that business, ready to go if the minister does not get out those regulations and his schedules before January 1, 1994?
0940
Part II, county council: the first part just deals with the composition of the members, which I spoke to a few minutes ago. Section 9 is the provision for weighted votes within committees. We still object strongly to weighted votes within the committee. The fear is that should the separated cities of Barrie and Orillia become part of the county, the allotment of votes would be skewed at the committee level. In committee, we strongly recommend one vote for each member. County council should be guided, not driven, by its committees.
Part III, public utility commissions: For Nottawasaga this is a new area. We do not have a public utility commission. The town of Stayner and the village of Creemore do. The minister has stated that the mayor or the mayor's representative and four elected members by general vote in Bill 51 should be the way it goes.
After a lot of discussion -- it's probably been the hardest issue that we've dealt with in the transition council because the town of Stayner has a commission elected by general vote; the village of Creemore has a commission of the village council -- we decided that we would like to come up the middle and we're petitioning the minister to do this.
First of all, we would like the words in the draft bill retained. The draft bill says the commission of the local municipalities created under subsection 10(1) shall be composed of the mayor of the local municipality and four other members who are qualified electors in the local municipality elected by general vote "in the area served by the commission." We think it's important that, because Stayner and Creemore are the two municipalities affected, the words "in the area served by the commission" be included.
Number two, the composition of the PUC, we are recommending, because it suits our community, two members from council appointed by council, two members elected at large in the area served by the commission and the mayor or the mayor's representative.
Part IV should say part VI, miscellaneous. It's not part IV; it's part VI.
Section 35, waste management sites, opens all of the certificates within the county to bring garbage anywhere. The Georgian Triangle waste management master plan has been in effect for four or five years. Those people have been working diligently and very hard to find a landfill site. Nottawasaga is again being imposed upon because that site will be within Nottawasaga, it looks like.
We have been assured over and over over the period of time that the certificate would only include those municipalities participating in that master plan. Now the minister wants to open this up so that garbage can come from anywhere within the county. The county has taken the position that it will not allow garbage in from anywhere outside the county, and we are taking the position then that we don't want to have Bradford West Gwillimbury's garbage in Nottawasaga.
We had the opportunity to sell our dump. The county invoked its privileges under Bill 201 on January, when our deal closed on March 15, and we could have taken care of all of the garbage within Simcoe county plus some commercial, in all fairness to them, and we would not have had a $19-million budget at the county level for garbage.
I protest very much circumventing the Environmental Protection Act. Our people are not being given the chance to be heard at a public meeting.
Section 41 deals with an easement to Georgian Bay that we requested and we thank the minister for including that within Bill 51. It gives us the right to future servicing dealing with the towns of Collingwood and Wasaga Beach. We appreciate at least making that much of a gain.
The transitional provisions: A person employed by the municipality on July 1 to December 1 becomes an employee of the new municipality. My question to the ministry was, what happens on January 2? I did not get an answer. I still have not got an answer.
If restructuring is to facilitate expenses, do we need four clerks in the new township? I'm still waiting for an answer. I phoned you, I believe, and I did not get an answer. He did not get an answer.
I want to know what happens on January 2. Are they still our employees or are we free to let them go? We have no intention of doing that with our employees, we need them, specially for this transition period that will come up in the next three to five to 10 years.
Salaries: An employee shall receive a salary or wage at no less than the person was receiving, and that deals with seniority too, on July 1, 1993. What implications does this have with the social contract that became effective on August 1?
My summary to you: Nottawasaga remains adamantly opposed to restructuring and therefore to Bill 51. Because our stand on restructuring has not been accepted by the county and has had second reading in the House, we hold out little hope that the wishes of the people of Nottawasaga will be realized. The transition council members of Clearview have gathered information and accepted the recommendations of the various committees. It was a worthwhile exercise whether we are restructured or not.
We have been amicable neighbours for our 159-year history and we draw from our strength and our weaknesses. We borrow and we share services now.
Understanding where you are today, committee members, is as important as knowing where you want to go tomorrow or in determining how you might get there. It is doubly important if you are forced into amalgamation with other municipalities.
Nottawasaga knows where it is today, and we have a vision, or we had a vision, for our township and were ready to start that strategic planning necessary to determine how we would proceed. That vision did not include amalgamation.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Reeve Currie, for a very thorough presentation and for all the additional material that you submitted. Again, we will circulate a copy of those notes which you brought today as well.
Mrs Currie: Thank you very much.
The Chair: We'll now turn to questions, beginning with Mr Wilson.
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you, Reeve Currie -- Carol -- for your presentation. You've raised a number of points that actually haven't been raised over the past three days and I want to get to those.
First I want to congratulate you personally and your council for the work that you've done. You've been absolutely consistent from the very beginning of this process with respect to opposition to restructuring, and every time that has come up, and I'll tell you that the committee hearings in the last three days have been very negative. Very few people come forward to tell us they want restructuring. In fact I can't recall anyone really coming forward and saying they want restructuring. There seems to be a caveat attached even when they say that. There are a number of amendments they want to the bill.
With respect to your amendments, please be assured that we'll draft those up and present them to the government tomorrow during clause-by-clause.
I want to say with respect to the first part of your presentation, and that is the short notice period for these hearings, I think it's a matter of public record that there was a lot of gamesmanship going on at Queen's Park. It was certainly my suspicion and Mr McLean's that the government would never have even conceded to have public hearings had we not put consistent pressure, along with the Liberal Party, on it. I think you're right. The timing of these hearings and the length of these hearings is indeed suspicious. None the less --
Interjection.
Mr Jim Wilson: And you hear mumblings over there of playing politics. I don't think the government realizes how serious an issue this is for the people of Nottawasaga and Simcoe county. To me personally, with the way they've handled the bill in the Legislature and through the process, they've not taken it, in my opinion, seriously. All we get in the last three days from the parliamentary assistant is, "Well, this is a county-driven study." We're here apparently to rubber-stamp the county's bidding. I for one was not elected to do that, and I challenge other members that you weren't elected to do that either. As I said yesterday in committee hearings, the people of this province, particularly the voters, aren't going to look at Bill 51 in the future and say, "Oh, the county of Simcoe did this," they're going to say, "Mr Wilson did this, and Mr McLean and Mr Hayes and the NDP and the Liberals," because it's our bill, and it's now our responsibility to try and get it right.
0950
If you get the impression that this is a done deal, as Mr Stransky did in his presentation before and as many other people have, I think you're right, because the government has consistently said, "Well, we can't change boundary lines, because the county hasn't agreed to that."
None the less we're going to try tomorrow during the clause-by-clause to do exactly that. Particularly with respect to that little parcel of land south of the new Highway 26, I think it's abundantly clear, at least on this side of the table, that it makes sense that that triangular piece should be in Nottawasaga, or now Clearview, and we'll certainly introduce an amendment to that.
I do want to say to the parliamentary assistant that I had no previous chats whatsoever with this witness, yet I think the reeve makes the point very well that we need the schedules, and I think we need the schedules before we can proceed with clause-by-clause tomorrow, because the reeve has just clearly indicated -- and I wrote it down -- she said, "We do not know exactly where the boundaries are." That was the point I made on day one in our introductory remarks. It's impossible. We're being asked, your worship, to do this without -- we're supposed to rely on that map over there, and the map, to me, is not of course the legal description of what Clearview will look like.
I want to begin with a question, and that is, I recall well the restructuring in the south end of the county. We were told by the government of that day that it wouldn't be any problem, "You can preserve local identity, your local heritage." I want to know how you're expected to do that as reeve, as a political representative of the area, when you look at the official map over there from the county of Simcoe, and Nottawasaga, Sunnidale, Creemore and Stayner, those names appear nowhere on that map; it simply says Clearview. That is the official map of the county of Simcoe for Bill 51. How do you feel when you find that your name, your former name after this bill receives third reading and royal assent, when they tell you that you won't lose your community identity yet you're not even on the map?
Mrs Currie: My own personal opinion?
Mr Jim Wilson: Yes.
Mrs Currie: Devastated. As I stated before, the Currie family has been here since 1835 and the farm that we own has been passed from father to son through all those generations. Absolutely devastated. Nottawasaga or Sunnidale will not disappear completely because on the descriptions of course they'll still be there, but those are things -- you don't pull out your deed for your land and parade that around. This is the question I've been asking because I don't have the answers. I brought this question up because no one has answered that intangible question, our loss of community.
On August 1 we had a picnic, a family fun day for Nottawasaga, not to say goodbye but to celebrate Nottawasaga, and the backbone of our community were there and we had a wonderful time together. It was put together by the little hall committees, and I think there's some concern that with the legislation and so on we'll lose our volunteers for that. It's a completely different attitude. People lose interest when things are arm's length.
With all due respect to you gentlemen, I have sat on two provincial boards, and I understand very well, with the pile of paper, when it's someone else's turf and it's not really your concern, it's a lot easier sometimes to make a decision. I've sat on the Niagara Escarpment Commission for seven and a half years and I understand perfectly well those contentious issues that are put before you so the decision-making is more arm's length, and our people feel that nobody cares. We have felt in going before the study committee -- I appeared before that study committee at least six to seven times, and only once did somebody ask me a question. In fact one of the members appeared to be sleeping, and I didn't really appreciate that.
So how do you answer that kind of question? We have deep roots in Nottawasaga, whether you are with Mr Stransky, who chose to be there, whether you were born there, as my husband was, or whether you married into it like I did. How do you answer that question when you lose your community? We have very strong feelings. Sunnidale has extremely strong community feelings, as does Creemore. Creemore feels like a part of us.
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you. One of the areas, because the Chairman has just indicated I only get one or two short questions --
Mrs Currie: I'm sorry, I get very emotional about my township.
Mr Jim Wilson: No, and I appreciate that.
As you know, I introduced a private member's bill to try and guarantee that municipalities wouldn't be restructured against their will. I know your municipality and others agreed with that.
That leads to the more general question, because in your submissions, and I have read them all over I guess the last -- they date back two to three years -- you asked the question, what are the benefits of restructuring to a rural municipality such as Nottawasaga which is currently able to adequately provide service to its ratepayers without incurring debt? I gather from your presentation today you've never had an explanation or an answer to that.
Mrs Currie: No. That question was repeatedly put to the study committee, and no, no one has come out and said, "Look, this is where you're going to benefit, Nottawasaga."
Mr Jim Wilson: Just finally, quickly, section 35 with respect to a waste management site: I'm surprised that the first presenter this morning from Wasaga Beach didn't talk about that, because they have a very specific emergency certificate issued --
Mrs Currie: Yes.
Mr Jim Wilson: -- so-called emergency. It's the second time it was issued, by Ruth Grier, when she was Environment minister, that allows six northern municipalities in Simcoe county to dump there, you're right, through the back door, without any environmental assessment. This bill opens it wide open so that all 28 municipalities can now dump in Wasaga Beach, for example, or could you explain to the committee what may happen in Nottawasaga with respect to this section?
Mrs Currie: Nottawasaga is at this stage 2 of the waste management plan, which means that the sites have been rated, although our people protested and there was temporary expropriation necessary on three of those sites. So that is the point at which we're at. So at some point in time, Nottawasaga is going to have a new -- and whatever you call it, it's still a dump. They're going to have a new dump. Now it's been taken over by the county, but the people of this area have footed the expense for that up until the county took that over just within the last year. A great deal of expense and time has gone into that, and they were reassured over and over, as I mentioned before, that no one else would be able to dump in it except those municipalities which were participating in that study.
The really stupid thing that has made me angry over and over is that if we are to be amalgamated and Sunnidale is part of it, they could not open that Georgian Triangle study and include Sunnidale, which has a valid dump. Sunnidale is in the same position that we are. We will have a new one, so they would probably use up Sunnidale, and by that 10 years hence, when Nottawasaga or our area gets this dump, then they'll be ready to dump all of the county's garbage in it.
Mr Paul Wessenger (Simcoe Centre): Thank you for your presentation. I just have two questions. I was intrigued by your suggestion on page 6 that instead of doing a restructuring the way it's been done by the county, it might have been better to have four large area municipalities with the urban-rural mix. My question to you is, don't you think that the county, by going the way they did, by combining rural municipalities together, is preserving the rural nature of those municipalities rather than sort of threatening that rural nature by going to -- like your other alternative, the one you put in your brief, of having a municipality with a large rural and urban component?
Mrs Currie: At what cost, sir? By putting the rural municipalities together, first of all, Nottawasaga has a large contingent of farming area, agricultural area, which we recognize, down through the centre of it. We have the Niagara Escarpment with its constraints on approximately one third of the township. We have a changing population and a changing format of becoming four seasons, not in the respect of having a Blue Mountain to bring in great revenue, but we do have two private ski hills. But, with the boundaries the way they are, most of our commercial assessment right now is along Highway 26. Goodbye assessment. Most of our concentrated population is along Highway 26, so we're taking that away and we're not gaining by Stayner or Creemore. I think Stayner and Creemore and Sunnidale are losing by not bringing into the new municipality those areas that we had with commercial or subdivisions. Those things are gone along the edge. Yes, I would like to maintain our rural atmosphere. I would like to, but this whole thing started and is creeping northward, as I made in my first presentation, by the threat of the GTA. If the GTA keeps on creeping northwards what's going to happen to our rural -- right now, we feel that with our official plan we are able to have the safeguards for our agricultural people and at the same time welcome our weekenders.
1000
Perhaps I'm not fully answering your question on it, but that's just a suggestion. If you're going to restructure us, you might as well put the hammer down and kill everything, just overkill.
Mr Wessenger: In other words, you say the economic aspects, because of our method of property tax and so forth, and assessment -- the only alternative, you think, of an economic point of view, is to have municipalities that have both an urban and a rural mix so that they have that --
Mrs Currie: No, not necessarily, because the urban people -- the town of Stayner has difficulties, as you know, with their sewage; they're up to capacity now. I'm not speaking for the town of Stayner, but that's my understanding. There's no room for growth and if we do not have an area within the new municipality where there can be adequate growth -- and the Ministry of Environment and Energy I don't believe is going to allow a great deal of growth; Stayner is built on a swamp.
Mr Wessenger: My second question is a very quick one. You're advocating that the council have majority representation on the PUC. It would seem to be, if that was the case, that's taking away all responsibility of elected PUC members. My question is: If you're going to have a majority, why don't you have them all appointed by the council, then?
Mrs Currie: I believe that what we tried to do in our many hours of discussing this was to come up the centre and to have a voice on either side. It works really well in Stayner to have two elected members. There was a great deal of consternation about the fact that there were four. Stayner has two and the mayor and feel that is sufficient. Creemore, on the other hand, felt that it worked really well for them as a small village to have the council do that. So what the transition council did was come right up the middle on that issue and felt that they would have elected members from council appointed by council and two other elected members. It doesn't matter which way you do it; if you have four of them, of course, council's outvoted and I think the feeling was that council wanted to have some inkling into -- these are not big public utility commissions like the city of Toronto or anything; these are small, and they just felt that then council would have an inkling into what was going on at the commission.
Mr Wessenger: Well, I appreciate -- okay.
The Chair: I have Mr Waters and Mr Conway, the parliamentary assistant and if we could --
Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): I was just going to make a statement that might be somewhat reassuring. I think I'm the only one here who's lived under restructuring. My riding is not only Simcoe, but it's Muskoka, and I've had 20 years of it. While they haven't had the experience that we have --
Mr Jim Wilson: My home town of Alliston.
Mr Waters: Yes, well, I'm afraid they haven't had quite the experience we've had at it, and Mr Wilson keeps talking about the loss of your communities. I can assure you that after 20 years one of the few things I can assure you about restructuring is that your communities -- we still have Vankoughnet, Bardsville, Falkenburg, Baysville, Dwight. All of these communities don't exist. They're in townships, but the signs are still there and people still -- and for all intents and purposes the communities are still there, and they have their individual --
Mrs Currie: Well, the first question that Mr Wilson asked me was: "What happens to Nottawasaga and Sunnidale?" and we are not there in name. Stayner will always be Stayner. Creemore will always be Creemore. Nottawasaga and Sunnidale are gone, as far as their names.
Mr Waters: But when I look at places like Vankoughnet where there isn't even a store, there's nothing -- or Falkenburg -- to designate that there's a community, but there are still the signs and people still live in those communities and talk about being part of that community. That doesn't go away with restructuring.
Mrs Currie: With all due respect, I'm not reassured.
Mr Conway: Reeve Currie, I really appreciate your submission. I don't know a great deal about your area, though I can say this, that on warm summer days I've often taken medicinal comfort from very fine liquid products that are made in the village of Creemore. I find that medicine very, very supportive and helpful, taken in moderation of course.
Mrs Currie: Could I respond to that? Perhaps Reeve MacDonald, who's speaking next, or at a later date this morning -- perhaps he could bribe you.
Mr Conway: Oh, no, that's illegal -- but just two things, two questions because of the time pressures. Again, I want to join others. This is an excellent, very helpful brief. I'm not ordinarily a member of this committee; I'm just substituting this week. But I've heard quite a bit of the evidence advanced in support of and against this current Bill 51.
I represent a large rural constituency in eastern Ontario called Renfrew county so I'm somewhat, I think, from my own experience, inclined to understand some of the problems you've advanced.
The two questions are: Firstly, tell me that you/they are not going to build a big, new administration complex and have four clerks.
Mrs Currie: If you vote and have your members vote the right way, there would be no necessity for it, sir.
Mr Conway: But if it were to pass?
Mrs Currie: All right, let me --
Mr Conway: Because I take it that in your communities you've probably got small, little administrative units.
Mrs Currie: Yes, we have and they are not -- we haven't got to the point where we've actually dealt with that, but let me clue you in.
Nottawasaga has an old school. The water comes out of the tap, it's black. There's no land around it, just the parking lot in front of it. It's not well insulated. It served us well for the time being. Sunnidale has an old school. Creemore has a storefront. The town of Stayner has the firehall on one part and it has a considerable amount of room in it, but their council chambers are upstairs and not wheelchair accessible.
So, if we choose to deal with Stayner as our municipal offices, a considerable amount of money will have to be spent, I think, to make it wheelchair accessible or even to rearrange the council chambers that are downstairs or whatever.
I don't know what we're going to do. We do not want to up the taxes of people but, by the same token, I'm not sure we can work efficiently out of the four offices in these areas and pay for the heat and the upkeep and everything else that's involved with them. I'm not sure that's cost-effective in the long term.
What we are looking at -- and we have not discussed this with our transition council, but the heads of council did talk about it. We're looking at having to rent an area next year to house 23 councillors.
Mr Conway: All right, the second question, because of the time -- again, I think you make a very powerful argument, one in which I'm inclined to agree, particularly on the basis of the sort of disaffiliation that the citizen feels as the organizational unit gets larger. That's certainly been the experience in my area, with school boards more than anything else.
The larger the unit -- my county, Renfrew, runs 140 miles up the Ottawa River and an average depth of about 50 miles, and divisional school boards have brought to us a very real benefit. We've tended to talk a lot about the benefits, but one of the very real deficits or detriments is the disconnection people now feel from the whole operation, because they feel it's just all run by a centralized bureaucracy, miles and miles and light-years away from them and their experience. So I think that part of your argument is extremely telling for me.
On the other hand, I look at the Simcoe county study committee and they make some -- I've been in elected office 18 years, most of it in opposition, but I've been in government for a number of years as well. I know that in the nature of things, it's easier to be opposed to something than it is to be for something, because being for something is sometimes complicated and difficult. I'm not suggesting for a moment that you're sort of naturally oppositionist. I can understand your thoughtful argument against this, but when I look at this green report, clearly a number of issues have been identified.
1010
It is suggested into this part of Simcoe county that there are ongoing relationships between the towns of Stayner and Nottawasaga, that you've got growth pressures around that urban community, particularly, where I suspect the pressures may continue. There are the high-cost items of water and sewer services, to name but one.
It is obviously recommended in this proposition that the best way to deal with these kinds of pressures that I think have been identified by a lot of people is to come up with some kind of restructuring. Would I be right in saying that you agree there are some issues that are going to continue to give rise to these pressures, but that there might be another way, for example, to deal with that? Looking, let's say, at Nottawasaga and Stayner -- I know Stayner reasonably well, but I don't know where the town line is and if I got up in a plane at night and looked at the lights, I bet you I would be able to look down and find a fair bit of Nottawasaga development right around the town of Stayner. Would I be right?
Mrs Currie: Yes.
Mr Conway: Is that likely going to continue?
Mrs Currie: No.
Mr Conway: Even if it doesn't continue --
Mrs Currie: If I can just speak to that, there will be some probably, but it's not likely to continue until, or unless, the town of Stayner's sewage problems are adequate.
Part of Nottawasaga looks like it's in Stayner, especially on the north side on Highway 26, and there was some development done many, many years ago, probably 30 years ago, in there now, but no further development has occurred because of the water and sewage. The land is not suitable. That is true outside of Collingwood and it's recognized in our official plan, so I don't think there will be a lot of pressure. Right now, they can go a few more houses, I think something like 150 in the town of Stayner -- I'm not speaking for them; they could refute that as being incorrect -- but in that neighbourhood.
I have urged them from the beginning of this to take a look at the boundaries as they are, and look at their servicing areas and extend those boundaries which would be natural boundaries to where the servicing could happen or they might want to happen within a 20-year period, but we don't need to be restructured to do that.
The other thing is, to answer your question, when we got into this, the four of us got together and we made up our minds from the outset that we were going to work together in a positive and constructive manner. The town of Stayner wants to be restructured and the other three do not, and yet we worked together extremely well. So we're doing that positively and constructively. The pressures are not right now in Stayner; the pressures are in Nottawasaga.
Mr Conway: If I can just make one final point --
The Chair: We're really running along and the parliamentary assistant had a couple of points. I just don't want to fall behind.
Mr Hayes: Thank you, Reeve Currie, for your very good presentation. I just wanted to kind of clear the air on a couple of statements that were made about why this committee is here. I want to just very briefly tell you that the second reading of this bill didn't get passed until the final day before we recessed, which didn't give it much time. I don't disagree with you; you didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare for this committee.
But at the same time, when you talk about the AMO convention, the timing there, I'd love nothing more than going to the AMO convention, especially being the parliamentary assistant in Municipal Affairs. I would have preferred to be there but, at the same time, I just want to tell you -- people want to make accusations -- that the four members from the area, Mr Wessenger and Mr Waters and Mr Wilson and Mr McLean, certainly worked very hard and they came to me and tried to push the House leaders so we would be able to do this, come out and meet with the people. And to my knowledge, I'm not aware of any standing committee of the Legislature really doing this, unless members who have been here for a long time can correct me on that. But we wanted to come here and listen to the people.
Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): Years ago, in 1973.
Mr Hayes: As far as rubber-stamping, that is not the case at all. And as far as how this thing is driven, it's not driven by the bureaucrats and it's not driven by the province of Ontario. It is the county's restructuring program. I just wanted to make that clear. I'm not being critical with you, but I think in all fairness to everybody on this committee and all the people who have worked on this restructuring, we came here to listen to you and because we wanted to hear what the people had to say.
Mrs Currie: Thank you for that clarification. I did not use the word "rubber-stamping."
Mr Hayes: No, you didn't. I know you didn't.
The Chair: Reeve Currie, I want to thank you again for coming before the committee. It has been most helpful.
Mrs Currie: Thank you to the committee also for this overtime in talking to me. I appreciate it.
VILLAGE OF CREEMORE
The Chair: If I could then call on the reeve for the village of Creemore, Mr Ralph MacDonald, if he would be good enough to come forward. Reeve MacDonald, welcome to the committee. We appreciate your making the time to be here today.
Mr Ralph MacDonald: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I also would like to thank the members of the committee for allowing the village of Creemore and other municipalities of the county of Simcoe the opportunity to express our feelings and make our suggestions for changes to Bill 51.
Since the time when restructuring of the county was first made public, the residents of the village of Creemore have expressed opposition to the idea and, as such, the council for the village has fought long and hard to bring an end to the restructuring process. We have made our feelings known from the beginning that we believe this restructuring is not for the good of the residents of the affected municipalities and restructuring of the county will end with higher taxes, less service and loss of accountability on the part of the politicians. The residents of the village have felt that the entire process has been forced upon us and directed by a few municipalities of the county which by virtue of population hold the vote.
If you were to take a consensus of how many municipalities within the county are for or against the restructuring, you may be surprised to find that the majority of the municipalities are against the process. In our own situation, the village of Creemore will be amalgamated with the town of Stayner and the townships of Sunnidale and Nottawasaga to form the new township of Clearview. Of the four municipalities that will join together, three are and have always been against the entire restructuring process.
The position of the village of Creemore in the beginning to the position now has changed somewhat. Although we are still against the restructuring process, we have come to terms with the fact that the process will be going ahead as scheduled and, as such, we are working diligently towards achieving the best possible results for the residents of the new township of Clearview. We feel we have met the challenge of restructuring by working in harmony with the other three municipalities, meeting deadlines as dictated by the province and by keeping the residents informed of the process.
We also feel that the province has not met its challenge of restructuring as well. The legislation has been delayed almost one year, which has left us and the other municipalities in the dark and without direction. Many times we could not be assured as to the passage of the legislation, which made us feel uncertain about spending any further funds or continuing with the process.
When it was made clear to us that the legislation was going ahead, we were informed by the province that after the first or second reading of the bill, the funds promised by the province to assist the municipalities in the expense of the process would be allocated. As of this date, we have not received any funding, nor any information as to when the funding may be made available to us. We have, to this date, all incurred large expenditures, with larger expenditures yet to come, yet have not received the promised assistance.
1020
I would like to ask this committee to investigate this matter and publicize the date when the municipalities could expect their funding. The village of Creemore believes that it has, like most other municipalities of the county, upheld its end of the bargain. We would now like the province to uphold its end.
As to other problems regarding the bill itself, Mr Ted Hannan, administrator-designate of the township of Clearview, will be making a speech. Maybe he's already been up.
In conclusion, I would like to state that the village of Creemore is in full support of the position taken by our neighbours the townships of Nottawasaga and Sunnidale in opposing the entire restructuring process. We feel that any problems between us and our neighbours, or any opportunity to reduce inefficiency, can be and should be worked out on the municipal level and not forced upon us by the province.
A couple of other little matters, Mr Chairman, on the bill: In section 29, I don't just get it quite clear. If a municipality has a large debt, I take it that debt should stay with the municipality, like a debenture, we'll say, of an arena or whatever it might be. But in section 48 it spells out that it will become the liabilities and the assets of the new municipality. I think that if it's to stay with the municipality and be assessed on its levy, there should be a bylaw on section 29 that covers that a lot clearer.
With that, I wish to thank this committee for the opportunity to express the feelings and state the position of the village of Creemore regarding Bill 51.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Reeve MacDonald. We have a few questions, beginning with Mr Waters and Mr Mclean.
Mr Waters: One of the questions -- and I was asked outside the meeting yesterday a couple of times, so I would ask either the parliamentary assistant or the staff if they could give us some sort of an indication on the funding. The funding was supposed to have been flowing after first reading, then after second reading, and here we are into hearings. I was asked that yesterday, so if they're going to comment at the end or now, I would like that.
The Chair: Parliamentary assistant?
Mr Hayes: All I can tell you right now, Mr Waters, is that the staff is preparing the order for the minister to proceed with the funding. It's being dealt with right now.
Mr Waters: Okay, thank you.
The other thing I'm fascinated by, because I probably had more concerns than some other politicians about restructuring, as I said, having lived with it for 20 years in Muskoka, is how this came about and got this far. I look at page 10 from the previous presenters and it has a vote of April 27, 1993, and I look at local representatives from the north voting in favour. That's what I'm seeing here, north Simcoe voting in favour. I had been told time and time again that south Simcoe was carrying the day and that Barrie and Orillia and that were carrying the day. I don't even see Barrie and Orillia on here. And I see a number of yeses marked beside communities and villages -- well, there's only one in a village -- and townships from the north supporting it.
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Waters. Just for the committee, you're dealing with addendum A on page 10 of the previous submission?
Mr Waters: Yes, the township of Nottawasaga.
The Chair: Reeve MacDonald, you have a copy of that now in front of you?
Mr MacDonald: Yes, I do.
Mr Waters: When I'm looking at that, I know that some of the townships and that have put it to the people in the last election and there was a unanimous no from the people, but that isn't what their representation at county government is showing.
Mr MacDonald: If I might speak to that, the south end of our county was restructured a few years ago. I'm very good friends with most of the politicians from the south end, and what I got from them was, "If we have to be restructured, why shouldn't the rest of you?" I don't feel that it was a fair vote at county council that the south end of the county that was already in place was allowed to vote on it. Maybe that's an unfair statement, but that was the feeling they got, that if they were restructured, why shouldn't the rest of you be restructured? So that's the way the vote came out.
Mr Waters: But Stayner and Port McNicoll and Penetang and Midland, and the list goes on -- Oro, you know -- all of these people aren't in the south.
Mr MacDonald: Well, again --
Mr Waters: Tiny.
Mr MacDonald: Again, you could pick out some of the ones. Maybe you don't know, but I'm sure that likely if Creemore had a large debt, it would have loved to get some help to pay it, and unfortunately, maybe Stayner has a new arena to pay for, a sewage system to pay for. Any of us could have that, but when you're in that position in these times, everybody's looking out for a handout.
Mr McLean: I just want to follow up on that. The question is, if the majority of the municipalities in north Simcoe that were not restructured had a vote, just themselves, would the vote have carried or not?
Mr MacDonald: I'm pretty sure that it would. At the time of the vote we had it all figured up, and the ones that were against it all had a bit of a gathering and we had enough to carry it.
Mr McLean: I know that the reeve of Medonte voted for it, but he was instructed by his council to do so. He ran a campaign opposing it and he was very much opposed to it but was instructed by his council to vote for it.
I guess the other question I have with regard to this, Reeve MacDonald, is that at county council, and I've heard it from different reeves, "If we didn't do it, the province is going to do it for us."
Mr MacDonald: That was the first information that we got.
Mr McLean: And that seemed to be very strongly?
Mr MacDonald: That's right.
Mr McLean: The warden of two years ago indicated in her comments yesterday that that was not the case, that they never said that, that it directly came from the county as a whole: They were the ones that were initiating it, they were the ones that promoted it. And Warden Keefe or all the wardens have never said that if the county didn't do it, the province would.
Mr MacDonald: Well, that was the first information that was brought to us. The information from the province was that it would give us the opportunity to try and put things in place, and if we couldn't do it, they would do it.
Mr McLean: That came from the province?
Mr MacDonald: That came from the province.
Mr McLean: Do you know who?
Mr MacDonald: I can't -- we had a speaker from the province up to one of our meetings at one time. In fact, that's three years ago, four years ago.
Mr McLean: They may be all gone now.
Mr MacDonald: That could be possible.
Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): Thank you, Mr MacDonald, for your presentation. Is the village of Creemore growing at all? Do you see any expansion or any need to grow? Do you have room to grow if you want to grow? What's your situation in that regard?
Mr MacDonald: Yes, we would love some expansion. You have to have growth to keep --
Mr Eddy: Do you have room for it? Do you have land now?
Mr MacDonald: Yes, we do.
Mr Eddy: Do you have services? Do you have water?
Mr MacDonald: No, we don't have any sewers. We have municipal water.
Mr Eddy: Mr MacDonald, one of the reasons that we're told for restructuring, of course, is to enhance the fiscal capacity of a municipality. In other words, the new municipality would be larger, a larger tax base, and that is considered by many to be an advantage. That's one of the advantages. The other advantage, of course, is that there would never be any need for annexation. There wouldn't be boundaries to the urban centre except those established by the local council. That, we're told, is an advantage, and indeed it is in some areas. Do you see any advantages at all to the restructuring proposal to your area? And that means the township and the village.
Mr MacDonald: No, we have room to grow. We have a large amount of land that's available for growth there. The only thing we have been after for several years is funding for sewers, but I don't think you're going to see the province come out in the next six months or a year and say, "Now you're restructuring, we're going to give you $5 million or $6 million to put sewers in." I think we'll likely be further behind once we're restructured than we are now at getting it.
1030
Mr Eddy: I'm not sure whether there's any money under Jobs Ontario for sewer projects. I know that there are some water system expansions under that.
One of the other problems in a large county like Simcoe is the number of members on county council. In order to reduce the members, what do you do? It's an easy thing, apparently, if you reduce the number of municipalities. It's been proposed to me in another area that a village such as yourselves would rather go together with two or three adjoining municipalities to have one county council representative, if indeed that's required to reduce the members. Do you have any thoughts on any other system of county government representation?
Mr MacDonald: I don't think we're going to reduce our members by very many, because some of the municipalities now are going to pick up deputy mayors, whom they didn't have before. I think it's only half a dozen members or something -- I can't tell you the exact count now -- whom we are going to reduce county council by. It's very slim anyway.
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you, Reeve Macdonald, for a very good presentation and taking the time to speak on behalf of Creemore.
I do want to just begin by saying with respect to some comments Mr Conway made, that it is easy to be negative and to object to these things, I disagree, Mr Conway, with respect, because I'll tell you, I'm not making any friends in the town of Collingwood. Joe Sheffer's here today and I'm sure he's not terribly pleased, because the town stands to gain under restructuring. I don't think I'm making any particular friends with the council of Stayner or the mayor, Bill Maynard. They're in favour of restructuring. Just for the record, this isn't an easy process. As all the politicians and people in the room know, when you take a stand on something you get kudos but you get a lot of kicks too.
Mr Conway: If I just might put Mr Wilson's mind to rest, I didn't in any way want to suggest that you were being some kind of nattering nabob of negativism. I in fact was making the comment more about myself. I've spent 18 years in politics, and it may be just my own peculiar psychology, but I have often found it just an easier thing to oppose something than to try to work out some sort of constructive alternative. I want to make it very clear, Mr Wilson, that I wasn't accusing you of being --
Mr Jim Wilson: Okay, thank you.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, if you would continue.
Mr Jim Wilson: I deserve the cross-chatter, having started it, Mr Chairman.
We talked about economic viability of new municipalities and streamlining of government, which I don't believe is occurring but it's part of the county's, and now the government's, selling job on restructuring. Could not those objectives have been met without restructuring and without wiping Nottawasaga, Sunnidale, Creemore and Stayner off the map?
Mr MacDonald: I certainly feel that they could have. But looking at our county, I don't think it's the small municipalities, on the whole, that have the problems; I think it's our large municipalities.
Mr Jim Wilson: That's right.
Mr MacDonald: Creemore has never had any problems in my 23 years as a politician in paying its bills. There were lots of times we could have looked after ourselves if we hadn't gotten the grants. Sometimes grants cost us money because we had to follow the province's specs and what have you to do a lot of things. We could have done it just as well and quite a bit cheaper than getting into engineers and planners.
