The 905er Podcast

On October 31st, 12 Mayors from across Ontario wrote a letter to Premier Doug Ford, requesting more powers to deal with the growing homeless and encampment crisis in our cities. Five of those mayors were from 905 cities.

In the letter, the mayors went the extra step to request the Notwithstanding Clause be used if necessary to give them the ability to override court decisions regarding the Charter Rights of homeless. Needless to say this has proven to be a controversial point. Some have gone so far as to say it’s an overreach of government and a step too far. Mayors on the other hand are saying they have exhausted the limited powers granted to them to deal with this problem.

We wanted to reach out to one of the signatories from the 905 to find out what made them decided to request such a controversial and impactful option with the Notwithstanding Clause.

Joining us today is Mayor of St. Catharines Mat Siscoe, who outlines his argument for why this option needs to be on the table.

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For the better part of a decade, municipalities have been expected to chip in a portion of new hospital infrastructure. This practice was brought in under the previous Ontario Liberal government and is continued by the current Ontario PC. When hospital infrastructure runs upwards into the billions of dollars this can become quite the burden on a municipality's bottom line.

This issue came to the forefront last week during Mississauga City Council's deliberation over whether or not to fund the Trillium Health Partner's request for $450 million to help fund the Peter Gilgan Hospital redevelopment. The main reason cited was that the funding of health care is the sole responsibility of the province. Municipalities do not have the funds or fundraising mechanisms to invest in healthcare infrastructure of this size. According to the city, to fulfill this request would mean that the city would need to raise property taxes to pay off the debt for many years to come.

Stepping back away from this specific issue, the matter of municipalities paying for what is essentially the province's responsibility is one that we keep coming back to time and time again on this podcast. If this is going to be the expected model going forward, then perhaps a new deal for cities is required.

To discuss the city's rationale, and the matter of who pays for what in Ontario, we invited back to the podcast Alvin Tedjo, Mississauga City Councilor for Ward 2. He joins us to give us insight into how the city is pushing back on the province's pressure to fund their responsibilities and to discuss why Ontario's cities need new ways to fund their responsibilities.

It takes money and time to do this podcast. We love doing what we do, but please consider supporting us if you can so we can keep improving, and keep paying the bills.

There have been a few stories that popped onto our radar recently that made us think we ought to do a 905 Round-Up Episode to cover them all. In the course of our discussions about them though, we discovered a common thread. All of the problems we discuss are a result of the poor decision-making of the Ontario PC Government.

The Mississauga LRT project is under threat of not being completed due to questions of where funding to pay vendors and suppliers will come from. The funding has turned into a mess of who's owed who and who is paying for it. Metrolinx is the Ontario government's transit corporation in charge of this project so why isn't the province stepping in to sort this out? Another project that the current government is leading to failure.

In Hamilton, The Spec reported how a new distribution model for home care supplies has left major gaps in the way they are distributed to patients. The result is that patients and home care providers are not operating with the tools they need. All due to the current government's need to upend the old way of doing things, resulting in a mess.

Lastly, we look at the fact that Burlington is raising property taxes again. We face the reality that it's due to the Ford government's upending the municipal funding formula but not replacing it with a new model for 905 municipalities to operate with.

What is the common thread we mentioned at the beginning of this note? We describe it as malicious incompetence. Listen to the episode to understand what it means.

As reported by Global News earlier this month, an internal document to then Minister of Education Todd Smith states that the province could be facing a teacher shortage.

Too many teachers are leaving the profession with fewer new teachers joining their ranks. The Ministry of Education is predicting that as early as 2027 we could start seeing a gap in available teachers and the number of students. If this continues we could see an already burdened education system stretched to its limits.

The current Minister of Education Jill Dunlop says that this looming crisis will be addressed by dealing with absenteeism as well as shortening the time for teaching candidates to get in front of classrooms.

Our guest today though has a different viewpoint. Karen Brown is the president of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. Previously she was on to discuss the issue of violence against teachers in the classroom. Today she joins us to expand on that topic and discuss why Ontario has enough teachers. Just the province isn't stepping up to the plate to make the profession attractive to the qualified.

Last week saw news that another beluga whale died at Marineland.

For years now, the Niagara Falls-based theme park has been under intense scrutiny, after evidence of animal mistreatment and deaths have emerged at the park. The Ontario Solicitor General has stated that the park is under inspection by the province but will not divulge what it has been examining or looking for. Meanwhile, the park has reduced its operations to a mere shadow of its former glory.

The idea of Marineland overcoming its current woes and becoming a prestige destination attraction in Ontario is long gone. As people speculate on what the future of the park will be, the remaining Beluga Whales and Dolphins welfare is questioned.

We invited on to the podcast the whistleblower who brought to light the mistreatment and condition of the animals at Marineland, Philip Demers to discuss the current state of the park and what its future might be.

His not-for-profit organization to protect marine animal life is called UrgentSeas, and today he joins us to talk about Marineland