Congratulations and kudos to Mayor Ashe for trying to give Pickering residents the opportunity of speaking with him, but not in the true sense of speaking with him. It was a telephone town hall where callers posed their questions and the Mayor responded.

My first impressions are that I found the Town Hall unsatisfying.

First, the moderator or gate keeper censured the questions. The questions put to the mayor were “soft,” none demanding tough consideration or challenging replies. The mayor dealt with 17 calls, none were really demanding.

The majority of the questions dealt with city expansion and growth and how the city was preparing to deal with it. The answer was obvious: the PLANNING DEPARTMNT is responsible for dealing with these items planning and preparing for them. Succinct, simple and straightforward.

Taxes
The usual lament, too high. Callers who had done their homework would understand, as the mayor painfully explained: the city’s share of tax income is is limited. He pointed out Pickering’s tax increase was the lowest of the cities in the region at just over 3%. Tax increases are inevitable given ongoing growth and increased demand for the City’s response to greater needs and demands. The city must deal with demands that constantly grow with expansion everywhere: health, traffic regulation, housing and infrastructure, police and fire response. Ashe emphasized the city is constantly trying to expand its business tax revenues to reduce the dependency on property tax, much easier said than done, as overtures to the business community take time and effort. Taxation will always be a problem the city recognizes and works to ameliorate for everyone’s benefit.

Censorship
Indisputably, telephone town halls are a dynamically unfolding event that needs a traffic moderator. The one used in this event, nameless to save him some agony, didn’t regulate. He censored. Tough questions like the one I posed regarding how the City was legally dealing with the accusations of ‘corruption at the top levels without evidence or corroboration’ was never broadcast. It should have been posed as it is a turmoil that has received national attention. The top level personnel of the city executive have been accused of corruption without evidence of it. Call me corrupt as a civil servant…you’ll hear from my lawyer, post haste. 

The moderator likely couldn’t verbalize what was being posed. Yet that city turmoil is so notable it has hit the national news. Surely it is impacting seriously and negatively on the spirit and effectiveness of council meetings. Guess it was one of the hard-to-deal with questions, eh, Mr. Moderator. Were there others? Never to be known with this kind of town hall.

Town Halls have merit and value. However, their history demands a different type than those once held in the town square, where the residents gathered and shouted out questions. That would be chaotic now and impossible. The closest Ashe has come to doing such a Town Hall is when he held them at a coffee shops in Pickering. Close to 150 people crammed his last one, in a small coffee shop, questioning the mayor and followingup with secondary questions. Not done in the telephone town hall.

Maybe the Mayor has to consider alternative ways of keeping City residents informed:

Central library Town Halls would allow for larger crowds and be more like the town halls of old.

Could the Mayor consider doing monthly podcasts, something along the lines of the YouTube videos. 

Text publication works best for people as people can access at will, read at their own pace, and pause to evaluation and consider. The City’s webpage would work for this. Practical, constant and available on demand. The ideal answer. Publish all the information online: the tax structure, the planning, the city responses, the words of the Police Chief, the Fire Chief, the City’s chief accountant. [Read my interview with Fire Chief Stephen Boyd on my website at www.szpin.ca to get my meaning.]

Disappointingly, as one of your most astute councillors has said, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…in regard to people accessing the City’s website for information, build a better site and they will come…make it simpler, more succinct and easier to assimilate. They will come. Word will spread and they will come. Those missing the information will hear of their loss and they will come.

There is much room for improvement but the ball is in the mayor’s court.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the constructive and monumental effort at opening your doors to your residents.

Council meetings can be lengthy and feel interminable. This meeting lasted well over 4 hours ranging from delegations, reports, program examinations and recommendations and Councillor questions. The purpose of posting this transcript is to benefit those who prefer the written word where they can pause, review and consider at their own speed and wish. 

Council meetings are available on YouTube where they can be viewed in full. Errors, omissions and typos in this posting are solely my responsibility. I have received no stipulation or remuneration from the City for this work. ________________________ Richard Szpin

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The material is presented thusly:

1. FULL TRANSCRIPT
2. SUMMARY as best as possible

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Thank you, and good evening. I’m going to call the meeting, Council meeting of January 27th to order. Madam Clerk, can we do a roll call, please? Thank you, Your Worship. I can certify the attendance of all members of the Council, and they’re all participating electronically. Thank you. At this point, we have a moment of reflection as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

I hope you remember that in our time of personal reflection today. Thank you. We acknowledge the City of Pickering resides on land within the Treaty and traditional territories of the Mississauga of Scugog Island First Nation and Williams Treaty signatures of the Mississauga and Chippewa Nations. Pickering is also home to many Indigenous persons and communities who represent other diverse, distinct, and autonomous Indigenous nations.

This acknowledgment reminds us of our responsibilities to our relationships with the First Peoples of Canada and to the ancestral language of which we learn, share, work, and live. Any disclosures of interest? Being none, doff, and live. Any disclosures of interest? Being none, adoption of minutes.

Move, Mr. Mann. Moved by Councillor Cook, second by Councillor Butt, the approval of the minutes of December 16th, special council meeting of January 10th, and the executive committee minutes of January 13th any corrections being none all those in favor opposed that item is carried we have three delegations tonight the first one is James Malosh and Melissa Ruden who are from Community Care Durham Melissa Rudin, who are from Community Care Durham, and they are here to speak to the Notice of Motion of Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly. It’s a group presentation so they have up to 10 minutes. James, welcome back to our chamber. Thank you, Your Worship. I hope people can hear me okay. And I’ll just introduce Melissa Rudan. Melissa? Sorry, you’re on mute, Melissa. Sorry about that. My name is Melissa Rudan. I’m the director of community capital development at Community Care Durham, and we’re pleased to be here this evening to present to Council.

Community Care Durham
Great. I don’t know if our presentation will be on the screen. I don’t see it, but I’m hoping that it might be available. Oh, there we are. Just to give you a little bit of, some of you know who Community Care Durham is or are. I will take this time to do a little bit of introduction, but currently we serve over 1,100 individuals in Durham region and for every one of those 1,100 individuals, we’re supporting their families, their caregivers.

We deliver almost 9,000 meals in Pickering. We do 2,300 drives annually for people to get to their medical appointments or other appointments. We provide almost 3,000 days of adult day programming in our program in the Salem, sorry, Bailey and Liverpool location. And we support people in their home for high needs. And roughly we have about 50 clients now in Pickering, specifically in the dead, that Liverpool white roads, white road area.

One Connect: All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly
And so anyhow, I want to talk to you a little bit about a program we’re working on called One Connect. And it’s based off with the title of the motion is called, the Program for the All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly. So we can just move to the next slide. When we speak about frailty, we’re not talking about an age.

We’re talking about a particular life condition. We want to refrain from just thinking age as being a disease or a condition. Many people, including all of us, like people in this room and people we know are aging quite well. We’re talking about frailty where there’s a complex of physical, mental, social, economic, cognitive issues that create people who are living on the fringes of losing their independence in the community.

And in Durham region, we nearly have about 27,000 older adults living with frailty, and those numbers are provided by our regional geriatric program. People who are living with frailty are often not able to address their needs specifically through the health care system, but that’s generally where they show up.

They show up in the hospital, they show up waiting for long term care, but their needs go beyond health. Next slide, please. Next slide. So, if any of you have been a caregiver or known people who are caregivers, you know how difficult it is to navigate the system, and particularly to navigate this funding system that we have of health care providers, social providers, community providers.

System is faltering
And this lack of integration results in caregiver burnout. It results in poor outcomes. And particularly, those individuals are not seen as people. They’re just seen as transactions. They’re like an hour care here, an hour care there. And these combined impacts of that frailty mean that these individuals are more likely to show up at the hospital, they’re more likely to be in our hospitals for a long period of time, or they’re going to be admitted into long-term care when we could have actually done something for them. Next slide. So I think most of you will agree that almost all Ontarians want to live at home. They don’t. Long-term care isn’t a life goal destination. We go there when we have to go there. No one puts that on their resume saying my aspirations. It’s not on the LinkedIn page. You know, what’s your goal in life to live in long-term care? I mean, naturally, we want to make sure it’s there for when people need it.