Mr Jim Wilson: You make an excellent point, Reeve MacDonald. It's been difficult, I guess, to convince people, particularly politicians who inhabit the Legislature from Metropolitan Toronto, that smaller units are indeed very efficient. In fact, you probably run your municipality as if it were your own money and treat with tremendous respect the taxpayers' money.
I do want to talk, because you raised the question, about Stayner. Stayner is not presenting during these hearings, although somebody from the government did call them and ask them to present. But that aside, there were, in my opinion -- I stand to be corrected -- a number of people in Stayner over the past two years who have either written to me or spoken to me in favour of restructuring, because they were under the understanding that it would be "share the pain," that the debt they have for their arena and the sewer project would be spread throughout the new municipality. Subsequently, the mayor, Bill Maynard, denies that council in Stayner has that understanding, but I've said to him consistently that I think a number of the citizens feel that their debts will now be shared.
But my experience with restructuring in south Simcoe is that we have four different property tax rates. Beeton of course has a $6.8-million well that the residents of Beeton are paying for. It's not "share the pain." The new water tower in Alliston is an urban service area. The people of Alliston will pay for that. I want a clarification from the parliamentary assistant. I would think that Stayner will continue to be an urban service area and that the people of Stayner will continue to pay the debts that have been incurred to date in that municipality. Is my reading of the act correct?
Mr Hayes: If I may, I was going to get Mr Griggs to clarify and explain that. We've been waiting for you to ask that.
Mr Jeremy Griggs: In fact, Bill 51 is permissive in that respect. It allows for the new municipality to do that. If either the interim council or the newly elected council for the new municipality chose to treat any of the services as urban service areas, including the debt of a former municipality, they could do so.
Mr Jim Wilson: Not to put words in the witness's mouth, I would assume that the best deal for Nottawasaga and Creemore ratepayers would be to ensure that Stayner continues to pay for debts incurred for Stayner services. Under that scenario then, are we going to see four different tax rates in this new municipality, or the possibility thereof?
Mr Griggs: The bill does provide for that. I explained the reasons for this, I believe, yesterday. The point is that when you're combining four municipalities, as is the case here, the municipalities are assessed at different years. There's a need to bring those up to a base year to provide for the distribution of taxation on the basis of the assessment of those areas. There will be different tax rates until the municipality decides to go through a reassessment or the county chooses to go through a reassessment.
Mr McLean: Can I have a clarification on this? What you're telling us then is that under the new council of Clearview, all the municipalities will pay for service that goes into Stayner or service that goes into Creemore?
Mr Griggs: No. As I indicated earlier, it's at the council's discretion to establish service areas if it chooses to do so.
Mr McLean: They could allow that to happen then.
Mr Griggs: They could.
Mr Jim Wilson: Perhaps we can just ask the witness whether that's been discussed. I'm on the public record of trying to explain this to the people of Stayner. Certainly, Ralph, in your presentation you mentioned perhaps a belief that it is "share the pain," but it's not necessarily so if council decides to designate Stayner and the four municipalities as separate urban service areas. Has that been discussed in the transition council?
Mr MacDonald: Very faintly, sitting around the meeting, when we're all together, four municipalities. I took from the council of Stayner that it felt that once we were restructured, everything's going to go in the one pot and its debts will be paid evenly among the four municipalities. That's why I was trying to go through this thing. I don't think that's fair. We're all certainly going to have to pay for the operations of them, but I don't think it's fair for other municipalities that didn't build them to have to pay for them. They're debentured and they're assessed against that municipality now; I think they should stay that way.
The Chair: Mr Griggs, do you want to comment?
Mr Griggs: Again, as I said, section 29 of the bill provides that the council of a local municipality may, by bylaw, identify an urban service area. That includes the transitional council made up of the existing councils of the municipalities. Following January 1, 1994, before the new council is elected, the transitional council, as you discuss, could identify these urban service areas. If Creemore, Nottawasaga and Sunnidale feel that it would be unfair for Stayner's debt to be spread across the whole new municipality, those three municipalities, which would carry the vote on the interim council, could establish that area as an urban service area.
1040
Mr MacDonald: Sir, that's not true, because the way it's going to be set up in ward systems, other people from the municipality could come down and run in my ward, and they might be in favour of paying Stayner's debt. You don't have to live in the ward to run in it.
Mr Jim Wilson: That's a very good point.
Mr Griggs: The ward systems don't come into effect until the municipal election in the fall of 1994. I was speaking about the interim council between the implementation of the restructuring and that election.
Mr Conway: But Reeve MacDonald's point I think is a good one. What protection do I have if I live in Creemore or if I'm up in Nottawasaga and say I want the urban service area that was there pre-restructuring to be maintained? It will presumably be maintained, or can be and probably will be in the transitional period, but that's only for one year. How good a guarantee have I got after 1994 that I, living in rural Nottawasaga, won't get stuck for somebody else's debt?
Mr Griggs: This is the way municipalities function. You elect a council to make decisions for that municipality, and if you don't like the decisions, you certainly have a voice. You can oppose them and make your views known and also oppose them in the next election. This is the way municipalities function.
The Chair: Mr Eddy, did you have a quick query on that?
Mr Eddy: Yes. It's a further clarification, because you have to look at the definition of an "urban service" as stated in section 29. What happens when you form an urban service area is that it's probably for hydro-electric purposes, but usually for water and sewer. Now, an arena is an entirely different matter, because that serves the entire municipality. What is usual is that services for a given area are paid for by the users in that given area, the urban service area; everyone pays for services, like an arena, that are provided throughout the municipality. There is a difference depending on the service. I think that needs to be clear. I really think we need something more clearly stated than, it would seem, leaving it to the discretion of a new council, in view of the fact that you'll have an imbalance perhaps with the three municipalities.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, do you want to comment on that? I just want to allow Reeve MacDonald to.
Mr Jim Wilson: I think Mr Eddy's point is particularly well taken in light of the fact -- I didn't know till Reeve MacDonald just said it -- that you don't have to be a member of the ward you're going to run in. That I find absolutely unbelievable.
Mr MacDonald: Certainly I can assure you that nothing's going to change in the first eight months of 1994 to election, but then you don't know in an election what's in the back of a politician's head when he's running for a position, what he's going to do. I think it would be very easy for the province at this time to make it very clear. It would save a lot of arguments and be a lot clearer.
Mr McLean: This whole process is so flawed, isn't it?
The Chair: Reeve MacDonald, I want to thank you for coming before the committee. You have obviously raised a number of issues that have caught the interest of the committee. Thank you again for coming.
TOWNSHIP OF SUNNIDALE
The Chair: I call the next witness, the reeve of the township of Sunnidale, Mr Burnfield Wines. Welcome you to the committee.
Mr Jim Wilson: On a point of order: If you would like, your worship, you could have Mr Hannan join you at the table.
The Chair: Please, anyone whom you'd like.
Mr Burnfield Wines: Mr Chairman, I'm not sure but that I haven't had the privilege of rowing a canoe against you.
The Chair: Oh, down in Bradford.
Mr Wines: I think I beat you too.
The Chair: I think you did. I think you beat me pretty badly, if I recall.
Mr Wines: Mr Chairman, committee members, municipal colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I guess as I sit here and listen to the different reeves ahead of me and the questions coming back, it makes me feel like a mosquito in a nudist camp. If I had the opportunity to speak without this paper, I would hardly know where to start.
Comments earlier from Dan Waters, your MPP, that names will not disappear -- they will disappear down the road with generations changing. We saw that with even the changing of the Union Jack to our Canadian flag. The youngsters of today know only the maple leaf for our Canadian flag. When I grew up I knew nothing but the Union Jack.
The Chair: Reeve, can I ask you to introduce the chairman with you at the table?
Mr Wines: I have here on my left Mr Ted Hannan, my CEO, whom I have had with me in all my presentations to county restructuring.
Some of you are well aware that I opposed restructuring very vigorously for the township of Sunnidale. In fact, as I sat in on two long days, and I refer to them as two long days on voting on restructuring, I saw one particular person hold up the green book with a lot of questions in there, and yes, blame can be put on the county that this is the way the county asked for restructuring.
However, in one of my statements about 11 o'clock at night, I said this is wholesale slaughter to the county because the county is dear to me. My ties go back right through to Sir John A. Macdonald, so it's not hard to know what political party I sure lean to, because our relations go right back to Sir John A. However, I won't take up any more time blathering as such. I have a brief here before me, as all of you have, and I'm going to carry on with it.
Gentlemen and ladies, in the past three years, on behalf of the township of Sunnidale, I made several presentations on the restructuring of Simcoe county which have fallen on deaf ears. I might say I could be in places very raw in these comments, because that's the way I presented them and that's the way I see it. We have made no secret of the fact that Sunnidale has been against restructuring from the beginning. That is not to say that we are against intermunicipal cooperation through shared services.
I also heard those comments here, and we in Sunnidale are quite willing to share and cooperate. As one comment was made here on paying into an arena, we have four arenas surrounding our township, so it becomes quite an issue because we have to be very careful that we don't shun one or the other.
If you look at Sunnidale's record, you will see that we have supported many of the recommendations contained in the Simcoe county report. It has always been my position that county planning should have taken place before restructuring. You may recall that when the draft report came to county council, county planning was turned down. Excuse me, I'm a little rough. I just caught some of the combine dust from yesterday and it's still bothering me.
When the vote was taken at county council, it was the township of Sunnidale that cast the deciding yes vote for county planning, notwithstanding the fact that the Simcoe county study made some 126 recommendations and many of the recommendations are being implemented without Bill 51.
The strong objection of the township of Sunnidale is the arbitrary movement of municipal boundaries and the amalgamation of municipalities. The philosophy of the province is that these smaller municipalities are not an economical, viable unit. I take a very strong exception to this philosophy. What the province is trying to do through Bill 51 is legislate good management, and this just won't happen.
1050
If I could take a moment to comment on an earlier statement here, "Why had so many municipalities in the north" -- I think it was -- "voted for restructuring?" I can tell you one thing, that if you took the towns out of this restructuring process and voting, I think you would find that restructuring wouldn't go through, because the towns voted, and especially the bigger towns, because they wanted more territory to expand their boundaries. In the same statement, I can also say that it allows the larger municipalities, the towns especially, to expand, and they will expand as the pressure gets to them. But as I see it with county restructuring, it takes that process away from the rural municipalities, because it is saying to them, "You cannot expand at your boundaries," and that's something that you all should take heed of.
Why should a town be allowed to expand at a rural municipality's expense when a rural municipality cannot, the other way around? This is what restructuring has been all about, some of it, because the rural municipalities have been building on the town borders. I will comment later on one of our own subdivisions that we have under way and are going to have under way.
Sunnidale has always been able to pay its bills, has substantial reserves and is able to meet the service demands of its inhabitants. I might say that in many instances, capital services have been provided with very little or no financial assistance from the province. If you consider the New Lowell water system, which includes fire protection, it was constructed and paid for without provincial participation. It is a state-of-the-art water system which will be extended to include the whole older part of the village, and before restructuring reared its ugly head, plans were in place for the extension regardless of whether or not provincial financial assistance was available.
Again talking about financial viability, let's look at the voluntarism in the smaller municipalities. The inhabitants do not expect Big Brother, the local government, to supply everything at no cost. In order to control expenses, there are a tremendous number of unpaid volunteers who make things happen. People on parks boards, community centre boards, recreation committees, library boards, service clubs and many other private individuals give freely of their time and resources towards the various programs in the municipality. In a small community, this is part of the way of life, part of being a member of that community. With the restructured, larger municipalities, much of this will be lost and inhabitants will expect Big Brother to provide these services, and at what costs?
In considering Bill 51 itself, there are many areas which we see as troublesome in the future. Section 9 states, "The council of the county of Simcoe may by bylaw provide that a member who has one or more additional votes in council by virtue of this part shall have the same number of additional votes as a member of any committee." It is this type of weighted vote that got us into trouble in the Simcoe county study. If the county passes a bylaw providing for a weighted vote at the committee level, the large urban municipalities will control the committees. Section 9 of Bill 51 should be removed in its entirety. I think it should be a single vote, the way we pick our county warden: one member, one vote.
You as committee members came to Collingwood today for public input on a very important piece of legislation. Let's take a look at section 35 of Bill 51, whereby certificates of approval or provisional certificates of approval have been issued under part 5 of the Environmental Protection Act before January 1, 1994, for a waste disposal site, but on December 31, 1993, it is owned by the county of Simcoe. The certificate is amended to enlarge the service area to include all of Simcoe county. I ask you, where is the public participation for these major expansions of areas serviced by landfill sites?
I might say, in my experience as a councillor, deputy reeve and reeve over the past soon heading for 18 years, I guess the big disappointment was in Bill 201 where it allowed the county to take over landfill sites without aye, yes or no. We in Sunnidale -- I'll give you an example of how we were looking to the future -- had a licensed landfill site for household waste for 60 acres, almost the biggest site in the county of Simcoe. We had purchased another 98 acres to the north, we were negotiating for 100 acres to the east and also 50 acres to the south, surrounding that landfill site, where there would be no housing developments whatsoever, a state-of-the-art landfill site, which we were very proud of and which Bill 201 completely wiped out without us having any say at all. It amazes me why and how, without even negotiating with the township of Sunnidale or the changing of a dollar, Bill 201 takes all your authority away from you. I tell you, as I've stated before at the county, we are heading for dictatorship, whether any one of us likes it or not, unless we make drastic changes.
We can't help but feel that this is just another case of "steam-rollering" through someone's personal agenda. I would even question this public hearing. To call a public hearing on Bill 51 and notify municipalities twelve days, four of which are weekends and one of which the province is closed, before hearings commence casts doubt on just how interested the province is in public input.
I guess I might say this. In my understanding, and I stand to be corrected, that this passing of the second reading happened almost before you closed off Parliament for the summer session. In my understanding, it took about 10 minutes, and to me this is: "I'm in a hurry to get back to my riding. What's Simcoe county mean to me?" -- very discouraging for the likes of myself and colleagues in our new municipality.
As a matter of fact, the guideline for the preparation of a brief to standing and select committees of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario was received by fax at 11:57 am, Friday, August 20, 1993, just three days before the commencement of hearings. It is also strange that the hearings would be called for the same three days as the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference. We are informed that the hearing dates were set, realizing full well that the conflict with the AMO conference existed. Does this mean that the province does not want the local municipal representatives at these hearings?
At the last municipal election, the township of Sunnidale asked the voters, "Are you in favour of restructuring (boundary) changes for the municipality of the township of Sunnidale?" A resounding 95% voted against restructuring. The same question was asked in several municipalities with about the same results. Bill 51 is a result of the Simcoe county study report being pushed through Simcoe county to satisfy the political ambitions of certain members through expanded municipal boundaries and municipal amalgamations. It has nothing to do with the wishes of the residents of Simcoe county. When the Simcoe county report was presented to county council, the galleries were full of people against restructuring. County council dealt with the matter at best as if they were not there or, at worst, as if the general public was a nuisance and of little or no consequence.
1100
I might say, a comment earlier on here was -- and when I came on county council, my first year of course, this was what hit the floor right off the bat, a vote for restructuring. I might add, the vote was for a study of the county, not restructuring and boundary changes, and I want that made quite clear. That was a mandate for a study of the county, which should have happened, not restructuring. But I tell you, once the ball got rolling there was no way we could stop it.
The municipalities in the south end of Simcoe county had restructuring forced upon them by the province. There were loud and long protests from the general public and the local municipalities when the forced restructuring took place. Most residents of the southern Simcoe county municipalities are still very much against restructuring, yet the attitude of the south Simcoe county politicians has been that "It happened to us; therefore, it should happen to you" -- this was referred to earlier on by Reeve MacDonald from Creemore, which was quite true -- referring to the remainder of Simcoe county.
It is my understanding that at these hearings you are hearing delegations against restructuring from municipalities whose county representative voted in favour. It is interesting to look at the last municipal election results and analyse the supporters of restructuring who were defeated and the supporters of restructuring who had always enjoyed a large margin of votes who were just barely returned to office.
Bill 51 is legislation that is not wanted by the people of Simcoe county. Any financial advantages gained through restructuring will be more than offset by increased expenses. We have seen this happen time and time again with regional government. Our local municipal government is the closest to the people we represent and through Bill 51 we are being removed one step further from the man in the barrel, the person who finally pays the bill. My comment is that bigger isn't always better.
I do have a few personal remarks, if I could have the opportunity to read them out, which are not on your statement, I guess my personal remarks and requests.
McIntyre Creek Estates is a subdivision that is in the initial stages of getting final. To us it's one of the state-of-the-art subdivisions. It is on the boundary of Wasaga Beach. It was built, tied in to cooperate and we did give the approval to cooperate with Wasaga Sands. McIntyre Creek Estates is a subdivision contained within its own, away from Wasaga Beach. It has its own water facilities. Its facilities were being produced and set up so that if Wasaga Beach ran out of water, we could feed water to Wasaga Beach or vice versa. To me this spells cooperation. A self-contained subdivision which is part of Sunnidale's northern boundary and being fully serviced by Sunnidale and more fully serviced by the new municipality of Clearview, it should remain with the new municipality and not go to Wasaga Beach.
The townships of Tosorontio and Adjala, and I brought this up more times than one, and the ministry sitting over here at the table to my right will back me up on my statements: Being joined together as one, which we call the string of spaghetti, makes no sense to me whatsoever. I guess I look as to ways these changes should improve and I think that the ministry does have the power to make these final adjustments too -- being joined together as one should not happen. Tosorontio should be joined up with Essa to take in Base Borden, which is a natural phenomenon. They both receive financial assistance from the base; therefore, the financial assistance to both municipalities should include that base because Essa especially is going to have to provide a new sewer system for that base.
Adjala should join with New Tecumseth -- these are my thoughts for the future -- to make proper adjustments if we have to go with restructuring.
Barrie should be allowed to take in the northern half of Innisfil, Vespra out as far as Midhurst, a portion of Oro on its easterly boundary and a portion of Essa on its westerly boundary, and this only makes proper sense if we don't want to get into it down the road in the very near future. I think that that should be allowed for proper planning.
The city of Orillia should be allowed to expand as well. These changes should be allowed to happen before the third reading of the bill.
If restructuring has to happen, it should be six or one, and the reason I mention one, I am chairman of the roads committee, transportation in the county of Simcoe, and I can see where one functioning out over the whole of Simcoe county, as far as roads are concerned, could be a benefit.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Reeve, both for the township presentation and for your own personal comments. Just before going to questions, if I could just say to members we are getting tight and if we could keep that in mind. I'm going to have to be tighter. Mr Wilson.
Mr Jim Wilson: Very quickly then, Mr Chairman. Thank you very much, Reeve Wines, for an absolutely excellent presentation. Just a couple of points.
The first one is section 9 -- I think when it's the parliamentary assistant's turn perhaps he could clarify that -- regarding voting on committees of county council, and I think you'll find the explanation there is that that's a permissive clause which says the status quo of one vote -- I understand there's been a bylaw passed at county council to go to the one-vote system for committees -- can stay, but at some time in the future if county council wants to go back to the plurality system on committees, this clause allows them to do that.
I'll leave it and perhaps you could keep your comments until you hear the full explanation from the parliamentary assistant. I'm inclined to delete it, as per your request in your brief, and may, depending on what happens in the next 12 hours, come up with an amendment overnight to do exactly that.
Section 35, I'm glad again that both you and Reeve Currie mentioned that. It particularly disturbs me in light of some of the things we heard in the last election from the NDP about the environment and the need for environmental assessments, and now we have, through a restructuring bill which, on the surface, doesn't appear to do anything about environmental matters, a major change in policy from the government in terms of allowing expansion of landfill sites, or allowing who can dump into those landfill sites in terms of expansion through the back door, I would argue, and I think through your brief you would agree.
I want to ask you about costs. We asked Reeve Currie the question about an administrative building. I think ratepayers are worried that there will be additional costs, that the province, given the uncertainty of the transitional funding, won't be picking up the tab over the long run on this. What are your personal views with respect to the costs of restructuring, because, as you know, the driving force, we're told, and the reason that we have to have restructuring is that larger units will be more economic in the long run. What's your opinion on that?
1110
Mr Wines: That's right. I guess I could answer the last part first, maybe. There are only so many dollars to go around. In our enlarged municipality, we've still got the same amount of roads, so dollars won't be saved.
As far as the municipal building goes, each of the four of us has a building worth $1 million to each of us because it is serving that purpose. But it will not serve that purpose as we go into the larger municipality, and I think you're all aware that it will cost us money.
I guess, really, through cooperation, maybe we can cut costs, but a municipal building is certainly something that is going to have to happen. I can tell you right now, as well as a municipal building, I do look to the future for what else it can contain, and it should be containing a police station as well. We have the provincial police back in Stayner housed in a building that's completely inadequate, and so if we were to stick with provincial police, it should entail provision for provincial police. Down the road it could change to county police as well or town, but I hope it doesn't change from provincial police. They have, in my estimation, the state-of-the-art equipment to handle all our needs.
Mr Jim Wilson: Just in response to that, I don't think there's any plan, certainly in the foreseeable future, to change from the OPP. There are plans in the works, as you know, with district 7 and their service area. In fact, I think there's good news coming up in the future that we'll in fact have better service as a result of amalgamations with the Stayner, Wasaga Beach and Elmvale detachments. But that's coming up in October, and I think to a degree is separate from restructuring.
Just one quick question: I'm very glad, because I do not know at this point whether Tosorontio and Adjala are appearing before the committee, but you mentioned something that I have used as an example, and that is, there are a number of principles set out for restructuring -- self-sufficiency was the big one. We were told when the south end was done that the government of the day wanted municipalities to amalgamate into self-sufficient units wherever possible.
In my opinion, Tosorontio and Adjala are not self-sufficient units, they don't have the services between them to become self-sufficient units and I'm wondering if you can enlighten this committee on how in the world Tos and Adjala got put together in the first place, because to me, if county council was to be consistent, one only has to look at Tos and Adjala as an amalgamation that defies all the principles that supposedly county council was following as the reason for restructurings.
Mr Wines: Strange that you might ask me that question, because I was going to tell you anyway. Had I had the opportunity of sitting on that restructuring committee, I'd have got what I wanted. I might as well be blunt about it. It was really disgusting to see the way that committee carried on, if you want to know the truth.
As far as Tosorontio and Adjala go, both of those reeves sit on the restructuring committee, and I can tell you the truth. In one instance, the reeve of Tosorontio was away one day, and when he came back they had put Tosorontio with Essa, and that certainly changed it right off the bat back to where it is now.
Mr Jim Wilson: Sorry, it was put with Essa at one point?
Mr Wines: Yes, it was.
Mr Jim Wilson: Then how did we get it put in with Adjala?
Mr Wines: That's your political action working. That, I guess, would be backroom.
Mr Hayes: Previous presenters, including you, Mr Wines, have made the comment about south Simcoe pushing this restructuring through, but are you aware that if you took the south Simcoe area out of the vote, that vote still would have carried?
Mr Wines: Well, there are doubts, because the whole picture could have changed. You can't really base your facts --
Mr Hayes: If you took those votes out of there, it would still have carried.
Mr Wines: Yes, the way it ended up. But had they not been allowed to vote or participate to start with, it could well have ended up differently. When I first came on county council, the statement was made, "If the county doesn't restructure, the province will." My reply was: "All right, let's force the issue. Let's not jump into this till we have to."
The Chair: Reeve Wines, I want to thank you very much for coming before the committee today. And the next time I'm in a canoe, I'll do better.
Mr Wines: You see the restructuring going this way or I'll likely drown you. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to present my brief and comments.
TOWNSHIP OF CLEARVIEW
The Chair: I call on the township of Clearview and the administrator-designate, if that's the correct term, Mr Ted Hannan. Mr Hannan, welcome to the committee and please go ahead with your presentation. I hope you don't canoe as well.
Mr Ted Hannan: No, I don't canoe, but I do hunt and I met Mr Conway up in the bush in Renfrew county once a number of years ago. I don't know whether he remembers that.
Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, as administrator-designate of the new municipality, I'm not going to speak either for or against restructuring. It'll probably be a bit of a change from what you've had in the hearing to date. However, there are some things about Bill 51 that, as one of the people who's going to be involved in implementation if it goes through, we do have some concerns. Most of them have been briefly touched on by the political representatives who have already spoken, but I want to stress that we are the people who are going to have to implement it. We are the people who work in this every day. We know municipalities better than the authors of the legislation. We know the day-to-day operation, and we see some problems with the bill.
Part I of the bill deals with new municipal boundaries. Subsection 2(7) states that before January 1, 1994, the minister shall prepare the schedules and have them published and registered. I would remind the committee that the regulations form a very important part of the bill and, without knowing exact final boundaries, the municipalities cannot provide the ministry of revenue with the final ward and poll information; final equalization factors cannot be determined; and the return of the collector's roll is delayed. Because we do not have a uniform base year of assessment throughout the county, 1994 budgets are going to be tough enough without adding a late return of the collector's roll. It has been almost a year since we saw the draft of what is now Bill 51, and it is time that the final schedules are completed.
Section 44 speaks to ward proposals on behalf of local municipalities and the submission of such proposals to the minister by December 1, 1993. The authors of the bill obviously realized the importance of the timing of the submission of the ward proposals, as in the draft legislation the submission date was June 1, 1993.
For the reasons I previously stated, I would urge that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs ensure that the proposals are received well before December 1, 1993. Put the heat on the local municipalities, if this thing is going to go through, and make sure those are in. But in order to get them in, we've got to have to have those final boundaries. If we're dealing with final boundaries in December, when a collector's roll is normally returned in December, we're looking at doing municipal budgets in the summer of 1994.
1120
The conveyance of capital assets in section 47 is somewhat confusing. Although subsection 47(3) states, "The minister may by regulation define capital asset for the purpose of this section," without the definition I would question whether or not the section is enforceable.
Probably the most contentious issue is reserves and whether or not they're a capital asset. If you use a reserve for a capital project, you have simply transferred an asset from cash to some other form of capital asset. Is this a conveyance?
Further, if a municipality does dispose of or convey a capital asset valued at more than $25,000, what are the penalties? Who is responsible? Am I responsible as treasurer? Is the council responsible? Who's going to establish the value of the capital asset? You've got a three-year-old grader. Is it worth $20,000? Is it worth $50,000?
If we are looking at January 1, 1994, as the implementation date, the lateness in the calendar for third reading and royal assent probably makes section 47 redundant. It is a section that, if left in, may come back to haunt us at some future date.
Human resources are the most expensive and most difficult-to-replace resource of a municipality. Section 53 basically guarantees that any employee employed by the municipality on July 1, 1993, who continues to be employed until December 1, 1993, has a job on January 1, 1994. It does not address the employee status on January 2, 1994, but again states that the minister may by regulation provide for the security of employment, the protection of benefits early retirement options and definitions of "employees" and "retired employees."
Ladies and gentlemen, the municipal employees of Simcoe county, because of restructuring, have grave concerns for their jobs. Municipal councils, at least in Clearview, are prepared to address this issue and develop a program with respect to job security and continuation of employment. If the minister is going to make regulations, then we need to know what they are now. It is difficult for a municipality to take a package to the employees when the rules can be changed by a Bill 51 regulation.
Bill 51 has probably done more to destroy the employee-employer relationship than any other legislation or policy in my 20 years in municipal business. This is evidenced by the fact that the township of Sunnidale, which has two full-time hourly rated and three part-time hourly rated outside employees, in June 1993 applied for and received union certification. The same is true of the village of Creemore, and the outside employees in the town of Stayner have applied for but have not yet received certification.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am not saying this because I am against unions. I'm saying this because employees who were part of a family organization and did not feel that they needed that job protection now have these concerns and we can't address them because we don't have the regulations. They have the fear of the unknown. Give us the tools to work with and let us know what we have to do so that we can get on with the job.
The last matter on which I wish to speak is financial and deals with the transition grants to the local municipalities. It is my understanding that there will be a grant to the new municipality of Clearview in the amount of $200 per household in the town of Stayner, the village of Creemore and the township of Sunnidale.
Municipal councils and staff of the four municipalities that will make up Clearview have been working very hard and have spent a lot of time and resources to prepare for a smooth transition. We are now at the point that in order to proceed we must make substantial capital investments in such things as compatible communications equipment. And, Mr Wilson, you were asking about a municipal office. That's just a small amount of the capital expenditures we're going to have to get into.
We've looked at expenses for our communications equipment and we're dealing with four different radio systems we have now, three fire departments and four roads systems. To make just the fire systems compatible, our initial cost is estimated between $50,000 and $60,000.
We also have to be looking at computer hardware and software and housing. I might say that as far as our computer software and hardware goes, the four municipalities got together this year. Sunnidale did the tax bills for all four municipalities. This is a form of municipal cooperation that can go on without the restructuring and so on. There is municipal cooperation there, and we are working to get ready for this if it goes.
I can find no mention of the transition grant in Bill 51. We were first told that it would be paid after the first reading, and then after the first reading we were told there was a technical problem because the new municipality does not exist. We would like to have some assurance that it will be paid. The municipalities are not in a position to proceed with these capital expenditures without assurance that Bill 51 will be passed and the transition grants received.
I prefer to end the presentation on a positive note. Perhaps the greatest benefit of the Simcoe county study on restructuring and Bill 51 is that it has brought many bordering municipalities together to look at municipal cooperation in a host of areas.
Clearview is currently working with a 23-member council and four municipal administrators. Cooperation and a spirit of working together have resulted in exchange of ideas and some operational changes, and a better understanding of our joint interest. Examples of joint ventures include the setting up of the Stayner-Nottawasaga fire department, the town of Stayner taking over Creemore and Sunnidale street light maintenance, and the township of Sunnidale producing tax bills for Nottawasaga, Stayner and Creemore, just to mention a few. These are all improvements which have come about largely because of the Simcoe county study and the necessity to work together towards a common goal.
As administrator-designate of the township of Clearview, I can assure those present that the administrative staff of the four member municipalities are professionals who are proficient in their jobs of operating a municipal business. We will continue to provide service under the direction of council to the inhabitants of the municipality, whether it be Clearview or the town of Stayner, the village of Creemore, the township of Nottawasaga and the township of Sunnidale.
I wish to express my thanks to the committee for providing me with the opportunity to make this presentation. I have a question I would like to ask the parliamentary assistant, but if there are any other questions, maybe I can bring it up at the end.
The Chair: We have a number of questioners, beginning with Mr Eddy, then Mr Waters, Mr McLean, Mr Wilson and then the parliamentary assistant, if you could just be a little conscious of time.
Mr Eddy: Yes, we'll be conscious of time, realizing that this is time really well spent. I want to thank Mr Hannan for coming forward and giving us such information as he has regarding the problems around the many changes.
I feel very, very strongly that what we must do before this bill is given final reading is to have the boundary schedules -- and that's been mentioned -- to have the regulations, to have the financing in place for all of the municipalities, which leads me to the question. Would you respond about how strongly you feel that if this bill goes forward, the effective date should tie in with the next municipal election rather than an interim period, realizing that the time could be well spent in preparing for the final? We could pass the bill but the effective date would be a year later, to be tied in with the municipal election.
That would give, if there are going to be new municipalities, restructured municipalities the opportunity to be reassessed on the same basis. Whether or not that's market value assessment would be up to the council to decide, but there have been many problems where municipalities were restructured under regional government that lived with different bases for assessment and it was absolutely chaotic.
1130
There are so many things here that I think should be put in place that you need the time and all of the proposed new municipalities need the time. The other point, of course, is the fact that some areas are being annexed -- transferred, shall we say -- from the present municipality to new municipalities. Those residents feel they're being disenfranchised and that's come up. That would be taken care of if we waited till the next municipal election.
Would you comment on the merits of that or, if you don't see that as the best solution, and certainly I do from all we've got from these hearings, what other way do you see of changing the proposal from the standpoint of effective date?
Mr Hannan: We have two philosophies here as to how this could happen. If we go on January 1, 1994, we're going to be jumping in, both feet, to something for which we're not ready, because we still cannot proceed with these capital expenditures until we get third reading of Bill 51 and royal assent. We can't spend several hundred thousand dollars and then have something happen and the bill not be passed. That just won't work, so we're going to be into the late fall, the time when I'm up in Mr Conway's territory and so on, before the bill is passed.
However, the advantage we would have at it being passed on January 1 is we are going to be dealing with people who are familiar with the municipalities, and we're going to have a lot of people we can put on committees who can do the tremendous amount of work that has to be done.
If you carry that one step further, then when you get to the 1994 election, you're going to have a lot of the major work done. People coming in who are green, the new people, aren't going to have to know the complete history the way the people, the politicians who are there now do. On the other side of the coin -- and I wasn't really prepared for this, but I would think that if I had my druthers, I would take going with the next municipal election because we have what we're calling a transition council. It really is because the township of Clearview does not exist at the present time, but this transition council is working very well together. I'm amazed that we can put 23 people in a room and maintain some semblance of order. I've seen a five-man council that hasn't made out as well as this one has.
Notwithstanding, if it were left to the 1994 election, then we would still have the benefit of the experienced politicians. They aren't going to be able to pass the bylaws and so on, but we, as the municipal people, can get things together. We can prepare all the bylaws, prepare all of the necessary administrative documentation to make it go on the date it's supposed to happen.
The Chair: Mr Eddy, could I just ask this witness -- I just want to make a clarification on that point which may assist in the questioning.
Mr Hayes: We'll refer it to Mr Griggs to address some of your concerns.
Mr Griggs: In fact, the running of the 1994 municipal election was one of the major considerations in the choice of the implementation date and the reason it was chosen as January 1 is, of course, you need returning officers for those new municipalities. You need to have somebody to run those elections for the new municipalities and to do that the municipalities have to exist as legal entities. In fact, from January 1, 1994, to the municipal election is the shortest transition period possible and still be able to run that election as a normal municipal election.
Mr Eddy: I don't really agree with that because in the formation of the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth, the regional council for the municipalities, which did not exist, took place in September. In fact, I think it was earlier, maybe late August. They took office, or they were mandated as of September 1 to proceed to prepare for when they took office on January 1. The new municipalities did not come into being until the following January and that gave them a plus. I was just thinking, I don't know why that couldn't happen, because it has happened in the case of restructuring counties into regional municipalities. I'm very familiar with that one.
To conclude, are you in favour, if this bill proceeds in the restructured municipalities -- do you say we should proceed, if it's going to go, pass it as early this fall as possible, but the effective date for the new municipalities and therefore the new councils would be the tie-in with the municipal election date in 1994?
Mr Hannan: That would definitely be my personal preference, yes.
Mr Eddy: It has many advantages.
Mr Hannan: There are many, many advantages.
Mr Eddy: Which you could list.
Mr Hannan: Yes.
Mr Eddy: Thank you very much.
