Haliburton Highlands Secondary School students slept among the shelves of the school library to raise awareness and learn about homelessness March 22.

The school’s Interact Club hosted its first-ever Sleepover for Homelessness event, with more than 30 students participating. Students slept on the ground in the library, without their home’s luxuries. They also discussed stories of homelessness and different myths about it.

Club staff advisor Christine Carr said it was a way to counter misconceptions about homelessness.

“A lot of students don’t realize it is a problem in this area,” Carr said.

The evening was done in solidarity with Places for People’s Sleeping in Cars event March 1, which had participants sleep out one night in their vehicle. Club president Josie Quigley said they were initially invited to participate in that. Due to liability and logistical issues, however, the club hosted their own event instead, which was more accessible to students.

“It’s more about opening up the conversation about something that we don’t really talk about, especially as youth,” Quigley said. “Everybody knows somebody that’s been kicked out, but we don’t really refer to it as homelessness and we don’t really realize what an epidemic it is.”

Participant Hailey Brisco said the event was a chance to better understand what homeless people go through.

“There are so many things you take for granted, like having a roof over your head, and so many people don’t have that,” Brisco said.

Quigley said she was shocked by the number of people who attended.

“It’s because it’s so relatable. We all know someone that’s been homeless, or that’s been in-between houses, couch surfing,” Quigley said.

Carr said the event helps students better know their community.

“It helps them be able to help others if they’re aware of it (homelessness),” Carr said. “There’s a lot of stigma around it. By trying to take away some of the stigmas, it can help people be more likely to reach out for help.”

The province is giving Haliburton municipalities an unexpected, one-time funding windfall which amounts to more than $500,000 for each of them.

It was announced by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing March 20 for small and rural municipalities. The money is aimed at helping them to improve service delivery “by finding smarter, more efficient ways to spend money,” according to a press release.

“This funding will help small and rural municipalities improve how they deliver services and reduce the ongoing costs of providing those services,” Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark said.

The County of Haliburton will receive the largest allotment locally at $725,000. Dysart et al and Minden will receive
$542,255 each, Algonquin Highlands will get $532,292, and Highlands East $534,469.

County Reeve Liz Danielsen said she is grateful for the extra cash.

“This is ‘found’ money coming in after we have completed our budget discussions. It is difficult to say at this point what county council will determine as best use,” Danielsen said.

Highlands East Mayor Dave Burton said the funding makes a big difference to Highlands East’s bottom line. He added the municipality could explore a service delivery review, but it would not take all the money.

“I don’t really know what we’ll do with the rest of it. It could go to the other reviews we’re doing,” Burton said. “It’s huge. It’s just what we needed.”

At a Dysart et al council meeting March 26, deputy mayor Patrick Kennedy said the county has committed to examining service delivery, instructing staff to compile an inventory for the end of May. He said it would be a great exercise to identify shortages and challenges but also areas that are working extremely well together.

Later in the meeting, during the discussion on the one-time funding, he said he thought modernizing service delivery referenced “get your own ducks in order or we will.” He added some of the money could be used to put towards a larger pool of money for a countywide local government service review.

Municipalities will also be benefitting from a one-time funding windfall from the federal government, which is doubling this year’s gas tax allotments to municipalities.

The allotment goes toward local infrastructure. At the county level, the 2019 budgeted gas tax contribution before the doubling was $547,933, Danielsen said.

“We have a number of outstanding projects including roads and bridges and council will be discussing where the funds are best spent with the guidelines provided,” Danielsen said.

However, Danielsen said she is concerned about what the impact of the extra money could mean for funding programs in 2020 and beyond.

“We have been clear that we expect our partners, including municipalities, to be taking steps to become more efficient,” the ministry said in a press release. “This funding supports Ontario’s commitment to reduce the cost of government.”

The province announced Dec. 21, 2018 it would be reviewing the Ontario Municipal Partnership Funding (OMPF) as part of its effort to reduce its deficit. The funding is the province’s main assistance grant to municipalities.

The province opted to maintain OMPF funding levels for 2019. But Burton said municipalities would have to be prepared for that to change in 2020.

“It may not be there next year, that same opportunity,” Burton said.

The City of Kawartha Lakes unveiled its ideas to address affordable housing and homelessness over the next 10 years through a public consultation session March 14.

The session, held at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 129 Haliburton, invited the public to offer feedback on the municipality’s efforts to address those issues in the city and County of Haliburton. The consultation is part of an effort to create the new 10-year plan.