But that demand for long-term care is about to increase in Durham region by almost 40%. And while we are a relatively younger community by Ontario standards, we’re aging rapidly because of that rapid growth. Currently, as of this month, there are almost 2,400 individuals in Durham waiting to go into long-term care, and a third of those are living alone, so they have no supports.

PACE
That’s a huge risk of frailty. To get into long-term care today by all non-crisis placements, it’s 578 days. And that’s, you might know people who actually have been on long-term care with us for four to five years. Next slide. So we’re proposing a solution that’s based off a proven model in the United States called PACE, where we weave together those health and social care needs for people living in the community so they can maintain their independence and quality of life at home. And this approach will not only raise the quality of life for people and their caregivers, but also relieve some of the pressures in Ontario’s healthcare system by lowering rates of hospitalization and preventing long-term care homes so that when people really need it, it’s there for them. Next slide. really need it, it’s there for them. Next slide. So just a little bit about PACE. I won’t spend a lot of time on this, but it is a proven program in the U.S. It’s publicly funded by their state and federal programs, Medicare and Medicaid. I’ll just give you a brief description of what it is. Next slide. So on the kind of population health pyramid, we believe, and we’ll talk about this sometime, that people’s entry into the healthcare system should be managed by their primary care provider.

Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities
NORCs are another concept we’re working with Durham Region now, which is where we see high propensities of aging adults living in naturally occurring retirement communities. So this might be, for example, some towers that are off, you know, south of Bailey or near Whites Road and the 401 where you have a high percentage of seniors, where if we can get into those buildings and provide them health and social supports, they can actually stay home longer. Home care is what we know, people coming in and out of our doors, PSWs, nurses, physiotherapists, sorry, recreational therapists. Where we are on the One Connect platform are those people who are really at high needs and they’re waiting to go to long-term care. Next slide. So PACE is a managed program in the United States where it’s a capitated budget. So essentially, PACE organizations are funded up with a pot of money to maintain that individual’s health and well-being, regardless of what their health care needs are, whether they be health care, home care, maybe some equipment in their home.

But the idea is to keep them independent living in the community. And right now in Ontario, our funding system is incredibly siloed. So if you need a service, you get in one line in one area. And if you need something else, you get in another line. You could be in four or five lines waiting for care at the very same time.

PACE – continuum of support with emphasis on care at home
So in PACE provides an alternative traditional nursing home care. And I just want to let you know that in America right now, they’re investing more in community support programs and home care than they are in long-term care. It’s just more cost effective. Next slide. These are the kinds of programs that are in PACE.

So home care, primary care, adult day services, physio and occupational therapy, prescription drugs. It’s the continuum of supports. It’s not just one service. It’s all of them. Next slide. And the team that works in these programs, sorry, the PACE program, just talking about the day program, we have a great day program. I don’t know if you’ve been to it. It’s down on Bailey and, as I said, Liverpool.

That’s a fantastic program, and caregivers drop their loved ones off, or we bring them to our center from nine o’clock to three o’clock, and they spend a day with us getting social activities, personal care, nutritional support, cognitive stimulation. They’re building community, and their caregivers are allowed to do the things that they want to do in their life.

Community Care Durham
So the day program is absolutely essential. So just a little bit about Community Care Durham. Many of you know us through our Meals on Wheels program. That’s our vision of helping people and helping our community. And currently we’re approaching our 50th anniversary. We have 340 staff, nearly 900 volunteers supporting almost 10,000 clients in Durham region from ages of 16 to 106.

I think we have presently over 10 people who are centenarians in our services. We address all of their needs through our programs. So our vision for this One Connect program is highly unique to Ontario. We would be the first organization in Ontario to replicate PACE in its most fulsome extent.

And that’s the slide here on that triangle that I presented earlier. So the program we’re envisioning is where people are enrolled into this comprehensive program that provides them supports in their home. We have community nurses that are available to them in their home. We link them up with a local pharmacy.

We provide exercise balls and other occupational therapy programs to make sure they’re moving and they’re active. The day program is available to help with cognitive stimulation while giving caregiver supports, transportation to help them get to any medical appointment or our programs, food security, its’s meals at home, whether it’s hot or frozen, social work and mental wellness.

So looking at supports, social work supports or mental health support groups. And we’ve also allowed for a $3,000 annual social prescribing budget. So if a person needs help with costs of medications, physical equipment in the home, we can purchase that on the spot for them rather than waiting months to get that support and ultimately in those months of time losing their ability to maintain their independence at home. I’m at 10 minutes. I wonder if I could have two more minutes, please.

Please proceed, James. I got you another minute here. Thank you, sir. We think we’re really well positioned at CCD to provide these services because we’re one of the few organizations in Ontario that provide almost all these programs. We developed a community nursing program two years ago, which is the first of its kind in the province.

And now we’re providing supports to Lake Ridge Health by bringing people out of the eMERGE back home rather than admitting them to hospital. And we’ve just over the last two months supported over 100 individuals by bringing them home the very same day that they presented the AD and putting them in care at home. And lastly, we’re just committed to this concept.

Community Health and Wellness Centre
Ashe So in the interest of time, I’ll just talk a little bit about this health and wellness center we’re renovating in Whitby, and I’d like to bring it to Pickering. We have received a federal grant to renovate our building, which we purchased with our own funds, to create a home away from home environment that has showers, facilities, a hair salon, nursing station, foot care programs.

When the people come into our program for a day, they can basically get their oil changed and their tires rotated in the very same day. It’s highly efficient and leads to great outcomes. We’ll have this program up and running in the fall of next year.

So I’ll move on to the conclusion, just because I want to make sure I’m making use of your time if you have any questions. If I can move forward, please. So we are asking the provincial budget, not you, for $1.7 million to support 50 clients who are waiting to go to long-term care with this program, the total cost per client day is less than $100, whereas the alternative to the taxpayer is over twice that amount if they were in long-term care.

Again, this is our ask of the provincial government, not to you and the municipality Pickering. Next mark. question, please. Slide. So what we hope to do is to continue building out this vision in Pickering by expanding our adult day programming in Pickering, where we currently have almost 100 people on our wait list to get into the program, but also across Durham region.

We don’t see this just stopping in one area. We want to make this a standard of care in Durham. So we need your support and that’s why I’m here today. I hope I’ve given you enough information to receive your endorsement for this concept of integrated home and community care as envisioned by our program.

We’ve enlisted the support of the AJAX Council and we’ll be presenting to Whitby next week. And we’re on our way across Durham Region. We’ve presented to Scugog as well. We’d like to get to the Health and Social Services Committee next. We’ve received support from various stakeholder groups from across Ontario and from this region, including the Durham Ontario Health Team.

And as we move forward with this vision, we’d like to work with your staff while we plan for future sites or these NORC communities, as I mentioned, where we can start to insert our services to help people who are older adults at risk of losing their independence. We believe those individuals are not just better citizens, they’re better tenants, and we hope to be a part of that planning conversation with your staff.

So that is the end of my presentation. Thank you for the allowance of a few more minutes, and I’d be happy through you or your worship to take any questions. Thank you, James, for your presentation and also for the very important work that your agency delivers to our community.

There is a motion that we’ll be dealing with later, but moved by Councillor Cook and seconded by Councillor Pickles to endorse. Councillor Pickles, question? Thank you, Mayor Ashe. First of all, and as you recognize, Community Care does great work. Thank you for the presentation. It’s a fantastic looking program. As you’re aware, and as Mayor Ashe has noted, there is a motion later on in the agenda from Councillor Cook and myself.

You’ve seen the motion. Are you supportive of the motion and uh the clarity that we provide in it um if you’re asking me uh counselor yes we’re very supportive of the motion thank you it serves what we’re hoping to achieve and thank you for your assistance in uh preparing that um and I i did wanted to make it clear and, and I’m just going to ask you to clarify again, you’re not seeking financial support from us, but the motion advocates on your behalf for provincial funding for the programs as you’ve outlined.

