Ford government ministers fielded questions on HART hubs, health care and ‘overreach’ at the 2025 AMO conference<\/p>\n
EDITOR\u2019S\u00a0NOTE: This article originally appeared on\u00a0The\u00a0Trillium<\/a>, a new Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n Ford government ministers fielded questions Tuesday afternoon from municipal councillors anxious for\u00a0a long-promised\u00a0bill providing stricter consequences for harassment from their colleagues.\u00a0<\/p>\n The questions, and others on municipal jurisdiction, HART hubs and more,\u00a0came at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario\u00a0(AMO) conference’s “bear pit,”\u00a0where provincial cabinet lines up before hundreds of local leaders to take a few of their queries.<\/p>\n Two of those questions were about the Ford government’s Bill 9,\u00a0the\u00a0Municipal Accountability Act<\/a>, which would allow for councils to boot members for serious code of conduct violations. Municipal leaders have been clamouring for this power due to a score of misbehaving councillors, and no way to remove them except the ballot box.<\/p>\n Stakeholders have been weighing in with suggestions on the bill in committee this summer \u2014 but it can’t be passed until the Ford government recalls the legislature.<\/p>\n “My question is very simple,” Niagara Region Coun. Haley Bateman said. “When are you going to prioritize this and get that legislation passed to make our municipality safe for its workers and its councillors?”<\/p>\n Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Rob Flack said he was “convinced it’s going to get passed once we come back in the fall session, after we go clause by clause, and there’s some improvements perhaps to be made to the bill.”<\/p>\n As of now, the legislature is set to return Oct. 20.<\/p>\n Pickering Coun. Mara\u00a0Nagy later noted that she was 31 weeks pregnant but that staff couldn’t protect her from the alleged “workplace harassment” she said\u00a0she received from Coun. Lisa Robinson<\/a>. She urged Flack to “streamline the process, limit delays and place final decision-making\u00a0with an impartial body and not with local politicians.”<\/p>\n Flack again noted that the bill\u00a0may see changes, but will be passed in the fall.<\/p>\n Moderator and TVO journalist John Michael McGrath banned further questions about the bill.<\/p>\n Municipal ‘overreach’<\/p>\n Two councillors\u00a0asked about\u00a0the Ford government’s pattern of exercising its control over municipalities.\u00a0<\/p>\n Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward asked how the government would “commit to respecting municipal autonomy” given\u00a0recent legislative changes that exempt developments<\/a> from municipal oversight, specifically noting the controversial\u00a0“special economic zones<\/a>.”<\/p>\n “So really, this is the don’t do things\u00a0to us, do things with us question,” Meed Ward said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Flack appeared to mis-hear the question.<\/p>\n “It’s kind of hard to hear these questions up here, but I think what you’re referring to is our finances and the new municipal structure going forward,” he said before talking about municipal funding.<\/p>\n Oshawa Coun. Derek Giberson\u00a0earned a round of applause for his question about whether\u00a0municipalities “should expect to see more overreach into our area of planning jurisdiction” given the government’s attempt to remove three Toronto bike lanes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said the province was forced to remove bike lanes to\u00a0reduce congestion<\/a>\u00a0and that the government works\u00a0“very well and very closely” with municipalities on infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mental health and addictions<\/p>\n Ottawa Coun.\u00a0Ariel Troster called out\u00a0crime statistics the government\u00a0used to justify shutting down a supervised drug consumption site in the city.<\/p>\n Last year, the government\u00a0said<\/a> crime rates were 250 per cent higher in the area around the site than in the rest of the city, Troster noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Yesterday, CTV News reported that, after submitting an access to information request, that those figures are false<\/a>. In fact, violent crime decreased by 23 per cent\u00a0in 2023 in the vicinity of the supervised consumption site,” she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Police told CTV\u00a0the area’s crime rate in 2023\u00a0was only 14 per cent higher than the citywide average.\u00a0<\/p>\n “So my question is, what are you going to do to help Ottawa’s Chinatown that has now been plunged into absolute chaos<\/a> since the supervised consumption site was forced to close?” Troster said to applause.<\/p>\n In response, Health Minister Sylvia Jones referenced the killing of a woman<\/a> in Toronto from a stray bullet fired near a supervised consumption site.\u00a0<\/p>\n “So with the greatest of respect, I never ever want to have a mother who is killed because she happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in front of a consumption site in the province,” she said.<\/p>\n “We want to be part of the solution, and the solution cannot, and will not, under our government, be continuing to encourage drug consumption in the province of Ontario,” she said, also to applause.<\/p>\n Parry Sound Mayor Jamie McGarvey said the government’s HART hub spending is appreciated, but\u00a0“a fraction of what is required” to combat homelessness.<\/p>\n “And there’s no overall strategy to prevent and reduce homelessness using\u00a0an all-of-government approach,” he said, calling for a funding increase.<\/p>\n Flack said his government has increased homelessness spending. He said\u00a0he will meet with his federal counterpart early next month “to make sure the federal government steps up to the plate as well.”<\/p>\n Northern health care<\/p>\n Sault Ste. Marie Coun.\u00a0Lisa Vezeau-Allen asked the health minister what the plan was for health care in northern Ontario. The Sault has been “hit hard” by de-rostering<\/a>\u00a0of patients from primary care providers, more than 5,000 of whom are still without primary care,\u00a0Vezeau-Allen said.<\/p>\n