Mr Hannan: With the technical section of that, this is the government of the day. The Municipal Elections Act can be amended to handle this. I fail to understand how that's a problem.
Mr McLean: Can you give some indication of the estimated cost there would be with regard to the new administration centre and the other things you have mentioned? Is it going to be $1 million or $500,000?
Mr Hannan: I would say we're looking somewhere between $750,000 and $1.25 million.
Mr McLean: Where are you getting that money? Where is that money going to come from?
Mr Hannan: I guess we're going to have to go out and chase for it. If restructuring goes ahead, we will get a little bit from the province and we will probably have to go back to the taxpayer for a substantial portion of it. We have also taken a look at municipal savings. It will take us a long, long time to make up that money from savings in the larger municipality.
Mr McLean: Is anything coming from the province, that you know of, for that?
Mr Hannan: I understand we're going to get slightly in excess of $400,000.
Mr McLean: The three municipalities, small ones -- they will be debt free, I presume?
Mr Hannan: That's right.
Mr McLean: They are, and --
Mr Hannan: Sorry, that's not quite true. Creemore has a small debenture, around $80,000, on the shed and that's it.
Mr McLean: What's Stayner owe? What's their debt?
Mr Hannan: It's $1.4 million.
Mr McLean: Do you feel the municipality now is going to pick up that debt or is that going to stay with the taxpayers in Stayner?
Mr Hannan: With Stayner, its debt, the sewer and water and actually there's also a hydro debt there too -- that will remain with the utility. The hydro debt, of course -- the Stayner and Creemore hydro facility will be amalgamated. Therefore, the Clearview hydro will include Creemore and Stayner, so that'll be distributed that way.
Mr McLean: What about the arena?
Mr Hannan: My understanding of the arena is that it will be spread over the municipality.
Mr McLean: Thank you.
The Chair: Mr Waters and Mr Wilson.
Mr Waters: My question deals with one of the things I always worry about -- I guess being raised part of the time in Simcoe county and that -- which is road equipment and how this is going to work. Are you going to have a shortfall with the combined townships as far as road equipment for snow removal or maintenance? Do you see any major expense there?
Mr Hannan: The major expense in roads is again going to be housing. We have buildings that are adequate for our present needs but, once you start getting to a point where this equipment is now going to be used throughout the entire municipality, your location of buildings is wrong. Nottawasaga has a works building that -- it's time for it to be replaced. If it's being replaced, and we're restructured, it probably should be moved towards Stayner. That way we can close Sunnidale Corners, but we're still looking at this major capital expenditure to do this.
1140
Mr Waters: Okay, You mentioned fire department and, as a past resident of Edgar, I seem to recall some years ago, and I thought it was throughout Simcoe county, that there was sort of a shared service or a co-op, I guess it is --
Mr McLean: Mutual aid.
Mr Waters: Ah, that's the term. Mutual aid.
Mr Hannan: There's mutual aid, but in order to participate in mutual aid you have to be able to respond with like equipment. Nottawasaga was buying most of their fire service from -- well, they're buying it all from Stayner, from Creemore, from Collingwood; much more economical to set up their own fire department. Nottawasaga bought a pumper tanker for the town of Stayner. This is being used in the township of Nottawasaga. They wind up with a fire station at Singhampton, which again puts the residents of the township of Nottawasaga close enough to the fire halls to get them low insurance premiums, which are all things municipal governments are supposed to do to enhance the --
Mr Waters: I just didn't understand. I didn't realize until you clarified it that indeed you were buying service, so you didn't have the equipment. I couldn't figure out how you lost fire trucks or something in this deal.
The other thing, I keep hearing about arenas and I seem to recall some years ago when I was down around the Thornton area that the community of Thornton built their own arena. They didn't borrow money, they didn't get anything from the province or anything; they wanted an arena and they went out and built it. From what I can gather, they are not the norm in Simcoe county. Everyone else has gone out and has massive debt with their arenas.
Mr Hannan: I think you'll find, Mr Waters, that they did theirs at the time when Wintario was going, when grants were available. At the time the Creemore arena was built there was a 75% grant available from the province for arenas. When the Stayner one was done it was 25% or something like that. It makes quite a difference.
Mr Waters: From my history, I'm trying to figure out in my mind how these things have happened. Thank you for those clarifications.
Mr Hannan: The other thing that happened was the Stayner arena was all of a sudden condemned --
Mr Waters: I've had that experience. I have an opera house --
Mr Hannan: We know how all that happened too.
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you, Mr Hannan, for your presentation. I think, since you're the administrator now for the proposed township of Clearview, this is a fair question. County councillors over the past couple of years, some of those who were in favour of restructuring, have said to me that townships like Sunnidale and Nottawasaga don't pay their fair share of services that the residents receive from adjacent urban areas like Collingwood and Wasaga Beach. The reeve of Sunnidale mentioned, for example, Sunnidale is surrounded by -- there are four arenas, I think, that residents can go to. Although those same county councillors have never been specific about what services you are accused of not paying your fair share for, or the township -- I assume it's libraries, the YMCA in Collingwood, arenas, that sort of thing.
Can you comment on that? I'll just tell you that my response has been, well, I don't think that's in itself a good reason why you should restructure the whole county. If you've got a problem with Burnfield not paying his fair share, then for God's sake send him a larger bill. Am I naïve in that respect, or what's your comment?
Mr Hannan: It's like buying any service, or any municipality providing service, one municipality to another. The person who's purchasing the service always seems to feel they're paying too much; the person who's selling the service feels they're giving it away. This happened with Nottawasaga and Collingwood in purchasing the fire service. I will speak specifically of Sunnidale, because I know Sunnidale best. As far as the services that Sunnidale is receiving from other municipalities are concerned, the big one would be the arena. When the Creemore arena was built, there was major fund-raising that went on in Sunnidale for the Creemore arena. It was the Creemore and District Lions Club, made up at that time of about half Sunnidale residents, which spearheaded the campaign. It was the same thing when the Stayner arena was built. The other thing is that we also have people coming from most municipalities, using Sunnidale's recreation park. We have a great park there, ball diamonds -- it's just a super spot. People come to our annual winter carnival.
The other thing is that we are a bedroom community for the Barries, the Collingwoods, even the Stayners. We are supplying the residential services to the people who are working in those urban centres where the businesses are paying the business tax, the commercial tax, which the rural municipality does not participate in. In that way, part of the tax base in the urban areas is actually being generated by the residents from the bedroom community. If you were to take the people who work at LOF Glass in Collingwood, at Canadian Mist, at Honda, all the people in Sunnidale who work out of there, and prorate that against the business tax that those urban municipalities are getting out of those businesses, I think you'd find rather interesting the numbers you'd come up with.
Mr Jim Wilson: I think that's an excellent point. Mr McLean and I are just conferring. It's a point we've not heard before. It sounds like an excellent argument to me and I thank you for it.
Even with restructuring, though, there may be fewer service agreements. For example, there won't be service agreements for fire between Creemore and Nottawasaga, I would assume, because you're all in Clearview, but there still will be service agreements with your urban neighbours.
Mr Hannan: Certainly. There will have to be. There will be fire agreements with mutual aid. We have agreements with Base Borden now on fire. We have agreements with the county on county forests. There will be agreements there. There will also be people from Sunnidale who will continue to use the Angus and the Wasaga Beach arenas. I'm not sure how library services be handled, but there will be people from the north and south end of the municipality who will be using Essa and Collingwood.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Hannan, for coming before the committee today. We appreciate it.
Mr Hannan: Just before I leave, I said I had one clarification I'd like to have from the parliamentary assistant. This deals with the point that Reeve MacDonald brought up on the assumption of assets and liabilities by the new local municipality. If I'm reading the legislation correctly, the assets and liabilities of the four former municipalities will become the assets and liabilities of the new municipality. It is acknowledged that the transition council can pass a bylaw designating an urban service area.
But the other thing that I see is that the minister, also during 1994, may make regulations identifying urban service areas, defining costs of a local municipality that will relate to the urban service areas and designating upon what areas or rateable property, including business etc, etc.
What is the purpose of that clause? What are you telling us here?
Mr Hayes: I'm going to refer that to Mr Griggs, if you don't mind, so you'll get it first hand.
Mr Griggs: Again, this is a fairly standard provision in most restructuring legislation to provide for the payment of services by residents who receive those services. The definition of "urban service area" states very clearly that an urban service is a service that's provided to a specific area of the municipality. That regulation-making authority for the minister is to apply an urban service in one of those areas. It provides greater flexibility in the implementation of urban service areas.
1150
Mr Hannan: Sorry, it is for the minister to -- I don't understand.
Mr Griggs: Either the municipality can pass a bylaw or the minister may, by regulation, implement an urban service area. That's what the section states.
Mr Hannan: Why would the minister, by regulation, implement a -- in what instance would this happen? What does this mean to us?
Mr Griggs: I can't speculate on reasons. There may be a case where a municipality chooses not to implement an urban service area and there is a question of fairness, where residents in the municipality feel that they're not being represented by their council; for example, a sewage system that would be charged to the entire municipality where only certain residents are benefiting. This would allow the minister to establish an urban service area.
Mr Eddy: I would think, myself, it would be in the case where a council refuses to act, maybe, for some reason or other. But also, it might lead to the minister's desire to have uniform rates for the various urban service areas in a municipality. This has happened in some of the area municipalities of the regions, or indeed across the regions. That is a possibility, it would seem to me. I don't mind speculating.
The Chair: One last comment and then, I'm sorry, we're going to have to move on.
Mr Griggs: I should also point out that the regulation-making authority is limited to during 1994 --
Mr Hannan: I realize that.
Mr Griggs: -- and also that where this provision is in place in the south Simcoe legislation, it was used only at the request of the local municipalities.
The Chair: Thank you again for coming before the committee.
BOB GIFFEN
FRANK HAMILTON
The Chair: If I could call in Mr Frank Hamilton and Mr Bob Giffen, who are going to make a joint presentation, then, following them, our last presenter will be Mr Joe Sheffer, the community development commissioner for the town of Collingwood. Mr Hamilton, Mr Giffen, welcome to the committee. Please make yourselves comfortable.
Mr Bob Giffen: I'm a little raspy this morning myself. I think Burnie's combine's been kicking up a little too much dust and blowing it up into Nottawasaga. Anyway, we'll do the best we can.
The Chair: For the committee, would you mind identifying which of you is whom.
Mr Giffen: Okay, I'll get to that. Mr Chairman, members of the commission, members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bob Giffen. My colleague with me here is Frank Hamilton. We both live in a small hamlet called Glen Huron in the township of Nottawasaga. By the way, we're very proud of that name, village of Glen Huron in the township of Nottawasaga.
Mr Hamilton operates a fairly large operation with farms, feed mill, building supplies, hardware. The family has been in Nottawasaga since the mid-1840s. We live just down the road a little piece from them. Our family has been there since the mid-1840s. We also have farms, broiler chickens, including a lot of acres of apples and an apple packing business. Our families have been in this community for a long, long time, going back to our ancestors.
Actually, one of my ancestors owned the land that is now Creemore, but he owned it for only a very short period of time. He thought he had a great deal on it. He bought the land for $300 or $400 and he doubled his money on it. He thought he was doing all right back in those days. He sold to Mr Webster and Mr Webster ended up doing a lot better. He actually started the town of Creemore.
Anyhow, getting on with it, you are catching the residents of Nottawasaga at a real low. We have been told that, more or less, we're getting railroaded into restructuring. We've almost given up, besides the fact that we're right at harvest time. But Frank and I thought that somebody had to step up. That is what we are doing here today, to tell you, just from the grassroots, what our feelings really are.
Both of us spend an awful lot more time running our businesses than we do sitting in front of microphones and getting into many political issues. We're sitting here just telling you, the best we can, what we really feel about restructuring. I wrote down a few notes this morning, in between phone calls and kind of getting our men heading off in the right direction on the farm today. We really didn't get much time to get things prepared, so I wrote down a few notes and I'll present them to you now.
We will lose the communities that our ancestors began and were proud of. They had high hopes that their children would carry those on. By restructuring we're losing that. They must have had a feeling in their minds that they were doing the right thing. With that, community spirit will be lost.
Our council members, who presently enjoy working for people at very low cost, will be no more. It will take our children's children to ever accept the name Clearview. I would be almost embarrassed to go out and tell somebody where I come from. As I said before, I'm very, very proud of the name Glen Huron and very, very proud of the township of Nottawasaga.
As a matter of fact, in our little post office in Glen Huron we don't go by numbers, we go by names. Sometimes you go out and when you tell somebody where you come from and you give them your name and address, Glen Huron. "Do you not have a box number?" I say, "No, we don't need it." We're really proud of that.
Someone said here a while ago that those things will still remain. I don't think so; I think they'll be gone. I think if we try to hang on to our heritage and our names, I firmly believe that someday somebody is going to come along and tell us to tear down the signs, "We want Clearview; we don't want Glen Huron," and Nottawasaga will definitely be gone.
The bureaucrats who started this, and also the ones who are going to administrate this, will never understand the feelings behind our small rural communities. Our feeling is that taxes will double. The hamlet of Glen Huron is one of the busiest in Nottawasaga. We have two companies running out there, both Hamilton's and ours, and there has been an old saying that there are more people who work in Glen Huron than live there. Nobody has ever come up and contested that, so I guess it's still right. That is in the whole province of Ontario. More people work there than live there.
Between the two companies we do have a lot of buildings. I know on our one building alone our taxes are $12,000 a year. Sometimes it's tough to pay it, but you get the job done. We don't feel reluctant to pay that amount of money on that building at all, and that's just one building. If that were to double, and in my mind it will, I just don't know how we're going to do it.
I remember a couple of years ago I sat in a meeting with a bunch of apple growers. We're running on a pretty low margin of commodity when it comes to farm products, farm building supplies, farm services. We work on low, low margins and we can't take more expense. We sat at a meeting, here a couple of years ago, among a number of other apple growers, and that's the time that minimum wages were going to have to go up. Everyone said, "Minimum wages are going to have to go up." We sat there and said: "How can we pay more wages? We're not getting enough for our apples to pay more wages." Nothing against the Minister of Agriculture and Food -- I think he's been a great guy for farmers -- nothing against him whatsoever, but his comment was, "You're just going to have to get more money for your apples to pay these extra wages." Where are you going to get it?
This past season, just this past season, we took a 20-year low for our apples. You can't put a price on our products, but yet you're coming along and putting a price on our expenses. You're going to put us out of business.
Going on with that -- I'm kind of losing my train of thought here -- small towns and small-town offices will be shut down and huge, expensive administration buildings will take over. Now, I've heard here today that that's not necessarily going to happen, that our expenses are going to actually go down. Get real, guys. Get real. They can't go down.
1200
I remember my dad, who was a board member for the Collingwood and district collegiate, and back in those days they worked for nothing. I can also recall they had the odd steak dinner as they were meeting, and I'm telling you, the people were right up in arms about these steak dinners that these guys were having every now and again while they were having their meetings.
I'm sure back in those days there were tables just like this and they were sitting around these very same tables and saying: "These costs are too high, people. These costs are too high for running all these little boards all around the countryside. We're going to have to amalgamate and get them all together. Why don't we form one big board and run these schools from one office?" I'd like one mother's son to stand up here today and tell me that that ended up being cheaper. I don't think so. I think it's cost us an awful lot more by the looks of our tax bills and where our taxes in Nottawasaga go.
So is this one going to be any different? I don't think so. The few thousands of dollars paid to our council members we have in Nottawasaga right now will end up being tens of thousands of dollars to administrators. The rural people will be paying for urban benefits. I also sat here and listened to people saying that, no, that's not going to happen. I think it will. I really think it will, and so does Frank Hamilton think it will.
I think the people who are maybe the worst to lose are the ones who are in the closer boundaries of these urban centres, and you know, I think if a huge water supply tower comes in or a huge sewer system comes in and these people might have just spent $15,000 on a sewer system for themselves, it will be shut down and they'll be paying for the water system and the sewer system that actually comes in from the urban centres. So they're not going to gain. There's no way.
We will lose much of the government funding we are now obtaining in our small municipalities. Now, I could be wrong in saying this, but I think we're going to lose much of our government funding that is now coming in to our smaller communities and only get the same amount of government funding that comes into one large community. So instead of getting the funding that we're getting in all the small ones now, it will be narrowed down to the same funding in a much larger community.
I guess in summary, it looks like our urban communities around us, with the exception of Creemore, are wanting the benefits of our township of Nottawasaga, and I guess the residents of Nottawasaga are not wanting to give up the benefits that we have. We don't have expense, we don't have huge debts, and we don't want to lose that.
I just want to make one little mention too, kind of like the David and Goliath story. The little Davids are the little townships of the world that can have a lot of power. It's something like we have a business in the area that I have a couple of good friends who work for, and that is Miss Vickie's chips. They came to me one day and they said: "Oh, boy, things are going to be great now. We're bought out by a big, large company called Hostess. We're going to be busier than we ever were. Our trucks are going to be going down the road full. We're going to be working 15 hours a day trying to keep up, and they're going to keep the plant going and hire all kinds of help, and it's just great." I said: "Guys, you'd better start giving your heads a bit of a shake. I'll bet you within the year the jobs will be gone, the plant will be shut down and you'll be looking for work." Unofficially, that is exactly what's happening.
So saying that big -- big does not work. Small can get the job done. Small business gets the job done. Small business creates employment, and don't take it away from us.
That's about all we have to say, unless Frank has something.
The Chair: Thank you. I'm sorry, did you wish to comment?
Mr Frank Hamilton: Two comments.
The Chair: Yes, please.
Mr Hamilton: I just wondered, the way things are going now with our township and Creemore and Stayner, what is wrong with that? Why do we have to tear it down and do something? If we're paying our way, we're not in debt, people are compatible the way it's done, I can't for the life of me --
Also, I have a fear that the way the county of Simcoe conducts its business will put us into heavy debt. The way our school board is, I'm too darned old anyway, but I feel for the people coming after, the debt that the people of this area are going to put on their shoulders. If I was involved in the county or the school board and said nothing about it, I feel I would be dishonest.
Also, you spoke about the name of the place. At one time a few years ago, I went down south of Orangeville and it said "Caledon - Population 60,000," I think it was. Caledon has I think maybe 300 people. This man with me said, "Holy gosh, I'm going to be glad to see this place." It was confusing for old people like myself.
Mr Chairman, that's all I have to say.
The Chair: Thank you very much. While we are tight for time, I think we really do appreciate having you both come and I will allow a question from each caucus.
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you very much, Mr Giffen and Mr Hamilton, for taking the time. I know it is a busy time of year for both of you. I think your children and grandchildren will be proud of the fact that you came forward and took the time to express concerns on behalf of not just yourselves but the people of Glen Huron, certainly of Nottawasaga township, and from what I can gather, the vast majority of people throughout all of what will now be called Clearview.
I just wanted to make a statement more than anything, because when you talk about loss of community identity, and I think Mr Giffen talked about losing government offices in small areas, one only needs to look at the restructuring in the south end and the village of Cookstown.
Three things have happened there since restructuring that are very disturbing to the local residents. One is that there is no government presence there any more. Of course, there used to be a municipal office. That had to be moved to a more central location in Innisfil. They're now obviously the Innisfil municipal offices.
Second, there used to be a PUC on the main street; more government presence. It had been there in a historic building for well over 100 years, and that was moved to a more central location in the new town of Innisfil.
Thirdly, last year, of course, we had an enormous battle in Cookstown. I myself was involved in helping to persuade Innisfil council not to change the street names in Cookstown. What happens in an amalgamated town is, in the case of the new town of Innisfil, the ambulance and fire services complained that there are a couple of King streets throughout the new town now. One of the other towns that makes up the new town of Innisfil had a King Street and Cookstown had a King Street. There was duplication of Queen Street and Mary Street and a whole pile of different streets. So Cookstown, no longer having any government representation, any presence in town, was easy pickings, I think, for the town of Innisfil.
They attempted to change street names and, rightly so, the residents argued: "Well, you change our addresses today, you might as well just take down the signs that say `Village of Cookstown.'" They very much believe it's the slippery slope. We managed I think in the short term to prevent council from doing that because literally everybody in Cookstown signed petitions and there were huge rallies the likes of which we have never seen in the history of Cookstown.
I think committee members should take it as notice that people who come forward, like Mr Giffen and Mr Hamilton, with these fears, there is historic precedent already in Simcoe county with respect to community identity beginning to slip away. It was a lesson for me, I must say, that when you go to change someone's address from historic streets like King Street, Queen Street and Victoria Street, all hell breaks out in the community. I had never seen the like of it in Cookstown. I dare say the people who come forward I think have legitimate concerns in that respect.
If I ask the witnesses to look at the map, if you look at the map over there of the county of Simcoe, none of the following names now appear. Creemore is not on that map, Stayner is not on that map, Nottawasaga is not on that map, nor is Sunnidale, and that's the official map of the county of Simcoe. The argument is made that locally we will always refer to these areas, but I think as time passes -- you mention Caledon, Mr Hamilton. I think of Galt and many other small places before regional government was brought in south of us.
So I appreciate your making the presentation. Sorry about the speech on my part, but I just wanted members to know that there are some very real examples around us already and that many of the concerns expressed by these two gentlemen should be taken as fact.
1210
Mr Stephen Owens (Scarborough Centre): I want to thank you for your presentation, Mr Giffen and Mr Hamilton. You've touched on a couple of things that I've found passing strange, and I'm a Toronto person. Coming through the number of towns in the last couple of days, there are issues that I still can't wrap my mind around in terms of why this process is moving forward.
I think you raised another issue that other people have touched on, the issue with respect to community economic development. Over the past year I chaired a task force for the Ministry of Finance on community economic development in the province. You make an excellent point with respect to Miss Vickie's chips and Hostess, which is why I don't buy Miss Vickie's chips any more, by the way.
I think I'd like to have your opinion as business people and employers in the area, your view on how the reorganization and restructuring will affect community economic development within the region. Do you see it as a good thing that will encourage the kind of sustainable jobs that you were talking about, keep the dollars, keep the jobs in the community which this area and many other areas of the province need?
Mr Giffen: I don't think we'll see a whole lot of difference as far as where our employment is going to come from. The thing I do see, though, is the added, unexpected expense that we think is going to be there in the end, the unexpected expense to us and to our employers.
Like I was saying before, we work on low, low margins: high volume, low margin. Farming is completely unpredictable. Our biggest fear is what restructuring is actually going to cost us as businesses to operate. To our source of employment, I can't see a whole lot of difference. We both sell, I guess more so ourselves, outside the area. Hamilton Brothers, of course, sell quite a bit in the area. Whether it's going to make much difference as far as new residents in the area, I guess we can't answer that. But as far as our sales are concerned on our own behalf, a lot of our sales are outside the particular area. So when it comes to selling, I can't see a lot of difference. It's our added costs and expense.
I guess we do get a lot of assistance from time to time from our local council members, from our local works department and so on. If there's a job that has to be done, we can phone them up and they respond quite quickly. I can see that with restructuring we won't get that response; at least in my feeling and Frank's feeling, we wouldn't get that response. All those things add up to saying that we just plain don't like it.
Mr Owens: I appreciate that.
The Chair: Thank you. A final brief and succinct question from Mr Conway.
Mr Conway: I want to thank you, Charles. I'm like my old friend Clyde Gilmour: I refuse to address my friends as though they were furniture.
I want to thank the two gentlemen here because in many ways your presentation is powerful and devastating. When I add it to what reeves Currie, MacDonald and Wines have said, I just feel like putting up a white flag of surrender right now.
As a former Minister of Education, I can tell you that you're absolutely right on the cost issues around the larger school units. There's no question about that in my view.
Having said all of that, my question is this: If we are going to do what I think you want and what I would like, which is to leave in place the sort of territorial and spiritual integrity of small-town Ontario, can you give me some assurance that some of the experiences that occur in small-town Ontario that have huge bills attached to them won't be transferred to Toronto or Ottawa? I can tell you, as a representative of over 18 years in the Legislature for one of the most rural counties in Ontario, that it's been my duty to take some big bills to Toronto and Ottawa, because there was just no way small townships could pay those bills, and that's been part of the pressure that's driven this kind of process, flawed as it is, and I accept the arguments that have been advanced about the many flaws in it. Do you get my point?
Mr Giffen: Yes, I do. I guess about all I can say to that is that if it's not broken, don't fix it. Right now, in our township, and I can't give you any information on anything outside our township, we consider there's nothing broken and we don't need fixing. We are viable. We pay our bills. I don't think our township, not being political very much myself on the township, is asking government for a lot of money. We seem to be doing the job and getting the job done.
Mr Jim Wilson: Mr Chairman, can I just make a comment on that very briefly?
The Chair: We really are running behind and we have a very long afternoon.
Mr Jim Wilson: Mr Conway makes this very good point, but it seems to me that one of the reasons we don't ask Metro Toronto, for example, or that Metro Toronto is not allowed to ask for school board grants is because it has a sufficient tax base to cover those services. The whole country is built on equalization. I mean, PEI can't carry even a sewer project, I would gather. So what I would add to Mr Conway's is that yes, it's an interesting debate. But one of the reasons we have provincial governments and other layers is to spread assistance around so that everyone is entitled to the same health, so that everybody is entitled to be able to flush their toilets, for heaven's sake. I still don't see that as a reason for restructuring, although I do appreciate his point.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Hamilton.
Mr Hamilton: I have great confidence in our people who run the two townships in Creemore and Stayner. Most of the people who run them are ordinary people. Bob and I are not college graduates, we're not lawyers; we're just plain, hardworking, I'd say, try-to-be businessmen. I have great faith in them.
Mr Conway: You're just smart and successful.
Mr Hamilton: Which is something that I pay heed to.
The Chair: With that, I want to thank you both for coming before the committee today. We appreciate your presentation.
Mr Giffen: We want to thank the committee for hearing our views and giving us the time slot here today. Thank you very much.
TOWN OF COLLINGWOOD
The Chair: If I could then call Mr Joe Sheffer from the town of Collingwood.
Just while Mr Sheffer is getting settled, if I could just say to committee members that we will be going directly to Alliston and we begin at 1:45. We do have a very full afternoon. It's about an hour's drive, I understand.
Welcome to the committee, Mr Sheffer. It's a pleasure to see you. Please go head.
Mr Joseph Sheffer: Thank you very much. Just for clarity as to the position I'm taking here today, I'm here as a deputy administrator of the town of Collingwood. My portfolio also does include commissioner of community development.
I'd like to preface my comments, really to our local member, Jim Wilson, with regard to some presumption or prejudice that some people may have as to our relationship. I can recall only a short time ago, the time of a tattoo that was occurring on this very premise, my walking around in an election year introducing Jim to a number of people, and I think therein lies my support of the person. That may be irresponsible on this side, but it is a position I took at the time and I think of Jim Wilson as a friend. Friends, as you would well know, often do have differences of opinions on some issues, and we may differ somewhat on this particular issue, but I'm still your friend, Jim.
Mr Conway: Jim Wilson apparently knows Shelley Martel.
Mr Sheffer: To maybe put a historical perspective to Collingwood's position, I'd like to say that the town of Collingwood was carved out of the township of Nottawasaga, in the year 1857, by an act of the united legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada. It was An Act to incorporate the Town of Collingwood, and it happened on June 10, 1857, and was effective January 1, 1858. It was only about a year later that there was a second act passed, on August 16, 1858, which actually deleted lots 41 and 42 in Concession 10 from the town and returned it to the township. There was one further bill that was passed on March 29, 1873, which was An Act to amend an Act intituled "An Act to incorporate the Town of Collingwood" and to define the Boundaries of the said Town, which clarified the northerly boundary, Georgian Bay, between the town of Collingwood and the township. For 135 years, there has been no change to the boundaries between the two municipalities. In retrospect, had things been left as they were in 1857, our position today or our opposition perhaps wouldn't be the same as it is, and not an issue.
1220
However, such is the case, and we found ourselves appealing to the municipal boundaries branch of the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs in the year 1988. In January 1989, a fact-finder was appointed. A review of Collingwood's existing land use and available development space was undertaken. It was our position that there was very little vacant space that was not protected by bylaw or environmentally, and in fact the town's borders were far too tight and spot development was occurring on those borders by neighbouring municipalities. It was obvious that the positioning was to take advantage of infrastructure provided by Collingwood. As you drive into Collingwood today, you would witness what I have said and you would also note the apparent lack of standards or minimal standards set. There are those who joke about the conditions of these areas, and I can assure you that we in Collingwood do not, as they are important corridors to our picturesque community.
When growth of a healthy community is limited, or in our case stopped, it is not good. Economically it is bad, not just for Collingwood but for the surrounding areas. It discourages new business development and it places the municipality in the position of allowing developers to do our planning; growth is based on the pressures and demands they bring to the table. We need to be in the position to do some real municipal planning that includes land uses, road systems, transportation, water, sewers etc. The restructuring program does provide for such planning over the next 20 to 25 years, and the government is to be commended for this foresight. Another criticism of tight boundaries would be the duplication of infrastructure: structures and services. Another worthy goal set by the restructuring process was to improve upon our efficiency to reduce this duplication, and in time I think there will be a deeper appreciation of this initiative.
At this point, you're probably asking yourself, how did I move from the appeal to the boundaries branch in 1988 to my commendation of the restructuring of our county? As I recall the process, it was in 1989 when our municipality was first informed of the possibility of restructuring, and I can recall when I made my first submission to the study team. It was our position then, and it is the same today, that restructuring is not for any single community; it is for the whole of our Simcoe county. I think it is fair to say that the county decisions are also made virtually every day on that basis. However, today there are those who would have you believe that certain voting members either had personal gain on their minds or didn't really care because their area had already been restructured, a slight on the credibility of fellow elected officials, I would suggest. Having said that, the fact remains that all issues were voted upon by county government and a majority in favour was received.
I also spoke to the need for unity within the county and the need to identify economic opportunities that support the whole, while at the same time limiting the identity crisis that some people may perceive, ie, rural remaining rural, urban being urban and the natural features not to be split. We submit that the guidelines have been followed to an acceptable measure.
With regard to land use of the new area, perhaps we can put it into perspective. The town of Collingwood is just over 2,000 hectares with some 6,400 households and a population of approximately 13,500, with additional seasonal residents of approximately 4,000. Nottawasaga has a land mass of some 38,000 hectares with approximately 2,700 households and a population somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5,000. This exercise is not about history, even though we must maintain our heritage; it is about our collective future, and we must move forward in the most efficient means possible. Time doesn't permit me to speak to all of our plans, especially because we've run overtime. However, I'd like to note a few that our steering committee has undertaken.
First of all, our steering committee was to provide a forum to coordinate policy development and action within the municipality to advance an effective integration of the approximately 2,800 acres into the town of Collingwood.
Our primary goal was to develop a program to transform the lands to their highest and best uses for the long-term wellbeing of the community.
Our collateral goals were to provide an "as is" mapping of existing uses, physical and economic characteristic of the lands; to consider and coordinate the provision of all servicing requirements; to consider future residential, industrial, commercial, educational, environmental, safety, transportation, parkland and civic needs for the future expansion of Collingwood; to consider developing trends in provincial policies; to consider the objectives of Focus 2000, which is our strategic economic plan driven by the grass-roots level and administered by the elected officials of the town of Collingwood; to consider evolving initiatives in residential, commercial and industrial development; to demonstrate fairness and independence in assigning new land uses; to consider where and how outside services can improve the process; to develop and monitor an optimum timetable and periodic status reports; to provide methods for public consultation; and to anticipate and provide responses to transition problems and threats to implementation of the primary goal.
Our planner has been working with the county on a county-wide program.
In the area of policing, the police services board has undertaken a Nottawasaga work loan analysis. That report determined a need of 2.7 officers and the board has approved the hiring of three officers.
The board intends to call a public meeting of the new residents in October to discuss their needs and concerns and to advise of the level of service they can expect, an excellent service that equals that which we have in the town of Collingwood.
I would also like to speak to the process and what opportunities there may or may not have been to make submissions to the county and/or the government of the day, provincially or municipally. This process has been ongoing for four years. There has been extensive coverage by both the written and electronic media. Study documents and reports have been widely circulated and available. To suggest that there has not been time to prepare for submissions is not quite accurate.
I would be remiss not to resubmit Collingwood's desire to have a one-ward system. Historically, the system has worked well and councillors have represented all areas of the municipality well. The system change to elect a mayor and deputy mayor is also acceptable.
In conclusion and on behalf of the town of Collingwood, may I submit our support of Bill 51 and encourage the government to move forward as hastily as possible, as further delays are costly and will serve no purpose. We also have the task of healing the wounds that have occurred and getting back to our collective responsibility of serving our county.
I thank you for this opportunity.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I'm going to permit one question from each caucus, starting with Mr Conway.
Mr Conway: I very much appreciate the submission. It's clear that we're now hearing some of the other side, and you're vigorous and unabashed in putting that case, and I, as one member of the committee, really do appreciate that.
1230
Having said that and having listened to you, and you're much more familiar with this process than I am, there's no question in my mind that the people who preceded you this morning are right, to the extent that in the rural areas of Nottawasaga and Sunnidale, for example, I'm absolutely convinced in my mind that five and ten years from now when I come back here, or two years from now when I come back, if this is done, what I will hear and what I will be able to show is that taxes have gone up, disaffiliation with their municipal governments has increased and a variety of other things; that the costs will be, for a lot of people in those areas, up, and the benefits will be diffused and hard to point to in the short and intermediate term.
I understand entirely, I think, the pressures that urban communities like Collingwood have, and I would want to accommodate those. My difficulty, as I hear more and more of the presentations around this, is that we've got a remedy here that overreaches what some of the requirements are. I would ask you, would not a more reasonable and effective measure be some kind of a process that allows, on a regional basis to some extent, yes, but on perhaps a more local basis, the accommodation for the annexation of appropriate portions of the surrounding areas of some of these towns in Simcoe where there are problems and pressures that have to be dealt with; whether we might accommodate to some reasonable extent there without eviscerating the surrounding rural communities that I am afraid are going to end up with all of the detriments and negatives that people can rightly point to in school board consolidations and in a number of the other regional municipal issues that my friend from Muskoka has talked to and others have pointed out as well?
Mr Sheffer: To answer that appropriately, I think we'll be here till about 4 o'clock and I'm prepared to do that. I think I know exactly what you're saying, but the problem as I see it and I think as our municipalities see it is bigger and not as focused as you would like or not as short-term in the solutions. What I'm saying there is that when this thing started out four years ago, it was a means to carry our municipalities collectively forward to the next 20 or 25 years. Well, four years of that have already gone and absolutely nothing has happened other than a lot of expense and a lot of meetings, and I think that there is a majority there that would like to get on with the process.