Yes, we may be in discussions with Durham region around how we align health and social services spend to these particular projects. But what we’re really looking for, as I just mentioned, is the support of the vision based on the legacy we’ve built here in Pickering at CCD and the future we hope to achieve, as well as to work more closely with some of your staff as we plan for this growing community of Pickering to how to locate our services to the most beneficial impact for your residents. And that was going to be my final question. I guess you see value in working with the region and the city. We have a lot of demographics information. We have a lot of demographic information we have a lot of planning expertise and you’re looking for those and I’ll refer no noric and orca those areas where uh your services um and facilities might be best advantaged to run your programs and I do think our staff has some of that expertise, but you’re going to be looking towards them for that expertise.

Absolutely. We believe this is a collaborative undertaking between health, social, and regional services. These are individuals who are living with frailties, so no one solution works. And from a regional perspective, we already know that our clients, because of the services we provide them, make fewer 911 calls, make fewer visits to the emergency department.

And we want those 911 vehicles, those first responders to be available to the people who need them. And if we can help them, help individuals maintain their independence, we’re serving those others who could receive those services or need those services on a time-sensitive basis.

Well, thank you, and I think you’ve made a good case for both quality of life and efficiency of funding. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor Butt. Questions of the delegate? Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor, through you, to James. James, this is great. delegate? Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor, through you too, James. James, this is great.

And when you talk about burn-ups and burn-outs, I can relate to that because my mother was 103 years old and I was the prime care provider for her. [Read the story of Mukthar Butt, Councillor Butt’s mother on www.szpin.ca] See Councillor Butt’s motherSo I know the challenging being faced. And more and more questions are being asked in terms to seniors want to stay home and remain home. One of the questions I want to ask you, would you assist people in for when they apply for grants and applications through the governments, which they have challenging getting approved? Would you assist them? Yes, we currently do as best we can for people who are in our programs with them applying for those assistance.

And a part of our proposal today around One Connect is having a social worker attached to that population to address exactly those issues, whether it’s rent supplements, whether it’s drug benefits, other kind of supports that are available to them. And as you said, Councillor, but it’s not just the client, it’s the family and the caregiver, because they’re the ones usually carrying the burden, especially if the client has a dementia and they’re unable to do so on their own behalf.

Yeah, great. No, that’d be great. And I think I’d be more than happy to share your contact information with us to the other seniors, the question that I get asked. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. as to the other seniors the question that I get asked thank you thank you Mr. Mayor Councillor Cook thank you Mayor ash just a quick comment back to both delegates thank you so much for your presentation I think this goes a long way to explaining the intent of the motion um just a quick comment I fully don’t expect you to hang around until the end of our meeting when we get to the motion point, which could be several hours from now. So I’ll just leave this comment with the rest of council that I would really love to see a unanimous support on council in favor of the great work that Community Care Durham is delivering on multiple levels, not just for our seniors who wish to age in place, but also those within the disabled community who also receive support services through Community Care Durham, Meals on Wheels, your drives, all the other programs you provide. So thank you very much for taking the time to come to speak to us tonight. And I’m sure we’ll be talking to you about favorable outcomes in the future thank you Mr. Mayor great thank you no other discussion we’ll move on to the next delegation thank you Mr. Malosh um you’re welcome to stick around and watch democracy tonight but uh um I’m sure we’ll you’ll get a good news when you uh hear from us tomorrow thank you I will be signing up and I good luck for the rest of your evening thank you our next presentation is from Mike Palachik who is the president of the Pickering professional firefighters association and he is speaking to item 8.1 which is the community risk assessment fire Marshall plan from the executive committee Mr. Palachik are you with us I am your worship great welcome back to our meetings Mike before I start thank you and your members for Before I start, thank you and your members for everything you do in our community.

Fire Plan
I know we’ve had some bad calls in the last few weeks, so my thoughts are with your members during those trying times, and it must be cold out there, too. So over to you, Mike. You have five minutes. Thank you, Mike. You have 5 minutes. Thank you, sir. To the members of council, city staff, the fire chief, your worship and to those members, sir, which you just spoke to watching on YouTube. Good evening. And yes, sir, you are correct.

We have been tried over the last little while, but our members step up every single time and answer the call to serve the citizens of Pickering with exemplary service. And so our thanks for your thoughts. I’m here to speak on the Fire Master Plan and its importance to the City of Pickering and the Fire Service.

[Read a full Q&A Interview with Chief Stephen Boyd at www.szpin.ca]

But first of all, I would just like to say on top of the great job that our members do, I’d like to stand behind the fire chief and the service that he brings to not only the PPFA, but also to the community as a whole. Fire Chief Boyd has done an exemplary job as our fire chief and his professionalism knows no bounds from that perspective.

Just so all of you know, this executive works hand in hand with the fire chief and his deputies on a daily basis. We have phone calls and conversations that all of you have had a chance to review the recommendations that exist within that fire master plan are incredibly costly and they’re they are will they will come at a time in which we are going to be asking council obviously through city staff to adopt a good bunch of these recommendations and a few of them very quickly are pivotal to moving this fire service forward over the next five years the addition of five fire prevention staff, a dedicated training center that’s built along the innovation corridor, along with the new fire station up there, a new training officer to supplement that training center new admin staff that the fire chief is will be able to utilize into support of these additional staff and probably to some degree a more costly aspect of this but five to six new firefighters per year over the next five years, and the relocation of station five as it currently stands right now now all of that will come at a significant cost to the residents, a cost that through council and through planning with city staff, this association has an expectation that both sides will come together to see this through. Never have we had a fire master plan before in the history. We haven’t had a roadmap moving forward into the future. We have those documents now.

Through conversations with the City over the next year, it is our expectation that they will bring these recommendations to Council and have you as a body adopt these and move our fire service into the future. We’ve done a very good job right now in creating new stations, station number one in the headquarters bringing in new equipment new trucks and staffing slowly as it’s been replaced but we really need to focus on where we are going to go within the next couple of years and that fire master plan outlines that road map for all of us with that i’d like to thank everybody in the future for taking the time to meeting with each of us to discuss these recommendations and how we will move forward. This executive will be meeting with city staff over the course of this year with expectations that they will be bringing these recommendations to.

This is a collaborative approach among all sides, the association, city staff, and council to bring these recommendations through. With that, I’d like to thank all of you for allowing us to address you this evening. And with that, Your Worship, I’ll yield the remaining of my time. Thank you for your presentation. Questions? Councillor Brenner, you’re first.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Mike, thank you so much for taking the time this evening and also for the membership in your association, who are, there’s no words that can express how fantastic they are. Mike, I’ll just ask a very simple question. Are you in support of the recommendation that we have before us tonight to ratify by Council from the Executive? Absolutely, sir. Thank you for that question. Yes, the Association is in support of that.

Thank you so much, Mike. Any other questions? Being none, thank you, Mike, and again, from all members of council, all the best to your members and stay safe out there. Appreciate your attendance tonight.

Ward boundaries
Our next delegate is Mr. Matt Bentley of Claremont, who is a Pickering resident and is speaking to item 10.1, the NOSA motion on ward boundaries. Matt, are you with us today um I am your worship oh welcome matt uh you welcome back to our council meeting you have five minutes thank you um thanks your worship and members of council my name is Matt Bentley and I’m a resident in the hamlet of Claremont.

I was one of over 1,000 Pickering residents that were forced to petition the previous council to pass a bylaw to amend its ward boundaries, consistent with the recommendations that were set out in the final ward boundary review report. I was quite surprised a few days ago to see the notice of motion recommending another City of Toronto taxpayer-funded review of ward boundaries, even before the wards from the last review have been implemented.

But most of all, I’m very, very concerned that there’s no mention of consulting the public in the review. I’m here to remind Council of the extensive community investment and input that went into the previous ward boundary review, and I want to request that in the event that Council does decide to do another review, that the city re-engages Pickering residents throughout a comprehensive public engagement.

The Ward boundary review conducted by Watson and Associates is a comprehensive report that’s based on best practices in case law. The review began in 2020 and supported by public engagement including 70,000 people reached through social media, 700 surveys, 4,000 visits to web pages, digital sign notices, interviews, public consultation sessions.

The recommendations in the report were vetted through this engagement and were largely supported by residents. The public confirmed through the consultation that they’re looking for effective representation including representation by population that responds to current and future trends and protects communities of interest.

The Ward Boundary Review also confirmed that the current ward system no longer works and meets the needs of residents and should be changed and was largely supported by the public. When the former council, with the support of the council making the motion tonight, voted to ignore the expert taxpayer-funded consultant’s recommendation and maintain the status quo.