Twelve people attended, including government officials, landlords and affordable housing advocates. City of Kawartha Lakes manager of housing Hope Lee said it was good to get a broad range of feedback.

“Things we can now incorporate into the plan before it’s finalized,” Lee said. “Even though it was smaller, we still got a lot of involvement. Everybody was enthusiastic.”

The city’s presentation highlighted efforts to address issues to date. It noted the waiting list for financially-assisted housing has expanded 375 per cent since 2013, with nearly 1,700 households on the list today.

The city also presented several policy areas to inform its new plan, including ending homelessness, better co-ordination with other community services, improving energy efficiency of affordable housing and supporting non-profit housing corporations. Each policy had a detailed list of objectives, with consultation participants offering more ideas.

“This is unbelievable, the work that you’ve put into every one of these policy areas,” commented participant Debbie Sherwin. “How many staff hours you’ve put together coming up with all these.”

Kathy Sweeney with the Minden Hills Housing Task Force said the plan is well thought out with a lot of useful background information.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Sweeney said. “It doesn’t really address the need as much as it needs to, but I don’t think it’s entirely up to this group to do that. They need assistance from the private sector.”

Public feedback will be built into the final housing and homelessness plan, which is scheduled to be presented in June.

“There has been interviews, there has been these public consultations, there has been a survey,” Lee said. “We’ll double check to see what was said, has it been incorporated already and if it hasn’t, how do we incorporate it.”

Local seniors’ advocates are praising measures in the 2019 federal budget aimed at helping Canada’s elderly.

Haliburton’s CARP chapter said it supports a number of measures to help seniors in this year’s budget, released March 19.

The budget includes a reduction in the threshold for low-income seniors to qualify for a guaranteed income supplement reducing the threshold of low-income working seniors to qualify for a guaranteed income supplement.

“We are also pleased to see some funding for a National Dementia Strategy, increases to the New Horizons for Seniors Program and automatic enrolment in CPP (Canadian Pension Plan) for adults over 70,” local chapter acting president Elaine Schmid said.

This year’s budget also comes with a promise to have high-speed internet in every Canadian home and business by 2030. Schmid said the investments in digital infrastructure will help reduce social isolation for seniors.

“This will be particularly beneficial in our rural setting here in the Highlands,” Schmid said. “Definitely some good things for our membership.”

MP criticizes internet work

Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MP Jamie Schmale said he, along with the Eastern Ontario Regional Network, has been pushing for action to improve internet coverage for years.

Schmale was critical of the government taking action in the final year of its term, when a plan to fill in the coverage gaps in eastern Ontario has been “on the desk of the minister for two years.”

“Had the government moved forward with EORN’s plan two years ago, we would be in year three of the project already and service would be vastly better,” Schmale said.

Schmale said he hopes the promise means dollars can flow toward making EORN’s plan happen.

“This is something I will be holding the government’s feet to the fire on,” Schmale said. “This is something I will fight tooth and nail for to ensure that EORN’s proposal to start filling in the gaps is taken seriously.”

Schmale was also critical of the budget’s projected $19.8 billion deficit. In the last federal election, the Liberals had said the budget would be balanced in this fiscal year.

“Today’s deficit spending is tomorrow’s tax hikes or service cuts,” Schmale said. “The more spending we do, the more future generations will have to pay this bill.”

More funding for towns

The budget also offers a one-time windfall for municipalities. This year’s federal gas tax fund – which flows to municipalities for infrastructure needs – will be doubled, amounting to $2.2 billion.

“That’s a fantastic measure. It’s something I’ve advocated for quite some time,” Schmale said. “One of the most efficient ways to deliver infrastructure funds is to give the dollars directly to municipalities and not have one municipality fight against another for limited dollars.”

Municipalities are considering how to access some of the $30 billion in new infrastructure funding coming down from the federal and provincial levels.

The intake for the first part of the funding was opened March 18, aimed at rural and northern communities to invest in road, bridge, air and marine infrastructure. The funding was initially announced by the province March 12 under the federal Investing in Canada Infrastructure program.

At a County of Haliburton Roads Committee meeting March 13, Minden Hills Mayor Brent Devolin said the county should explore projects for the funding.

“Think outside the box,” Devolin said. “If it’s a one-time windfall, from my perspective, I normally wouldn’t choose to debenture something like that. But I would certainly entertain it if the situation was right.”

The funding program is to be spread across 10 years, with cost sharing between all levels of government. The federal government is providing $11.8 billion, while the province will provide up to $10.2 billion. The current intake is open for eight weeks and is aimed at near-term projects, according to the grant application website.
Criteria include funding need, technical merit and how well the projects address current health and safety risks, such as road collisions.