I think we have to look beyond our county, even. I think it's short-sighted to look at only Simcoe county in today's economy. The walls are coming down, ladies and gentlemen. The boundaries are changing and we're going to have to work together more closely than we ever did. When you talk about expenses increasing, yes, things got out of hand, absolutely out of hand, especially within government. The only people who have been most effective are the private sector, and we should learn from the private sector in the way they do business.
I think the social program is addressing that to a degree, and I applaud that. Within administration, we hear bashing of the administrations of boards of education only. It goes beyond that. It goes into Queen's Park, it goes into the municipality of the town of Collingwood, and if you look at the municipalities that are presenting here today and look at their general administration costs as it relates to their levy, you'll find they're extremely high. The town of Collingwood is 3.9% and the Nottawasaga township is 10.7%. Is that excessive? I think it probably is, so there's this lean and mean attitude that's coming into play, and the cutbacks. We can't provide the levels of service that people have enjoyed over the past, so they have to expect change, and change will happen.
Now, I can take the other position and say the social program is going to work and your taxes are going to be lower, and so what? Two years from now or five years from now, you may be right; I may be right.
The fact is that we have to do something to change, and unless we start working with the small business farmer, if you like, the small business person in the municipality of the town of Collingwood who is generating jobs and creating revenue and economic development for our areas, unless we start working together and thinking as a whole -- very simple: think global and act local -- we're not going to move forward. We're going to stagnate. If people think conditions are difficult today, wait till two years from now. They'll be far greater than they are today unless we move forward.
I'm sorry; I don't know whether I've really answered because I can see him rubbing his head and I don't think maybe I've got through to him at this point in time.
But I believe this so sincerely, Mr Chair: This isn't an adversary situation but it has developed into one, and that's why I talk about the wounds. We are going to have to work together to make this, and as we benefit in the municipality of the town of Collingwood, the entire county will.
Mr Wessenger: You indicated in your comments, Joe, that there was a great deal of inappropriate development on the fringe of Collingwood in the past. You now have expanded boundaries. Do you feel these expanded boundaries will give you sufficient control and lands to avoid that problem of inappropriate fringe development in the future, and are you satisfied that Bill 51 in establishing county planning will give sufficient protection to ensure that inappropriate development doesn't occur in future?
Mr Sheffer: I'm not satisfied, but that's a personal thing because our initial submissions were that we felt that the boundaries should in fact be further south and encompass the municipal airport, the Collingwood-owned airport that is in the township. But having said that, we agree to the boundaries as are drawn. There are certain difficulties because of that. I alluded to the joke about the corridor, one of the corridors: They actually call it Dogpatch. The administration from the southern governments laugh about that, as your friend over here is just now. That's not very humorous. I think it's awful that those residents have that label by their own administration, but it exists and it needs to be cleaned up. It's going to take a long time to do that and we appreciate that, but we feel that we have an excellent planning department and our standards and bylaws are such that in time that will clean up.
This additional acreage will afford us the opportunity to do good long-term planning, and that's what this exercise, as I understand it, is all about. It keeps the rural rural and the urban urban. Not only that: It's going to allow us an opportunity to provide for a buffering between the two communities, and I think that's an ideal situation. We'll be able to realign our industrial sector versus recreational versus the residential and properly integrate it under the new rules of the Planning Act. I think, yes, Bill 51 does address that.
Chair, you're anxious, but the additional thing that I think is extremely important is the county planning that's going on. I think that collectively will bring the professionals together to devise a plan for the county so that we don't have this spot development and we know what we are and we do it better than we are presently.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr Wilson, a final question.
Mr Sheffer: Be easy on me, Jim.
Mr Jim Wilson: Joe, I want to begin by returning the favour and thanking you for your thoughtful personal comments. I have a slightly different interpretation of what happened in the last election, but I will save that for the next election.
None the less, just before I ask a question, with respect to the ward system you would prefer to keep the status quo and not go to a ward system.
Mr Sheffer: That's correct, Jim. Our system works very well now; we've not had any difficulties. There may be a little hint of concern: There's some evidence in other municipalities where control from certain areas -- I'm being very cautious in what I'm saying -- but certain areas that can control or influence a council, and we find that by having a one-ward system you're elected at large by the community and you have to work damn hard to get the support of all of the electorate as opposed to perhaps a special interest that may occur. The other factor is that we appreciate the deputy mayor situation and we're in favour of that as well.
Mr Jim Wilson: Just so you know, I prepared and have in front of me an amendment to allow that to happen. Perhaps when it's the parliamentary assistant's turn, you could comment on that in a minute.
I want to take maybe a little different view of history than yourself with respect to four years ago when you say this process started. It's my understanding, and there's certainly been lots of testimony before this committee, that four years ago the county was asked to do a study whose mandate was simply to study the feasibility of restructuring. Somehow, and I think you'll agree, we went from a study to study the feasibility to these hearings today. We've had, I would say, no clear testimony, including from Nancy Keefe, the former warden, with respect to how exactly we got to Bill 51 when we started off four years ago to talk about feasibility. In fact, I would contend that the questions of feasibility are being raised at these hearings and it's too late, because we know the NDP is hell-bent on moving ahead with restructuring. You may want to correct me, but I have a slightly different view of history.
I want to ask you this, though: You say you applied back in 1988 to the Municipal Boundary Negotiations Act --
Mr Conway: I think Jim Wilson needs to meet Darcy McKeough.
Mr Jim Wilson: That, Mr Chairman, I will take as a compliment for the moment.
Under the Municipal Boundary Negotiations Act, are you satisfied that back in 1988 the town of Collingwood exhausted all avenues under that act and that restructuring is the only way you're going to get your annexation with Nottawasaga?
Mr Sheffer: There are two points there. No, I won't correct you on how the process evolved, but I can say that it was very clear in the minds of Collingwood council and the administrative staff as we proceeded through this process that it was designed and eventually would end up in a restructuring process. I say that because we abandoned our thought of the annexation, the fact-finding, at that point because it seemed futile to go through one exercise while the other one was up. So we knew where it was going; we just felt that it would happen quicker.
The second point, I forget --
Mr Jim Wilson: The Municipal Boundary Negotiations Act: You said you did a fact-finding in 1988-89 and you exhausted that process?
Mr Sheffer: No, we did not. We abandoned the process when we knew that this What If... study process was going to take place. We moved from that and drove forward our position through the process, but there was no question in our mind that we would be sitting with legislation before the Queen's Park Legislature at some point in time. It's just taken longer than we thought it would.
The Chair: Thank you. The parliamentary assistant.
Mr Hayes: On the point Mr Wilson raised about it just being a feasibility study -- correct me if I'm wrong on that -- I just want to read part of the terms of reference the committee dealt with:
"To evaluate alternatives and options such as amalgamation, annexation, union of municipalities and the status quo, and to recommend to county council, the cities' local municipal councils and the Minister of Municipal Affairs solutions and an implementation plan best suited to address these issues to meet the needs of the area for the present and to the year and to the year 2010."
I think that's a little different than the message that was being given.
Mr Chair, I'd like, at the same time, to refer the ward system to Mr Griggs so he can answer your question.
Mr Griggs: We have received a resolution from the county of Simcoe supporting the town of Collingwood's position regarding the establishment of a ward system, and it's my understanding that an amendment has been prepared to address your concerns.
Mr Sheffer: The only other point I'd like to make -- I think it was Mr Hayes who brought it up, but I might be wrong in that -- was about the tax situation and reassessment. With respect to the assessment department, if we have to wait for that it will be many, many years down the road. That is an enormous undertaking. We did it, we did it a number of years ago, we probably didn't go far enough -- politically it wasn't wise to move on the residents -- but at some point in time that needs to be addressed in our municipality so there's proper assessment within the residential structure.
The Chair: Thank you very much for coming before the committee, and I apologize that at the end of the morning it gets a bit rushed.
May I, just before we break, thank the Royal Canadian Legion for allowing us to use their hall, and also to express our appreciation to all those who have presented this morning, as well as others who are in the audience who have been sitting and listening.
To committee members, we will try to begin as close to 2 o'clock in Alliston as we can. I recognize that we may not be able to quite meet that, but all of the witnesses will be heard this afternoon and we'll take whatever time is required.
Thank you. The meeting stands adjourned.
The committee recessed at 1245 and resumed at 1407 in the Nottawasaga Hotel, Alliston.
The Chair: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The standing committee on social development is in session. We have a very full afternoon, and I apologize, we're a bit late in starting; we had a long morning in Collingwood. But I just want to assure all the presenters that we will be here until they have made their presentations, even though that may be a little later than when they were originally notified everyone who is on the list will be heard.
Mr Conway: If it's Wednesday afternoon, it must be Alliston.
TOWNSHIP OF ORO
TOWNSHIP OF MEDONTE
The Chair: The first presenters this afternoon will be the reeve of Oro township and the reeve of Medonte township, Mr Robert Drury and I believe it's Mr Don Beard
Mr Ian Beard: Ian.
The Chair: Ian; I'm sorry. If they would be good enough to come forward. Gentlemen, welcome to the committee. If you would be good enough just to identify yourselves for Hansard, and then please go ahead with your submission.
Mr Robert Drury: I'm Bob Drury, reeve of Oro township.
Mr Beard: I'm Ian Beard, reeve of Medonte township.
Mr Drury: By way of introduction, I'd like to introduce Councillor Murray Martin from the township of Medonte, sitting behind us; Darlene Shoebridge, clerk of the township of Oro; Chris Menzies, planner of the township of Oro; and Henry Saunder, our treasurer from the township of Oro.
Mr Chair, members of the standing committee, thank you for providing the townships of Oro and Medonte an opportunity to make this presentation this afternoon. I guess our member, Al McLean, is sitting in quite a position through these studies, being that some of the municipalities within his riding have totally agreed to restructuring and others haven't. So, Al, I don't envy your position these last couple of weeks, but good luck with it anyway.
Mr Conway: He's a got a few amendments tucked in his back pocket that you'd be interested in.
Mr Drury: Yes, I probably will be.
The joint council of Oro and Medonte and Councillor Thiess from the township of Orillia have been working amicably and consistently on this restructuring venture and are anxiously awaiting royal assent early this fall.
I'd like to first of all refer to the newsletter that I passed out a little while ago. Oro-Medonte have produced a joint newsletter. We've gone out to the public and told them what we're doing every step of the way. We've gone as far as to select a new name for the township, which is Oro-Medonte. Throughout the newsletter, on the first page, back of the first page, we have chosen the new ward boundaries. That's in place. Both joint councils, along with Councillor Thiess from Orillia, have agreed with those boundaries, and we have throughout the newsletter, as I stated before, kept abreast of everything for the public and let them know what's going on. This has happened all through the newsletter. It's interesting, on the back page you may find a statement from the treasurer of the township of Oro, per diems that we received. Not many councils do produce that, but we chose to let our public know everything that's going on.
This discussion will briefly examine our rationale for keeping the portion of Orillia township south of Highway 12 within the new amalgamated municipality of Oro-Medonte specifically related to (1) physical barriers, (2) servicing, (3) assessment, and (4) environmental and planning.
Physical barriers: Highway 12 acts as an ideal physical boundary between the two proposed municipalities. Cross-servicing road agreements are not required as access is limited. The rationale was utilized for the retention of Highway 93 between Springwater and Oro-Medonte.
There is approximately 1.5 kilometres distance between the existing Oro and city of Orillia boundary, which is currently in Orillia township's jurisdiction. This finger of land is not appropriately served as remaining in Orillia township.
The Eight Mile Point area, which hosts residential lots, is split between Oro and Orillia. The county proposal brings this area into one jurisdiction.
Servicing, roads: As stated, Highway 12 reduces the need for cross-boundary servicing agreements. There is currently an agreement between Oro and Orillia township to service the township line and the Eight Mile Point area. The restructured municipality would eliminate the need for these agreements. Road service would be equal to or superior to the present standard in this area. This is due to:
(1) The existing equipment which will not be needed to service the Hillsdale-Coldwater area could be utilized in south Orillia township.
(2) The winter weather patterns typically dictate that the weather currently experienced in Medonte and then through Oro arrives in south Orillia while weather patterns in Orillia township may not be the same conditions as in south Orillia township. Thus plows and sander operators in Oro-Medonte may more easily predict the conditions in south Orillia than staff in central and north Orillia can predict or anticipate the conditions in south Orillia.
(3) The township of Orillia road crews must currently travel through the city of Orillia some two to four miles to service south Orillia township. Oro-Medonte would be able to service roads in their jurisdiction while en route.
(4) Sand stockpiled at Forest Home would provide quick turnaround for Oro-Medonte service of south Orillia with little non-productive travel time.
Fire: The township of Oro currently provides fire protection services to 75% of south Orillia township. The city of Orillia services the Forest Home area. Oro-Medonte proposes to take over this service from the city upon amalgamation. The existing Oro stations at Rugby and Hawkestone are closer to any potential fire calls in south Orillia township than the township of Orillia or the city of Orillia. The city of Orillia also has no tankers to provide service and Oro currently provides this service. The city is aware of Oro-Medonte's intention to service all of its amalgamated jurisdiction with the exception of a small stretch of road which will be coserviced.
Orillia township hosts two pumpers and two tankers. Oro has four pumpers and four tankers and one rescue vehicle, which is stationed at Hawkestone. It should be noted that the Hawkestone station currently services a good portion of south Orillia township. Medonte township hosts two pumpers and two tankers as well as two rescue vehicles. I might add that the big tanker Medonte is currently looking at is probably one of the largest service vehicles that will be coming on as far as tankers go in the near future.
The fire underwriters survey has advised the township of Oro that a reduction in fire insurance ratings will occur in the north end of Bass Lake and Forest Home upon amalgamation as proposed, and there's an attached letter there to back that up.
Emergency addresses: Oro currently has an emergency addressing system in the municipality. This was designed to allow expansion to Medonte and south Orillia under amalgamation. This therefore would be highly beneficial to those residents in South Orillia and would complement the 911 service they now receive.
Assessment: If as a result of the final determination of the boundary area for our new municipality the township of Medonte is to lose the Hillsdale-Orr Lake area to the new township of Springwater and a portion surrounding the village of Coldwater to the new township of Severn, this represents a total assessment loss of 18.3% residential, 15% commercial and 18% business and decreases the number of households units by 24% and the number of electors by 23%. The portion of the Flos and Vespra area at Craighurst represents a 4% increase in assessment. The Orillia township portion to be added assists to compensate this loss while at the same time it provides for a more effective and efficient area in which to service.
Environmental planning: One of the objectives of the study committee and county was to place all small lakes and respective drainage areas within one jurisdiction. This was a portion of the rationale as to why the Hillsdale-Orr Lake area would be removed from the jurisdiction of Medonte and be amalgamated with Springwater. This thinking is brought forth in the current Oro-Medonte proposed municipality.
Approximately 80% of Bass Lake is currently in Oro. About 95% of the drainage basin is in Medonte and Oro. The county proposal would put 100% of both the lake and drainage basin in Oro-Medonte.
The hamlet of Prices Corner is currently one half in Orillia township and one quarter in Oro and Medonte respectively. The county proposal would put three quarters of the hamlet in Oro-Medonte.
A good portion of South Orillia is proposed to be an urban expansion area for the city of Orillia. Oro-Medonte intend on maintaining this official plan policy, as Orillia township has made planning steps to transfer the jurisdiction of this land in their own planning documents.
In June 1991, a survey of area residents was undertaken door to door by Oro and Medonte's elected officials. Upon surveying the residents of the Bass Lake area, over 75% of the respondents preferred the Oro-Medonte proposal, which is the current county proposal, while approximately 21% preferred the status quo. There's a correction there. It's not 15%, it's 21%.
In summary, we have met with the city of Barrie on several occasions to discuss drainage and development matters, joint planning and to respond adamantly against the city's request to expand its boundary limits into the township of Oro. Those negotiations will be continuing right after the summer recess and I believe we are very close to a settlement with the city of Barrie.
The reeves of the surrounding townships to the city of Orillia have had meetings and individual meetings will be held shortly with Mayor French on a one-to-one basis at his request.
Since the adoption of the study committee's recommendations by county council, it has been the position of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs that no further boundary changes would be considered unless all respective municipalities were in agreement. At no time have the townships of Orillia or Severn approached our council to consider or discuss any change to these boundaries.
Once again, thank you for this opportunity to make this presentation. I would gladly entertain any questions or concerns the committee may have in this regard. Reeve Beard has a short presentation that he'd like to make.
Mr Beard: Thank you, Mr Chair. With your indulgence, I have a verbal presentation, as I just arrived from AMO. It concerns a weighted vote. It is my knowledge that this has come up before this committee and I would like to take this opportunity to address a weighted vote.
In my opinion, it is not a good idea. If a weighted vote was allowed, the people of the smaller areas would be deprived of their right to participate fully in the activities of the council. The restructuring of Simcoe county is not an annexation of smaller municipalities but a merger of municipalities. I personally have enough faith in my fellow elected councillors to believe that they will work for the good of the new municipality regardless of which area of the new municipality they come from. To weight the votes would deprive the smaller areas of representation, leading to frustration and bickering at meetings. We are all elected equally and justice and fair play demands that we be equals, not junior and senior partners.
Oro council, to my knowledge, and I believe with Mr Drury's consent, has always treated us as equal partners through this whole issue, and we feel very strongly that we should all be equal partners in that we are working together for the good of the municipality, not for our own parochial interests. I think that's the way all councils should work, and I must congratulate Oro on its attitude towards Medonte in this issue.
Any questions will be entertained. Thank you.
1420
The Chair: Thank you very much for coming before the committee with your presentation. We'll move right to questions.
Mr Conway: I very much appreciate this submission, because we have had a number of other submissions and I think we'll have at least one more to come today which take a contrary position, which would argue that in fact that southern portion of Orillia township ought to be left where it is.
I'm looking at this, and in fact we really have been a very peripatetic committee. I have a pile of paper here and there are some submissions that I would like to quickly go through, to pick some material and have you respond to it, but I'll have to do this by memory.
I look at your submission. There seems to be a general sense from a lot of people who have spoken to us, and your submission makes this point as well, that there is every likelihood that in time much of what I will call that area in dispute, that southern tip of Orillia township, is going to find its way into the city of Orillia.
Mr Drury: Probably not in anyone's lifetime who is even thought of now, or their next of kin. Probably in 200 or 300 years it may. There are small portions of it that probably will.
Mr Conway: But some key portions. I gather there are some very key portions of that area that could very well find their way into the city of Orillia within not too many years.
Mr Drury: I believe you're right, yes.
Mr Conway: I don't know the area. I'm trying to honestly listen to what I'm being told. If a portion of that is heading into the city of Orillia, I've got to tell you, my instinct is to make it one-stop shopping as opposed to three-stop shopping, to say that you take it from Orillia into Oro-Medonte and then back into the city of Orillia. That's one concern I would have.
You make some very helpful points and I'm very appreciative. For example, at the bottom of page 3 you tell us that in June 1991, you surveyed the area residents in that portion, and I have to take you at your stated word here, and 75% of the respondents preferred the Oro-Medonte proposal while 15% preferred the status quo.
Mr Drury: No, 21%. There's a correction there.
Mr Conway: Oh, sorry, 21%.
I look at your brief and I tell you, the one thing that really strikes me, not knowing as much about emergency addresses, for example, and even fire protection, but I read point 3 under "assessment" and I think I get the point. I understand, I think, what you're saying, but the committee has been faced with a number of these border issues where, if we're to make any kind of sense of this, you really feel that you ought to have been there inside the room when the real talking went on.
Mr Waters: You were outside the room.
Mr Conway: I was outside the room, as my friend from Muskoka points out. These things, as I said yesterday, remind me a little bit of an electoral redistribution, because the lines tend to move around, and there is a variety of considerations, not all of them environmental and familial, if you know what I mean.
My question is, under "assessment" you seem to be saying: "We've got to get some tradeoff here. We've lost some assessment elsewhere, so we have to make it up or we would like to make it up."
Mr Drury: That's one of the points, but going back a little bit, some two years ago we were one of the leaders in the restructuring process. We invited all our neighbouring municipalities, including the two cities, to sit down and discuss it before it even went anywhere.
We did sit down with the township of Orillia. We made two proposals to them. The first proposal was to exchange the Bass Lake area for the Carthew Bay area, the Eight Mile Point area, and the results of that portion of the meeting were that Orillia township would be losing assessment on it; very little assessment. There wasn't much assessment change in it.
Our next position was that it seems to make sense, because we can service that area so easily, that we just move right to the boundary of the city of Orillia, and that was our next proposal to the township of Orillia in a joint council meeting some two years ago.
Mr Conway: I expect by this time tomorrow I may very well see a motion to amend this bill to deal with this particular border question. When I get to that motion tomorrow, I've got to tell you, I'm kind of inclined to look at it very favourably, but I want you to give me now one good reason why I should sustain the status quo as contained in Bill 51.
Mr Drury: Well, I think there are probably many good reasons.
Mr Conway: But the best reason.
Mr Drury: We have been dealing in good faith from the very beginning of restructuring; put all our cards on the table right from the very beginning. I am shocked that we're sitting here today talking about an amendment to the proposal when it was basically conveyed to us some months back that there would be no changes to any of the boundaries unless mutually agreed upon between the municipalities. So I guess I'm in a state of shock, being here this afternoon. I just decided yesterday morning, when I heard some whispering of what was going on at some of the meetings, that perhaps I'd better make a proposal, and that's why I'm here. So I haven't had a lot of time to prepare for it.
It's common sense and logic that that portion does come to the township of Oro. If you were to take a drive through there, the lakeshore blends in with our lakeshore; the same type of residential development along there. The land that may go to the city of Orillia sometime -- in my estimation it won't be for many, many years because the city of Orillia hasn't grown very much in the last 50 years. They annexed, I believe, some 3,000, 4,000 acres a number of years ago and used very, very little of it. They have a great deal of infilling to do before they should be expanding, if they want to play the role of the big city. A lot of their infrastructure right now is on open ditches and not even on sanitary sewerage. So I think the city of Orillia has a long way to come before it can expand. They've recently, as I've said, agreed with the township of Orillia on some annexation and that's basically sitting still.
Mr Beard: The city of Orillia is asking to build a school on the outskirts on the land that's going to be annexed and it can't service this for at least five years, is the figure that I have. They can't service the land they have; there are developments awaiting servicing. So the servicing in that area will not be at least for 10 years, in the area that they're talking about servicing.
The other thing is, they cannot give it fire protection. They still have to depend on Oro, regardless, for fire protection in that area. They do not have the proper snowplow equipment to do road grading in that area. They don't have the graders or any of the rural equipment that is needed. So why in the world would they ever go into Orillia and pay Orillia taxes to these citizens when indeed they're not going to get any benefit or indeed less benefit? As the statement says, in fire protection alone they're going to save money, the residents are.
The Chair: We're going to have to move on. Mr Waters.
Mr Waters: I want to talk about the weighted vote as part of it, because it has gone back and forth. We've had groups saying that they want it; groups that don't. My mind isn't made up as to which way it should go in any way, shape or form, so I'm waiting for an argument to come forward that's going to make my mind up for me, that we should or should not go to the weighted vote. I think the committee is going to end up making that decision tomorrow.
Mr Beard: If I may respond to that, Mr Chairman, I believe that if you have 15 or 10 councillors sitting around a table and you bring forth a proposal that is good, fair and equitable for the new township, a majority of those councillors, as yourselves, should be open-minded enough that, if it is good, you can convince a majority to vote for it. If you can't convince that majority, being eloquent politicians as we supposedly are, then maybe you should realize that your thing is not good enough. Failing to convince your fellow councillors, or a majority thereof, you can go to the election the following year and convince the public. And if you can't convince the public, then maybe at that point you should realize that maybe your argument was wrong.
So I believe in negotiating and working together. This is what Oro and our council has done. If you can't do that, then maybe your argument is flawed and maybe you shouldn't be where you are if you can't convince enough people to vote for it, because it can't be that good then.
1430
Mr Waters: On the boundary, and I've looked at the maps and that and for some reason they just don't seem to strike home, you're talking about the area that runs down across the old Barrie Road from Bass Lake and down to the point. So Forest Home would probably be the first part that the city of Orillia would look at?
Mr Drury: I'm not too sure --
Mr Waters: That small industrial area at the bottom of the --
Mr Drury: I suppose if they're after assessment, that's where they'd look. If they're after an area for growth, they'd look at some open space.
Mr Waters: Okay. I think I have in my mind now, after hearing you talk, exactly where this section is. It was just a couple of clarifications I wanted. Thank you.
Mr McLean: Thank you for coming today. I think yesterday morning we had several delegations from the Eight Mile Point area and that part of Orillia township that is presently proposed to be part of Oro. There were a lot of people there yesterday adamantly opposed to it being transferred to Oro. I've heard on many occasions the mayor of Orillia saying that it shouldn't go to Oro, because I think he was looking at probably having it. So there was a lot of discussion with regard to that.
But the area that I want to mention is mainly the Bass Lake area. In the analysis that was made with regard to Bass Lake, it is extended easterly in order to allow for a single municipal jurisdiction in the Bass Lake watershed area. I guess at first Orillia township, I believe, wanted that Bass Lake area so that everything that would go through the North River up into Matchedash Bay and into Georgian Bay would be under one watershed. What's your reasoning and views with regard to having that part of that watershed now in Oro instead of in Orillia?
Mr Drury: I guess the way we look at it, Al -- and I've brought a map along. Perhaps I'll ask my planner to hold it up, please. We looked at the watershed area of Bass Lake and not the extended area that goes to the North River. It was minimal -- yes, go ahead.
Ms Chris Menzies: This grey area here is the current watershed down near Bass Lake --
The Chair: Excuse me. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure that we're on Hansard. If you could speak into a microphone and identify yourself.
Ms Menzies: Yes. My name is Chris Menzies. I'm the planner for Oro township.
Mr McLean: Turn it around a bit so they can see it over there.
Ms Menzies: This white area shown here is Bass Lake. The current boundary of Bass Lake, the township boundary between the township of Orillia and the township of Oro, slices Bass Lake into two portions with approximately 80% of the existing Bass Lake in Oro township.
The proposal that the county has put forth would include the entire Bass Lake area as well as the entire drainage area, of which approximately 90% to 95% is in the current municipality of Oro and Medonte, all in the new amalgamated municipality of Oro-Medonte.
Mr McLean: But Bass Lake all flows into Orillia township now. It goes into the North River. There's a tributary that just goes out of Bass Lake at the west side of it, and that goes into Bass Lake, out the other side of Bass Lake, goes into the North River and up in through the township of Severn. The majority of the waterway is in the township of Severn.
Ms Menzies: That's correct, but the entire drainage basin for the lake itself is in the --
Mr McLean: That's not the drainage; that's where the springs are that feed the system.
Mr Drury: That's a drainage area. That is a drainage area, and I guess, if I may, if you're going to look at where the water flows to and you're going to draw lines and make jurisdictions on where the water flows, then we may as well just have one big municipality and do away with it.
Mr Beard: And we should get Coldwater back in ours because all of Coldwater River flows into Matchedash Bay. Perhaps we should have Matchedash Bay as well in Oro-Medonte.
Mr McLean: I wanted to give you an opportunity to explain that because it's in this.
One question I forgot to ask and I didn't get around to it, because we had a lot of discussion about it yesterday, was the boundary, the line. You made the recommendations to the county restructuring committee that you wanted this part. Did Orillia township have a chance to say that it didn't want to give it up or was it the restructuring committee that said this is going to become part of Oro?
Mr Drury: I guess I'll tell you a little story on that that happened on the county council floor during the discussions. At that time Jack Fountain was the reeve of the township of Orillia and the discussion came forward by way of a map that Mr Fountain had produced. In the map I questioned certain colours and the jurisdictions where they would go. I said to Reeve Fountain at the time that it seems to make sense to us that if you keep the portion of Orillia township which is north of the division road, I believe it is, and we will take the portion that is south of Highway 12 into the city limits, we would eliminate the city of Orillia from having to enter into the picture and it was agreed upon at that meeting. We did recommend those lines, yes.
Mr McLean: So it would be the county restructuring committee that drew the lines?
Mr Drury: I really have no idea who drew the lines. We recommended the lines, but who really drew the lines -- you'd have to ask the restructuring committee, I guess.
Mr Conway: Can I ask a question on that, because this is important, as far as I'm concerned. I really appreciate what you're telling me because I'm going to have to consider an amendment, I expect, so I want one final clarification.
For that area south of 12, I understand what you told me earlier that it may be a long time before a lot of that gets taken into the city of Orillia. I'm quite prepared to accept that may be true, although some of it might come sooner than that. The question I have to wrestle with is, in light of what you have said and what some other people have said, why would I just not leave it be? Why wouldn't I just leave it in Orillia township where it is now?
Mr Drury: Once again, I'll reiterate what we have in our brief to you, that we are servicing portions of that township now. We believe we can do a better job servicing for fire, an equal or better job servicing for roads and also that the assessment would even things out, I believe, after we lose the portion we're losing from the Hillsdale area. My understanding of the restructuring was to come about things as evenly as possible, and I think that would make it so it's not a big problem for the township of Oro-Medonte to amalgamate and assume that and lose the other on the other end.
Mr Beard: If I may also respond to that. One of the problems we get into with restructuring was the boundary drawings and who got what, basically. My understanding was the boundaries were not to be reopened or, believe me, I would have made a submission on the Hillsdale area. The population base was considered as well, to equalize the area, so they'd have a basically equal area in Oro-Medonte as in Severn so that you wouldn't have one big large municipality and one small municipality.
As far as the boundaries go, we were told always that this was never going to be reopened, that the boundaries were set and, if that was the case, then I think you'd have everybody in here asking for boundary adjustments.
Mr Conway: On the basis of that, it would be your view that if the committee pokes its nose into boundary adjustments, we might expect a bit of a hornet's nest.
Mr Beard: In my respectful opinion, you would be opening a hornet's nest with a stick. I can tell you right now that I can justify things as to boundaries that are not in effect at this time. I wouldn't touch that with a --
Mr Conway: I've just come out of the north and I'll tell you, a lot of those townships --
The Chair: The parliamentary assistant, please.
Mr Hayes: Thank you very much for your brief. Just one quick question: The natural direction of growth now in the city of Orillia, is it to the north or west? What is happening now?
Mr Beard: It depends on where you count north and west because, actually, the county of Simcoe is laid out in a northwest-southeast situation. If you look at the map, it's not --
Mr Drury: It would be northeast, I guess.
Mr Hayes: It would be more northeast.
Mr Drury: Yes, that's some residential growth.
Mr Hayes: Okay. Thank you.
The Chair: Gentlemen, thank you.
Mr Drury: One more point I'd like to make to Member Conway. Actually, to summarize what you're asking and by this portion of Orillia township coming to Oro-Medonte township: We're going to greatly reduce the cross-boundary servicing, which we were told to look at and do. This is going to get rid of a lot of problems there -- you've heard it all -- fire and roads etc. We already service a great deal of that area. All drainage would then be in Oro-Medonte for that area and expansion of that will actually slice Orillia township in two, so it makes sense to leave it with Oro-Medonte as proposed. I hope it would give me enough to make a decision and not to consider the amendment.
The Chair: Thank you again very much for coming before the committee and for your submission this afternoon.
Mr Drury: Thank you for having the time to hear us.
The Chair: Thank you for the map as well, which helps us.
1440
TOWNSHIP OF ORILLIA
The Chair: Could I then call on the reeve of the township of Orillia, Mr William Gowanlock.
Mr Jim Wilson: Mr Chairman, in the interim, on a point of order, I want to add a presentation to the agenda. Members are aware that the town of New Tecumseth sent a submission to the committee dated August 18. Given the proceedings of the committee to date it will be impossible to raise this unless a witness brings the points contained therein forward and ask that -- is 4 o'clock the last one?
The Chair: We have two others; 4:30 would be the time if there's agreement from the committee to --
Mr Jim Wilson: Is there agreement, if the witnesses are able to stay that long?
The Chair: Agreed? Agreed. Okay, so the representatives who are here from New Tecumseth would, at 4:30, then --
Welcome to the committee. It's a pleasure to have you with us and please go ahead with your submission.
Mr William J. Gowanlock: To the members of the provincial Parliament, I can't say how much I appreciate you taking time out this summer in the holiday season to come and listen to us people and to our concerns. I'm deeply indebted to all of you. Thank you.
Could I ask that my council join me and, seeing that the former reeve of the township has been brought into question on several issues, is it okay if he joins as well?
The Chair: I believe he's also making a presentation later in the afternoon, but --
Mr Conway: Maybe it might be useful to put those two together, if it were possible.
The Chair: Is that agreeable to everyone? Then perhaps former Reeve Jack Fountain, I believe it is -- would you come forward and we will sort of amalgamate those two.
If I could ask you, Reeve Gowanlock, if you'd be good enough just to introduce. We know some of the people there but not everyone, if you'd be good enough to introduce them for the members of the committee and for Hansard.
Mr Gowanlock: I will begin with my Deputy Reeve Ron Stevens, who is also chairman of the county restructuring committee; former Reeve Jack Fountain, township of Orillia; councillor Shirley McDougall; and councillor Gary Thiess, who was in that Eight Mile Point conversion area.
To begin with, Mr Chairman, we have a submission in your files there concerning the weighted vote. We had an emergency meeting this morning with the village of Coldwater and we determined to work out an amiable agreement. We realize how damaging a weighted vote is from our county council experience, and therefore we didn't want to create any hardship if it was possible to avoid it and we were able to work out a solution to the matter. I have 25 copies of the withdrawal of that submission here today for distribution by your clerk.
The Chair: If the clerk will distribute that --
Mr Gowanlock: Moving on then, Mr Chairman, to our second submission.
The Chair: I am sorry. Just to be clear, then, you are withdrawing the earlier submission?
Mr Gowanlock: That's right.
The Chair: Fine.
Mr Gowanlock: Going on then to the second submission: The process of drawing new boundary lines across the county of Simcoe has been primarily a political process. Much stress has been created among local elected officials, municipal employees, citizen groups and taxpayers.
Both cities of Barrie and Orillia showed dogged determination to expand their boundaries substantially. They were so single-minded that the county council found it necessary to excuse their representatives from the county study committee in order to ensure the survival of the committee.
The township of Orillia commissioned a study (1) which projected the maximum population of the city of Orillia based on the best-known technology available for sewage treatment. The study shows that quite clearly there is no justification for any city expansion prior to the 2001 date provided in section 34 of Bill 51.
The former Minister of Municipal Affairs recognized this in a media release (2) announcing the ministry's acceptance of the county study, when he said the cities have enough land within their boundaries for more than the 20-year lifetime of the study.
The former Minister of Municipal Affairs, in the same media release, stated that the cities' concern would be addressed by establishing a joint planning authority, which has also been provided for in the bill.