I was one of a thousand residents that in the middle of a pandemic gained over a thousand handwritten signatures in order to petition council to make the change that was recommended and make the change to the boundaries. We are very, very invested. I’m invested. The people who signed that petition are invested, but the over 7,500 residents, 75,000 residents reached through the Ward Boundary Review are also invested. Please don’t do another review without engaging us again.

As we learned through the review, effective representation is not just about population. It’s also important to ensure that communities of interest have a voice. The Ward Boundary Review concluded that there are strong rural and agricultural interests and well-established hamlets and communities that should be represented at Council.

These communities have interests that are distinct from the larger more populated communities in the urban area and there’s benefits in these communities having similar representation at Council and I will remind you that currently Ward 3 contains about half of the population of the entire city of Pickering.

Today, hopefully there’ll be some mention of it tonight, there was a collective sign in Ward 3, as we heard that plans for Pickering Airport are no more. But despite that, we still need effective representation to ensure that established hamlets in our rural agricultural areas are represented. There are new challenges that are coming, such as urban sprawl in northeast Pickering, and there are certainly concerns about increased property taxes and downstream environmental impacts of that development.

If you must review the ward boundaries again, at taxpayers’ expenses again, please remember the thousands of residents that participated in the original review. Please don’t forget that we care about this stuff. Nothing is more important than to democracy than effective representation. Thanks Mayor and Council for listening.

If you still feel that there’s need for another taxpayer funded review, please engage us and listen to your expert consultants. Thank you for listening. Thanks Matt. There’s at least one question Councillor Brenner give the floor thank you very much Mr. Mayor matt thank you so much for taking the time for continuing to always be involved um thank you for that I did want to ask you a question because you did um speak several times I think you referenced about the importance when we talk about hamlets.

One of the, I guess, questions that came up at the very tail end, and you may recall because it resulted in an appeal, and then that caused a delay that there was no implementation of the boundaries on time, and that had to do with Cherrywood. of the boundaries on time. And that had to do with Cherrywood.

From your knowledge of Cherrywood and also your association with all of the hamlets, previously, as you know, it split the hamlet at Cherrywood in half along the third concession. Do you have any thoughts in terms of if there was going to be a review or a you know and minor changes is that something that you would see as feasible in terms of realigning the boundary um so cherrywood is not dissected but becomes whole again um thanks for the question counselor um of course I mean I think in in spirit of of what the consultant said in the report, certainly the communities of interest, you know, it does make a lot of sense for those communities to be not only fully represented, but also there was recognition that the northern, you know, less developed area of Pickering certainly had a special character and interests that may be certainly different than the full city of Pickering in total. What I would say though is, in fairness, my concern really came out of the language of the motion, which said none of that, Councillor, in fairness. I didn’t know whether I was speaking tonight about a full unpacking of the entire ward boundaries. And I will be honest, the mover of the motion, certainly the experience from the last go-round was certainly supportive that the status quo had not changed.

So I was just personally a little bit skeptical, and I just wanted to ensure that residents were engaged. But I would hope that if there is a discussion to look at, for instance, making Cherrywood whole, which absolutely I would support, that residents would be engaged in that decision as opposed to it coming back in sort of a vacuum and being a decision made between the consultant, the city clerk and council, which is the way that the motion seems to be written to me.

Thank you, Matt. That point’s well taken. Thank you and have a great evening. Yep. Thank you. Councillor Cook. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, Matt. Nice to see you again. I’ll be. So I understand your questions and concerns and can certainly see where the language may appear to be a little bit vague.

And we do have room to discuss that when the motion comes up there are other avenues to correct that and ensure that there are inclusions to Councillor Brenner’s point about you know discussing retaining keeping cherry wood whole and engaging public consultation you know whether that takes the form of a friendly amendment on the floor we can certainly engage in that um part of the impetus for this is the growth that we’ve seen over the last four years um and we certainly wouldn’t want to be accused of not having current data and making these decisions that ultimately affect every resident in Pickering um hence the request to ensure that it’s updated.

So my question is, would you agree that if you’re going to hang around towards the end of the meeting, or if not, that we could move a friendly amendment to include public consultation within the motion as it’s drafted? And would you agree that there have been some changes to the population growth since this last came before, a previous council, not current council? Yes, certainly I would agree absolutely on the consultation front. That was certainly, you know, probably my greatest area of concern, especially because there are a lot of residents heavily involved in the first review that probably not fully aware that this is being discussed uh tonight and I would absolutely welcome obviously to have the most uh um you know the most up-to-date information um sort of at hand as doing that uh that decision but certainly what I would also hope that that would also take into account some of the more recent decisions that have been made at the region, for instance, around inclusion of other areas into the urban area, which could further impact the representation of what is now the current Ward 3.

And I think that the last thing I would just say is the intent, I think, of the Ward-Barringer Review, which is very well written in it, is effective representation does not mean equal representation by population. There is a recognition that the northern and more rural areas of, and I’m hopefully not putting words in the mouth of Councillor Butt and Councillor Pickles, but it takes a lot of work to represent a ward of that size.

pickles, but it takes a lot of work to represent a ward of that size. When you’re going from Hamlet, you have to go to the people, and I’m hoping that continues to be recognized within whatever comes forward from the work. Thank you. Thank you, Matt, and thank you, Mr. Mayor. No other questions. Councillor Nagy.

Thank you. I just wanted to touch on the very last thing that you said there, Matt. Oh, hello, Matt. Welcome. I just really wanted to touch on that last bit there where you were talking about how effective representation isn’t necessarily equal. So it’s it’s more of an equity and representation that you’re looking for here or that when we’re talking about what’s effective, here or that when we’re talking about what’s effective it’s we’re looking at equitability and and equity and representation and that sometimes there’s different needs that are can be that needs

to be addressed separately from others yes I think that that’s exactly it councillor and I think the word um that that appeared over and over in the the word boundary is communities of interest in acknowledging that the the ward three as it was proposed in the ward boundary is communities of interest and acknowledging that the ward three as it was proposed in the ward boundary review represented a number of communities of interest with very similar concerns that were aging infrastructure in our communities, our small meeting places within communities, and obviously the environmental impacts as we see sort of, you know, the threat of sprawl around us. And I would, I would like to say that Cherrywood is very much one of those communities of interest. I don’t think it was, I don’t think the intent ever was to exclude or split.

I think it’s more along the lines of, of including, you know, communities with similar sort of communities of interest together in one ward. Similar and unique and specific needs to those that are different from the rest of the city in some ways. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. I don’t see any other questioners.

Thank you, Mr. Bentley for your participation tonight and your thanks your worship thank you all continued advocacy on this uh important matter so appreciate your time tonight thank you okay thank you folks uh we’re moving on to uh executive committee uh the executive committee report okay moved by counselor Pickles and seconded by Councillor Butt, the executive be moved.

Numbers 8-1, 8-2, 8-3, 8-4, 8-5, 8-6, 8-7, 8-8. Polls. Poll 8.1 for a recorded vote, please, Mr. Mayor. 8-1, poll Mr. Brenner. Yes, any other polls? Councillor Robinson? Yeah, we’ll pull 8-3. Councillor, yep. Any others? No, not for executive tonight. I’ll let the rest go for now. Any other polls? Being none, I’m going to call the question on the remainder.

All those in favor oppose that item is carried. First item is called pulled by Councillor Brenner for a recorded vote. 8.1 Fire Chief Report Community Risk and Assessment and Fire Master Plan. Questions or debate? Fire Chief report community risk and assessment and fire master plan. Questions or debate? I don’t see any.

So Madam Clerk, can we do a recorded vote please? Requested by Councillor Brenner. Certainly your Worship. Councillor Brenner. Yes. Councillor Butt. Yes. Councillor Cook. Yes. Councillor Nagy yes Councillor Pickles yes Councillor Robinson I guess I’m gonna have to say yes tonight Mayor Ashe yes your, that’s carried unanimously. Great, thank you. Next item is pulled by Councillor Robinson in regards to the establishment of municipal accommodation tax and destination Pickering.

