Haliburton County non-profit Places for People (P4P) is turning to a tried and tested, old school fundraising formula to address new world problems surrounding housing affordability and availability across the region.

The organization is rolling out a community bonds program next month, with president, Jody Curry, recently telling The Highlander P4P is hoping to raise $850,000 to clear a handful of outstanding mortgages and private loans.

“This is a really big deal for us. While it would be a first-time thing in Haliburton County, non-profits the world over have used community bond initiatives to address issues in their communities,” Curry said. “This is not a donation, it’s an investment. Anyone who pays in will get their money back.”

There are three options for would-be lenders – investing a minimum of $1,000 locked in for three years, earning three per cent interest paid annually; $5,000 locked in for five years, earning four per cent interest; or $10,000 locked in for seven years, earning five per cent interest.

Curry said the first two options would see principal investments returned in full upon expiry of the bond, while the third option has a portion of the principal paid out annually.

“We wanted to include different options so anyone who wants to invest with us can do so. We’ve had a ton of interest already from people who want to form part of the solution to one of our community’s biggest problems,” she said, adding early commitments as of press time were around $70,000.

Curry noted the bonds would be secured by P4P’s existing assets, which she says are valued at around $2.5 million

The non-profit is partnering with Torontobased Tapestry Community Capital, which will manage the investments. Tapestry has more than 20 years of experience in the community investment space and has helped raise more than $100 million to support 59 projects nationwide, mostly in the renewable energy sector. Curry said they also have experience working with groups on affordable housing initiatives.

The bonds proposal has been in the works since 2018. Curry said P4P will be hosting several community workshops in June to float the idea to potential investors and explain the process. She’s hoping to reach the $850,000 goal by the end of September.

“This reminds me of what Haliburton County used to do – when the kids wanted an ice rink, the community came together to make it happen. Governments haven’t appropriately funded housing for 40 years, so we have to try and follow in those footsteps and do it ourselves,” she said, adding “buying into this program ensures your money stays right here in Haliburton County.”

P4P owns and operates five properties across the County, with 12 affordable housing units. While potential projects in Minden and on Wallings Road in Haliburton have fallen by the wayside in recent years, Curry remains hopeful at least one substantial development could soon be moving ahead.

Paul Wilson, owner of Harburn Holdings, pledged one of four lots fronting Grass Lake to P4P last year. Curry said it would come with commercial and residential components, totalling 16 units. A proposal to develop the property has been supported by Dysart et al and Haliburton County councils.

“We want to be ready… we hope this first offering will provide proof of concept for when we come to build. The Grass Lake development is going to be a multi-milliondollar project. We’re going to need to raise a lot of money to make that viable,” she said.

To learn more, visit placesforpeople.ca, email invest@placesforpeople.ca, or call 705-306-9191.

Haliburton Highlands Health Services (HHHS) is going to spend more money for less service and still be at risk of an emergency room closure under its consolidation plan, Minden ER lead, Dr. Bruno Helt, says.

In a May 18 interview, Dr. Helt said going to one ER, from two, obviously means less service.

He added despite HHHS CEO Carolyn Plummer saying consolidating to Haliburton will lessen the risk of a temporary ER closure, he’s not convinced.

As the scheduler of the Minden ER department, he said they had doctors signed up until the end of September and it was never at risk of closing this summer – unless the Haliburton ER were to close, in which the Minden ER doctors would not be able to safely handle the overflow of patients.

Dr. Helt said Plummer told County council at a May 16 meeting HHHS was in a similar staffing position at this time last year going into summer. He added that is when the prospect of short-notice, temporary closures was raised. If Haliburton is in a similar staffing position leading up to the June 1 consolidation, he is worried HHHS will be unable to fill all doctor shifts. The health care organization has already stated it is understaffed for June, July and August, though Plummer expressed confidence all shifts will be filled.

