Last week I attended the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, which was full of good information and networking opportunities, as conferences tend to be. Here’s a brief rundown of what I learned.
Keynote Speaker: Andrew Coyne
Andrew Coyne gave a barnburner of a talk about the state of democracy in Canada amid our troubled context of Trump, tariffs, and the slide of liberal democracy into authoritarianism. One of my colleagues from another municipality said the talk was depressing, but I disagree: a blunt assessment of reality is often the first step toward progress, so I found it hopeful even if the assessment is dire.
One of his points, and the message of his new book, is that Canadian democracy barely deserves the name at this point, and that revitalizing it will be critical to making any sort of progress on our key priorities moving forward. In light of that, I’ve written a Notice of Motion for our next council meeting calling on the governments of Canada and Ontario to implement electoral reform. Advocacy motions like this are just a way to make a statement, but given the ovation that Coyne received for presenting these arguments to a packed room of municipal councillors and staff, I think there will be some support for the idea. I’ve been advocating for electoral reform since 2015, the first time I ran in any election and what was supposed to have been “the last election under first past the post.” I’m glad to see that there’s so much support, at least among municipalities.
Delegations
Conferences like this are an opportunity to bring delegations to provincial ministries. I attended one such delegation at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference back in the first year of the term, and last week I attended two more — one with a senior official in the Ministry of Health, and another with Associate Minister for Municipal Affairs and Housing, Graydon Smith. The second of these was a delegation from the Northumberland Inter-Municipal Task Force on Housing and Homelessness, supported by Northumberland County through the attendance of Jennifer Moore and Matthew Stergios, Cobourg Deputy Mayor Nicole Beatty, Alnwick/Haldimand Councillor Mary Catherine O’Neill, and introduced by Northumberland Warden/Brighton Mayor Brian Ostrander. I spoke to Associate Minister Smith and his staff about the work of the Task Force, our report, and the need for a stable policy environment in which to implement changes at the municipal level. I’ve written here before about many changes to the Planning Act and related documents by the province; if we want to improve our own policies, we need a lull in the rapid-fire changes the province has been making for the past several years. We were told that our request has been heard, which is encouraging; when we write advocacy motions (like the one I mentioned above) we don’t get a response at all, so a delegation is an important chance for real engagement and feedback.
Housing and Homelessness
It was encouraging to hear a panel of experts on housing discussing the challenge of increasing housing supply in our current context, even if their assessment of the situation is dire. According to the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, there are currently 27,000 new homes that are built but not selling, showing that building more houses isn’t enough if those houses aren’t affordable. They mentioned the challenges posed to the industry when both the provincial and federal governments have plans for the housing sector, but those plans aren’t aligned or fully implemented yet: in an uncertain policy environment, home buyers and builders wait for more certainty before investing more money, which means that building and buying slow down further. I was encouraged to hear that many of the things that they recommend, in terms of finding ways to defer Development Charges and support alternative ownership and building models, are things that are already on our radar (if not implemented) here in Brighton.
Another panel focused on homelessness, and it was refreshing to hear experts in the field speak very clearly about the relationship between housing and mental health and addictions, the importance of providing housing first, and the absurdity of withholding care from people who use drugs and expecting them to somehow get better on their own. Northumberland’s only emergency shelter has recently been drastically undermined in its effectiveness through the Town of Cobourg implementing policies that hamper its effectiveness, and County Council reluctantly agreeing to a “higher barrier” shelter model that excludes anyone showing visible signs of drug use from receiving shelter there. Setting aside the fact that most people who are experiencing the daily trauma of homelessness use some kind of drug, and that many of them now have a physical dependency on those drugs and need to take them regularly just to live, the signs of drug use are often very similar to the condition of someone who hasn’t slept in a long time and is in shock and/or traumatized. It was encouraging to hear doctors and social workers on this panel pointing out how nonsensical it is to exclude such people from supports, whether they’re on drugs or not; they’re clearly among those residents who need help the most.
Recharging and Bonding
One of the best things about municipal conferences is simply the experience of being there. The council members and staff from Brighton enjoyed a lovely meal together one evening, and attendees from across Northumberland (including our MPP, David Piccini) did the same another night, and I was struck by how powerful that was. In times when politics is increasingly polarized, our ability to engage with each other as human beings and pull together as a team is critically important.
And the act of dedicating three straight days to considering the role municipalities play in creating community and solving complex challenges was very refreshing and energizing, helping my brain to emerge from its summer vacation mode and begin preparing for an eventful autumn. We have a lot to do!
The Healthy Democracy Project
I’ll end on what turned out to be the best part of the conference itself this year: my interactions with the Healthy Democracy Project. AMO has been working on understanding and combatting the rise of incivility and hostility in our politics for a few years now, and they had a team of consultants on site to chat with attendees about their experience of politics in an era marked by polarization and abuse. I’ve been curious about this phenomenon for years, and gained a lot of insight from chatting with these folks. I’m happy to report that, once again, hearing about how things are in other municipalities in Ontario always makes me grateful to be on council here in Brighton. To those of you who engage constructively with our municipality: thank you! I look forward to the final year of this term of council, and hope to hear from you about how you’ve perceived this term, what you hope for in the future, and why you will or won’t consider running for council in the future. One of my biggest hopes for this term, and perhaps the thing I will most see as a sign of a successful term, is that more residents will see serving on council as something that’s accessible to them, and worth their while.