Councillor Robinson, you have the floor. Great, thank you. I just have a couple of questions. I know I went over this in the executive meeting last week. I just want to ask a couple of questions again. One was, was all of the hotels and motels consulted regarding this tax? Mr.

Jeddun, can you speak to that issue? Sorry, Councillor Robinson, could you repeat the question? Yes, sorry. I’Connor, could you repeat the question? Yes, sorry. I was just asking, were you able to reach all of the owners of the hotels, motels and whatnot and ask them how they’re feeling or what they thought about this tax? That is correct. We did reach out to, the reality is that we have two.

We have We did reach out to, the reality is that we have two. We have the Comfort Inn at Kingston Road and then we have the hotel on Durham Live. So we did reach out to both. We informed them, we had good dialogue with them. We’re continuing to have more dialogue with them regarding the implementation plan and how we can work together because at the end of the day, we’re trying to collect this tax and use the funds towards initiatives that can bring more um individuals to their facilities right but were they in agreement complete agreement with you in this tax moving forward right now because I i’ve done some homework too and I have a little bit of a different opinion work too and I have a little bit of a different opinion if I could if I could respond to that councillor Robinson when that question was posed to the to us at committee there was an indication that there was dialogue I I followed up on behalf of council to find out what exactly the dialogue was and apparently it wasn’t at the highest level it was done at more of a junior staff level i’ve subsequently had an exchange of emails uh with um great canadian gaming and um they have indicated that they’re not supportive of the attacks but we we haven’t had an opportunity to chat and uh i’ve indicated a desire to meet and address any concerns they might have and they were certainly um interested in being a full partner in regards to the destination Pickering endeavor.

If I could just add on to that, Councillor Robin, just for your information, one of the asks was also about the short-term rentals. And I understand that was a question you also asked during the executive committee meeting. And I don’t want to speak for our city solicitor, but we are looking to have short-term rentals a part of this program as well they initially thought great canadian gaming initially thought it was just for the hotels and we assured them that we’re looking at doing the short-term rentals as well okay great so we know that they’re not supportive um and you do have to have further discussions because I was thinking you know have you even brought up with them like you know instead of burning the the tourists and the residents with this kind of a municipal accommodation tax can we focus on maybe using some kind of like creative incentives or you know other things that we could programs that we could use to attract the tourists like you know, other things that we could, programs that we could use to attract the tourists, like you know, maybe we could have conversations with the motels and hotels, and, of course, the short-term rentals, things like, you know, maybe seasonal promotions and, like, discounts, like, offer hotel incentives, like, you know, if you stay two nights and you’re going to get, like, you know, free admission to something or other, or like, you know, offer free discounted access for families or for kids activities, instead of putting a tax on the people and on the hotels, I mean, I think that’s going to be very detrimental to the tourist industry here in Pickering. And as we know, you know, some of them are not supportive. So I think what I would like to do, and I’m hoping that council will join me in this, is I would like to refer this matter back to the staff to explore alternative options to the proposed municipal accommodation tax.

And we could refer it back like just for another month it’s not really going to harm anything but if we could do that and just refer this back so we can have that dialogue with these other hotels who are not supportive and see how we could move forward together because this is a really really big thing for the people and you know one more month to our February council meeting mr. mayor if we could do that if I could do a motion to refer this back to staff for for one month until we further have those conversations with some of the people that are not supported at this time thank you refer motions out in order I need a second here however councillor Robinson has moved that this item uh thank you referral motions are in order I need a second here however uh councillor robinson has moved that this item be referred to the uh for further discussion with uh affected uh hotel operators and it be come back to us in february is there a seconder for that councillor cook you’re on mute um May I ask a question just for clarity with respect to Councillor Robinson’s suggestion to see if it’s in order? Yeah, go ahead. With respect to promotions of the nature she suggested, that would not be within our purview to direct a hotel to enact. No, I think the tourism corporation and destination Pickering, that could be something that’s in discussion later on.

But I don’t want to get off base here. There is a motion to refer it back to staff for a month so they can meet, but I do need a seconder for that. Do I have a seconder? Okay, a seconder is moved by Councillor Cook. The direction is to refer it back to staff and be able to meet with the partners and report back any further discussion or changes to the February meeting.

Madam Clerk, are we allowed debate on referrals, correct now? No, no debate. Just it’s just a place and time. Yes, yes yes uh at the region we do that’s the city we don’t so uh place and and and uh date uh if there’s no uh further uh this discussions that are going to call the question all those in favor and a recorded vote please record a vote requested by councillor robinson on the amendment council robinson yes there are the referrals sorry not the amendment council brenner yes Councillor but yes Councillor cook yep councillor nagy no Councillor pickles no No. Mayor, Ashe. Yes. Your Worship, that’s carried five to two.

Okay, thank you. That concludes the executive committee. Just as a note of clarity, 8.8, which we’ve already approved, was amended through a memo that you received all today. So it was not the recommendation in the report but rather the memo the amended memo so we now move on to new and unfinished business mr may I like to move 9.129.

4 it’s moved by councillor butt and second by councillor pickles, consent for new and unfinished business, although Councillor Brenner does have a new item at the end. Polls. Councillor Robinson, I assume you’re polling 94. I can see you nod your head, but I need you to unmute. Yes, thank you. I think I have a couple of folds here.

Yes, 94 and 92. Okay. Okay. And I think, is that just the housekeeping and the expropriation? Okay. Those are then pulled. So 9.1 and 9.3 we’ll call a question on. All those in favour? Opposed? That item is carried. 9.2 is a report from the city solicitor. We do have a guest on if you want to ask any questions.

He is here. I’m just getting my notes here. It is Aideniden and Nate Naim, a solicitor for the region of Durham who has some experience in regards to appropriate expropriations. I would remind counselors that there was an in camera opportunity. So I would ask that the questions be posed around process rather than price.

Now, sir, Robinson. Great. Thank you. Yes. So I have a couple of questions and then I’ll have a statement at the end of that. My first question through you, Mr. Mayor, is what alternative sites were considered for the fire station and why were they deemed unsuitable? Mr. Bjorny, do you want to speak to that? Well, through your worship, what I can say is that Legal Services has facilitated the process of the expropriation, the land acquisition, with the kind assistance of Mr. Naeem. But our client group, so to speak, is Fire Services. And so the chief I see has turned his camera and mic on, and I’m going to have to defer to him because it’s his operational needs and his, I guess, his objective of serving the community that really determined the choice of location.

Chief Stephen Boyd, do you want to speak to it then? Thank you, Paul. Yes, through you, Mr. Mayor, to Councillor Robinson. So this process began, I’m going to say 2020 prior to my arrival as chief, but probably prior to that. As we know, Firehouse Station 5 is at end of life. I think it was 1964 it was built. So we were advised that it needed to be replaced. and this was about 3 years ago. So we went through several iterations with respect to trying to replace it.

[Read the full story about Chief Stephen Boyd in the upcoming issue of the to be published Feb. 1st] 

The 1st, obviously, the 1st thing we looked at was building on site. And then that that obviously gave us 2 options. We thought, can we build on site while the existing hall remains? We were told no, there wasn’t enough room on the lot. It’s quite a narrow piece of property. So then the second alternative to that was, can we find an alternative location to run the fire hall while the other one’s being demolished and a new one’s being rebuilt? So we started down that path and um we realized right away obviously the the biggest issue with with um replacing a fire hall whether it’s a temporary fire hall or a new one is it needs to be somewhat in the proximity of the old fire hall because we everything we do is based on the responses are based on location so it needed to kind of be you know roughly within a you know if you draw an 800 meter circle to a one kilometer circle, it kind of had to need it to be in that that area in order to us to maintain the response times that we have.

So we went through several places to look and see if we could find a place to put a temporary fire hole. And all of those didn’t pan out in the end. At that point, we started looking for another property. We found a property, I won’t tell you where it was, but it was in the area. While we were looking at it, it got sold.

We worked quite closely with Mr. Jadoon in development to try and find a place. And again, because it’s already a developed area, there’s a real shortage of land and things for sale. So, in the end, this was the 1 of the locations that we found that was an empty lot that was still available hadn’t been built on it fit the need for us with respect to size, location.

It’s a favorable piece of property because it borders two roads, which for a fire hall is really important because we don’t want to be backing into the hall like we do with our older halls right now. Those were designed well before the bigger trucks came into play, so it’s much easier for us to drive around and into a hall like we have in Station 1.