Additional consideration will also be given to joint projects “providing benefit to multiple communities.”

“Our economy, communities and families all depend on infrastructure,” Minister of Infrastructure Monte McNaughton said in a press release. “The program will bring major infrastructure investments that people rely on.”

The new funding also earned discussion at the lower-tier council tables. In response to the announcement, Dysart et al deputy mayor Patrick Kennedy said at a March 14 budget meeting he wanted to put more towards reserves for projects that might qualify for the funding.

Minden CAO and treasurer Lorrie Blanchard said the program will likely be a shared funding formula as other infrastructure programs have been in the past.

“Zero requirements from the municipality? Absolutely not,” she told the March 14 Minden committee of the whole meeting.

For projects funded, the minimum cost share for municipalities under 5,000 will be 6.67 per cent in the first intake, which Highlands East and Algonquin Highlands fall under. Municipalities between 5,000 and 100,000 will have a minimum 16.67 per cent cost share, which would apply to Minden Hills, Dysart et al and the county.

“This is probably money we may not see like this for another decade,” Devolin told the roads committee. “Let’s investigate.”

Environment Haliburton members debated the merits of addressing climate change through our current political systems and civil disobedience March 12.

The organization hosted an EnviroCafé event about Extinction Rebellion, a UK-based environmental advocacy group. The group seeks to generate mass acts of civil disobedience and create a citizens’ assembly to oversee change.

Environment Haliburton director Eric Lilius spoke to approximately 30 people about the group.

“Something’s got to change and it isn’t working,” Lilius said about the political system. “Big impacts on climate change haven’t happened.”

However, councillors in the audience pushed back on the ideas behind Extinction Rebellion. Dysart et al Coun. John Smith said education was the best way forward to create change.

“If we were to get people educated on the crisis that we face, people will demand change. The political system will work for us,” Smith said.

Minden Hills Coun. Bob Carter agreed and said both he and Smith were elected in part because of their environmental positions. He criticized Extinction Rebellion’s intention to try and change the political system. The group links itself to sortition, the use of random selection to populate a legislative assembly.

“The fact is people aren’t bringing environmental issues to the council to try and get things enacted. This group (Environment Haliburton), in my mind, should be presenting to all of the councils in this county at least once a year,” Carter said. “This is a democracy. That’s how you get it done.”

Environment Haliburton secretary Heather Ross replied the group has presented to councils in pursuit of climate change planning, without success.

“We got turned down,” Ross said. “How do we work more effectively with councils? Because we’ve worked hard and I think we’ve done decent work.”

Ann Maher questioned the progress made by educating people.

“Way back in the 60s and early 70s, we were talking the same talk. Nothing changed,” Maher said. “We have to hit them over the head with something else.”

Lilius said although Extinction Rebellion appeals to him, he understands it does not appeal to everyone and it is not synonymous with Environment Haliburton.

Speaking to councillor comments, Lilius said “this is what this is all about, an alternative system. We’ve got proper politicians that are entrenched in the system.”

“It’s a failed system, but we’re locked into it,” he added. “How to get out of it gracefully? I have no idea.”

The Ministry of Labour is investigating the fatality of a Hydro One worker in the County of Haliburton.

Haliburton Highlands OPP confirmed the death of a 25-year-old Sydenham man March 21. Const. Amanda Gilbert said police, fire and EMS workers responded to the scene after reports of an industrial accident on Coleman Lake Road in Dysart et al at approximately 10:25 a.m.

The man was transported by EMS to a local hospital where he was pronounced deceased, Gilbert said. She added the Ministry of Labour has been notified and is investigating.

Hydro One responded on its Facebook page.

“It is with heavy hearts that we confirm one of our employees passed away from injuries sustained on the job,” the company said in a March 21 Facebook post. “We are deeply saddened by the loss of our employee and, above all else, our thoughts and condolences are with the family, friends and colleagues.”

The ministry investigates all workplace fatalities to try to determine the cause and to identify preventative actions, according to the provincial government website. If prosecution for any violations found under the Occupational Health and Safety Act is warranted, charges will be laid within one year of the date of the offence

“There is nothing more important to us than the safety of our employees,” Hydro One said. “We fully support the Ministry of Labour in its investigation into the incident.”

The Ministry will not provide specific details about its investigation while its ongoing, according to the government website. If charges are laid, details will also be kept until prosecution is complete.