Mayor hosts Mayors from 29 big cities - shows them what we have going for us

By Ryan O’Dowd: Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

October 15th, 2021

BURLINGTON, ON

Ontario’s Big City Mayor(OBCM) caucus met in Burlington for the first time since the pandemic began yesterday. The housing crisis, municipal finances, COVID-19, and what the OBCM will ask of provincial candidates this election featured on the agenda. Rocked by the pandemic the OBCM issued a stern call to action for long-term stable funding for municipalities from the federal and provincial governments.

Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward with Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman and Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie.

Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, and Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie joined Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward to speak to the media about the meeting’s content.

The OBCM presented a united front on the lifting of pandemic restrictions, agreeing decisions on this matter should be made uniformly across the province citing citizen movement between regions under different levels of lockdown as a primary concern. They reiterated that lifting restrictions must be based on science rather than political pressure.

Mayor Guthrie wanted to see more action from the federal and provincial government to assist municipalities through pandemic recovery, accusing them of finger-pointing responsibility to each other. Guthrie pointed out the municipal government is the only sector of government legally not allowed to run a deficit. Guthrie felt municipalities have had to ask the government for assistance too often without action.

“Municipalities are ready, we already know what our impacts are from the pandemic, and we know what we need. So we ask respectfully the provincial and federal government to put the fingerprinting away and get to work on trying to help to make sure municipalities are made full, especially when it comes to the impacts financially, the deficits that we’re all facing. We thought we would only have those deficits within the 2020 year and here we are in the 2021 year.

“Our budgets are staring us in the face the next couple of months,” said Guthrie.

Mayor Crombie brought up a request for a new model of funding for municipalities, saying “we’re still asked to build 21st-century cities with 19th-century tools.” She pointed to municipalities as the only sector of government that had to lay off staff as among the reasons long term sustainable funding is required. The OBCM members in attendance voiced their support for this request, a request Mayor Guthrie said has been discussed for some time.

Facing public transit ridership slashed by over 50% Mayor Lehman lamented the difficult decisions facing municipalities under the current funding model in deciding what services to cut.

“Ridership numbers are a big gap from where we were two years ago, and that’s going to require some changes to be made faster and that’s the kind of support that we will need now, it’s less about emergency funding week by week now it’s about how we recover strong; that will be addressing deficits that make cities make critical choices in terms of cutting services,” said Lehman.

Mayor Meed Ward put the figures of the municipal deficit strain in sobering terms for Burlington residents.

“In Burlington, the combination of lost revenues and added expenses for us is close to $5 million. If we had to make that up just through taxes, that is close to a quarter percent tax increase before we do anything else that is just to dig ourselves out of a hole. So when we look at all the other needs that we have in the community and inflationary pressures, we would be looking at outrageously high taxes – close to 10, or 15%, if we had to make it ourselves and clearly that it’s not palatable or acceptable or sustainable for anyone,” said Meed Ward.

Ontario’s Big City Mayor caucus features mayors of Ontario’s 29 cities with a population over 100,000 which means they represent nearly 80 percent of the province’s population.

Housing crisis considerations were discussed ranging from homelessness to the middle class, with what was labeled an increasingly clear gap between supply and demand in Southern Ontario. Rental costs were included in the discussion, where Burlington ranks the fifth most expensive city in Canada to rent, one-bedroom apartments averaging over $1800, as per the latest available data from realtor.com. The kind of policy-based action used to combat the housing crisis will grow clearer with requests put to provincial candidates this upcoming election.

Few municipalities have the breath taking views.

Discussions were had about bail reform and addressing what OBCM called the catch and release policy which has seen repeat offenders commit violent acts. It was a topic brought up in the meeting by former provincial leader of the opposition Mayor Patrick Brown, who did not appear for media availability, the present members voiced support for change.

The meeting was hosted at the new Pearle Hotel and Spa, an impressive venue at the waterfront.