One of the other advantages is that it’s in a great location. It actually is in a better location than the current Fire Hall 5 on Bailey. And that’s because we’ve got a lot of development, a lot of density in development that’s going to be occurring over the next few years. We’ve got Universal City, we’ve got San Francisco and the Bay Towers, and then there’s multiple other projects in the same area.

So we know that that added density is going to require put at that hall because of the density in that area. So we feel it’s a really good spot. Number one, it’s a really great spot. Number two, we just could not find another piece of property. And as you can imagine, the time is ticking. And we’ve been doing this for a couple of years.

And every time we go down a road and we reach a dead end, we would have to start all over again. So I hope that answers your question as to how we came about choosing that location. And if I might briefly expand on that very briefly, Councillor, and I apologize for the interruption but uh this is a vacant site and so from a cost perspective that’s optimal because if we were to proceed with expropriation of a site that’s in use or even one that’s been up zoned to facilitate uses, we would, as an expropriating authority, end up paying more for that site and possibly even paying compensation in addition to the value of the property for business interruption. I just wanted to add that as that was part of our rationale in selecting this site. Okay, great.

So then, because it needs to be in the same area, you can’t go to another site that hasn’t been developed, like let’s say at White’s Road and Granite, you know, in the South Rosebank area where they don’t want to build, you know, the condo. You can’t use that site perhaps for your new fire hall? It’s too far away. Is that correct? Yes, that’s correct.

So what we do is if you look, an example of our response modeling is actually in the Firemaster plan. If you look at some of the mapping that’s in there, there’s shaded maps that show, so we can look at every hall and we can show you kind of a shaded area where that hall can reach in 240 seconds, 380 seconds, 480 seconds, so on, so on. So our biggest requirement, obviously, is that initial four minute response, that 240 seconds.

So that that would have been outside of our our response area. We would have had a real difficulty in, say, trying to respond to South Liverpool Road or over towards Church Street because it’s just not placed in an ideal location for response. Right. Okay, good. Yeah, I was just curious about that.

I mean, I understand why that would be a great area, but I’m pretty much opposed to expropriating a land on someone. So just for my own clarifications, I know we’re not allowed to speak about price or anything like that, but the owner of that property was not did not like the the negotiation that we tried to have with them let’s say in order to purchase that piece of property mr bajoni certainly um that’s in a nutshell that’s it uh there were initial efforts led by me to negotiate an amicable purchase agreement and we shared some of our appraisal information and we simply couldn’t have an agreement on the dollar amount. I was slightly frustrated although the discussions were cordial because there was no counter proposal so there wasn’t even a delta that for example a range that I could come to Council with and seek further direction on the answer was simply that they were not interested in selling right and that was all based on on on price let’s say or do they have an emo or do they have like an emotional attachment to that piece of property for some reason or? Well, I wouldn’t know their state of mind, but they are, to my knowledge. Mr. McJunior, you’re on mute.

I’m sorry. I’m not actually. Can you hear me now? I can hear you fine. Okay. We might have overlapped a little. Sorry. But to answer that question, the landowner was very decent in their manner, but their business involves buying and holding an inventory of, I think, rental properties. And it’s just not in their business model to be buying and selling.

So it’s not an activity that they’re keen on. And so if we wanted this site, we were going to have to use our expropriation authority. Right, okay. Yeah, I was just curious because I mean, I’m sure purchase prices have plummeted a bit, so it’s not at the key that if they wanted to sell, I’m sure it’s not at the price that they would be wanting to let it go at.

Were any other options spoken about with the property owner? Like for example, a land swap. Did you maybe consider asking them if they would like to do a land swap? Because I know that we do do that as a city, that we could offer him another piece of land that maybe he might even like prefer better than being there on that corner.

Well, without getting into too much detail in a public meeting about a land negotiation I can say that there was some preliminary discussion of that concept and it didn’t go anywhere and it didn’t go anywhere and okay maybe also was there any talk about maybe having like public-private partnership with him? Or maybe just leasing the land for the fire department instead? Like, I mean, I don’t know how long the building would last, but was there any discussions about maybe leasing the land from him?

Or actually partnering up together to build this beautiful fire station on the land and then to give it back maybe like you know once the time the building has um you know met its end let’s say I i I don’t believe that this landowner is a contractor so I don’t think we’d be doing a p3 deal for construction with the landowner um And in terms of renting, that’s certainly not the city’s preferred model because our preference is to buy and have fee-simple ownership of what is essentially an extremely long-term, practically permanent asset. So I think that over a very very long term that we would want to operate from this site, I don’t believe that a rental model would be the most cost effective way to proceed. OK, because, like I said, you know, I’m just really concerned about expropriation of properties on someone. Like I feel, in my opinion, it’s like bullying kind of type thing I’m sure you can understand that so I’m wondering um Mr Mayor do you think maybe we could move to have this go back for one more try let’s say at speaking with the land owner just see if there’s anything else that can be done? I don’t, to be brutally honest staff didn’t come to this conclusion in a quick period of time. They reluctantly are going down this path. So I really think that the opportunity for negotiations and dialogue has expired. Notwithstanding that fact, there still is an opportunity when we go down the expropriation path to have further discussions, but I don’t want to speak for the staff in regards to that. So, Mr. Bajoni, can you speak to, do you see any value in doing it? I truly don’t. I understand the Councillor’s motivation. I don’t like expropriation either, but I will say that the law, nobody’s stealing here. The law requires us to fully compensate a landowner that’s being expropriated for fair market value. My grandfather lost his farm to the federal government for the airport site, and he was never worried about that because he felt that he got a fair price for it.

So I should add that this is the first one in 14 years that I have done, because generally speaking, I recommend against them if I can avoid them it’s the circumstances of the lack of available appropriate properties in the operational radius that fire services needs that’s really put us in a position after a lot of research and review of the market in a position where we really didn’t see any other option um and his worship is correct in that even though um an approval tonight would commit the city to the expropriation process we go ahead and register a plan of expropriation but there there will follow in the formal statutory process um an exchange of positions with regard to the appropriate amount of compensation so there are opportunities still remaining within the formal process to negotiate I can say confidently that i’ve i’ve had so many informal discussions with this landowner that I’m quite certain that deferring it again is simply going to lose us a month and not get us any further ahead.

Yeah, I was just hoping like, you know, maybe discussions of a land swap or, you know, maybe you could find him another piece of property that we could purchase and then, yeah, just like, you know, do a lamb swap that way so we could have his property.

Fair market value right now, as I understand it, is, you know, it’s really not that fair. I mean, prices have gone down and, you know, fair market value today wasn’t the same as it was a couple of years ago, let’s say’s say right so maybe that’s why he just wants to hold on to I just really want to see that it’s fair for everybody I thought you know if we could just refer this back for just one more month again just until february and then I would be completely on board but i’d like to see somebody get that chance that, you know, we’re not just expropriating it from them.

So, Mr. Mayor, maybe if you could just raise the question to see if I can get a seconder just to send it back for one month. I’d really be greatly appreciated. Referral motion is always in order. Councillor Robinson, recommendations refer back to staff for further discussion and come back to council meeting in February is there a seconder there’s no seconder councillor does that conclude your remarks yeah I think that does conclude it unfortunately you know as as much as I want to see the fire hall right there I don’t know if I can vote in favor for it just because it is expropriation but if you can guarantee me um let’s say or if if staff can guarantee that you know you will have discussions about a land swap over the before before the expropriation process goes through just to have more dialogue more talks I really don’t think about that I don’t think I heard that from mr bajoni I think uh he indicated that there would be ongoing discussions about value and the like uh I like you have a property rights kind of guy

and is very uncomfortable about government taking land. Having said that, I believe that staff has gone down a path that they have come back to us with no other option that deals with our requirement to get something in shorter order. And the exploration process is arm’s length, gives fair market value, and there is a requirement as well for us to, as the city, to pay all the expenses associated with the transactions for both parties, ourself as well as the landowner.