The stubborn passion of the city of Orillia to expand into the surrounding townships continued relentlessly. An economic study produced by the city of Orillia ignored the effects of such an ambitious desire on its neighbours.
The study process has done substantial damage to what used to be an atmosphere of mutual respect between the city of Orillia and its rural neighbours. The township of Severn will be born from five individual municipal parts. There lies ahead a substantial challenge to organize and plan efficiently for the future. There is absolutely no justification for it to do so while under the threat of an even further, more painful, unsupported amputation.
It has been said that section 34 was put into the bill "to appease the cities" since the minister has the power to review municipal boundaries anyway. If this is the case, then why put section 34 in?
Let the towns and townships surrounding the cities and Simcoe county be introduced into the next century with a future and sense of security.
It is respectfully submitted: Remove section 34 from the draft legislation. Failing the removal of section 34 from the draft legislation, include an amendment requiring that the minister have regard to existing negotiated boundary agreements; studies and submissions prepared by the township during the county study, and the Sewell commission policy recommendations.
That's signed by all of our council.
We have a summary on the next page. It says, the issue: potential city boundary adjustment.
Background: The County of Simcoe Act, 1993, section 34, provides for a boundary review of the cities of Barrie and Orillia before January 1, 2001.
The township of Orillia, soon to be part of the township of Severn, has already gone through a painful process of restructuring.
The township of Orillia commissioned a hydrogeologist to project the ultimate maximum population of the city of Orillia supportable by a sewage treatment facility discharging into Lake Simcoe. The study shows that a boundary adjustment prior to 2001 is unjustified.
The council of the county of Simcoe unanimously requested deletion of this section.
Former Minister of Municipal Affairs Dave Cooke acknowledged that the two cities have enough land for at least 20 years.
The final report of the commission on planning and development issued in June, 1993, contains policy recommendations providing for urban intensification and discourages extensions to built-up areas served by the public sewage and water system.
The recommendations, then, are: Remove section 34 from the draft legislation. Failing the removal of section 34 from the draft legislation, include an amendment requiring that the minister have regard to existing negotiated boundary agreements, studies and submissions prepared by the township during the county study, and the Sewell commission policy recommendations.
The pros of that will allow the township of Severn to plan peacefully for the future and will minimize expenditure of public funds on boundary disputes.
The cons will be unpopular with the council of the city of Orillia.
Now, Mr Chairman, time permitting, we would like to enter into some comments -- and I appreciate your questions thus far -- concerning the strip of land from number 12 highway right down to Lake Simcoe. The background on this --
1450
Mr McLean: What are you reading from, Mr Reeve? Do you have a --
Mr Gowanlock: Yes, you have it in your file.
The Chair: Okay, I just want to be clear on that. You had indicated withdrawing, but what you were withdrawing I think was simply the request for the weighted voting, but then you were presenting the rest of the submission.
Mr Gowanlock: Is in there. Yes.
The Chair: So what you were reading is the submission you had sent us, but indicating that the weighted voting provision has been withdrawn.
Mr Gowanlock: You've got it.
The Chair: Yes. What page are you on?
Mr Gowanlock: Pages 1, 2 and 3, section 34 of Bill 51.
The Chair: So it's the first -- you have just been reading from that section.
Mr Gowanlock: Yes.
The Chair: And now you're going to comment on the other issue, which is not in your brief.
Mr Gowanlock: Yes.
Mr Conway: What we need in this committee is more paper.
The Chair: Yes. We're getting confused with paper but I think we're clear now where we're at, so please go ahead.
Mr Gowanlock: Okay. On the restructuring of the county, it was my concern that county boundary negotiations would be done on the county council floor. I had to proceed by a special notice of motion to even get it on the county floor. Because of the weighted vote of the county, it was denied, myself and other municipalities, of having negotiations reopened on the county floor which would have resolved this strip of land.
Secondly, I went through the county again on a notice of motion to see if we couldn't stop the restructuring the way it was going. That too failed because of the weighted vote. The reason I did both of these things is that in seven municipalities across the county of Simcoe they took a vote. A well-worded vote was very, very simple: "Do you want restructuring or don't you?" The result of that vote across the county of Simcoe was 91% opposed to restructuring, but it slid through very quickly because of a weighted vote of the county of Simcoe.
Now, I want to get back to the area that has to do with the strip of land. Firstly, this strip of land, some 2,000 acres, for the last 20 years has been looked at by the township of Orillia and by the city of Orillia and was designated, under the Couchiching area plan, as when Orillia needed expansion, the land was there for them. That land has been frozen for almost 20 years, to the hardship of the people in the area, but the land is ready and houses can be built a few feet apart and water and sewage can be looked after, the same as lake level, and that area is designated to go to the city of Orillia when and if it needs it. We're willing to do that. Oro has no such arrangement at all; of course not.
As far as the roads are concerned that our good reeve from Oro mentioned, all of those roads with few exceptions are paved and in excellent shape.
Fire services: Presently, we have an agreement with the township of Oro that they service the southerly portion of the Orillia township and we service the northerly portion, north and west of Bass Lake, an excellent agreement that's worked out well over the years.
On the 911 number, I realize Oro township has most of its municipality numbered, but we have 911 in place and have had for quite a while.
The environmental concerns of the area: The whole area, Orillia township as well as Oro, feeds into Bass Lake. The outlet from Bass Lake flows about one mile, certainly less than two, then enters Orillia township, flows many miles, 15 or 20, through Orillia township, on into Matchedash township, again another 8 or 10 miles into Matchedash township, comes over into Tay township, the portion we're taking over, and then enters the Coldwater River and from there the two of them enter Georgian Bay. Talk about environmental concerns; we have them as far as Bass Lake is concerned. That area must stay with Orillia township.
In summation, I first ask that you give serious consideration to letting Orillia township retain that area for the reason that we'll give it to the city when and if it needs it, and it won't disrupt all those ratepayers and have them go from here to Oro and back to the city. What a terrible situation to put anybody through.
Secondly, if that's not possible, we're asking that it go to the city of Orillia now and save these people some tremendous harassment over the next few years. Gentlemen, members of Parliament, those are my submissions.
The Chair: Would Mr Fountain wish to perhaps just add any further comments as we're joining together these presentations, and then we'll move to questions? Former Reeve Fountain.
Mr John A. Fountain: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I'm very pleased that we were able to put this all together now instead of waiting till later on. I must commend Reeve Gowanlock for what he has said. He not only beat me in the last election; he just took my whole speech, so perhaps what I could do is give you my final statement rather than the whole speech.
The question was asked, I believe yesterday, "Was there a gun to our heads?" I'm not sure that's the right terminology to use, but I would like to state that yes, as far as I'm concerned, there was. Orillia township had taken the attitude that we were quite prepared to look at restructuring; we were quite prepared to look at a study of our county to find out where we were, where we were going and how we should get there. But we wanted to do it based on sound principles of planning, not on the wish list of politicians.
The lines, we were told, were to be a "what if" exercise. When I asked that the lines be removed and we get back to studying the viability of Simcoe county, I was told it could not be done. Why? Population and tax figures were being compiled based on the new lines. I began to realize we were no longer studying; we were restructuring. When I questioned this, I was told if we didn't do it, the government would. This became a cracked record around Simcoe county. If I persisted, I was reminded, "Look what happened to south Simcoe." Warden Harry Adams said it, Warden Don Bell said it and I can assure you Warden Nancy Keefe said it. Whether it was a real threat or not, the perception was there.
Bass Lake became a very interesting area. Criterion 3 of the plan suggested that where possible a watershed should be in one municipality to ensure that the easiest approach may be followed in ensuring the quality of water and other environmental aspects of the watershed. Bass Lake is a shallow lake -- you drove by it going towards Midland -- surrounded by cottages and homes, which makes it quite a sensitive area and it can be easily polluted. It's a shallow lake and easily polluted.
In its first proposal of adjusting borders, Oro township proposed that Bass Lake be entirely within its borders. No reason was given, other than it was part of two municipalities and this proposal would respond to criterion 3. The township of Orillia responded by producing a map. That's the large one on your desks there. I coloured all that in myself. You could go into more detail and put more lines on there, but you can see where the water lines are. But the main streams, of course, are Silver Creek and the North River.
Also, there's a text with it describing, in our presentation -- it's in this one here on the first page. Do you want me to read it now, Mr Chairman?
Mr McLean: Mr Chairman, if we do the two presentations now, we might as well do it.
The Chair: Please, put on the record whatever it is you wish to do so we have it all on the table and then we can deal with it all together. So, what you are reading from is this?
1500
Mr Fountain: Yes.
The Chair: If you'd just indicate the page.
Mr Fountain: Page 2. This was presented to the county of Simcoe study committee February 15, 1991, after the original submission by Oro. The map indicates that the Bass Lake area west of Highway 12 would become part of the township of Oro. The rationale provided by your committee is that criterion 3 states that, "Small lakes or other sensitive natural features may be better protected in one municipal jurisdiction."
If one accepts the concept that small lakes and wetlands should, where possible, be kept under a single jurisdiction, then the area of the watershed influence should also be considered. Bass Lake is the headwater of the North River, which merges with Silver Creek and then drains through Orillia and Matchedash townships to Matchedash Bay. As the committee is aware, Matchedash Bay is designated as a natural area of provincial significance by the Ministry of Natural Resources. There's a map on the back. I'm getting mixed up with paper too.
The Chair: If I may, just for the record, you were reading from page 1.
Mr Fountain: I'm on the back page of that. This is from the study. Wait; we'll get through to it. What I'm looking for is this here. It's a study, A Strategy for Restoring the Severn Sound Ecosystem and Delisting Severn Sound as an Area of Concern, prepared by the Severn Sound RAP Team in consultation with the public advisory committee. It involves Environment Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
You see by the map that the whole of the Bass Lake-North River watershed is within one line, and all is within Orillia township. I think Mr Drury suggested that you'd need to take in the whole of Ontario to cover all of these watersheds. However, I think it is significant that we realize that this is the headwater, as I think Mr McLean pointed out, of this drainage area, and it is a very sensitive area. It goes up into Matchedash Bay. I'm sure you're familiar with the Wye Marsh, which isn't far away. This is going to become part of a conservation area.
In the mapping of the green draft report, the committee agreed with the proposal by the township. A map drawn up by five provincial and federal ministries shows the North River watershed and Bass Lake, all within the township of Orillia.
I go on here to what happened after the first report came out. It was proposed that the new lines be accepted and the townships began to panic. "Let's get as much out of this as we can." The south took the attitude, "It happened to us; it can happen to you next." We were confronted with people from the south who had already been restructured and they wanted it to happen to the north.
What we are upset with, and this land in particular, was that the green report -- and I believe you have copies of it; they were out yesterday -- indicated that Bass Lake alone would be moved into Orillia township; there would be no other territory. Most of that land would consist of swamp, along with Big Cedar Estates, but a considerable amount of it was swamp. There was no gain, really, for Orillia township, except to fit into criterion 3 according to the county study. Reluctantly, Orillia township said that we would accept that; if this whole thing was going to go, we were prepared to accept that. Then behind closed doors, as I say here, they attacked us.
Not only did the south go to Oro, but Washego, a community of about 1,000 people, went to Rama and a large piece to the city of Orillia. Orillia at that time wasn't even on the committee. There was no agreement with the cities to give them land, and yet this was done. Orillia responded to that by attempting to meet with the committee. The decision to break up Orillia township was done in camera.
I went to the warden and every member of the committee and even to government representatives. Not only would they not meet with me as a committee; they would not tell me why they made the decision. I even offered to take one committee member with me in a canoe to show which way the water ran. He declined.
Orillia township has never agreed with this restructuring because it's a completely unprofessional procedure that took place. But most disturbing are the concerns of the Bass Lake incident. It was done behind closed doors. I've never been given an opportunity to rebut it to committee. I was allowed on the floor along with another 125 proposals. You can imagine how thrilled they were listening to me plead for the Bass Lake area. Also, the question came up, "Why is Fountain being allowed to go to the front and none of the rest of us are?" That didn't help my case either. We have never been told who drew the line or why.
I believe if these questions cannot be answered, the land ceded to Oro township by the county of Simcoe should be returned to the township of Orillia.
The Chair: I recognize we've combined two presentations here, but --
Mr Fountain: Sorry about that.
The Chair: That's quite all right, but as Chair, I'm also conscious of our overall time constraint. None the less, this is an issue that we have been seized of, and I want to ensure that questions can be asked. But if I could just ask members to be as specific and short as possible.
Mr Waters: I have a question, because it will be a new experience for Mr McLean and me, I gather, if this goes forward; that is, that we'll share one awful big township as your representative -- or representatives is what we will have here, because at this point in time, Al represents Orillia township. Eventually, once you step into Matchedash and Tay, you're into my country. I represent pretty much the entire Severn Sound other than a little tip that we'll let -- you know, he's got to get his foot in the water somewhere over there.
I'm curious. How do you think that's going to work? Obviously you've got a long-time relationship with Al as a council. How is this going to work for you?
Mr Fountain: How will it affect us, dealing with both of you?
Mr Waters: Yes.
Mr Fountain: I have no difficulty.
Mr Waters: So you don't see that that's going to create any problems or anything for you. Okay.
Mr Fountain: I don't see why it should. You both look like honest, fair men.
Mr Waters: Well, you know, I have a bit more hair on my head than Al, but he's got a few more years in Queen's Park than I have. So probably by the time I get there --
Mr Conway: And more money than all the rest of us have.
Mr Waters: By the way, I also have a buffer zone with Mr Conway. It's called Algonquin Park. Mine's a bit bigger than most.
The council chambers: Your council chambers are --
Mr Gowanlock: Near the city of Orillia boundary, the city of Orillia and Orillia township: just into Orillia township, on West Street.
Mr Waters: Okay, on West Street. That's actually just sort of for the record, because it leads to the question, and that is: I've been to the other council chambers. Obviously you will be using your council chambers for the new township.
Mr Gowanlock: That's correct, yes.
Mr Waters: Okay. I know there's been some concern raised by Matchedash about a connecting road, because at this point in time there are no connecting roads in the northern part of your townships, separate townships and jointly. I wouldn't mind hearing your opinion, because I know they've raised that as an issue.
1510
Mr Gowanlock: You have a very valid point. We do need a connecting road, primarily on West Street right through into Matchedash, which would lead to the Severn River and into Matchedash. It's a very, very urgent matter. I guess you all know how funds are, but that is one of the prime concerns.
Mr Waters: I just wanted to go into the Bass Lake area a little bit. On the large map that you presented to us, I gather the one to the left of the lake is a tributary stream into Bass Lake.
Mr Gowanlock: Yes, immediately to --
Mr Waters: So the catchment basin for Bass Lake would run over, what, about five concessions?
Mr Fountain: Into Oro, you mean?
Mr Waters: Yes.
Mr Fountain: That one tributary.
Mr Waters: But all of the outfall runs through Orillia township, Matchedash and then into Severn Sound.
Mr Fountain: I believe someone assessed that about 95%, without Bass Lake, would be part of Orillia township.
Mr Eddy: Thank you for your presentation. I noticed in this letter from the township's planners signed by David Scott, planning and zoning administrator, and I think you repeated the same thing, the first paragraph on page 3, that it was a closed meeting of the study committee that decided the boundaries, and not all municipalities were present or represented on that committee at that time. Is that the case? I just want to be very, very clear on that.
Mr Fountain: To the best of my knowledge, no members of council, just the committee, made these.
Mr Eddy: Well, the committee is made up of members of council.
Mr Fountain: Oh, I see. Yes.
Mr Eddy: But not all municipalities, of course, had a representative, because it would be so large. So it was the study committee that put the lines on the map, and then that came to county council.
Mr Fountain: As far as I know.
Mr Eddy: And you were not allowed to open that up.
Mr Fountain: They refused to meet with me afterwards.
I think too, if I may, it's very significant that if there had been minor adjustments, if they'd moved one concession or two concessions or something like this -- but if you realize that in the beginning, the green report gave us Bass Lake, and that was really not a very great, significant thing, but it was effective as far as criterion 3 was concerned. After this meeting and the grey report, the final report, came out, suddenly we didn't have Washago. A massive piece was being given to Orillia. We were decimated. They destroyed it.
All along, one of the things we had said was: "If you are going to go through with this thing, leave Orillia township as a unit. Move it wherever you want, but leave it as a unit that functions."
Mr Eddy: And no reasons given. The lines were changed and you weren't given reasons.
Mr Fountain: Not to the best of my knowledge. Never to me was there ever any reason given. If somebody said that Reeve Drury was better looking than I was, I'd accept that, but none of this was ever --
Mr Eddy: Mr Chair, there is a point of clarification I'd like to ask the parliamentary assistant. In the case of the regional municipalities in this province, some 13, no boundary change can be made to an area municipality of a region unless both municipalities agree, and that has happened. It happened between, I believe, Mississauga and Oakville, and Tillsonburg and Norfolk township. There have been a very few. Is this bill similar? Once these changes are made, they become somewhat sacrosanct. They're similar to the region, or -- I'll leave that with you if you don't want to answer now.
Mr Hayes: I'll refer it to Mr Griggs.
Mr Eddy: I just want to be clear on that.
Mr Griggs: The municipalities would still be able to apply under the Municipal Boundary Negotiations Act in the future to alter boundaries.
Mr Eddy: Two affected municipalities would be able to agree. Would one be able to apply? Would this fall under the boundary negotiations act at the county still, even though this bill is fact?
Mr Griggs: Yes, it would.
Mr Eddy: Thank you.
Mr Conway: There are two issues for me that are particularly relative to this submission and the situation of Orillia township, it seems to me. One of them has to do with the configuration of your new municipality. I am more and more persuaded that you've made a very compelling argument around the Bass Lake watershed. We've got enough maps here now, and my friend McLean, who is a good fisherman and who lives around here, is my consultant. He seems to know, understandably, a lot of it. I think you've made a good case there as far as I'm concerned.
The problems I have now are at the other end. Bob Drury was here and he's got a pretty strong brief. By the way, I've just come out of the north, and I'll tell you, I won't soon forget the submission by the reeve of the township of Tay. Boy, I tell you, he was pretty powerful yesterday, and I'm quite sympathetic to what happened to him.
I notice that you've got Coldwater and you've got a bite out of Tay, so you haven't been completely -- I suppose that's the new township of Severn. You might argue that that's as much an expanded Matchedash as anything to do with Orillia township. You certainly lost on the bottom end, but you've gained as part of the new township of Severn. You've got some expanded territory up in the northwest, would that be?
Mr Fountain: Yes.
Mr Conway: The previous group was here and they make an argument, and I want you to comment on it if you could. On the roads account, Mr Drury and his colleagues said that this new proposal reduces the need for cross-boundary service agreements. You've touched on that, I think, a bit. Did I understand you to say that the servicing agreement you had was that they did the bottom piece for you and you did a top piece in Oro township for them?
Mr Gowanlock: That's correct.
Mr Conway: That was in Oro.
Mr Fountain: This is something that goes on fairly regularly between municipalities: You do the top end and we'll do the bottom end of its boundary roads.
Mr Conway: So it does in my area as well. They argue that the township of Oro currently provides fire protection services to 75% of south Orillia township.
The one that I thought was key to me was assessment. You may have heard their submission, and if you haven't, I won't take you through it but you might want to look at it. They say that if as a result of the final determination of the boundary area for the new municipality, the township of Medonte is to lose the Hillsdale-Orr Lake area to the new township of Springwater -- you know, if we lose something, we've got to get some consideration on the other side. The consideration on the other side appears to be -- somebody called it the "sirloin tip" of Orillia.
Mr Fountain: I did that yesterday.
My response to that is, are we going to disrupt the people of this area in Orillia township, who, by the way, if you remember the presentation that was made yesterday, voted almost unanimously -- 600 people or something like that voted to leave them alone, and we know that. We filled the balcony down at county council by these people objecting to it. To satisfy the monetary demands of Oro, are we to disrupt these people? I can assure you the tax base in Ontario right now has disrupted enough people. Are we going to add to it with this?
Mr Gowanlock: May I help to answer the question? The township of Oro primarily is staying intact. It is a well-managed, good financial based municipality, the same as mine. They aren't losing anything. They never had this assessment. They won't miss it. They can't miss it because they have what they have. They are bringing Medonte in. True, they're not bringing all of it in, but it has good assessment around the Horseshoe Valley. Both of them have large developments either side of Horseshoe Valley Road. They come in as a very lucrative municipality joined together. Don't give us the idea that they're losing something; they're not. They're coming in very lucrative. They have 16,000 people in this new municipality; we only have 11,000. They have two good units coming together; we take on two very, very poor municipalities. Admittedly, we're in good shape. If we have to take on two to help this thing work, we're willing to do that, but don't take further away from us, please.
1520
Mr Fountain: The fire protection is by mutual aid; we have that covered. Orillia township has one of the most modern fire departments in the county, and if more equipment is needed, it will be there.
Mr McLean: You've had some good reeves in Oro, as you're well aware. If my memory serves me right, yesterday when the reeve of Tay was making his presentation there apparently was a meeting between your people and the Tay group with regard to the easterly boundary of Tay. The discussion was around they wanted that part back and I think Severn had indicated, "We'll give that back to you if we can get what was taken from us and given to Oro." Is that correct?
The Chair: Sorry, Reeve, just for the record, we know your head nodded, but Hansard can't pick that up.
Mr Gowanlock: We had a meeting with them to explain it in detail. Matchedash and Coldwater are the two areas affected in that area, and they weren't going to compromise on that. I should clear the record on that. They carry the weighted votes, their 10 votes to our five.
Mr McLean: But Matchedash feels that should be in part of Tay now, is that right, because of the fact it's in that one watershed? I mean Matchedash feels that the boundary that's drawn there is right?
Mr Gowanlock: They'll be speaking later and they could address that one for you.
Mr McLean: But in your opinion, as reeve of the township, with the new part being amalgamated, would you anticipate that that boundary should stay where it is in the planning?
Mr Gowanlock: Yes.
Mr McLean: The other question I have then is with regard to Bass Lake. It says:
"The final draft report established that, based on the significance of the Bass Lake, North River, Matchedash Bay watershed, the majority of it should be within the municipality of the township of Orillia-Matchedash-Coldwater. It was the committee's recommendation in the final draft report that all of Bass Lake should be in the municipality of Orillia township, but upon the release of the final draft in late May of 1991, municipalities and the public were requested to comment either through open forum meetings or written submissions.
"The final open forum meeting was held on June 20, 1991. On the 20th and on the 28th, the final study report was released to county council and the study committee met in camera to render its final decision on boundary adjustments. This was the only time that committee would not allow the public to listen to the discussions leading to a decision and the committee's rationale for this position was that its decision should not be made public until county council members received the report."
In other words, what input did you have into that change of that final study report?
Mr Fountain: None. Absolutely none.
Mr McLean: Did you request some input into that report?
Mr Fountain: I went to the chairman, I went to every member of the committee and I even went to the government representatives and asked to meet them as a committee. They not only refused to meet me as a committee but refused to tell me who drew these lines and exactly why.
Mr McLean: And to this day do you know who drew the lines?
Mr Fountain: I would like to know. I would like this committee to be able to tell me. If somebody can justify the drawing of those lines, I certainly would accept it. But that alone I believe is wrong. I think we have indicated that according to the criteria of the county itself, that lake should be in Orillia township, and I hope we have indicated in other ways that it should be, but above all else, no one has indicated why it should move.
The Chair: I'm sorry --
Mr McLean: Just one final one. We had a situation yesterday in Midland whereby Penetanguishene had an area that they felt was qualified to be, and it was, in their jurisdiction. When the final report came out, it was in Midland, and they didn't know who changed the line.
The Chair: The parliamentary assistant.
Mr Hayes: Thank you for your presentation. But you have made some fairly strong statements about county council and the study committee. I know you state that they met in camera, but in fact did the study committee not make a presentation in front of county council and did they not vote on each section at a time on county council?
Mr Fountain: Pardon?
Mr Hayes: Then in fact is it true, though, that your municipality also presented an amendment to this and it was voted on and defeated? You're saying you haven't had any input. But we're being told that this is the process that was followed, the procedure that was followed, and yet you're saying that it wasn't.
Mr Fountain: We had input from the floor, but we did not have input at the time. The drawing of the lines was done arbitrarily. My understanding was that lines would be by agreement of the municipalities involved. In fact I think this came up for discussion here a short while ago. This was never discussed with us. I don't know, but there's a great possibility it wasn't even discussed with Oro.
Mr Hayes: You're saying it wasn't. Well, I think what you're talking about, my understanding is that they made the presentation, and then the bottom line is that the county and then the province, of course, in turn agreed that there would not be any boundary changes unless the municipalities that were affected could agree to that, changes to the proposed boundaries.
Mr Fountain: Yes, that would be true. I would like to point out that there would be this argument that since the county voted on it, it shouldn't be changed. I'm sure we can't accept such a thing in a democratic society. Surely there are people here who would --
Mr Hayes: To correct you on that, I think it can be changed through an agreement with the municipalities that are involved. Then that's where it's at.
Mr Conway: But surely the problem that we're running into here -- the parliamentary assistant makes a very good point. I think the difficulty that I've got as a committee member in the last couple of days, and Mr McLean just made the point a moment ago, is that I keep running into people -- and I know the reeve of Oro would love it; we probably should get him back up here at some point -- I keep running into these situations where something seems to have been agreed to, then something else happens someplace and the line moves. This seems to be a recurring --
Mr Hayes: I think, in all fairness to the people, I guess, on that committee -- I don't even know any of them, as a matter of fact -- the fact of the matter is I think it's just like this draft. I think it's like any other kind of document that committee would put together and send out for public consultation -- I think this is what happened -- and also to the county council. It's like I think any kind of legislation, whether it be a provincial government or federal government. They might prepare a draft of a piece of legislation and then that would come back and be voted on or amended or whatever the case, and then as a result of that they come back to vote on the final study. Is that correct?
The Chair: Our next witness is the warden of the county, and it seems to me the issue is clear. Again, just as your Chair, I'm conscious of our time problem.
Mr Hayes: One other thing.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr Hayes: I've probably done something more than what the other members in this room have, I've camped at Bass Lake Provincial Park several times, including this year. It's a nice spot, guys.
Mr Conway: But before we move off this point, this is really a central issue for me. I don't mean to be difficult, but you see, the parliamentary assistant's made a good point here and I'm really struggling, because I know tomorrow we're going to have to do clause-by-clause and we're going to do some amendments.
I have to tell you -- I want to be quite honest with everybody in this room -- I've heard a lot of very interesting evidence. Now, it may be incomplete, but I'm caught. I'm a juror here, and all I can do is make decisions on the basis of what I'm hearing. There may be a whole bunch of people who've got interesting, compelling arguments who aren't here for whatever reason, and that's just going to be too bad for little old Conway, but I'm telling you, I'm hearing some things around a couple of these boundary issues that give me a lot of cause to consider an amendment.
On the other hand, if I do that -- and I feel completely empowered to do that as a member of the Legislature. That's my job. But I don't want to be a total jerk. I don't want people like my friend the mayor of Oro to go out of here and think: "Well, those jerks from Queen's Park. Didn't they understand the way this deal was supposed to work?"
So I just want to be clear now, while people are around, so that when I get to Toronto tomorrow -- and I may be doing some things in good faith on the basis of what I have heard, if you know what I mean.
1530
The Chair: Mr Wilson, do you have just a brief comment?
Mr Jim Wilson: No, I think Mr Conway's dug a deep enough ditch there.
Mr Conway: I don't consider it a ditch at all.
Mr Jim Wilson: I don't need to give my usual lecture about whether or not we're going to be allowed boundary changes or not.
The Chair: I want to thank Reeve Gowanlock and former Reeve Fountain and the other members of your delegation for coming and for helping us try to work through some of these issues. Thank you again for coming.
COUNTY OF SIMCOE
The Chair: If I could then call our next witness, the warden of Simcoe county, Mr Ross Hastings.
Mr Ross Hastings: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Mr Hastings, welcome to the committee. As you can perhaps see, there are lots of interesting elements to this and we're glad to have you before the committee. If you would go ahead with your presentation, then we'll move to questions.
Mr Hastings: Maybe I'm fortunate I was not the warden at the time this all took place. I'm glad to see that Ron's up and going this morning and raring to go. I don't know how late he stayed last night, but if he didn't stay, he missed some good entertainment.
Mr Eddy: No, I wasn't.
Mr Hastings: It was very good.
Mr Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Ross Hastings and I'm warden of the county of Simcoe. I'm pleased to have this opportunity to share with you some of my observations regarding this most important initiative.
I would like to thank the committee for travelling to our part of the province to hear submissions on Bill 51. I recognize that the summer recess creates a unique opportunity for committee hearings to be held away from Queen's Park. Given the nature of this legislation, I think it is entirely fitting that the hearings be held in Simcoe county, because it's a very important issue to all of us in Simcoe county. Your presence here today suggests that you agree with this principle. Public hearings on any piece of legislation create a unique opportunity for individuals to raise their own concerns regarding the province's intended direction on any issue. Bill 51 is no exception. I'm certain in the last two and a half days you have heard some very detailed and thought-provoking submissions from individuals who have concern for the impact of this legislation on their municipalities and indeed on their lives. No piece of legislation is perfect, and that is why this process of committee hearings is so important. I want to encourage you to recognize the specific concerns of these individuals and even to recommend changes to the legislation where change is appropriate. At the same time, I want to caution the committee not to contemplate any change that would undermine the principles of county reform in Simcoe.
Unlike other recent examples of restructuring, the process that has gone on in Simcoe belongs to us. It was county-initiated, it was county agreed to, even though it was not 100% agreement and that's been a very difficult situation for a lot of us. I think some of you probably know I come from Tiny township, which has had its share of problems on the restructuring. I did not bury my head in the sand. I wanted to be a part of it. I'm not totally happy, I don't think anybody's totally happy, with restructuring, but I think what I've heard at the AMO conference in the last couple of days is that we want to be in there taking part. If we aren't, someone's going to do it for us, especially on environmental issues.
The province watched the county work its way through a long and painful study process, and it was painful. I think I've heard from two previous people, and it's been very painful for both of them. Once the recommendations of the study report were dealt with by county council, the provincial government made a commitment to provide the legislation framework for the county's findings. Bill 51 represents this commitment and, as such, should be allowed to proceed through the Legislature without changes to its overall intent.
Your committee has an important role in ensuring the progress of Bill 51 through the Legislature. I recognize that you have a challenging task before you. I am, however, confident that after today you will leave here with a better understanding of the process that has brought the county of Simcoe to the brink of this major restructuring. I would ask that you uphold the integrity of this process by ensuring a swift passage of this important legislation.
I think that you're all aware I wasn't able to attend the sessions Monday and Tuesday. There were a number of issues that were agreed to on the floor. I hope these will be taken into consideration. One was that I think either two or three municipalities want to remain as one ward. My own municipality of Tiny is one of those -- Wasaga Beach and I think Collingwood. I'm not sure if there have been some changes in that or not. I hope the committee would look at those and look at them favourably. I think that was something that was agreed to on the floor so it is a county initiative.
There are also some minor boundary changes, I understand, between different municipalities and I think, as it was pointed out, if both municipalities agree, those were to be taken care of. I'm not sure we're going to get agreement with the two municipalities here today, but I hope they could sit down and come up with something they could both live with and that you people could support in the end.
At this time, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity of appearing before you today and if, after questions, there's a moment left I would just like to make a couple of comments on behalf of my own municipality and myself.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I will call you warden in this part of the presentation. We have a number of questions. We'll begin with Mr Wessenger.
Mr Wessenger: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm going to ask a question that you may not be able to answer and it may have to end up that the staff will have to answer it. Maybe I shouldn't ask it, because there's a concern, I think, out there that this whole restructuring was purely a political process, that it didn't have planning input into it and that some of the decisions made were purely political with no planning basis. I'd like you to comment on that in general and, specifically what I'm interested in -- as I think we are here today to consider the report of the county restructuring study. We're getting presentations made about why certain changes were made in boundaries.
I think most of us would agree that we all respect the concept of the county doing the restructuring, but we want to be reassured. I think all of us may want to be reassured that the decisions made were based on some rationale. That doesn't necessarily mean we all have to agree with the rationale of the county and I think all of us again would agree that we shouldn't be looking at a boundary change, that we'd do something different. I think, really, we have to look at it and determine, was there a good reason for making that decision and whether we agree with it or disagree with it. I want you to tell me, was there expert advice, planning advice, in particular with respect to this whole question of the section of the township of Orillia south of the Bass Lake area and the Bass Lake area? Did you have any planning advice with respect to that matter? I don't know what that advice was, and probably you can't provide us with it at the moment, but could you tell me that?
Mr Hastings: I guess, Mr Wessenger, as I said before, it was maybe fortunate I was not involved as warden at that time or sitting on the study committee, so I really can't answer that question as to what advice they did have. I did attend some of the sessions and there was input from both municipalities. I think at that time the city of Orillia was still in when they first started, but I really can't give you a true answer on that.
Mr Wessenger: Was there a planner or planners working with the county restructuring committee?
Mr Hastings: At that time the county had no planner of its own. The municipalities had planners and there might have been a Municipal Affairs planner up there; I can't be sure of that.
Mr Wessenger: Perhaps, maybe, we could get clarification of the role of the ministry with respect to overall planning with this study.
Mr Griggs: I'm not sure whether there was a professional planner involved advising the study committee. However, there were provincial staff who were provided in all the county studies to advise the committee, provide advice on provincial policies, on the impacts and so on, to conduct impact analysis and to provide advice.
I should also point out that the study committee operated under guiding principles that outlined the rationale that could be used for various boundary changes. In the final report that was put before county council, each of the recommendations included text that explained the rationale for the proposed changes.
Mr Wessenger: Could I ask the warden to just confirm that, in this particular case of the Oro-Orillia boundary situation, the decision was based on what you considered the best planning decision?
Mr Hastings: Here again, Mr Wessenger, I don't think I'm in a position to answer that. I was not in on the county study and committee at that time. I'm not sure how they based their whole ideas on that. I was aware that it was in the official plan of Orillia township that it was to go to Orillia if and when they needed it, but that's as far as I can answer what was involved there.
1540
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you, your worship, for your remarks. I have, just sort of off the top of my head, asked legislative counsel of Queen's Park to prepare a few amendments and I just want to pass them by you. I think most of them are minor in nature, but I just want to know if you know of any reasons why there should be strong objections voiced.
This morning, the new municipality of Clearview asked that there's a small parcel of land, a triangular parcel of land located just below the new proposed Highway 26, which veers off the current Highway 26 over at Collingwood -- and I forget how many acres exactly, but they've asked that that small triangular piece -- and from looking at a map and knowing the particular piece of property, the committee, at least on this side of the table, couldn't understand why that continues to be in Wasaga Beach and is not included as part of Nottawasaga township, Clearview. So I'm looking at that. You may want to comment on it.
