Navigating the “labyrinth” of provincial government grants for infrastructure in growing rural communities was just one topic a Haliburton County representative to the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference raised with the Ontario government.
Minden mayor Bob Carter said the topic was part of an official delegation to the Ministry of Rural Affairs during the Jan. 18-20 conference in Toronto. He said they want the ministry to understand the problems small, rural communities are experiencing with population growth, for example, and the need to upgrade older water and sewer systems.
“There are often many grants and/or loans available from the government, but not in one place, but many different ministries.” Carter said it was a “labyrinth” finding out what’s available and how to get at it. He said they asked for help in finding the right grants and getting their applications across the finish line.
“All ministries don’t always play well with others. It is more of a challenge than it sounds. We had a successful delegation and hopefully they can help us in the future.”
Carter said ROMA is a good conference for Highlands’ townships, when compared to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which caters to urban centres.
Coun. Ivan Ingram said he found other municipalities were facing the exact same problems as Minden Hils, and “a lot comes to funding from the provincial government.”
Carter added, “one of the things that is starting to get attention is amalgamation. I talked to a lot of people, where they had 700 or 1,000 people in the whole community. Even our neighbour, Hastings, has 14 townships, that vary from Belleville to very small communities.”
He said another topic was homelessness. “There was an eight per cent increase year over year in the homelessness situation,” which he believes could be underreported. He said his hope is that communities try various strategies and strike something that works.
Coun. Pam Sayne sits on the board of ROMA and said they had 2,000 people representing more than 300 of Ontario’s 444 municipalities at the conference. She said it’s all about making connections for your community and region, which can put a town such as Minden Hills on the province’s map, and have it grant-ready.
She said one of her goals is to have Haliburton County become even more of a centre for excellence in arts and culture.
She said other key ROMA policies include working towards a new provincialmunicipal fiscal framework, which she said is 100 years old and “not working, especially with all the downloads such as OPP and housing etc.
“The rural communities need bigger changes in addressing the infrastructure challenges. We can’t just keep paying. When you look at our population compared to the roads, we’re taking care of, we cannot continue to do that on the backs of taxpayers in our small communities.”
She said they have long lobbied for better access to healthcare and better broadband.
Carter said the OPP billing formula remains a thorn in municipalities’ sides, with costs having gone up 11 per cent this year with no sign of decreases in future. He added there is huge variation of per household costs for policing across the province. He said policing costs are growing, but questions whether some of the mental health work done by police should be done by, or at least funded by, the Ministry of Health.
He added the rising cost “is not something that is going to go away easily.”