So I think it is fair to the gentleman. I don’t assume as a gentleman, I don’t know that the landowner. And I don’t think we have a seconder for the referral. So with that, I’m going to get a recorded vote. Mr. Mayor. Yeah. So pardon me, Mr. Mayor. So can we just get a commitment that he will just mention land swap, whoever’s going to continue on with these negotiations? Mr. Bajani? I can give that commitment. As I said before, I’ve already mentioned it. It’s already been rebuffed. I’m happy to do that again I’m afraid to say it will have to be only to the solicitors representing the landowner as I no longer have direct dealings with the landowner perfect just as long as I know that we’ve done everything that we possibly can and then if they just keeps on refusing then I would just like you know i’d sleep better at night knowing that okay thank you madam clerk we have a recorded vote request by counselor brenner Councillor brenner yes Councillor yes Councillor cook yes councillor nagy yes Councillor pickles Yes. Councillor Pickles. Yes. Councillor Robinson. Yes. Mayor Ashe. Yes. You worship that security unanimously. Okay, thank you. The next item is a very lengthy financial housekeeping report, which Councillor Robinson has pulled. Yes, sir.

I’m going to remind you to ask questions of the report. I don’t want to get into debate. There is an opportunity for debate after the question period has been done. And that debate is among council members rather than staff. So with that, Councillor Robinson, questions on 9.4 um I have a lot of questions because there’s a lot that I see in here and I don’t think you know we had a enough time to look at it just uh over these few short days and I actually wanted to do another referral motion back just until February so we could again really unpack all of this. There’s a lot of things that I see in here that I’m not happy with nor would I move forward with but I would like to be able to get the chance to maybe sit down with staff and really go through it almost like you know with a fine-tooth comb before making any kind of a decision.

So if I can do a referral motion just for one minute. Thank you. Or should we wait for a debate for that? Well, a referral motion is always in order. What I can suggest, Councillor, because we haven’t had this since Thursday and you have had an opportunity to ask questions of staff if you have them is there of the 29 ones that are you’re going to fight the fight and want to refer them or you want to refer the whole thing I would like to just refer the whole thing because honestly, out of the 29, I probably have about 14 or 15 that I really like to have a discussion with.

And again, just if I could, that would be greatly appreciated. I was out of town on Friday. I can’t reach any staff on Saturday or Sunday. staff on Saturday or Sunday, and I was in meetings with our residents this morning, so I have not had the time to reach out and sit down with staff regarding this.

And it is a lot. I mean, there’s what, 29? It is, but most of them are housekeeping and a number of them are in regards to budget items that have already been approved through the Mayor’s budget. So the referral motion is always in order. It’s moved by Councillor Robinson. Is there a seconder? There’s no seconder.

Councillor Robinson, if you want to go through your questions, please do. Well, no, there’s there’s really too many to go through and you’re not going to be able to have the answers, which, you know, always seems to be the case. I mean, there’s a lot of things that I think are really really unfair in here you know um the you’re using very general language is there something that staff or I can answer in regards to any of the items that you have concerns about any of the items that you have concerns about all right for example item number six the purchasing policy we’re going to raise the threshold amount for approval from public art purchases from 25 000 to a hundred thousand dollars for public art which means that they don’t have to come to council for approval if it is under $100,000. I don’t understand how we can keep our finances in check and public art will just be going everywhere.

Basically, there is a requirement to respond back in the first quarter of 2027. Treasurer, do you want to speak to that? First of all, all public art expenditures are reflected in the first quarter of 2027. Treasurer, do you want to speak to that? First of all, all public art expenditures are reflected in the budget.

So that means anything being undertaken would have had to been included in the budget. In other words, Director Gibbs could just not could not add a project. So that’s why first of all, there’s budgeted funding. When we first started out, we had the low amount of $25,000 because we wanted to see what type of art was being purchased.

Was it going to be controversial? And I think it’s fair to say that under Ms. Gibbs’ leadership, it’s fair to say that under Ms. Gibbs leadership they’ve done a great job. We’ve seen the art being procured and there hasn’t been any controversy. So what we want to do is we wanted to increase it to 100,000 to see how this group would do and then report back in the first quarter of 2027.

One of the things about public art or any art is it could be subjective and sometimes residents may or may not agree with what’s being procured or purchased and so through their experience we’ve seen many positive responses of what’s been obtained by Ms. Gibbs team and so we thought we would put this up to a hundred thousand to give them the leeway to proceed and again anything over that amount would again have to go to council again you know with all due respect I understand that it’s in the budget but that’s still taxpayers money that’s in the budget and I think like you know just being able to you know just approve any kind of artwork without it going through council up to a hundred thousand dollars that’s a lot of money the budget the budget goes the budget has an opportunity to be amended by council so it is there is a review counselor again I don’t want to get into a debate with count with um staff on this you’ve asked the questions on regard in regards to that I did I know you disagree with it but you can speak to the issue when you’re debating is there any other items you have questions on well there’s a there’s a lot of questions that I have like I said mr mayor you know just you know changing the funds from one account to another funding account you know the prices for the international travel for the managers for the directors the transfer 50% of revenues collected for the municipal tax again is also in here, you know, for the 50%, you know, the up to $100,000 for the artwork.

The application for grants giving, you know, what kind of recourse it could possibly have on Pickering, you know, without, you know, having Council endorse any kind of future applications. There’s the 2025 current operating expenditures and revenues that may be required to accommodate any labour relations, I have questions about that.

The final tax rate, the shortfalls, the, you know, the continuing engagement, like, you know, we’ve got a few continuing engagements in here or professional services to go to, like, you know, Watson’s and Associates and it’s like just automatically is going to go to them now. Or, you know, the PSD Citywide Inc. There’s the professional services with the city purchasing policy for citywide again.

Also with the continuing engagement with Nixon Pool Lackey LLP for the municipal tax equity, you know, some of these things, I mean, maybe we should be sending out to request for proposals, but we’re not, we’re just automatically giving it to these people.

Um, there’s also, you know, the money that you have in the budget for DARS, um, you know, for the farmhouse, for the roof, you know, now we’re going to spend another nineteen thousand seven hundred dollars for the roof where again you know I would like to if it’s a lease agreement that dars has with the developer you know the developer is supposed to be taking care of like you know the well that we just gave the 25 000 for and now there’s the roof it’s like we haven’t even seen the lease agreement with the developer and DARS, so why do we keep on jumping in when some of this money could be going to all the other homeless people that are sitting on our streets? There’s also the community grant policy that has to be amended by following and adding additional provisions to it, there’s the approval of the Building Faster Fund, the investment plan that’s included in the amount of $4,925,000. But if the city’s not successful in obtaining the BFF funding, then where’s that money going to come from? Where’s the shortfall going to come from, right? where’s that money going to come from where’s the shortfall going to come from right we just start moving funds from one account to another like I said i’ve got so many questions and I i am not ready to move forward on this and nor should anyone anyone else on council move forward with all these questions until we have them all answered so that’s all I have to say and I would like to get a recorded vote, but I’d really like the opportunity to send this back, please. Councillor, we’ve already dealt with the motion to refer.

You have asked some questions, you’ve made some comments. If you want to offer any other debate, please do so now, because I’m going to move on. No, that’s going to be it for now. But I mean, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, Mr. Mayor. There’s a lot in here to unpack.

I really do not think that sufficient time from receiving this on a Friday evening and then being here on a Monday evening is enough time to go through that. And you cannot reach staff over the weekend, so I cannot get my questions answered. So unfortunately, I guess that’s just the way that this is played. Okay. Any other? Thank you. Yes, recorded vote recollected by Councillor Robinson.

Councillor Pickles. Thank you, Mayor Ashe. councillor robinson uh councillor pickles thank you uh mayor ash and uh I was uh pleased to read through this I mean I did it uh electronically over my phone uh late last week and again over the weekend and picked up the hard copy uh just today as a matter of fact this morning and i’d like to thank stan for uh being available at the end of last week to go over any of the comments and questions I had.

And I was able to follow up with him again today to talk about a few more matters. But Stan, generally, overall, we receive these budget housekeeping reports and and this is a way for you to implement the approved budget make all the necessary uh adjustments and provisions um that are contemplated in or or may follow and need tweaking following the adoption of the budget.

Can you just explain for those who may not be familiar the reference to housekeeping changes and how you categorize those? Thank you for the question. I think maybe this would be a good example. Recommendation one increases the amount for the low income seniors and persons with disability property tax grant from 560 to 600.