With respect to New Tecumseth -- and we've asked that they make a presentation a little later this afternoon -- the long-standing issue -- and I know it's controversial -- with Bradford West Gwillimbury, but moving the easterly boundary of New Tecumseth back to where it was historically, and that's down the centre of Highway 27 for the most part.
I've a number of reasons for that. The town is once again requesting that be done, particularly in light of the fact that the principle that once was used -- and it is principle number 6, I think, in the green book -- which talks about roads should not be used as boundaries, seems to have been violated, in my opinion, in a number of cases in the new restructuring. So given that, and given the way you look at the map now, it doesn't make any sense to me that we should continue to have the easterly boundary of New Tecumseth running two lots west of the current Highway 27 and in fact splitting a number of properties. I still have complaints from those property owners.
That's one amendment we're considering; also a minor change to the boundary between Adjala and New Tecumseth. You may be aware of that. It's sort of correcting, I think, an oversight.
No ward system, and you mentioned this in your remarks, for Collingwood; no ward system for Wasaga Beach. There was agreement, I understand, on the Wasaga Beach question with the county. Was there agreement with respect to the Collingwood question?
Mr Hastings: I'm not sure on the Collingwood one. I know that Wasaga and Tiny both came before the floor and I think Collingwood might have been at the last meeting. That could be checked out.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, just for clarification, I think the ministry might be able to give you the answer on --
Mr Jim Wilson: On that one?
Mr Griggs: Yes. It's my understanding that county council did pass a resolution supporting continuation of elections at large in Collingwood.
Mr Jim Wilson: Also?
Mr Griggs: Yes.
Mr Jim Wilson: Okay, that's good. The final one that comes to mind, as I jotted them down here -- and like Mr Conway said, we'll be spending all evening going through the mounds of paper we have -- there are some minor changes to the composition of the hydro-electric commission in Clearview. Off the top of your head, does any of this present problems? I would think the big one is the New Tecumseth line.
Mr Hastings: I would think that as long as the local municipalities are reasonably happy, that's the basic thing that we're trying to do and the hydro-electric, we don't have one in our own municipality so I've had no experience with that at all.
Mr Jim Wilson: My problem is, as you can well imagine with such a short time frame, a limited number of people were actually able to make presentations to this committee. It's now Queen's Park legislation and I've said many times, people aren't going to pick this up in a couple of years and say it was Mr Hastings's legislation. They're going to say it was Jim Wilson and Al McLean and Queen's Park, as Bill 51. So we want to try to get it as right as possible. We're going to be essentially in isolation tomorrow doing clause-by-clause and, as Mr Conway has said, we won't have perhaps the full picture of what deals were made.
In particular with the Highway 27 one, the problem that I think we have is Bradford West Gwillimbury doesn't want to discuss it. So what do you do if somebody doesn't want to discuss it and never wants to discuss it? My opinion, and I will put this on the public record, is that was a political line. The Liberals were in power at that time. They wanted -- and why one municipality got both Highway 11 as a major corridor and Highway 27 as a major corridor. The only answer that's come to me, via the back rooms, is that there was a Liberal member over there and he said, "Let's draw the line two lots west of the highway."
Do you have any objection personally, then -- because I guess you can't speak on behalf of the entire council -- to having two municipalities share development along Highway 27?
Mr Hastings: I'm aware of trying not to have roads as a boundary and I think it's maybe more critical when you've got rural roads than it is a highway. The highways are looked after, unless that's part of what might be turned back to the municipalities. A highway's a little different. It's looked after by the province, so you don't have two --
Mr Jim Wilson: You don't have that split jurisdiction.
Mr Hastings: You don't have the split that way but it does create different types of development. You could have water services on one side and not on the other, and it creates an unfair situation that way. But my personal opinion -- if it's a highway I don't have a serious problem, but if it is a boundary road between two townships, it does create problems.
Mr Jim Wilson: Okay, thank you.
The Chair: Mr Griggs just had one clarification.
Mr Griggs: I just wanted to point out one of the study committee's guiding principles, that existing roads other than access-controlled provincial highways are not considered to be good municipal boundaries. There was that exception made for controlled-access highways versus county roads, for example.
Mr Hastings: I think that did come up. I wasn't aware at the start it was basically highways.
Mr Jim Wilson: But Highway 27 there, is that a controlled access?
Mr Waters: No.
Mr Hastings: I think you're talking about 400-series highways.
Mr Jim Wilson: Normally, talking about controlled access is whether or not you can get an access off it now.
Mr Waters: The 400 series is controlled access.
Mr Jim Wilson: No. You've got controlled access along Highway 90 between the beach and Collingwood.
Mr McLean: Anywhere between Highway 12 and Orillia --
Mr Jim Wilson: You can't get an entrance. You can't get an entrance off Highway 89 here.
Mr Conway: You just can't cross the barrier.
Mr Jim Wilson: No, no, it's not a barrier; it's controlled access. Could we check that?
Mr Waters: Maybe we should get clarification on that.
The Chair: If we could move on then.
Mr Eddy: The Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act allows any municipal jurisdiction to declare a road a limited-access road in order to prevent access to it. They're not very common but they are available.
Mr Warden, I appreciate your presentation. Thank you for being here. I know your council's had a great deal of extra work taking on this tremendous project and there are very few councils, if any, other than the county of Oxford that have undertaken such a tremendous undertaking and I'm aware of some of the reasons for doing that.
This rule that no line can now be changed unless both municipalities affected agree -- I can support that, and very strongly, provided there was agreement on the line to start with. Now I think what's come out -- it seems to us that there were some lines and they may have been preliminary discussion lines. That's quite possible and probably they were, but then in an in-camera meeting of the study committee -- and I know the study committee will be making a presentation -- some lines were changed for the final report which came to county council. My view is, it would have been the way to go when lines are changed to have those municipalities affected in a room, present it to them and let them discuss it and come to some agreement and, of course, we wouldn't have had much of a job, maybe, right today.
Was there an attempt to do that and do you think that's what should have been done? It's a simple approach I have and I think it would have helped considerably at this stage. Was that done, to your knowledge, or should it have been done, do you feel?
Mr Hastings: I would have to probably agree with you that it should have been done. I think there was a lot of hostility on the floor. I came from a municipality where my counterpart wouldn't even talk about it, let alone sit in a room. That makes it very difficult if you get a situation like that on either side, or have one on each side who doesn't want to participate. I think that's important and I've taken a lot of flak over it.
I believe in the restructuring. I think in the long term it will be better. We're certainly hurting. I mean, we're losing, but we're fortunate; we're still just the township of Tiny. I think what you're raising, and I hope in future restructuring that a criterion goes out with them that will pick up some of the problems in areas we've had concern on.
Mr Eddy: Yes, that would make it very difficult where one or other wouldn't talk. Thank you.
Mr McLean: Mr Wessenger asked a question with regard to when you amalgamate a couple of municipalities there's usually some planning that's gone on, or there's something been there that would make the two of them fit in. It's been brought to my attention and some others with regard to the reason why Adjala and Tosorontio were put into one unit. What is so great about those two that they would fit as a boundary when you look at Camp Borden, you look at Essa? I understand that Tosorontio was with Essa to start with.
1550
Mr Hastings: I'm not totally sure of that, Mr McLean. There are a lot of scenarios that came out. I think there were four or five for our own municipality. There were a lot thrown around and then they finally came down to some final scenarios which in some cases people were satisfied and in some they weren't satisfied.
Mr McLean: I guess the other question I have is: A lot of the municipalities had a ballot on the last election, and 85% to 95% of the people in each municipality they had that ballot on voted against restructuring. If every municipality had a ballot, would you think that would have made a difference to the progress of the restructuring committee?
Mr Hastings: I'm not sure. I guess I'm one of those ones who look at south Simcoe and what happened there. I felt very strongly that we should be trying to work together to come up with something that was livable with everybody. Whether that would have come up down the road if we'd done nothing, I'm not sure. I know if you put it on a ballot, it's like asking somebody, "Do you want to pay more money?" They may want to have what you want to get the extra money for but they don't want to pay for it. It's unfortunate, but it does come out that way.
The Chair: Warden, you wanted to shift hats at the end and be reeve for a moment, and so we can all watch the hats shift. Now, as reeve of Tiny township, you said there were a couple of issues you wanted to --
Mr Hastings: Thank you very much.
Mr Conway: Before he does that, maybe this is a bridge. I'd like to just beg the indulgence of the committee to ask a question about your neighbour Tay. One of the things that troubles me about what I heard yesterday is that in all of this restruction, we've got one township, I think, that is smaller and poorer, and that surely violates one of the things that you'd expect restructuring to deal with. Now as you move into your --
Mr McLean: Tiny --
Mr Conway: Tiny, that's right. Maybe that's the bridge into --
Mr Jim Wilson: And actually Tay township isn't self-sufficient.
Mr Conway: All right, so perhaps --
The Chair: Perhaps if you would go ahead with your notes on Tiny township, that may help us deal with some of that.
Mr Hastings: If I could make one comment about what was said about Tay township, they are going to be in a position where they will have full services in two municipalities which they don't enjoy right now. I think that that was one of the criteria and we don't need it. Tiny does not need that. We are still small and alone.
I guess the only point I'd really like to bring out, I understand that at the meeting in Midland it was brought out that I had voted against restructuring at my own council and when it came to county council, I supported it. There were some things that had not happened, and if they had not happened, I would not have voted for it at county council.
The compensation package is one of the major issues that we have come to terms with on Midland, and I've always felt very confident that it would be reality. Some people felt differently on it, but I understand that yesterday again that was brought out and discussed and I feel very good. I just want to clarify that. Yes, I did vote against restructuring in Tiny township, but I did support it at the county, just so that there's no misunderstandings of why I had done this.
The Chair: Mr Griggs had a clarification on one point.
Mr Griggs: I just wanted to also reiterate the point that there is one municipality that will be smaller as a result of the restructuring and that's Tiny township. Tay township will be combining with two villages, so it's not a pure loss in that case.
Mr Conway: But it is poor. The point that the reeve made was that they pick up the two villages but they lose some significant --
Mr Waters: The villages are broke.
Mr Conway: The villages are broke. I think the reeve said to us pretty strongly that they were poor. They might be incorporating the two villages, but their financial capacity was certainly not stronger; it was weaker.
The Chair: I wonder if that's a good bridge to the County of Simcoe Transition Committee, which is the next group.
Mr Hastings: I'd like to thank you very much for hearing me today. I hope that you can come up with some fair and equitable answers.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Warden and Reeve.
COUNTY OF SIMCOE TRANSITION COMMITTEE
The Chair: If I could then call the County of Simcoe Transition Committee, Mr Ron Stevens, who is the chair, and Ms Janine Kilburn, the county transition coordinator. We appreciate your being here. We've seen you at the table and at the hearings, so I think you have a sense of some of the discussion, but we appreciate that you have come. Mr Stevens, if you would be good enough to begin.
Mr Ron Stevens: First of all, Mr Chairman, pardon me for my voice being a little hoarse. I've just came back from attending three days at AMO and drinking Hamilton water, so you'll pardon me.
Interjections.
Mr Stevens: Well, I didn't come back in an ambulance, but I came back.
Mr Conway: My experience of those Hamilton-Toronto conventions is water is all that ever gets drunk.
Mr Stevens: No comment.
I would like to, before I start, congratulate Mr Eddy on receiving the award he did last night at Hamilton. It was in recognition of his work on AMO over the years. I think it was well done and I congratulate you. I didn't have the chance to last night.
Mr Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Ron Stevens and I am the chairman of the county transition committee. This committee is comprised of 16 members who represent each of the proposed municipalities of Simcoe and the warden is ex officio.
The transition committee has been meeting since last July to discuss issues of common concern to each of the local municipalities. We are, in effect, a clearing house for local issues and our primary focus is towards the implementation that is scheduled to occur on January 1, 1994.
I must say quite candidly that the transition committee has been very concerned by the delay in progress on this legislation. Last summer when the committee first began to meet, we understood that the enacting legislation would be introduced in the fall with the royal assent to be one full year prior to implementation.
This so-called window of opportunity vanished with the delay of the introduction in second reading of the bill. You will understand when I suggest that this created considerable anxiety for the members of the local transition committees. They had no choice but to take a cautious approach to restructuring in the absence of any enacting legislation.
I raise this issue because I feel it is important to acknowledge that real progress has been made locally despite what seemed to be a lack of commitment on the part of the province. I urge the committee to take whatever steps are appropriate to ensure swift passage of the final bill, although fairly. January 1, 1994 is fast approaching and there's a lot of work left to be accomplished at the local level. The transition committee must have early assurance of a firm commitment implementation date.
In terms of the actual provisions of the bill, I want to advise that the county transition committee does not support section 34 dealing with the boundaries of the cities of Orillia and Barrie and has the full support of county council on this position.
The committee's position is that this section is irrelevant given the authority already vested with the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Our concern is that section 34 as currently written creates the perception or the possibility of special consideration being extended to the cities of Barrie and Orillia. The transition committee is strongly urging the removal of this redundant section.
As chairman of the transition committee, I have a unique perspective on the restructuring activities locally. I can say that, without exception, each transition area has been diligent in ensuring that the new municipalities are well positioned for January 1, 1994. For some individuals, this has not been easy. It has meant suspending strongly held views on the merits of restructuring in order to ensure a smooth transition.
I feel that, as legislators, you have an obligation to respond in kind. It is incumbent on you to provide us with a piece of legislation that, in the final analysis, remains consistent with the goals that each of the transition areas have been working towards during the last 12 months.
Before I conclude my presentation, I would like to draw your attention, if I can, to Bill 51, article 28. You'll find it on page 20. This section allows the minister, under certain conditions, to make loans or grants to local municipalities that are deemed appropriate as a result of restructuring.
The transition committee has not dealt with this, nor has any approach been made to them at this point in a formal manner regarding this. However, as chairman of the transition committee I have had some of the transition groups approach me informally to discuss the merits of this based on the fact that they will probably have some major capital costs to incur after restructuring takes place.
The capital costs can be in many ways: it could be for a new municipal office etc. In our own particular case, the township of Severn, we are in desperate need of a connecting link to the north of our township. We need that link for a number of reasons, but one major one is fire access.
We have a fire station on the 12th Concession that if, for any reason, we had a major fire in the township of Matchedash and all our equipment was required to be implemented at that fire, the distance to drive from that station would be approximately 45 miles to get into Matchedash. The connecting link would be of tremendous value. It would be probably from 7 to 9 kilometres in size. It would be expensive and we would definitely need the assistance of the minister on this.
I think there are numerous other things, but I think that if it is going to be a strong and viable new municipality, we must have the road links. As it is right now, we have no road links in the north at all. Thank you for letting me make this presentation.
1600
The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll begin questioning with Mr Wilson.
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you, Mr Chairman, and thank you, Ron, for your presentation. I have two questions that relate to sections that I'm also looking at either deleting or amending or doing something with. I ask this because I'm staring over at Joan Sutherland too, and you may want to confer here because section 35 deals with waste disposal sites.
Mr Stevens: Yes.
Mr Jim Wilson: I guess it has been brought to our attention, this morning comes to mind, by Nottawasaga township. Wasaga Beach this morning didn't mention it. Their only concern was the imposition of a ward system. But I would think Wasaga Beach would want to be very worried about this because it currently is running under a certificate and allowing six north Simcoe municipalities to dump there.
This bill, without any environmental hearings, would open that up, it's my reading, to taking garbage, if the county so wanted, from all of Simcoe. Nottawasaga mentioned that because it's kind of going to be the dumping ground in the future. I would think Adjala township and Tos should be worried about this particular section. What is the history of that section and why is it in this bill?
Mr Stevens: With respect, Mr Wilson, the transition committee has not dealt with that because Wasaga Beach has chosen to go another route on its own. I believe litigation was enacted. The county of Simcoe's waste management is totally the responsibility of the county of Simcoe. We, as a transition committee, have not even been asked to offer comment on that. So I really in all honesty cannot answer you.
Mr Jim Wilson: I appreciate the response, and it's kind of the response I expected, because I think section 35 came as a surprise to a number of legislators as we were reading through it. With your indulgence, Mr Chairman, I was wondering if we could ask, if she wouldn't mind, Joan Sutherland to respond to this point, given that she has chaired waste management over the years. Do you mind, Joan, at all, because it has come up?
Mrs Joan Sutherland: No.
Mr Jim Wilson: Can we do that at this point, Mr Chairman? I think it's going to be the only opportunity.
The Chair: Yes, if that's agreeable with our witnesses.
Mr Jim Wilson: Joan, can you come forward?
The Chair: Ms Sutherland, if you would just be good enough to identify yourself for the members of the committee and for Hansard.
Mrs Joan Sutherland: Joan Sutherland. I'm chairman of waste management at the county.
Mr Jim Wilson: The question stands. Can you give us an explanation for this authority that the county is seeking?
Mrs Joan Sutherland: We're seeking that because we've had problems with certificates of approval only allowing garbage from a certain area to go into that site. By asking to have all our sites be able to take waste from anywhere in the county, that way then when one site fills up we would have a place to put it without having to go through the EAs and all that. We aren't trying to make a major landfill site in one area. It's just it has been a real problem. In fact there was a resolution passed at AMO yesterday from another area asking for exactly the same thing, and it passed.
The Chair: Mr Griggs wanted to just make a clarification on that as well, which might assist in the discussion.
Mr Griggs: I just wanted to first of all point out that this was a recommendation of the county study committee. The Ministry of Environment and Energy has endorsed the recommendation. In fact the Minister of Environment and Energy, in a speech in the Legislature on Bill 7, committed to providing a regulation under the Environmental Protection Act to provide this power to all counties that have assumed waste management.
I should make it clear also that the expansion of the service areas does not change the nature of the waste entering the sites or the capacity of the sites. In fact those aspects of the site will still be governed by the certificates of approval.
Mrs Joan Sutherland: I have to agree with what he's saying.
Mr Jim Wilson: I appreciate it. I am aware of other legislation coming forward in this regard to give it to all of the waste management authorities in the province, and I just sort of wonder why it's in this particular bill. Thank you, Joan, for your response.
Back to the transition committee. There's been talk about section 9, which is permissive authority to allow for plurality of votes in committees of council. It's been suggested by a number of witnesses to date that perhaps, given that county council only has one vote per municipality on its committee structure now and did that, I understand, by bylaw not too long ago, we should just delete section 9 and therefore get rid of some of the anxiety that witnesses have been expressing with respect to this. It's the permissive clause, section 9, top of page 8. Was there discussion? I mean, we're told by the ministry that it's simply a carryover from 1988 legislation. Any objection to deleting it?
Ms Janine Kilburn: The transition committee dealt with this issue, not in any policy-formulating sense but rather acknowledging county council's authority to decide in this regard, and was advised of recent action taken by county council regarding the plurality of votes on committee, so just to suggest that the committee did not take a formal position on section 9.
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you.
Mr Wessenger: Thank you for your presentation. I'd just like to raise a matter that was raised, at the hearings this morning, by a member of the committee and also by one of the presenters, and that was that the effective date of the implementation of this bill be deferred beyond January 1, 1994, to the time of a new election. I'm wondering if you have any comment on that proposal.
Mr Stevens: Well, Mr Wessenger, our problem at the transition committee is that we have been operating without any type of date in mind. January 1 has been the date, but with the lack of the first reading being done and then finally the second reading being done, there has been a lot of anxiety among certain transition groups. I would imagine that part of the reason for the deferral might be that they might not be ready or they feel that there could be room for a possible change in this whole scenario.
As a transition committee, we can't rely on that one way or the other. We have to proceed ahead. We've been charged with the responsibility by the county to act as the steering committee in the transition, and we do that. Until somebody tells us that it's not needed any more or they want to change our mandate, then, fine, but we will continue to do what we're doing.
Mr Wessenger: You're working, then, towards the January 1, 1994 --
Mr Stevens: Exactly.
Mr Wessenger: -- and you would not like to see that changed.
Mr Stevens: Whether I would or would not personally really is secondary at this point. We're just doing the job we've been selected to do.
Mr Wessenger: Thank you.
Mr Waters: You would feel that it would be too confusing to add another date at this point in time.
Mr Stevens: I personally think it would because everything is geared towards that now. It's the ongoing time frame after that. We have to sit, for example, as a joint council for a period of 9 to 10 months. I think that should be got out of the way as fast as possible. If there is going to be an expansion of the date further into 1994, then from a personal point of view I would suggest that joint councils not sit then, that you continue on your own and work as committees as you do now.
The Chair: Mr Conway.
Mr Conway: I'll yield to Mr McLean.
Mr McLean: Mr Stevens, how many are on the transition committee and who are they?
Mr Stevens: The 16 transition groups are represented on the transition committee. We have mayors and reeves and designates. Do you want the names of each individual one?
Mr McLean: I was just curious. Is the restructuring committee still in place? How many are on it?
Ms Kilburn: Sir, if I may speak to that, the transition committee was established as a result of one of the recommendations in the study report. I can't recite it verbatim, but it suggested that a steering committee be in place to guide the transition as the county moves towards implementation. So that, in effect, is simply acting on one of the recommendations in the county study report.
Mr McLean: And who appointed those 16 study commission people?
Mr Stevens: The members who sit on the transition committee were appointed by the respective transition groups to sit on the committee, and from among those 16 they elected myself as chairman.
Mr McLean: Are there 16 different groups?
Mr Stevens: Yes, there are.
Mr McLean: We've never seen a list of them or anything. I'm wondering --
1610
The Chair: Can I just ask so we're all clear, when you say the 16, these are the new municipalities and those 16 persons are elected officials?
Mr Stevens: Yes, county council.
The Chair: That wasn't entirely clear.
Mr Stevens: They don't necessarily have to be members of county council.
The Chair: Right.
Mr Stevens: I, for one, am not a member of county council, although I am the deputy reeve of my own township, but they represent the new transition group.
Mr McLean: The other question I have is with regard to funding. There was supposed to be funding come first reading, come second reading.
Mr Stevens: Yes.
Mr McLean: I've been told that it's going to be directed through the administrator at the county and then municipalities have to apply for it. Is that in the transition report or in the bill?
Mr Stevens: No, it isn't. I will answer part of that, if I may, and I'll ask Janine to answer the other part.
Initially, in 1992, when the transition groups first started to meet, we were told that half of the funding -- may I back up a bit? There has been a formula put into place for funding of the transition groups. We were told that half of that funding would come in 1993 and the balance in 1994.
Mr McLean: Who told you that?
Mr Stevens: It came from a member of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. This was in an open meeting of the transition committee.
Mr McLean: Is he here today?
Mr Stevens: No, she is not here today. That, for whatever reason, the delay in the implementation and everything else, has caused this to go on delay. The ministry has indicated to us that it has a great concern in the legality of paying money to a municipality that does not have a legal entity, whether we do or not at this point in time.
The next proposal has been that the money would be transferred through the administrator of the county for disbursement. That's where we are at this point.
Mr McLean: And where is Mare Brown today?
Mr Stevens: I don't know.
The Chair: Mr Wilson, I know you wanted a supplementary on that, and then the parliamentary assistant has a comment on the previous two questions that might help to clarify this.
Mr Jim Wilson: I think the supplementary is appropriate given that Mrs Sutherland, for example, has already been through restructuring. Joan, at the time New Tecumseth was restructured, prior to it becoming a legal entity on January 1, 1991, did not money flow from the province? You were submitting bills prior to actually becoming a legal entity, were you not?
Mrs Joan Sutherland: Yes, I think we were.
Mr Jim Wilson: I think you were too. I guess the parliamentary assistant can clear this up, but one of the reasons given to date is exactly as Ron said, that there aren't legal entities there. Clearview, for instance, is not a legal entity yet, therefore you can't flow funds, but that wasn't a problem, to my recollection, when New Tecumseth was being formed.
Mrs Joan Sutherland: It seems to me that we were sitting as a joint council before the funds started to come in, so the bill had gone through.
Mr Jim Wilson: The bill had gone through.
The Chair: I wonder if Mr Griggs can just clarify that.
Mr Griggs: First of all, regarding the funding in south Simcoe versus the transitional funding that's been set up for the Simcoe restructuring, one of the reasons for this formula that was established for the Simcoe municipalities was on the basis of complaints from some of the south Simcoe municipalities regarding the system that was used for transitional funding in that case. As you mentioned, they submitted invoices for individual expenses and there was some uncertainty as to was it a transitional expense, wasn't it transitional? There was a lot of uncertainty. There wasn't any clearness as to what would be funded and what wouldn't be. So this formula was worked out to provide funding up front and allow the municipalities to decide how it would be spent to deal with the transitional concerns.
Regarding the flowing of funding, as I've mentioned earlier in the hearings, we are preparing an order to provide funding to the county, and then the county would be providing funding to the municipalities because of this question of legal entities not existing yet. In fact, in the case of South Simcoe, they weren't funded until the municipalities were created by the legislation. To my knowledge, this is the first case where there has been funding or there will be funding provided prior to the new units coming into being.
Also, regarding the transition committee and the makeup of the committee, I have the recommendation that county council passed before me, and it said that "there be a county coordinating transition committee consisting of a full-time transition coordinator," who I believe is one of the witnesses before us, "and one elected member from each municipal transition committee."
In essence you have two sets of transition committees, one at the county which acts, as we've heard, as a clearing house for the municipalities to hear how other municipalities are dealing with transitional issues, and then transition committees at the local level made up of elected representatives from those municipalities that are being combined to deal with the local issues. I hope that clears up some of the questions regarding this.
The Chair: Thank you very much for coming before the committee and speaking to us today.
J.G. ADAM
The Chair: I call Mr Jim Adam. Mr Adam, welcome to the committee. Thank you for coming. We have, I believe, a copy of your submission. You are a councillor with the township of Nottawasaga. Please go ahead.
Mr J.G. Adam: I'm presenting this just on behalf of myself as a councillor of Nottawasaga, not on behalf of the township of Nottawasaga. I'd just like to make a couple of comments flowing from this morning. I sat in your hearing at Collingwood this morning. On the road coming down, I got fired up again and I thought about another couple of points, so instead of rewriting my speech, I'd just like to make a couple of comments on the timing and on the advertising of this hearing.
My local paper is the Creemore Star. The public notice of these public hearings was in last Wednesday, the same day that was the final day to get on the agenda. This is supposed to be a public meeting, for the public. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us are all politicians. The public really hasn't been able to get a look in. I was talking to a lady who was in Collingwood this morning. She telephoned a week last Monday to get in and was told that the hearings were already full. I phoned the same day and whoever I spoke to mentioned, "Oh, you're from Nottawasaga, so you'll be going to the Nottawasaga Inn." Presumably they thought the two were together. I didn't bother to change his mind, because at least coming here this afternoon I got a second kick at the cat. You all heard from Clearview, Creemore, Stayner -- no, you didn't hear from Stayner -- Sunnidale and Nottawasaga this morning, very eloquently.
This afternoon I'm not, you'll be pleased to hear, going to deal in specifics and minor points and amendments; I'm going to give you a little lecture on democracy, if you'll indulge me. I will now return to my script.
I would like to start with a couple of quotes from Municipal World of June 1993 and August 1993. Municipal World, as most of you probably know, is a trade magazine for local politicians in Ontario and many other parts of Canada and the world.
First, from Laurier LaPierre, TV broadcast journalist and author, at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Edmonton this summer:
"Canadians have been consulted to death but governments do not do what they have been told to do....He lashed out at amalgamations and the redrawing of municipal maps by provincial bureaucrats. People in one community should not be forced to live with another community. `Bigger is not better, and smaller is not better at all,' he said. `What is better is what people want....Beware of politicians who promise gold at the end of the rainbow.'"
From the June edition of the same magazine, an article by Michael Keating, professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario:
"It is easy to point out that many of the old, small municipalities, in reality, had little power or independence. Yet they did tap a sense of community identity which is an important element in local democracy....The 1990s will therefore see more changes, but the style will be different. Governments learnt in the 1970s that local government reform can be difficult and unpopular. Few would wish to stake their political futures on the issue again. This time around, they are treading carefully, paying more attention to local susceptibilities, and trying to carry communities with them. It will be difficult."
Unfortunately, Simcoe county seems to be stuck in the 1970s and unaware that we are in the 1990s and totally unaware of Professor Keating and political science. From the above quotes, I hope you gather that I am very much in favour of the democratic process of local government. "Democratic." Now there's a word and an idea to play with. It means many things to many people.
1620
You will be told that Simcoe county very democratically chose to restructure the county and that therefore the province is only following the wishes of the democratically elected representatives of the people of Simcoe county.
Look at this more closely. South Simcoe was restructured by the previous government by fiat due to intermunicipal squabbling. They're still at it, although in larger cages. Their democratically elected representatives in the next go-round, this one, took the attitude: "We were made to suffer; so should you." The larger municipalities around the cities of Barrie and Orillia were so scared of being molested by the tiger of proportional representation that against the wishes of the province, they threw them, the cities, out of the restructuring study. However, they used their own large number of proportional votes on county council to dictate to the smaller municipalities such as Creemore, Sunnidale and Nottawasaga the present restructuring scenario.
At a more local level, the town of Stayner, having a debt of approximately $2.1 million, thought it might spread this out a bit more, and the town of Collingwood has delusions of grandeur.
When restructuring of Simcoe county was debated this year, the municipalities were almost evenly split. The larger ones tended to be pro, the smaller against. The municipalities of Simcoe county are communities. The larger ones are diffuse, a collection of communities. The smaller ones have an intense local identity. Is not democracy all about articulating local identities and electing representatives for the larger arena? In most of the larger municipalities, there was little or no public debate about restructuring. In many of the smaller communities, the public was intensely against restructuring. A few communities were split, and so were their votes at county council.
In Nottawasaga in the last election, we held a referendum which asked, and I quote, "Are you in favour of restructuring (boundary) changes for the municipality of the township of Nottawasaga?" Of the approximately 25% of the electorate who voted, and we are approximately 50% non-resident, 90% voted no. Of two people who voted for restructuring, one thinks they will be better served by the Collingwood police department than the Stayner OPP, and the other is looking forward to the sewers and water he is assured by the mayor of Collingwood he will get when he is restructured into the town. No one else I have talked to is as assured by the promises of greater efficiency and less cost in the delivery of services that are the only justification for the restructuring that has been put forward.
Democracy is not necessarily the overwhelming sway of the majority. Minority interests must be considered as well. The fascist regimes of the 1930s were much admired in some quarters for their efficiency: The trains ran on time and the roads were wide and straight.
The sense of community, in Nottawasaga's case from 1851 to 1993, 142 years -- there have been various years quoted; I'm going by the act when the combined township of Osprey-Nottawasaga was formed in 1851 following the Dufferin report -- should not thrown away to the gods of efficiency in the name of democracy.
Respectfully submitted, J.G. Adam, councillor, township of Nottawasaga.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Councillor Adam. We'll begin questioning with Mr Eddy.
Mr Eddy: Thank you for your presentation. One of the problems, of course, that the municipalities of a county are faced with is the spectre of annexation of parts of municipalities by the urban centres as they grow, and of course one of the reasons the restructuring bill is being looked at is to look at that situation and accommodate that. I guess it then negates the need to go through the annexation process.
How do you feel about the proposals where the urban, such as the towns of Collingwood, Midland etc, are getting parts of areas to be added to their municipalities, I expect mostly to provide for the growth? Can you see that being divorced from the complete restructuring proposal?
Mr Adam: I can only speak vis-à-vis Collingwood and the township of Nottawasaga, and as was mentioned this morning, we were in preliminary discussions on annexation, Collingwood and Nottawasaga. We in the north end of Nottawasaga have certain areas which are for all intents and purposes frozen until full municipal services are provided. We were in preliminary negotiations when restructuring came along.
Obviously, I think Collingwood decided they could get a hell of a lot more under restructuring than they could haggling with the farmers of Nottawasaga. We were prepared to give them some land. I think it was 800 acres, compared to 2,400 which they got now, which would have adequately looked after servicing problems on our own lands, which are effectively frozen. Collingwood has large areas which are not developed yet even under its present boundaries, and yet their municipal services are at their limit. To take on more, they're going to be into more sewers, more water etc.
Mr Eddy: So you feel that the council would have been prepared to negotiate a friendly annexation of --
Mr Adam: Certainly. I mean, you negotiate, you haggle, you bid. I don't think -- as far as annexation is concerned, restructuring is taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Mr Eddy: Of course, that can happen with annexation. You never know the results of an annexation decision until it's happened, as we saw in the case of London-Middlesex, which you may be aware of, where the city of London was awarded 64,000 acres and wanted less than a third of that.
Mr Adam: The city of London I wouldn't like to comment on. I don't know that much about it, but I know it's a mess or was a mess. I would say, under annexation, the opposing municipalities put their best foot forward and you hope for a fair arbitration. Nothing wrong with that system. I have nothing against it.
Mr Jim Wilson: Thank you, Councillor Adam, for your very thoughtful presentation. I think the lecture on democracy is needed. I think it's needed at the county level too because we've inherited this. We've had all kinds of conflicting evidence from people as to exactly what happened and how boundaries were drawn and whether or not the public was consulted, whether or not the public was heard. I think some of us who live in the county have a pretty good idea of what happened. But unfortunately the government of the day has decided that it will, so far anyway -- I guess we'll find out tomorrow how flexible the government's going to be, but they will essentially do the county's bidding.
I agree with you with respect to democracy. I don't know how local politicians who went to county council and voted for this all the way through can go back to their ratepayers. It would seem to me that some of those local politicians are opposed to the GST. The argument you'll get in federal circles from politicians who were in favour of imposing that, for example, as a contentious issue, was, "It's the right thing to do, and damned whether you understand it, public, we're going to go ahead and do it."
I thought that Canadians learned a lesson. There's a rule in politics that if you want to do something like the GST or change the constitution, you'd be best to create the void first and then come along later and fill it. I guess one of my frustrations, and I see it coming through the pages in your presentation, is that as far as I know, politicians who were in favour of restructuring -- and I mentioned this to two previous wardens and briefly to Warden Hastings at one time, that it would seem to me the process would have been better if they had gone out to the Rotary Clubs and the Lions Clubs and community halls prior to putting this in stone and sending it to Queen's Park, and told people exactly why they believe restructuring should go forward.
You mentioned in your third-last paragraph that the only justification for restructuring that's been put forward is greater efficiency and less cost for delivery of services. I suspect -- and I have searched the historic record; I have searched where regional governments have been imposed, some by Conservative governments in the past, some, as in the case of south Simcoe, with the Liberals -- that we can't find those efficiencies and we cannot find those cost savings.