Plummer said on May 23, “HHHS is now in a better situation for physician staffing in the month of June than we were at this time last year. The anticipated temporary closures were as a result of nursing staff shortages. With the consolidation, HHHS has been able to adjust the nursing staff schedule to better match anticipated patient volumes, which decrease in the overnight hours. This will help to reduce the risk of temporary, shortnotice, unpredictable closures that would have had a significant negative impact on the community.”

Dr. Helt also thinks staffing will come at a premium, with doctors being incentivized to come to Haliburton. He further confirmed his Minden ER group will have to be paid out of their contracts. “They broke the contract for us. We’re supposed to have a 90-day notification period. They gave us six weeks.” Dr. Helt said it is not a consolidation of two hospitals and two physician groups since his doctors are not going to Haliburton

“It’s basically the Haliburton group still in a very vulnerable position, where they have to cover lots of shifts and Health Force is going be required to cover whatever they can’t, and Carolyn said that at the meeting, they’re working with Health Force, but it’s never a certainty.”

He noted they will be going from 60 to 90 shifts a month in Haliburton.

Dr. Helt went on to say, “I don’t see why it had to happen before the summer. I do believe it would have been better to happen after the summer. Was there a risk of a Minden closure by itself? No. Was there a risk of a Halliburton closure by itself? Yes.”

Dr. Helt said he and colleague, Dr. Dennis Fiddler, encouraged HHHS to involve the community in a decision of this sort.

“Because there are so many smart people.

You’ve got lawyers, businessmen, politicians, you’ve got all sorts of people who might have a different idea on how to tackle this problem. And why not put it out there to have them involved in this discussion as well.”

The group said, like much of the community, they only received the news in April. After getting through last summer and not hearing anything this spring, “I thought we were going to be in the same situation as last summer and they got through last summer. So, I thought okay, we’re in a new normal, and we’re just going to have to see how that goes.”

Dr. Helt said he did chat with community leaders and urged them to lobby to pause the decision, or get a temporary closure as opposed to a permanent one.

“If it’s shown Minden wasn’t this unstable department, and did have functionality, maybe it can be looked at again in October.”

However, he also said, “they still would have a significant challenge of finding physicians to fill those spots in the summer. Some of us might be able to pick them (shifts) back up but there’s going to be a lot more holes in that schedule.

“This shouldn’t have happened now. It shouldn’t have happened in the way that it happened. It should have had much more public engagement, community engagement. It should have had more physician engagement, saying this is what we have to do. How are we going to make this work? Nothing happened from September until April of this year. And there could have been a lot more work done to say ‘okay, guess what, this is what’s going to happen based on the information we have.”

Judy Paul is one of a handful of Highlanders trying to progress the idea of a universal basic income (UBI), believing it to be the key to eradicating poverty in one of Ontario’s hardest hit areas

Workshops in Minden in February and Haliburton May 10 attracted about 50 people and led to healthy discussion, Paul said, with most “quite supportive” of a UBI.

“In Canada, the rich are getting richer while the poor and middle class are stagnating. People are struggling and in a lot of cases they don’t know who to turn to, what to do,” Paul said. “Introducing a basic income can help so many people in so many ways – it can help women leave abusive relationships, it can help families put food on the table, inspire people to turn their lives around.”

The UBI concept has been around Canada for more than 50 years. A program, dubbed ‘Mincome’ was rolled out in Manitoba in the 1970s, replacing several family, youth and senior allowances for select families in Winnipeg and Dauphin. The program was jointly sponsored by the federal and provincial governments at a net cost of $645 million, running for four years before being scrapped.

Program costs pegged at $81B

Research in the decades since suggest the pilot was a success. Derek Hum and Wayne Simpson, then professors at the University of Manitoba, released a joint report in 1993 that found impacts to the labour supply were minimal. There was a reduction of one per cent of annual hours worked for men, three per cent for married women, and five per cent for unmarried women.

Health economist Evelyn Forget released a report in 2020, finding a reduction in hospitalizations due to accidents and injuries, fewer mental health diagnosis and an overall reduction in poverty.