The evidence that we've seen to date, albeit in only three days of hearings, which is all the government would allow us, has been time and time again municipalities coming forward and saying: "Well, I don't know where you get this idea that it's going to be less costly. It's going to cost us more." A prime example was the representatives from Clearview: Ted Hannan, the administrator there now, racking up in a very short period of time thousands and thousands of dollars of additional costs.
1630
We've had the same story from many other municipalities. Because they are relatively small municipalities, I don't think these are just short-term costs either. I think they are long-term costs. I mean, when you see municipalities now, some dealing with debentures that from a Queen's Park standpoint aren't that great, like Stayner with $1 million or something, that's a lot of money to the people of Stayner. And now to be incurring more debt as a result of restructuring, or having to increase the taxes so that Clearview doesn't go into debt, is beyond me.
I think that also you may want to comment on something you haven't said. But a number of the principles, it seems to me, as I read through the green book -- take an example like Tos and Adjala. You take your six principles for a viable municipality, and it seems to me that they're worded in such a way that when you see the justification section for that amalgamation, the principles are so loosey-goosey you can basically -- and I used to be a speechwriter for cabinet ministers. I could probably come up from the top of my head with the justifications to match the principles. It just so happens my family has lived 150 years in Adjala and I know a lot different than what's on those pages in front of me.
I just wonder if you have any comments on that, because you mentioned the only justification seems to be cost savings. We've seen no evidence of that. We've seen very little, I should say. There have been a couple of municipalities that have said to us, not in a strong way but in a very weak way, "Well, we can see down the road a few years there might be some savings, but we've got to get over this hump first." I think most of the evidence has been weighted that there are tremendous costs now. We don't see the efficiencies, and we've had the school board example thrown at us along with regional government examples.
Secondly, some of their own criteria and principles, I think, have been violated, which makes it very difficult now when the government has decided to blindly follow what has been handed to us by the county.
Mr Adam: I'll make two comments to that. On the one hand, the new municipality of Clearview is not the sum of its four component municipalities because we have been stripped, I think in Nottawasaga's case by approximately -- we don't know. Nottawasaga hasn't got a computer, so we're not quite up to steam, but we think we've been stripped of about 20% either of our assessment or our households. So we're not as viable. The sum is not as viable as the individuals.
I appeared on behalf of the township or sat in alongside the presenter at a couple of meetings with the county when we were asked for our views. At least you are a lot more receptive. We sat and we made our brief. They hardly made a pretence of listening. They sat and listened to our brief: "Thank you very much. Bye bye." Then when any proposals came out, there wasn't even a glimmer that they'd listened to us or taken anything in.
As an ordinary councillor, it's been very frustrating. You've heard a lot about boundary alterations and adjustments and everything. As a councillor, I had absolutely no input whatsoever into boundary adjustments. We finally got the boundary, hopefully, straightened out in north Nottawasaga. We had a joint meeting with Collingwood. We wined them and dined them in one of their hotels and we got them to agree and we picked the tab up before they knew what the hell they'd agreed to. At least we have a reasonable, from a planning point of view, boundary up there. The restructuring committee had this thing zigzagging all over the damn road. It was a very frustrating experience.
The Chair: The parliamentary assistant just wanted to clarify a couple of matters.
Mr Hayes: I know it's been said several times that there wasn't much consultation or many meetings, but my information has it that the committee held three rounds of public consultation meetings, not just three meetings, but three consultation rounds, across the county. This is what we're being told. They released several discussion papers including the draft of their final report and provided numerous opportunities for the submission of written comments. I understand they had open houses and they spoke to several people and spoke to people one on one. The problem I have, sitting here as a politician, is that when you hear one side say it didn't consult and the other side is saying yes, it did --
Interjection.
Mr Hayes: Well, I think we've consulted quite well, Mr McLean. As a matter of fact, people are talking about the timing of this. We rushed very much to get this through the last day of the Legislature so we could come here to listen to the people, and that's what this government is doing.
Mr Adam: It's better than nothing. Thank you.
Mr Hayes: Yes, it's better than what was before then. But I think that provincial politicians who come to communities and start saying that county politicians are not listening to the people -- I don't think that's fair for them. You may do it because you're in the centre of it but I don't think that's fair. They have their job to do and I respect, and I think most of the members do, the jobs, because I spent time in county council also and I know what it's like.
I preferred, when I was sitting on the township council, that we could do some planning on our own and not have the provincial government come down and ram things down our throat. As a matter of fact, that's what we're doing here: the wishes of the majority of the elected people in the community. I think that's exactly what we're trying to do here. They were duly elected and we have to respect that.
The Chair: Mr Adam, I want to thank you very much for coming to the committee today and for bringing your submission.
Mr Adam: Thank you for listening.
FRANK T.L. HUGHES
The Chair: If I could then call Mr Frank Hughes, if he would come forward. Members of the committee, I think you have all received a copy of Mr Hughes's submission. Welcome to the committee, Mr Hughes. Once you're settled, please go ahead.
Mr Frank T.L. Hughes: Mr Chairman, members of the committee, my submission is probably quite different from the usual submission you get.
As a member of a beach association I had not done anything for the association and they said at a meeting, "Can we have a volunteer to find out about restructuring?" Stupidly, I put up my hand and I found myself with quite a Joe job. I am not representing any beach association. I am apolitical.
I found myself looking in newspapers and all I found in a Midland-area newspaper was a bitter debate between two factions in the county. So taking my volunteering seriously, I went to Tiny township office and looked up the committee meeting minutes, I went to Simcoe and did the same thing and I went to Midland and I did the same thing. I went to get submissions from other places like Barrie and so on and tried to put something together. I attended Tiny council meetings and --
The Chair: Would you mind just speaking a little bit closer to the microphone.
Mr Hughes: I attended Simcoe county meetings. I told Mr Hastings at the very beginning that I would not say anything I wouldn't already say to him and also to the council. So what you have here before you is a copy of my seven deputations that I made to Tiny council, and each word in each deputation has been read to Tiny council. I also told Mr Hastings, and he'll probably remember, that I disagreed with his approach to restructuring from the very beginning but that I probably would agree with a number of other things and that my focus was on restructuring.
So if you'll turn to I guess the fourth page, you'll see that I've referred to pages in the deputations just as a notation if you want to refer to them. The first one is D73. This is the last deputation that I made on restructuring. I say the issue is a more fundamental one than that of restructuring and boundary changes for Tiny. It strikes at the very heart of our democratic system of government.
The Chair: I'm sorry. Where are you reading from?
1640
Mr Hughes: I'm reading from page D73, which is on the very last page in the top right-hand corner.
I mention here that despite the fact that 92% of Tiny's voters opposed the boundary changes for Tiny, this Tiny council has always been in favour of restructuring. Despite what has been said, if you turn to page D70, I refer in the middle to a previous deputation that I had made. I'll read out what I had said at the previous deputation.
I said, "Despite Ross Hastings's statements to the contrary, he has never been opposed to restructuring or boundary changes to Tiny. Despite this Tiny council's publicity against restructuring, they have never wavered in their determination to give Tiny's land at Highway 93 shopping mall strip to Midland."
The shopping mall strip, as you know, has 85% of our commercial and industrial tax assessment. It's our tax assessment base of about $360,000 or $400,000 per annum. We have no way of making that up at all, and that goes to Midland.
"At the meetings with Simcoe county and the province, this Tiny council has always discussed its February 21, 1992, giveaway Tiny's land at Highway 93 shopping mall strip position or a variation of it.
"At meetings with the press and the public, this Tiny council has always discussed `oppose restructuring.'" That I said to Tiny council.
At the completion of my deputation, there were no comments or questions from this Tiny council and it did not challenge or dispute any of my statements.
After the deputation scheduled for the meeting was finished, the council permitted an unscheduled deputation by a Tiny resident who praised this Tiny council to high heaven and who said that he had read in a newspaper that restructuring was a foregone conclusion and that this Tiny council got the best deal it could.
I refer you to page D72 at the top. I asked Ross Hastings if a couple of Simcoe councillors at the meeting in July 1991 -- that was for the voting on the final report -- had voted the other way and Tiny had won the vote to stay as is. Was he telling us that, despite the vote, there would still be boundary changes for Tiny? Ross Hastings said there would be boundary changes.
Gail Barrie, a councillor, said that as far back as 1985, when she was in Midland, Ministry of Municipal Affairs officials had told them that there was going to be restructuring and that they had better be prepared for it. She repeated that restructuring was a foregone conclusion.
Peter Stubbins gets very exasperated with me because I keep asking him the same questions. On the top of D73 I said, "Peter Stubbins is exasperated and seems bewildered by the thought that anyone would keep asking him why this Tiny council would put only one position -- in favour of boundary changes for Tiny -- to the county and to the province and at the same time spend $10,000 of Tiny taxpayers' money to tell Tiny's residents that they oppose restructuring."
I'd like to go on to a little history and I'm sorry to bore you with details, but I think from my point of view and I hope perhaps from yours it may be important. If you turn to the next page, the first page is marked "History," in the front of the book.
The Chair: What page are you -- oh, the one that starts with "History."
Mr Hughes: It's about the fifth page, and I have the references here but I'm not going to refer to them, of course; it takes too long. But they're there if you want to check them.
On August 25, 1990 -- that's one year before the final vote at Simcoe -- the former Tiny council voted to oppose restructuring 5 to 0.
On June 20, 1991, one month before the final vote, Peter Stubbins -- he was a councillor then; he's now deputy reeve -- moved and Ross Hastings seconded a motion to rescind the August 25, 1990, resolution opposing restructuring. That was defeated 3 to 2.
On the same day at the same meeting, Ross Hastings moved and Peter Stubbins seconded a motion to offer the east side of Highway 93 to Midland. That was defeated 3 to 2 and that was one month before the vote at Simcoe county on the final --
The Chair: Mr Hughes, could I ask you, just because I'm concerned that there's time for questions and I just didn't know, was it your intent to read all of the next four pages?
Mr Hughes: I'll just skim through the next four pages.
The Chair: Okay. It's just that I guess we're balancing off possible questions. That's up to you, but I just --
Mr Hughes: All right, we'll skip down to July 23. At Simcoe county council's final meeting, the former reeve told the Simcoe councillors that Tiny was opposed to boundary changes for Tiny.
Ross Hastings said that he was in favour of boundary changes at Highway 93, and a little later in the discussion Ross Hastings stood up again and said that the former reeve did not speak for all of Tiny. Ross Hastings did vote no, but it can be asked if the damage was done by his statements before the vote, and Tiny lost by a very small margin.
At that same meeting, Ross Hastings voted for 108 out of 126 motions in favour of restructuring, and he voted for 11 out of 17 motions in favour of boundary changes. But on August 30, 1991, on the front page of a local newspaper it was written, "Hastings Comes Out Strongly Against Restructuring. `I do not want to see the restructuring of Tiny implemented,'" he said. He said he cannot support the proposed boundary line changes for Tiny which would remove the Highway 93 mall strip, which is a contradiction of what he said at council.
In the referendum, of course, you know it was 5,090 to 420 opposing restructuring.
Now, on February 21, 1992, without any public input or without any public debate, this Tiny council went to the Simcoe committee and volunteered to give away all of the Highway 93 strip. I wonder that the newspaper reporter who did a flip-flop after Ross Hastings's vote at the Simcoe county council meeting didn't call attention to this. He glossed over it by saying that they weren't obliged to follow the referendum.
The council also formed a committee to sell its position to give away the Highway 93 strip. Then, in June, a resident said essentially that the summer residents were coming back and when they found out what the Tiny council had done, they'd be very angry at it and it would be better to have them angry at restructuring than at the Tiny council. So that same night, they kept their same official position to give away Highway 93. They abandoned their committee to try to promote it, they adopted another resolution opposing restructuring and they formed a committee to oppose restructuring. So now they had two positions, two contradictory positions.
At the meetings with the county and at the meetings with the province, this Tiny council has always discussed giving away Highway 93 in one variation or another. At the meetings with the press and at the meetings with the public, they have always said, "We oppose restructuring," and restructuring, of course, for Tiny is boundary changes.
1650
At the end of the August 26 Tiny council meeting, Councillor Barrie praised Deputy Reeve Stubbins for all the extra work he was doing trying to get the Simcoe county councillors on board for their giveaway position. This was at the same time as they were going out raising $10,000 to fight restructuring.
At the first public meeting on July 25, 1992, on restructuring, I asked Ross Hastings some questions, and in answer to some of those questions, he said that he had always been in favour of giving Highway 93 east side to Midland.
On the August 12, 1992, Tiny council meeting, I asked Ross Hastings, "Which of the two of Tiny council's official positions do you now take? The February 21, 1992, position which gives all of the Highway 93 strip to Midland or the June 10, 1992, position which is against any changes whatsoever taking place in the final report?" Ross Hastings did not answer.
Councillor Gail Barrie was asked what her position was on restructuring. She said she had five or six positions. Then on August 21, for no reason at all I could make out, the same newspaper reporter wrote, "Deputy Reeve Ross Hastings voted for many of the resolutions but against all that dealt with changing municipal borders in Simcoe county."
The record is clear. He voted on 11 out of 17 to change borders. So something was wrong there, and I thought I'd put it to the council. As the council meeting was starting, Ross Hastings told me he would not answer my questions and the reporter told me he was tired when he wrote it and he made a mistake. However, there were quite detailed statistics in that article.
On April 27, when Orillia and Tay made their motion which would have squashed restructuring if it had passed, the strongest and most-often-heard voice speaking in favour of restructuring at Simcoe county council meeting was that of Ross Hastings.
I did put in my deputation, I believe, and I said it if I didn't put it, because I remember saying it, that Ross Hastings didn't act as an impartial chairman when somebody at that meeting stood up and was speaking against restructuring. Ross Hastings didn't call on the next speaker who had his hand up; Ross Hastings said something in favour of restructuring, and I have said that to his face.
At the next meeting of Tiny council -- this was a very important meeting at Simcoe county -- at the next meeting the next day at Tiny council, there was not one word said about restructuring.
I've left to the last, and you can refer to it, the deputation page numbers are there, the resolution was passed at Tiny council on June 10. This is after their February 21 position and after they had gone to the county and the province giving away Tiny's lands. The resolution read:
"Whereas all efforts at ensuring the integrity of the township of Tiny's municipal boundaries and financial welfare have been frustrated by the county of Simcoe under the guidance of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs...."
This is what they sent out to about 800 municipalities asking for their support in the fight against restructuring. So what has happened in Tiny township is that the people have been confused; they haven't been represented. They have been told the township is against restructuring, the county is against restructuring. Then the township council turns around and every time they have spoken, every single time they have spoken to the province or to the county, they have been speaking about giving away Highway 93, which of course, if it is given away, makes it smaller and makes it very poor and there is no way that we can recoup that lost revenue in taxes.
I'm finished and I want to thank you for listening to that detail. I have a feeling I might have bored you, but --
The Chair: We have several questions, so we'll work those in. Mr Wilson.
Mr Jim Wilson: Mr Hughes, you've obviously done a great deal of work on this presentation, but I just want to say to you that there are probably many politicians in this room who don't agree with my stance on restructuring. I think to be fair to Mr Hastings, he's already explained to this committee, and I think you were in the room, that he did change his mind on restructuring during the process. I respect the fact; I think he's been quite honest about that, in his defence. The question I have for you, are politicians not allowed to change their minds?
Mr Hughes: Politicians are allowed to change their minds the same as any other human being. However, what I think a politician should do -- we all realize that everybody has an agenda and they want to get it through and that they are going to use a little political legerdemain now and again to get one thing in front of the other.
But where I differ with Mr Hastings is that he says that he was against and he voted no for the giving away of Highway 93, which he did, he voted no. Then he said he changed his mind about giving it away when they found this compensation package. However, if you go back and look at June 1991, which is one month before the Simcoe county meeting, he put a motion in front of Tiny council to give away part of the Highway 93 strip.
To me, when he says at another time, in the summer after at a public meeting, that he has always believed it should be given away, then he may believe he has changed his mind, but when he stood up and voted no, he also stood up at that very same time and said, "I'm in favour of giving away the east side of Highway 93 strip." Then when they voted, of course, it was yea, yea, no, no, no. His influence, if any, of course, would have to be there.
Now, on the compensation package -- I didn't bother to mention it here because of time -- but in one of those 108 motions that he voted in favour of after, I think, he knew that Tiny was going to lose its Highway 93 strip because that motion had been voted on; he voted to accept three years' compensation paid over five years. I can't understand when he voted for that, knowing what the situation was, knowing that we were losing it because the vote was there, for suddenly compensation to become the biggest factor that he's talking about.
Yes, he can change his mind, but how much of the change of mind can the poor public in Tiny township understand? It's left Tiny township confused. If you walk around and you ask anybody in Tiny, "What about restructuring?" they say, "Oh, yeah, I'll have to get the draft report to see what they're doing about it." That happened to me not long ago. They just don't know what's going on.
You gentlemen can make up your minds. It's here. I have said it over the period of more than one year. The usual reaction that I get is dead silence, absolute dead silence, it's not reported in the mainline newspaper so nobody knows about it, except a little family newspaper that sometimes prints anything, or at the front of the table. There's Reeve Hastings, Deputy Reeve Stubbins and Gail Barrie, and it turns into quite a long debate with them on one side and me on the other and they are defending giving away the Highway 93 strip, which they were doing all the time.
Mr Waters: My question would be -- let's say we don't go ahead with restructuring of the county of Simcoe, so therefore you now have the east side of Highway 93 in Tiny township -- how are you going to supply the sewage plant and who's going to pay for it and where's the outfall going to be?
Mr Hughes: Well --
Mr Waters: Because if that doesn't go to Midland you're going to have to put a sewage plant in and you're going to have to find an outfall for it. So that's a key question to me with that particular piece of land. Whether you restructure or not, that land is going to have to be serviced with sewers.
1700
Mr Hughes: Depending. It doesn't matter where the border is, the boundary is, because the land is not going to move. Not being an engineer, not being an environmentalist except trying to recycle and so on, I have come to know that a lot of things can be done cooperatively. Every hospital used to have its own laundry. Now they have cooperatives that do many laundries.
Somebody asked me this question and I didn't know how to answer it. I said it on the spur of the moment and I'm going to repeat it now. About 25 years ago humanity had a whole lot of people working, a whole lot of technicians and so on, and they put a man on the moon. I'm an optimist enough to think that in 25 years we have probably made enough progress so that reasonable people in Midland and reasonable people in Tiny could make a cooperative effort and come together, technically and politically and economically, to carry out a sewage program for that whole area without it having to go from one place to another.
Mr Waters: Where's the incentive then for Midland to do this? Because the reason the malls were put there -- let's be somewhat crass about it. The malls went there because they didn't want to pay the high taxes that were on the other side of the road, and those high taxes were there because of sewer and water and service.
Mr Hughes: Exactly.
Mr Waters: What I'm saying is that, even if you didn't have Simcoe county restructuring, the service has to go to the other side of that road. So there is absolutely no benefit for Tiny. Tiny's going to lose anything that it makes in taxes there because it would have to pay Midland. There is no possible outfall for a sewage plant on that side of the road. The topography doesn't -- there's no river, there's no water. It's all on the other side of the road. Therefore, they have to buy service from Midland, so you've lost it anyway.
Mr Hughes: Well, there's Little Lake which is already polluted.
Mr Waters: But you can't use that as an outfall.
Mr Hughes: No.
Mr Waters: Because it has no outlet to speak of.
Mr Hughes: My suggestion in here doesn't have anything to do with the rest of Simcoe county. All I'm suggesting is that the restructuring or the boundary changes be delayed until a referendum, till the next election for Tiny and the two adjacent neighbours, Midland and Penetang. Have a referendum in all those areas. Now, being a believer in democracy, we may find that they'll vote to become one municipality. Who knows? Of course that would promote the concept of restructuring. They may vote to stay the same as they are, but --
The Chair: I'm sorry. I'm going to have to move on to our last question. Mr Eddy.
Mr Eddy: It's just a quick one. Thank you for your presentation. You're aware of the annexation procedure in the province of Ontario, somewhat I expect. Villages grow into towns and towns into cities and cities into metropolises or megalopolises or whatever they're called, very large, but they do that by absorbing and annexing lands around them.
In this case that's what's happening. Tiny township is not really being restructured in a sense, is it? Other than it is losing -- which is very important -- lands to two towns. Now, either of those towns or both of those towns at any time could apply to annex this amount or far more. Maybe they would decide to go right across the peninsula. Do you see a danger in not facing up to the fact that some of Tiny township is urbanized on the fringe?
I know we don't like it. Annexation is something that no municipality likes to lose to another, but it has been a fact of life in the province of Ontario, where you have urbans growing. My fear, if I lived there, would be that if it's not faced at some time, and preferably now, it may be worse in the future. I don't know whether that's right or not, of course. I can't foretell the future.
Mr Hughes: No, nobody can, but I guess you all know that Midland was asking for about double what it got.
Mr Eddy: Oh, no, I wasn't --
Mr Hughes: Yes, Midland was asking for double.
Mr Eddy: So this is a --
Mr Hughes: Midland was asking for double and what it gets now doubles Midland's size. Now, I'm not sure that bigger is better, and we can have all sorts of arguments about conglomerates and all that sort of thing, which is neither here nor there. But when you look at the principle of annexing just for the sake of, because something's developed that's close -- I live near Steeles. If I go across the street to phone Brampton, it's long distance; if I phone from home it's not. So that argument, if, in principle, it really is the one that should be applied, then Metropolitan Toronto should really be taking over Markham.
Mr Eddy: Well, they did form the GTA, which is a much larger area.
Mr Hughes: That's right, if that principle is a universal principle. Just because somebody builds next to a neighbour and builds the same thing, it doesn't necessarily mean that that neighbour can take it.
Mr Conway: Mr Eddy's point, I think, Mr Hughes, has to be underscored that it has been the experience of countless communities across Ontario that you did have what is essentially an urban fringe in a rural municipality, and there has been a mechanism of one kind or another -- we saw it in the city of London not too long ago.
Mr Eddy: Sixty-four thousand acres.
Mr Conway: An arbitrator was appointed and the city of London actually got about twice what they were asking.
Mr Hughes: Which was promised never to happen again, as I understand it.
Mr Conway: No, but all I'm --
The Chair: I'm going to intervene. We still have three witnesses. The parliamentary assistant has a brief point.
Mr Hayes: I just wanted to get a clarification from you, Mr Hughes. You just made a comment about Midland actually receiving less than what they asked for. In other words, it was less than what the county called for and you were able to come to an agreement, the two of you worked an agreement out? How did that happen?
Mr Hughes: No. Each municipality was asked for a proposal. Midland's proposal asked for a big chunk of Tiny. What happened was the committee then cut that proposal into half, approximately, and that --
Mr Hayes: At the request of Tiny or the agreement between Tiny and Midland? No? Okay, just --
Mr Hughes: No, I think Midland still wants it.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Hughes, for coming before the committee and for your presentation.
ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
The Chair: I would now call Mr John Miller, the director of the Ontario Provincial Police Association. If I could just, again, remind committee members following Mr Miller we have two further presentations.
Mr Conway: Who are they?
The Chair: Mr John Niddery, who's a councillor from Matchedash, and representatives from the township of New Tecumseth.
Mr Miller, welcome to the committee and, just to be clear, you're with the provincial police association, not representing the OPP itself.
Mr John Miller: No. That's right, sir, yes.
The Chair: Fine. I just wanted to be clear on that.
Mr Conway: You're the John Miller who's been quoted from time to time?
Mr Miller: Unfortunately, yes.
Interjections.
Mr Miller: Actually, this committee's not bad considering some I have been in front of because of things like that, but anyway --
The Chair: Welcome to the committee. Please go ahead.
Mr Miller: Thank you, Mr Chairman, committee members. My name is John Miller. I'm a director with the Ontario Provincial Police Association. I understand you have our submissions in front of you. I'll go through it.
We have a couple of minor concerns and I'll go through them. The proposed County of Simcoe Act, 1993, will become effective January 1, 1994, and as a result of this act the boundaries of the towns of Collingwood, Midland and Penetanguishene will expand. These towns currently maintain their own police services but the implementation of the act will require them to significantly expand services for their new areas. These areas are currently policed by the following Ontario Provincial Police detachments: Collingwood is policed by Stayner detachment, Midland by Midland detachment, and also Penetanguishene by Midland detachment.
The proposed act is silent on the logistics of transferring the responsibilities and the expansion of the services to police the newly acquired areas.
1710
The Police Services Act, specifically section 40, addresses the issue of employment for municipal police officers whose service is absorbed by the Ontario Provincial Police. Unfortunately, the act does not address the opposite of these circumstances that occurs when an area that is currently being policed by the OPP is taken over by a municipal police service.
The Ministry of the Solicitor General is developing policy which, when formalized, will regulate the transition of municipal police officers into the Ontario Provincial Police. The general policy now is that the Ontario Provincial Police will hire all serving municipal officers when an absorption takes place. These officers are initially hired at the constable rank; however, appointments at higher ranks are possible when warranted and after evaluation. These officers receive the salary and benefits provided in the current contract of the Ontario Provincial police. The pensions of these officers are also reviewed and agreements are worked out to merge the pension benefits and previous contributions with the current Ontario Provincial Police pension plan. The Public Service Act provides that all new employees are subject to a probationary period of one year; however, this may be reduced at the discretion of the commissioner.
The act is scheduled to come into effect on January 1, 1994. There are no provisions in the act to transfer the policing responsibilities of the presently policed Ontario Provincial Police areas to the statutorily identified police services that will begin to police these areas.
Our recommendations are:
(1) The police services of Collingwood, Midland and Penetanguishene offer any positions which result from the implementation of the county of Simcoe Act in the following manner:
(a) Members of the Ontario Provincial Police stationed in detachments which lose responsibilities to the aforementioned services be given the first opportunity for employment to the positions which are created.
(b) The policy of the Ontario Provincial Police with respect to municipal amalgamations and the intake of officers be applied to these new positions.
(2) Clauses be designed and placed into the County of Simcoe Act to identify the responsibilities which will be transferred with the implementation of the act and the effective date on which they are to be instituted.
The Chair: Thank you very much. With questions, Mr Wessenger.
Mr Wessenger: Thank you for your presentation. I can certainly understand your wish for reciprocity. I'm wondering if you could perhaps enlighten the committee with respect to the south Simcoe situation. I know in south Simcoe, in the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury, initially the old West Gwillimbury area was policed by the OPP and the town of Bradford was policed by its own municipal force. The decision was made to have the municipal force extend to the whole area. I don't know whether it's occurred yet, but when that does occur, have arrangements been made to ensure that the OPP officers who serve that area will have the opportunity to serve in the municipal police force?
Mr Miller: The only thing I'm aware of is that there was a verbal agreement between the chief of police and our branch that looks after municipal takeovers that, if there were any positions available, they would first go to the officers stationed in the Bradford detachment. To the best of my knowledge, they didn't take on any additional officers to police this expanded area. I believe that had something to do with their costing, but I'm not sure.
Mr Wessenger: Right, so there was an informal arrangement.
Mr Miller: An informal arrangement, yes.
Mr Wessenger: Because, in discussing with some of the local OPP people down there, they indicated before it occurred that they felt that opportunity to be available.
Mr Conway: Following on Mr Wessenger's point, maybe just a comment to the parliamentary assistant: It seems like quite a reasonable position. I'm wondering, has the department given any thought to some kind of arrangement, informal or otherwise, to accommodate the point Mr Miller has made here?
Mr Hayes: Yes, we are, Sean. I would like, just so the record is straight, to have Mr Griggs address that issue, because there are steps that are being taken.
Mr Griggs: I'm sorry; as I was consulting with my colleagues on another matter, I wonder if you could repeat the question.
Mr Conway: I have two questions, one for Mr Miller, but one really for the department. It seems to me like a reasonable request. It doesn't need to be commented on now, but has there been any thought given to some kind of arrangement to accommodate the request for reciprocity?
Mr Griggs: We have had discussions with the Solicitor General throughout the drafting of the legislation implementing county council's recommendations. In fact, there was some discussion as to the continuation of OPP policing in these areas at full cost recovery, which is at the Solicitor General's request. In other words, the town would contract OPP policing in that area. That was the arrangement that was discussed and that's the current situation for south Simcoe. In terms of the towns assuming police responsibility for those areas added to the towns, it was indicated to us by the Solicitor General that the Police Services Act requires that those municipalities police those areas, so in fact if the towns are going to have the benefit of that assessment, they have to provide the services.
Mr Conway: I think that's understandable. I think what Mr Miller is making as a point is that they have the responsibility, that's agreed to; it's just a question of the person power.
Mr Griggs: In terms of displaced OPP officers?
Mr Conway: Yes.
Mr Griggs: That issue has been raised by the Solicitor General and there are some ongoing discussions. It's our feeling that there are provisions in the act for the protection of employees, and I can refer you to the specific section if I just have a second.
Mr Conway: If you want to take that for a moment -- a quick second question. It has to do with the Oak Ridge facility. Yesterday the mayor of Penetang, I think, raised with the committee a concern that if they were to as a -- I think it was the mayor of Penetang, Mayor Klug. He said that their concern was that if that facility, which is now really the responsibility of the OPP, were to fall within the jurisdiction of a small municipal force like, I guess, Penetang, or Midland for that matter, that it could cause some concern, theoretically. Is there any thought on your part about that or is that just so unlikely or theoretical as not to be an issue?
Mr Miller: I guess I have the benefit because I was also stationed at Midland detachment and had to answer calls to that facility. I believe at one time -- and we may still have, I think -- we had three officers committed to answer calls for service from that facility, and if something else comes up of an emergent nature then other officers will be required. I guess this is one of our concerns: As of January 1, if Penetanguishene doesn't have the manpower to provide services to that area and calls for services are received, who responds?
Mr Conway: My thought on that would be that that is a very unique provincial facility. It seems to me that my advice to a minister would be, or to any government, that the policing responsibility for Oak Ridge should attach to the Ontario Provincial Police and should not be delegated. I take it you wouldn't object to that.
Mr Miller: No. We wouldn't object to that.
Mr Owens: Just a quick point of clarification.
The Chair: Just a supplementary.
Mr Owens: Just in terms of your experience with the facility -- I think it was the mayor of Penetang who talked about, if in fact there was an incident, it would tie up his 10-member force -- have there been a number of incidents where that type of response has been required? What has been your experience with that particular facility?
Mr Miller: Yes, I've been involved in incidents where we required help from neighbouring detachments; Midland didn't have enough officers to respond. Most of them proved to be unfounded, but you still have to respond to the initial incident as if it were real.
Mr Owens: So would you agree that the mayor's recommendation to this committee is a reasonable one, that the OPP retain control over that particular facility?
Mr Miller: I don't know who's going to retain control, but he does have some reasonable --
Mr Owens: Or the policing function around the facility.
Mr Miller: There are some concerns with it, that they're valid.
Mr Owens: Sure.
The Chair: A clarification, Mr Griggs.
Mr Griggs: I should point out again that the Solicitor General has indicated that the Police Services Act is very clear that a town/municipality, unless there is a regulation passed to make other provisions, has to provide policing to the area of that municipality. In the case of Penetanguishene, I just want to make it clear that it would be an exception that would be made for this.
Mr Conway: I understand that, but from what I know, I think that's probably a place where I would want an exception made.
Mr McLean: Thank you, Mr Miller. Has there been any studies done that you're aware of with regard to the amalgamation of the Midland and Penetang police forces, the costing of that? Has there been a costing done by the OPP of what it would cost them if they took over the policing of both of those municipalities?
Mr Miller: I understand there was a request put in, but we have seen nothing of a request for a costing from Penetang and/or Midland come in. I understand there was, but where it's ended up, I have no idea.
Mr McLean: So you're not aware of it. Thank you.
The Chair: Mr Wilson and then the parliamentary assistant for a final one.
Mr Jim Wilson: I think with the Oak Ridge situation, the mayor pointed out and it became quite clear that one of the problems with this legislation versus Bill 177, which restructured the south end, the south end legislation contained unconditional grants to the municipality for a period of five years to at least cover, on a sliding scale, partial costs of the policing. This, as you point out in your submission, is silent on policing. I think the problem Penetanguishene has is that it either has to expand its municipal force with no compensation from the province, so the taxpayers there have to pick up the tab -- it's part of the downloading scenario and part of the cost of restructuring that isn't talked about enough, I don't think -- or he did mention: "Well, we're not sure. Maybe we'll contract with the OPP." But then again, they don't get compensation. Have you had discussions with the province with respect to compensation packages? It seems to me that to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the province gets off the hook on policing with this particular bill.
1720
Mr Miller: We haven't, because I'm an association rep. I know force management has had discussions concerning costings or the payback situation, but I'm not aware of it.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Miller, for coming before the committee today.
Mr Hayes: Excuse me.
The Chair: Oh, sorry. I promised you, didn't I. I apologize.
Mr Hayes: That's okay.
Thank you, Mr Miller. How many OPP officers do you have now who cover Midland, Penetang and Collingwood?
Mr Waters: What time of the year?
Mr Hayes: You could give me both.
Mr Miller: I'm not sure. I believe Midland has a complement of around 50. That's civilian support staff included. In the Stayner detachment, I believe there's somewhere in the neighbourhood of 25 or 30. Mind you, we have problems with those detachments. As it is now, the association's opinion is that we're short-staffed. My present posting is Wasaga Beach, and we don't have nearly enough personnel to handle that area.
Mr Hayes: How many officers would be affected by this restructuring? Would you have that figure or an estimate of that?
Mr Miller: I would say probably 100; approximately 100 officers would be affected by the amalgamation. Now, how many positions we would lose, I have no idea because, like I say, those detachments are running short-staffed now. With the amalgamation, it may work out that some of the detachments now, with a reduced workload, could handle the workload with the manpower they have.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We won't make any comments about the fact that one of our committee members is within your jurisdiction. We're sure that he's a law-abiding citizen.
Mr Miller: As far as I'm aware.
TOWNSHIP OF MATCHEDASH
The Chair: Our next witness is Mr John Niddery. Is he here? It looks like perhaps we have two John Nidderys. Would the real John Niddery please introduce himself and his colleague. Welcome to the committee.
Mr John Niddery: I'm John Niddery, councillor with the township of Matchedash. I'm very pleased to introduce my colleague, Deputy Reeve Phil Sled, who will start the presentation.
The Chair: Welcome to the committee.
Mr Phil Sled: On behalf of the council of the municipality of Matchedash, I would like to thank this committee, with special thanks to our member of Parliament, Mr Dan Waters, who has helped us through this process so far, listening to our present concerns that have surfaced as we work through the restructuring process.