The Dauphin and Winnipeg experiments were discussed at length by Paul at her workshops.

“That’s proof of concept that UBI works, it has a positive impact,” she said.

Haliburton County sits alongside Manitoulin Island as having the highest poverty rate in Ontario. According to statistics posted by the City of Kawartha Lakes Haliburton Poverty Reduction Roundtable, 17.2 per cent of the County’s population is considered low-income, while 18.5 per cent of children live in low-income households. Around half of the people who rent report spending more than 30 per cent of their income on shelter costs.

The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit estimated in a 2022 report that 10.9 per cent of households across the region are considered food insecure.

Paul pointed to the pilot launched in Ontario in 2017, where 4,000 people from Lindsay, Thunder Bay, Hamilton, Brantford, and Brant County received benefits of $16,989 a year if they were single, and $24,027 a couple, as further validation a UBI can work.

A survey by the Basic Income Canada Network (BICN) in 2020 found the initiative, which was scrapped by the newly-elected Ford government in 2019, led to significant decrease in stress, anxiety and other mental health issues of participants. Respondents reported the basic income helped them better manage their work and home lives.

In 2022, the office of the parliamentary budget officer said a basic income like the one piloted in Ontario would cost $81 billion to roll out nationally, with a net cost of $45 billion if existing federal anti-poverty spending were re-directed toward the basic income. It was estimated more than 7.5 million people would qualify to receive the benefit.

‘Need in Highlands significant’

Susan Hubay leads a Peterborough-based chapter of Coalition Canada, a group committed to advocating for basic income. Speaking with The Highlander, she said she’s encountered a lot of County residents in the eight years she’s spent working on the file, noting the need in the Highlands is “significant.”

“People cannot reach their potential if they’re struggling every day trying to keep food on the table or a roof over their head. We need something in Canada that covers those basic needs,” Hubay said. “We’re looking for a guaranteed income that will put people over the poverty line.”

A living wage in the County was pegged at $19.05 by HKPR in 2020, which works out to just over $37,000 per year on a full-time schedule.

Paul shared details of a report compiled by the BICN in 2021 that outlines three potential scenarios for UBI rollout. The first would see adults aged 18 to 64 qualify for a maximum of $22,000 per year if single, or $31,114 a couple, based on other earnings, at a cost of $134 billion.

The second would see all adults qualify for those amounts, at a cost of $187 billion. Option three would feature a universal benefit for all adults over the age of 18, receiving $22,000 regardless of family status or other income. This model would run $637 billion annually.

The authors, Chandra Pasma, an MPP in Ottawa West-Nepean, and Sheila Regehr, executive director of the National Council of Welfare, said the lowest income families would see their disposable income increase by more than 350 per cent, with poverty being almost eliminated.

Hubay said any UBI program would need to be a joint venture between the federal and provincial governments.

Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MP Jamie Schmale doesn’t believe UBI is the answer.

“Canada is over $1 trillion in debt. Canada doesn’t have a lot of fiscal room… so the issue is, where are you getting the money from to pay for this?” he asked. “I’m open to supporting anything that will make the lives of people in the riding better, but there has to be a significant plan to [move forward] with something like that.”

Paul said she’s committed to the fight and is considering launching a Haliburton-based UBI group.

The Save Minden Ontario Emergency Room group is planning to seek a court injunction to stop the June 1 closure of the Minden ER.

At a rally at the Minden fairgrounds May 21, group leader Patrick Porzuczek introduced Jayson Schwartz, of Toronto-based firm Schwartz Law Partners. The long-time Minden cottager has, in turn, secured litigators, Ross Nasseri LLP, also of Toronto, to lead the fight.

Addressing hundreds at the rally, Schwartz said he and his wife have had a cottage on South Lake for more than 20 years and now spend 60-65 per cent of their time there.