A brief history: Our council is generally satisfied with the new proposed township of Severn, and we initiated joint council meetings between the councils of Coldwater, Orillia and Matchedash back in the fall of 1992 to work towards this goal. At this time, monthly joint council meetings were running smoothly until we learned that one of our new equal-partners-to-be had in place eight unusual employee contracts that were put in place back in 1991. Our question today to this committee is, how can our municipality or any other new municipalities being created by the restructuring process be held financially and morally responsible for another municipality's employee contract or contracts? That's the number one issue.
Another major concern of our municipality is the question of funding for projects such as, in our instance, what we feel should be a new centralized administration centre. It is our feeling, and this is strictly the municipality of Matchedash's feeling, that Orillia township's administration centre will eventually become part of the city of Orillia. Furthermore, it needs to be more centrally located to the new municipality of Severn. Our question is, when and where will funding become available for these newly created costs that restructuring has put on our municipality?
Matchedash did present a more detailed submission there. At this time I'll pass on to my colleague, the real John Niddery.
Mr Niddery: One of the wonderful goals of the Simcoe county study was described in criterion 3 that you have heard described earlier in testimony this afternoon. Criterion 3 is that one of the laudable goals was to attempt for watershed management to include, when possible, watersheds in one new municipality.
We're very pleased that by a blending of real estate from three municipalities -- Tay, Matchedash and Orillia townships -- we have covered the south shore of the Severn River. We were so enthusiastic about this that we named our new township after that famous watercourse.
We would like to support the Orillia township submission that you heard this afternoon, and also that from Mr Thiess in Orillia yesterday, for the importance of including the headwaters of the North River watershed in our new municipality of Severn township.
I have some background material that I'm going to leave with the secretary, fact sheets that make you more aware of what a unique watershed the North River is. We have an international project in Matchedash Bay that is under way right now to enhance northeastern North America waterfowl habitat. Canadian, provincial and federal money is going into this in a big way. This is the mouth of the North River watershed.
We also have an international project in Severn Sound to improve the water quality in Severn Sound and on the watershed of Severn Sound. I've given you a brief on that RAP project that also has maps indicating that certainly in the eyes of RAP -- and I sit on their committee on behalf of the township -- Bass Lake is part of the North River watershed. I'm going to leave those with the clerk and hope he shares that with the committee.
The Chair: Could you explain RAP?
Mr Niddery: Remedial action plan. This is a Great Lakes joint water quality commission project. There are a number of them on the Great Lakes. Severn Sound is one of the 27 sites, I believe.
We'd also like to speak in favour of Orillia township's submission and Gary Thiess's submission and Jack Fountain's submission and Edward Carter's submission concerning the lands known as south Orillia township. We believe the new municipality of Severn township is going to sorely need the assessment from that area. We heard from Edward Carter that the people in that area seem to support staying in Severn township.
We also support Reeve Gowanlock's comments that if indeed these citizens do have to be disrupted, if they can't go where they want to go, which is with Severn township, they be allowed to go with the city of Orillia and get the pain over quickly.
The last item I'd like to comment on is the weighted vote, the plurality-of-vote question that came up briefly in the last day or two. We're very pleased and congratulate our partners in restructuring Orillia township to hear that they've reconsidered their thoughts on the plurality of voting, because we have been functioning quite happily together as a restructuring group with a one vote, one council member position. We certainly strongly support that the intent in the act is carried out.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll go right to questions.
Mr Hayes: Can I just --
The Chair: Just a clarification?
Mr Hayes: Yes. Thank you for your presentation. You had two questions, one about the employee transfer -- sorry, I didn't hear it all. The second one, I didn't hear any of it because I was over getting the expert. I'd like you to ask, if you will, those questions again, and Mr Griggs will respond to them.
Mr Sled: Number one was the employee contracts that one of our municipalities that we're entering into has in place. We feel that we're not responsible for initiating these contracts originally. Why should we, when we're into the township of Severn, be faced with handling these contracts?
1730
Mr Niddery: I'd just like to add to this that these are very unique and unusual employee contracts.
Mr Griggs: I'm familiar with the contract I think you're talking about. It's a contract involving the township of Orillia and some of its employees, I believe.
Mr Niddery: That's our understanding.
Mr Griggs: Okay. The reason the new municipality has to assume these contracts is because the new municipality is a combination of the three existing municipalities. So in fact not only does the new municipality have to assume the contracts of the township of Orillia, but all contracts between the other two municipalities and their employees.
Mr Niddery: This is well and good for a civil servant to respond this way instead of an elected official who is responsible to the ratepayers. These contracts are so unusual that they would be the envy of the president of General Motors of Canada, and certainly even our friend the Toronto Harbour Commission that has been in the paper would be envious of some of the unique terms and conditions in these contracts. So we really don't feel as a council that we can accept that as an answer, and we will not be responsible to our ratepayers for the financial and moral implications of accepting these.
Mr Griggs: Well, as I said earlier, we're aware of the situation, and certainly if you wanted an amendment brought forward to the bill, I'm sure you could ask one of the members of the committee to do so, to deal with that issue.
Mr Niddery: We have done that, thank you.
Mr Griggs: Okay.
Mr Eddy: Could I ask a question about that for clarification? Have you asked a member to present an amendment to take care of this? Did you say you have asked a member?
Me Niddery: Yes.
Mr Eddy: I can't understand what the amendment would be. I'm trying to think if there has been any case where there was a legal contract or agreement that will not be assumed by the new municipality. It's a very difficult one. I realize why you're raising it, of course. I would as well.
Mr Niddery: We can't imagine the unique nature of this contract. Certainly in North America it would be a rare case. If you were familiar with the contract, I think you'd understand our point.
Mr Eddy: Well, I can imagine. But on the other hand, if it's a legal contract and it's a contract signed by the present council, it really presents --
The Chair: I'm wondering, Mr Eddy, if we need to see the amendment, and then we can discuss it with more facts at our hands.
Mr Eddy: Yes. Wow, that's difficult.
Mr Waters: I have a couple of questions, because we've talked about a lot more than just the contract. I am at present looking at how we're going to word that. Yes, it is me, and I will be bringing something forward.
But the road: You and Orillia township have need for a road, I believe. That somehow connects you so that you almost feel like you're part of the family.
Mr Sled: Exactly. The road has got to be there. That's all there is to it. It was mentioned today by Reeve Gowanlock of Orillia township that West Street would be the ideal location for the road to be improved into the municipality. We have no problems with that, but we do have problems with the fact that the administration centre is located so far out of proportion to the new municipality that we feel it should be looked into at least. We did bring a motion to joint council to look into a study of where it should be located; nothing really specific. Needless to say, the motion was defeated because it was felt by members that the new building was recently built and would provide the services for the new municipality.
Our concern is that if the city of Orillia expands, which it will, it will take over that building, but it's just a concern of ours. We would like to know where the funding would be coming from, and when, for this new facility.
Mr Waters: It's something that indeed we'll have to deal with as we go through clause-by-clause; that's where some of this is going to come from.
There was one other one, and I dread to get into it. I was hoping John would bring it up, but I will bring it up on his behalf. I have a note here from you, John -- actually, from the reeve, I think; I'd better make sure; yes, it's from Marion -- about the social contract. You're not sure whether you have to do two or one. You needed some clarification. Could you comment? Partially because you are a very small township, people should understand that to go into Matchedash -- and Al and I go through Matchedash quite often -- it is sparsely populated and doesn't have a lot of money. You have done very well for the people you've represented for a long period of time, and you're concerned about the cost of doing two.
Mr Niddery: Yes, the social contract certainly has been a concern for us. It's linked with restructuring and the salary levels of employees going into restructuring. We've run a very modest operation, debt-free for many years. We have reserves. We have an electorate that is pretty satisfied with our services, although some more sophisticated areas might look down their nose at out operation. Certainly the salary levels of our employees have been very lean and mean and are going to cause complications as we go into the new, larger municipality, because of the huge differential in salaries among the three partners.
Mr Waters: Can I just have one last quick one? I haven't had a chance to ask John, and I forgot at the last meeting or so that we had. In one of our very early meetings, you had mentioned that there was concern in the township about fire stations, either you or one of the councillors, and I can't remember who it was; it was one of those meetings when I was there in the evening. I'm wondering if the fire coverage is resolved.
Mr Niddery: I think there was perhaps a tendency to try to discount our fire department, which is an entirely volunteer force. I think, by working with our partners, that's a fairly happy situation, wouldn't you say, Phil? Reeve Gowanlock, or perhaps it was Ron Stevens, commented about the road we need through the centre of the municipality, and certainly that would make our fire coverage a much better situation. We are going to need that capital, and I'd certainly hope the government looks upon our request, because it will be coming, with a lot of warm feeling.
Mr Waters: You have the feeling that the $2 million for the north Simcoe restructuring isn't going to work out right? Okay.
Mr McLean: You have about 500 year-round residents. What would your population be in the summertime? You have a lot of cottage development all along the Severn shore.
Mr Sled: We have 1,066 households, I think it is; 1,065 or 1,066.
Mr McLean: That's counting the cottagers?
Mr Niddery: Sorry; 1,036 total households.
Mr Sled: As far as the total population is concerned, it's hard to pinpoint exactly how many.
Mr McLean: That's total cottages; is that what you're counting?
Mr Niddery: Yes.
Mr McLean: The question I wanted to ask was that the reeve of Tay made a very strong presentation yesterday with regard to the eastern boundary of that township. He would like it to remain as it was. There was a lot of discussion with regard to the road and with regard to the Matchedash watershed. Can we have your opinion on what you think?
Mr Niddery: Criterion 3 has been met, by taking that Tay property on the Severn River right up to Port Severn; that's the property we're talking about. Certainly this very unique project for North American wildlife habitat restoration, which is the Matchedash Bay, most of it is in Tay right now, although maybe a third of it is Matchedash right now; maybe it's two thirds. But again, to meet the requirements of criterion 3, in the council of Matchedash's opinion it was a very good thing about restructuring, to get that huge Matchedash Bay marsh, a unique jewel in wetlands in North America, under one municipality's jurisdiction and also under the jurisdiction of the municipality or city that is in control of the North River watershed, which flows into Matchedash marsh.
1740
Mr McLean: There's not a big population being added in that area -- 100 or 150.
Mr Niddery: No, it's very small. In fact, it was brought to joint council's meeting quite recently that there's an unregulated subdivision in there that wants a municipal road put in. Our modest estimate, I think, was about $1 million, and of course we're not that excited about it. We firmly believe that for the Severn River integrity and also the North River watershed and the Matchedash Bay project it is a good decision of the restructuring study to include that in Severn township.
The Chair: Thanks very much for coming down to the committee this afternoon. We appreciate it.
Mr Niddery: Our pleasure. Thank you.
Mr Conway: I think it's a wonderful name, Matchedash. It sounds like something from a Margaret Laurence novel.
Mr Niddery: We like it. My understanding is that it's indigenous for "bad and swampy land," and there are spots, but we love it anyway.
Mr Conway: It's a great name; I think it's wonderful.
Mr Sled: Eighty-eight per cent is crown land.
Mr Conway: It sounds like Renfrew county.
TOWN OF NEW TECUMSETH
The Chair: I'll then call our last witness, the representatives from New Tecumseth.
Mr McLean: What time are we meeting in the morning, Mr Chair?
The Chair: At 10, but we'd like to just have a brief discussion at the end of this presentation about tomorrow.
Mr Jim Wilson: Mr Chairman, can I just give a preamble to this presentation?
The Chair: Yes. Please be seated. Mr Wilson will make a comment and then I'll ask you to introduce yourselves. Could I just say, before Mr Wilson begins, could committee members stay just so we could talk a bit about how we're going to proceed tomorrow? We have a lot of work and it would be appreciated. If you have to leave, can somebody phone you and tell you what's going to happen?
Mr Jim Wilson: I just want to thank the presenters in advance. You have before you Brian Gauley, who is director of personnel and community services for the corporation of the town of New Tecumseth, and Joan Sutherland, who is the county councillor and deputy mayor of New Tecumseth. The reason I just wanted to say something is that I don't know whether members would still be carrying around the August 18 submission. I found it was necessary to ask the presenters to make an oral submission. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to deal with this in this committee. I'll ask the presenters to go ahead.
The Chair: Thank you. As you note, we do have the submission, but it's likely that not everyone has it here. We have a couple of extra ones handy for this afternoon. Please go ahead.
Mr Brian A. Gauley: Thanks, Mr Chairman and members of the committee. We will be brief. Our purpose this afternoon -- we'll be brief -- is to make two points about the past two and a half years since the amalgamation of the town of Alliston and Beeton, Tottenham and the township of Tecumseth, from which the new name is derived, with our eastern boundary. Under Bill 177, the eastern boundary of New Tecumseth was moved two lots west of Highway 27. Highway 27 had been, prior to the amalgamation, the easterly boundary for the township of Tecumseth. We, in 1991, made representation to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Mr Dave Cooke, and there was also a presentation made at the county restructuring committee, with regard to the eastern boundary, of course to no success.
Council wishes to have that looked at again and feels that the eastern boundary should be Highway 27. The principle given to us at the time as to why it was two lots west of 27 was that the highway should not form a boundary. I don't believe those principles are perhaps being followed evenly in the balance of the restructuring of Simcoe county.
The other point is the boundary in the southwest area of -- we'll call it former Alliston -- and it's between what will be Adjala, Tosorontio and New Tecumseth. Lands south of the 30 Side Road had been originally intended by the county restructuring committee to come into New Tecumseth. It was agreed that we would not change the boundary to the south of 30 Side Road and that those lands would remain within Adjala township and the soon-to-be Adjala-Tosorontio.
However, there was a small parcel north of 30 Side Road and Lot 31, Concession 7, a small parcel of approximately eight acres, that was included to come in with the lands south, but with removal of the land south of 30, the eight acres north were also removed. The inclusion of it in New Tecumseth would basically square off the planning area in that part, and it's requested that the eight acres north of 30 Side Road be included in New Tecumseth in the soon-to-be-passed bill.
That's all I have to say.
The Chair: Would you care to add anything?
Mrs Joan Sutherland: The only thing I'd like to add is that this was our only major north-south corridor, which we lost, but the main reason that we fought so hard is because the people in that area feel so strongly that they would like to stay in New Tecumseth.
Mr Jim Wilson: I guess I'll begin the questioning. I would appreciate it if members would look at this map, because it does seem a bit silly, given that when you look at the rest of the restructuring that's going on and you look down here, the easterly boundary of New Tecumseth used to be Highway 27, when it was Tecumseth township. I have no other way of saying this, except that for a political decision that was taken at Municipal Affairs, it moved the boundary, when it restructured and formed New Tecumseth, two lots west of the highway. Members will recall that back on June 4, 1992, this matter was debated in the Legislature in a private member's resolution. I don't think we really came to any particular conclusion with respect to that resolution. The residents along this area continue to complain to me that they don't want to be in Bradford West Gwillimbury. Their natural and historic affiliation, for the vast majority of them -- in fact, I'd say about 99% of them -- is with New Tecumseth, with the Beeton area. My own family at one time owned a farm and my great-great-grandfather farmed out in that area. They always went to Beeton, which is this way, for members' information.
What we have is a case of, as far as we can tell, with some of the other witnesses that have appeared, the principle that you can't have a highway as a border line seems to have been abandoned. That's why we're taking another stab at this.
I don't see why, and you'll recall I asked the warden if he had any personal objections to sharing that highway. I think right now -- and I'd ask Mr Gauley in the form of a question -- are the snowplows coming across Highway 27 and over to lots, turning around and going back?
Mr Gauley: Yes. We do have reciprocal agreements or arrangements with regard to the roads.
Mr Jim Wilson: So with respect to servicing the road, you've got trucks from Bradford West Gwillimbury having to cross the highway each time on several side roads.
Mr Gauley: Yes, 20 Side Road, which is within New Tecumseth, so they're coming in five lots.
The Chair: Just for clarification, that line extends from Cookstown. Does that go up to Newton Robinson?
Mr Gauley: Yes.
The Chair: I just want to be clear -- along 2?
Mr Gauley: It goes from the south border of Cookstown right down to Highway 9. It used to follow the highway.
The Chair: It's the whole of two lots over?
Mr Gauley: Right down. We do have, as I've mentioned too, people with split properties. Their actual properties are in two jurisdictions.
Mr Hayes: I just wanted to get a clarification, because Highway 27 splits the two hamlets of Bond Head and Newton Robinson, and so what you're proposing is that the boundary between the two municipalities now be moved back to Highway 27, which would split those two communities again.
1750
Mr Gauley: Essentially, it would, yes.
Mr Hayes: That's what I wanted to know.
Mr Jim Wilson: You raise a good point, Mr Hayes, because I know one of the principles is to try and keep hamlets one way or the other if they're split. But I'll tell you, and we raised it last year in the House and I brought forward all of the evidence, that people in Bond Head and Newton Robinson who were on the Tecumseth side of the highway are quite happy being split. To them living there, that was always a natural boundary. They knew they were on the west side of Highway 27 and they naturally and historically gravitated towards Beeton and westerly and everybody on the other side of the highway.
I guess there's a lot of resentment there for a government to come along, like the government of the day, and just arbitrarily move them all into Bradford West Gwillimbury when they didn't want to go. They were quite happy with the highway going down the middle of these very small villages, hamlets, and there was never any problem with that. It seems to me we've got a little off our social theory when somebody in Toronto, with all respect, decided that was a problem. I'm not even aware of service problems with respect to the split jurisdiction; Newton Robinson or Bond Head, for example. We have more service problems now when you've got in several places snowplows crossing the highway to do two lots and come back. I mean, it's absolutely crazy. I've had complaints about plows not being able to turn around on some of these roads.
Mr Conway: Jim, do we know what the attitude of the municipality of West Gwillimbury and Bradford is? Do they have a view on this?
Mr Jim Wilson: I assume they do, but I'll ask Mr Gauley to inform us as to efforts that have been made to try and talk to them about this.
Mr Wessenger: If I can just indicate that, certainly, I have discussed the issue with the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury and it's opposed to having a forced restructuring because the restructuring that was done by the previous government -- and this would be a forced restructuring. I think it's kind of interesting that Mr Wilson's private member's bills are opposed to forced restructuring and in this case he's suggesting that we do it by one municipality over the other.
Mr McLean: But they want to vote on what happens in the north part, don't they? They want to vote on the rest of it.
Mr Jim Wilson: Mr Chairman, if I may rebut, this whole thing is forced restructuring. My bill dealt with the north end of the county to ensure the municipalities weren't structured against their will. My subsequent resolution dealt with this particular problem on Highway 27.
I don't know. I think they need a political solution here if you've got one party that's not willing to discuss it in a rational way. Why would Bradford West Gwillimbury want to give it up, is the commonsense question you have to ask. They've got Highway 11 as a development corridor and they now have all of Highway 27 as a development corridor and, as Mrs Sutherland has said, New Tecumseth has no north-south corridor. You know, we've got Honda in this area, which tries to make its way down to Highway 9 to do its trucking. We have no development possibility along the ditches on the easterly boundary of New Tecumseth.
I guess my plea to committee members is that common sense tells you a mistake was made and I think Bernard Grandmaître, the Minister of Municipal Affairs for the Liberals, indicated in his debate of June 4, 1992, that he felt it was a mistake and that he supported my resolution. That was the government that did it. They said, "Yes, it doesn't make much sense the way it's worked out," especially when you have people with split properties and that.
Mrs Joan Sutherland: Mr Chair, could I add something?
The Chair: Yes.
Mrs Joan Sutherland: We've even offered to buy it back from Bradford West Gwillimbury but on the idea of splitting a community, our west boundary splits the community of Colgan. We had a meeting. We were willing to give that little piece to Adjala. We had a meeting with the residents. They did not want to go to Adjala and Adjala agreed, so our west boundary splits Colgan.
Mr Jim Wilson: Even after this restructuring.
Mrs Joan Sutherland: Yes.
Mr Jim Wilson: I can assure members, it's not a problem with the people who live in these split communities; it was always that way. You always had the road going down the middle of the community, and that was the split.
Mr Conway: But we have a problem with the municipality in which it is now resident. I'm sensitive to what you say, Jim, but it's just like --
Mr Jim Wilson: But if you can't get them to discuss it --
Mr Larry O'Connor (Durham-York): Was there a public meeting for this? Was there public support, then, for a change back?
Mr Jim Wilson: There was public support for a change back. In fact, that's where the idea came from. There was a meeting in Bond Head where I think 200 residents, which far exceeds the population of Bond Head, came out demanding this be changed. Again, you have to remember that the south Simcoe restructuring occurred a short time before the 1990 election. We were well into that election campaign, I think, before people realized they were restructured, because it was an issue at the doors. A lot of people started getting their tax bills or something and discovered they were actually getting bills from Bradford West Gwillimbury and they said, "I thought I lived in New Tecumseth."
Mr Conway: But this is a very good lesson, it seems to me, in this committee about what we ought to do with respect to some of those boundary issues before us because, as has been commented here earlier today, the way I understand this process, and I'm no expert, is that once Bill 51 is passed and the boundaries contained within it are in place, under the current regime, the only way they get changed is by some process of mutual consent.
Interjection: Or boundary negotiations.
Mr Conway: Or boundary negotiations. So, I've got to tell you, as we get into tomorrow -- and when I hear this kind of a story, I want to think very carefully about what kind of decisions we might want to recommend around some of the evidence we've heard.
Mr Hayes: I think I'll have Mr Griggs address that but, first of all, I think the difference here is, and I think it was stated -- I'm not picking on the previous government, but I think at that time what happened, and what was stated here, if I heard it correctly, was that the province came in and arbitrarily did that and we're doing the opposite to that today.
Mr Jim Wilson: We're just putting it --
Mr Hayes: I'm just making that clear.
Mr Jim Wilson: But, Mr Hayes, I guess the point is, we're just putting it back to where it was and always has been. It's a chance to correct a mistake. The previous government on the public record just said there is no rhyme or reason for going down the ditch. You've got to live there. It goes across fields. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Mr Hayes: If Mr Griggs could clarify it, maybe it'll help out the committee.
Mr Griggs: I just wanted to point out, regarding the municipal boundary negotiation process, that process applies to all municipalities in Ontario except municipalities within regional governments and in those cases it only applies when the minister deems the boundary adjustment to be minor. So saying that once these boundary changes come into effect under Bill 51, the only way they'll be able to do it is through mutual consent -- that's the case anywhere else in Ontario.
Mr Eddy: Except London-Middlesex.
Mr Conway: The point I want to make is that we have to understand that once we draw these lines they're going to stay that way for a while. There are ways to change them, undoubtedly, but I tell you, listening to this story -- and there seems to have been a mistake or God knows what was done improperly. I've got to believe what the member for Simcoe West has said, although the member for Simcoe Centre has some things he, I'm sure, wants to add. But as we head into the final phase of this thing, I want to make sure that we do --
The Chair: Mr Wessenger wants to say something. I think the issue is clear and I'm not sure how -- we're going to be dealing with this tomorrow, but Mr Wessenger --
Mr Wessenger: I'd just like to ask for some clarification because, as I understand the rationale of the planning principles involved in setting that boundary, one of the principles involved in the study was that highways should not -- other than controlled-access highways -- form boundaries of municipalities. Whether it was the right decision or not, I won't comment on that, but to say there was no planning reason for it I think is wrong and I'd ask staff to just clarify that that in fact was the planning criterion we used.
Mr Griggs: The reference to controlled-access highways or roads not making good boundaries unless they're controlled-access highways -- that was one of the criteria the county study committee used in looking at the restructuring of the county of Simcoe. I believe what we're discussing were decisions that were made regarding the south Simcoe restructuring that occurred on January 1, 1991, and is a separate process from the county study. It's my understanding that there were planning principles used in arriving at the boundaries for south Simcoe but, again, I can't speak to that study. I'm not familiar with it.
Mr Wessenger: It would be fair to say, though, that since -- just to confirm this -- the county of Simcoe used that as a planning criteria, it would be a fair assumption that the province would have used the same planning criteria.
Mr Griggs: Yes.
The Chair: I think we've had a good discussion and the issue is clear. We will be dealing with it --
Mr Jim Wilson: There's a second issue --
The Chair: No, I realize there's a second, but we are at, as the Speaker in the House would say, 6 of the clock. I wonder if there are some questions on the second issue that has been raised. Could we deal with that because we, I think, do need to move on. Mr Wilson, just on that second --
Mr Jim Wilson: If members look at the second page, just to make sure it's clear, it's this little map down here. When they talk about squaring off, you see the town of Alliston and there's this eight acres here that should be in the town of Alliston, or now New Tecumseth. When the maps came out for this restructuring, it ended up in Adjala. I gather, and I'll ask Mr Gauley to further clarify, that this is somehow just a mistake more than anything.
1800
The Chair: Can we just be clear?
Mr Jim Wilson: On page 3, you have a map.
The Chair: Yes, in the bottom right, the section of land above, I guess, the road. Is that it, where the arrow is?
Mr Jim Wilson: In that little corner where the arrow is -- that represents the eight-acre parcel.
The Chair: And that piece of land currently is where?
Mr McLean: Adjala township.
The Chair: It's in Adjala and the request is that it go with Alliston.
Mr McLean: Right.
Mrs Joan Sutherland: New Tecumseth.
The Chair: Sorry.
Mr Conway: Is that agreed on all sides? It's just sort of a printing error or something.
Mr Gauley: Well, when the county restructuring committee's report came out, there was more land than that. There were lands lying south of the 30th Side Road. The correspondence which I have to Adjala, signed by the mayor, reads, that "We agree the southern boundary should be at the intersection of the 30th Side Road and King Street South." That meant that what was north should remain as part of the restructuring. Now, I can't confirm it was an oversight, but it wasn't there in the final report.
Mr McLean: Is it built on?
Mr Gauley: There is one residence on it.
Mr Hayes: I'm just wondering, could you get, say, confirmation from the county to the effect that there was actually an error made? I think that would be an important thing to have.
Mr Jim Wilson: He says the error -- as my interpretation, trying to understand it, I have to admit that prior to the New Tecumseth submission on August 18, I wasn't aware of this problem. Mr Gauley's just said he can't confirm it was an error.
But it still is unclear to me, Mr Gauley. Again, explain what was on the maps and what ended up in the final report.
The Chair: Could Mr Griggs -- he had a clarification.
Mr Griggs: I just wanted to clarify. I've come across one of the recommendations that the county council accepted which was implementing a local -- it says a local -- I'll just read the recommendation as it was endorsed by county council: "That the locally negotiated boundary adjustments meeting the study committee's criteria be accepted for inclusion as amendments to Simcoe county council's report, namely, Adjala, Tosorontio and New Tecumseth revert to the boundary as described in Bill 177," which is this south Simcoe legislation. I guess what I'm asking for is clarification as well. Was there not a locally negotiated agreement between New Tecumseth and Adjala to revert back to --
Mr Gauley: We brought to the attention of the restructuring committee, I believe it was early this year, this parcel of land here. This was originally all the land to be included as recommended by the county of Simcoe.
Mr Jim Wilson: And that they drop that south of 30.
Mr Gauley: We suggested that the boundary not go further south than the intersection of 30th Side Road, which is this east-west road, and King Street South, okay? This little parcel is north of the 30th Side Road, so all of this was excluded but along with it was this eight-acre parcel.
The Chair: And it's the eight-acre parcel that you're --
Mr Gauley: It is the eight-acre parcel. This land was annexed by the former town of Alliston approximately five or six years ago from Adjala, exclusive of that eight acres.
The Chair: I wonder if at this hour what we might do is ask staff if they could look into that a little more clearly so that tomorrow, when we come to clause-by-clause, we could discuss that in a little more detail, if that is acceptable.
Thank you. You are our last witnesses but by no means least, and we appreciate your coming today with your brief. Thank you.
Mr Gauley: Thank you for listening.
The Chair: Before we adjourn, I just wonder if we could just put heads around tomorrow. We are going to start at 10 o'clock in the Trent Room in the Macdonald Block because of all the construction in the other building, so that's why we're there. Mr Conway, you had a question you wanted to raise.
Mr Conway: Can I just make a suggestion?
Interjections.
The Chair: Excuse me. Order, please.
Mr Conway: This has been a really interesting exercise and I must congratulate the staff and the parliamentary assistant. I think they've done a very good job in difficult circumstances. As you know, I'm not a member of this committee and I've had nothing to do with this bill; I'm just here as a substitute. It's been a very interesting exercise, and I'm quite sympathetic now to the situation in which the department finds itself on the schedule, and there is urgency. This has got to be dealt with, for obvious reasons.
There are a lot of amendments, I presume. I mean, I'm just making a little mental list of who's committed to what. I presume they're all being written, and if it's no problem to get at that stuff tomorrow -- that was one of my first questions, because I'll you what my instinct is: My instinct would be to get it done tomorrow, if we can responsibly, because a lot of people have made a lot of interesting observations.
I suspect, knowing what it's like being on the other side of this, that there's probably a lot of midnight oil that's going to have to be burnt to get things prepared, because we're having to go back to Toronto. One of the things I guess I just throw out is, is there going to be any technical problem in getting the amendments just prepared and before us tomorrow?
The Chair: Is the question you're raising whether we can deal with this tomorrow or ought it to be put off?
Mr Conway: I'm happy to deal with it tomorrow, because I understand that there is some urgency. That was my first question. If there's no problem with getting it ready and finishing it up tomorrow, that would be my preference. But I'll tell you, I --
The Chair: On this, Mr Wilson, and then the parliamentary assistant.
Mr Jim Wilson: I guess the question to you, Mr Chairman, is, will the legislative counsel drafters be available to the committee tomorrow? Perhaps they should attend the committee, because some of these may have to be done on the fly. I know we have four or five amendments that we phoned in over the last few days, if they're ready.
The Chair: They will be available during clause-by-clause, yes.
Mr Wessenger: I'm just wondering if it might assist the committee if we dealt with the non-boundary items with respect to clause-by-clause first and deal with the boundary items at the end. I think that would be beneficial to all concerned.
The Chair: That thought occurred to me, that we might consider, and perhaps we would be helped by staff, those amendments that can be dealt with perhaps with some dispatch but then putting the ones that obviously we have seen come up that are going to perhaps be the cause of some debate so we can give those the time they deserve.
Mr Conway: The other concern I had as a substitute is that I have to go to a big public meeting on a municipal matter in my own constituency, which is a four-hour drive from Toronto. So at some point tomorrow afternoon, not any later than 3:30, I'm going to have to leave. That's no big deal, but just listening to some of the other members, I know there are some time pressures. We can't start early? I know 10 o'clock is the time we'd normally meet.
The Chair: Perhaps what we can do is work through or have a shorter lunch break, if that's acceptable, or get sandwiches.
Mr Conway: I'd like to do that, just so we don't --
Mr Hayes: I would like to be able to start earlier, but we do have to have a meeting with the government members prior to that and it's going to be hard for us to get there before 10.
The other thing too -- I think it's important, and Mr Wessenger raised an issue here -- when we talk about amendments dealing with boundaries, I would suggest that we don't have too many of these, because we have made it very clear that county council had its policy. The Minister of Municipal Affairs has also indicated that was the decision that was made and if municipalities wanted to change any boundaries, the municipalities affected would have to agree with one another. I'm just suggesting that I think I would take Mr Wessenger's suggestion, and hopefully those would be at the end rather than before.
Mr McLean: We may be done at noon then, if you're having a meeting with the ministry before you come to our meeting, because you'll pretty well have your marching orders and it won't take long to do it.
Mr Hayes: No, there will be no marching orders at all, Mr McLean. You've been in government before and I think you know how it works.
Mr McLean: I do; I do.
Mr Jim Wilson: No, you guys have reinvented government.
Mr Hayes: Yes, we've come to the people, Jim.
Mr Conway: Let me be specific. I think there are some very helpful suggestions here. I think Paul's point about getting the non-boundary stuff done early is good. But let me be clear. On the boundary issues, I understand what you're saying, and boy, I'll tell you, I leave here with a -- it's been a very interesting, enjoyable, educational experience. I can say that sincerely.
A lot of people have felt that this process hasn't been very good. It will never be perfect, and we've got to wrap it up tomorrow. So I think we owe it to the people who come to us to try to reasonably accommodate their submissions.
I can tell you there's one boundary issue where there have been some discussions, and I want to have a chat about that tomorrow. I'm hoping I don't have to leave, that it's not going full bore at 3:30 and we all have to take off or whatever, but I guess there's always third reading. We can get into it then.
The Chair: Just one last point, the parliamentary assistant, just on the amendments?
Mr Hayes: Yes. I think what we should do is discuss when we're ready to exchange amendments. We have ours all ready except for some that came up today, for example. Do the opposition members have amendments ready? I think we should probably do this to give one another an opportunity to look them over.
Mr Conway: I think section 34 is an issue. I sense a consensus around that. I don't much care who brings the amendment.
Mr Hayes: We will be bringing that amendment, I believe, right? We have that amendment, section 34?
Mr Conway: The Orillia boundary, the Orillia-Oro-Medonte?
Mr Griggs: Yes, for the future review of the city's boundaries.
Mr Hayes: Yes, we'll have that. We'll withdraw that.
The Chair: Could we just --
Mr Waters: Could we adjourn, because we're starting to get into some things that --
The Chair: It is always informal among committees in terms of exchanging amendments. I think if people can do that, let's do it now. It will facilitate. Mr Wilson has provided an amendment. I would think at this point we should adjourn.
Mr Hayes: We're not going to discuss the amendments?
The Chair: No. Let's exchange what we can, but I just --
Mr Hayes: If I may, in the standing orders, it says you have to have the amendments two hours before the committee starts. I don't know how strong we have to be on that.
Mr McLean: Well, we can waive that standing order by 3.
Mr Jim Wilson: They're drafting them now.
Mr Hayes: That's why I raised that.
Mr Jim Wilson: Some of these we just phoned in at noon.
The Chair: May I just say the words of the standing order say "where time permits," so I don't think that's a problem.
Mr Hayes: We have a concern over here, evidently.
The Chair: Yes.
Mrs Linda Perron: What we're willing to do is to provide you with copies of the motions that are presently available so that you could perhaps spend time this evening reviewing them and save time tomorrow, but in order to allow us the same privilege, even though you might not have the actual copies, at least indicate to us what you're going to propose tomorrow.
The Chair: Okay? So we can exchange those thoughts and ideas at the conclusion?
Mr Conway: Let me say one last time while I'm in Simcoe county, because the parliamentary assistant just made the point, and I understand what he's saying and I'm sympathetic to his dilemma, but on this business about the process by which these boundaries were determined, I leave Simcoe county with -- in a sense, it's a bit like an Abbott and Costello skit, Who's on First and What's on Second? I don't know who the hell got to first or third under this process. I guess I'll find out before it's all over.
The Chair: In the hopes that tomorrow we will hit a home run, this committee stands adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning in the Trent Room of the Macdonald Block.
The committee adjourned at 1815.