In offering to work for free on the case, he added, “I have a great love of the community.” He said he specializes in corporate, commercial and real estate law, and is not a litigator, which is why he has brought Mark Ross and Justin Nasseri on.

“I have found us lawyers,” Schwartz told a clapping crowd. “They are remarkable young men who have an unbelievable reputation in the litigation field in Toronto.” Ross and Nasseri met with Schwartz and members of the Save group this past Sunday after the rally.

Schwartz added money donated through his law firm’s email address was being transferred to a trust fund May 23.

He also touched on possible outcomes for the fulltime and seasonal residents who came to donate money for food and drinks and lined up to support the legal challenge.

“Can we permanently stop the closure of this emergency room with litigation? I don’t believe we can, but I do believe we can stop it for June 1,” he said.

Lawyer: time to lobby Premier Ford

Schwartz added, “everybody talks about how HHHS didn’t consult with the community. Sadly, the law seems to say that they don’t have to.

“We have a lot of evidence we’ve put together that will give these lawyers the opportunity to bring an application for an injunction to basically stop this closure. I think that’s a shot and I think that’s where your money is going.”

He said the community has to “turn to other methodologies” to keep the ER open. He suggested establishing a committee of concerned citizens, including the mayor, to meet with Premier Doug Ford, to come up with a long-term plan.

“I say to Mr. Ford, sir, would you please look at what is going on in Minden. Hundreds and hundreds of people have shown up to support keeping their ER open, many of us from Toronto and the environs therein… there has to be a way.”

As the intermediary between the Save group and the litigators, Schwartz added, “I promise to make sure they don’t squander your money. I will make sure they apply it in the best way possible. And I will make sure that every dollar is accounted for. I have to sign every cheque as it goes out, so I am responsible in that regard.”

As of May 21, the community had already raised $50,000 of an estimated $100,000 retainer.

Mayor Bob Carter also spoke at the rally and explained that the township cannot be involved in the legal proceedings.

“There is a big difference between … what an individual can do and what a government can do. Any time government sues government, one, it takes a long time and, two, it costs a lot of money. So, we cannot be seen to be part of any legal action at this point.”

He said he can now talk to HHHS and government, but would lose that ability in the midst of a lawsuit. He added he was not ruling out future legal action by the municipality or County.

Carter renews calls for HHHS board to resign

Carter explained to the crowd why he asked for the HHHS board to resign during a May 16 County council meeting.

He cited his first reason as a lack of consultation by HHHS on the decision. He said HHHS didn’t talk to the doctors, the nurses and the people involved because they were worried about rumours.

He said the second reason was timing. “We want to do this in six weeks. We’ve been working this way for 30 years but in six weeks we’re going to change it all.”

Carter said his third reason was HHHS’ plan for June 1, saying it appeared to be, “we don’t have one yet. We’re going to be making it up over those next six weeks.”

Carter claims the board has failed in its fiduciary (trusting relationship) responsibilities. “They allowed this decision to go forward without any of the things that needed to be done.

“I don’t have the answer, and the plan required for delivering emergency services in all of Haliburton County. If I needed to come up with that answer, I’d have to consult a lot of people. I’d have to be talking to you (the crowd). I’d have to be talking to doctors. I’d have to be talking to nurses and all of the stakeholders, because only together can we develop a plan.”

Haliburton County’s four fire chiefs have lifted the fire ban that was imposed region-wide May 17.

Mike French, head of the Algonquin Highlands Fire Service, said in a media release the weekend rain had alleviated the County’s fire risk. The ban came into effect 48 hours after local departments responded to five blazes in a single day on May 15. Four of the fires were put out that day, while the most significant – a nine-hectare blaze on Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry land near Black Lake – raged for several days. As of May 22, MNRF reported the fire had been extinguished.

With the lifting of the fire ban, this means daytime burn permits are re-activated and outdoor burning is permitted between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.

More information on burning regulations can be found on municipal websites in Algonquin Highlands, Dysart et al, Highlands East and Minden Hills.