So the mayor’s budget included the $600 amount, but we had to amend and we had to amend the dollar amount. So therefore we could then issue the checks. And this is an example recommendation two says that if there’s a a negative event that may impact our building permit fees we then are able to draw from the building permit reserve fund and I think I i speak with I spoken with many many friends and colleagues.

When we first heard about the 25% tariff, we thought it might have been bluster, but it seems like it’s going more that way. So, again, recommendation two protects the business plan of the corporation. three it basically uh we are for those projects that are a not proceeding or b have to be re-budgeted because of the higher cost we’re cancelling them because we want the old projects off our books and then now we can re-budget for them the next one deals with we have a policy about international conferences they need council approval.

So here we’re laying out why they have to go and the rationale. Mr. Kersky, I don’t think we have to go. No, no, I’m just using these as illustrative examples there. Thank you. So this is what, so the purpose of the housekeeping report is to A, maintain the business plan, B be clean up some loose ends and see anything we’ve learned from previous year we can now implement.

And a lot of these recommendations are the same because we have to every year it’s a new budget plan. So therefore we we we have the same recommendations to address these issues. Sorry, Mr. Mayor, I was just trying to give an example of why they’re there. My apologies. Thanks, Stan. And like Mayor Rausch, I was worried you were gonna go right through to all 29 of them, even though we had already spoken, you and I had spoken about a number of them already.

So I just wanted to say again, that this housekeeping budget report such as this is an annual event to be ordered to implement and tweak up the budget process in order to implement it. Correct? Each and every year? Correct. Stan? Yes. Okay. Thank you. That’s it’s it Mr. Mayor I’ll be supporting it thank you any other questions being done uh Madam Clerk we’ve asked for a recorded vote by Councillor Robinson Councillor Robinson no Councillor Brenner? Yes.

Councillor Butt? Yes. Councillor Cook? Yes. Councillor Nagy? Yes. Councillor Pickles? Yes. Mayor Ashe? Yes. Your Worship, that’s carried 6-1. Thank you. Councillor New and Unfinished Business. Thank you. Those are new and unfinished business. Councillor Brenner has a motion which will require two thirds majority to get on the floor.

And it’s in regards to expensive vet care. Do it smooth by Councillor Brenner and second by Councillor Cook. I need two thirds majority, which would be five to get it on the agenda. All those in favor? That item is carried. Councillor Brenner, the floor is yours. Oh, do we have a motion? Yes, we got it.

One minute, the clerk, great, it’s on the screen. Thank you so much. Thank you also, council, for agreeing to waive the rules and permit this tonight. You may, for anyone that is asking, why the rush? Well, there is a provincial election that is being called, and the high cost of veterinarian care is something that affects all Ontarians, along with our own municipality and across Durham region.

There are many reasons for many of these costs one of them which was portrayed recently on a cbc documentary found that 50 of all emergency clinics are in fact either in the ownership of a corporation that has bought out the practice or it could be a private equity fund. 20% of all vet practices in Ontario, similarly.

This motion is asking the province of Ontario to look at legislation that they’ve actually put in place. And if I can go to the operative, in the operative, it really talks about that currently, there is in fact legislation in the province of Ontario. It’s called the Ontario Veterinarian Professional Act 2024.

And that established criteria for the College of Veterinarians who operate arm’s length from the province. So there is in place a mechanism that the province has put in place in 2024. What I’m asking for is that this council request the province of Ontario to amend the Veterinarian Professional Act of 2024 to include a requirement for addressing the lack of affordability for Ontarians who own pets and are unable to afford escalating veterinary costs. One only has to look each and every day in terms of shelters whether it’s our own shelter, whether it’s Chelsea that’s out there finding animals that have been abandoned or lost. And there’s so many pets and dogs in particular that are being left literally out in the cold or turning up on doorsteps of shelters because an owner can’t afford to keep them. I’m asking our council to support all those pet owners and to ask the province of Ontario to expand the criteria, as I’ve mentioned, so that when people are knocking on doors in the upcoming election, affordability of veterinary care can be one of those topics that the public can be talking about.

I’m sure any one of us or any one of these members of members of council who own a pet at some time has been faced with a veterinarian bill. And it’s not a question that you can buy pet insurance because when you buy the pet insurance, it may very well start out at $65 a month, but as the cost of veterinarian care goes up so does your premium and it does become unaffordable so I’m hoping I can count on the support of all members of council and I am asking for a recorded vote mr mayor thank you thank you the motion is duly moved and seconded is there any further debate being none uh recorded vote requested by councillor brenner council brenner yes Councillor but yes councillor cook yes Councillor Nagi yes Councillor pickles yes Councillor Yes. Councillor Robinson. Yes. Mayor Ashe. Yes. Worship that’s carried unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to item 10.

There’s a couple of notices of motion. The first one is in regards to ward boundaries. Moved by Councillor Pickles, seconded by Councillor Cook. I have an amendment as well, but the operative clause is as follows. Cindy Clerk be directed to engage the services of Watson and Associates to reconsider findings of the final report.

The second amendment is to be approved by Councillor Pickles and the second amendment is to be approved by Councillor Cook. The third amendment is to be approved by Councillor Cook. The fourth amendment is to be approved by Councillor Cook. The fifth amendment is to be approved by Councillor Cook. The sixth amendment is to be approved by Councillor Cook.

The sixth amendment is to be approved by Councillor Cook. The sixth amendment is to be approved by Councillor Cook. The seventh amendment is to be approved by Councillor Cook. The sixth amendment is to be approved by as follows. The clerk be directed to engage the services of Watson Associates to reconsider findings of the final report of the 2020 2021 more boundary based on the available and updated population data and make recommendations any appropriate adjustments to the work boundaries set out in bylaw 78 75 21 and such as consistent with the applicable law and best practices. The cost associated with the review not to exceed 35,000 funded by the continuous account 50350011100. City clerk report back to council with the consultant’s report and recommendation no later than Q2 2025 and under consider any amendments to the bylaw in time for the adjusted board boundaries take effect for 2026.

Madam Clerk can you share the proposed amendment moved by Councillor Cook and second by Councillor Nagy. You with me, Susan? Here we go. I think the word boundary carried out by Watson include engagement in public calls with suitable time allowed to effectively engage the public through public information sessions, social media, website notice, the boundary review etc etc so there there is a inclusion of a process uh for some public from consultation in regards to the review and any subsequent recommendations concert uh pickles debate so are we dealing with the amendment or? No, no, I’m going to make the amendment inclusion friendly. So as general consensus to move with the amendment, I guess. So it’s moved by Councillor Pickles and seconded by Councillor Cook. The inclusion of the amendment being friendly. So debate on the main motion, which includes the revised wordings.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that clarification. Notwithstanding some some earlier comments, I do want to speak to the motion of that. First of all, the motion was draft drafted in very close cooperation with the clerk. And in fact, I think the clerk’s wording prevailed over some of my own wording in this case.

And part of the principle in drafting the motion was to not be too prescriptive to the consultants to be seen as unbiased. So the motion is asking the consultants when to take a process, but we’re not telling them exactly how they are to do that. We’re also asking them to come forward with any findings, but we’re not prescribing what those findings ought to be.

And that’s why the motion’s a little more streamlined than it might otherwise be. I can’t recall whether in the first draft we had public consultation specifically in there, but we really took the motion back to its bare bones so as not to be prescriptive to the consultant. And I’ll just ask if the clerk agrees with that and can clarify the importance of counsel of council not being too prescriptive to the consultants and whether she’s fine with this small change to provide some direction to the consultants.

Madam Clerk, if she could address that. Certainly through Mayor Ashe to Councillor Pickles, with undertaking the work with the consultants, there would always be some public engagement done with the review. And to Councillor Pickles’ point, we didn’t want to prescribe it down to the T. We wanted to give the consultants some leeway to work.

These consultants did our previous work band review. They’ve done several others around the province over a number of years years and public engagement is always something that’s included in their review so the the aspect just to be clear the we we talked about including the wording of public consultation and here we we didn’t include it but regardless at the time but regardless your your expectation and my expectation would be that the consultants would have an element of public consultation in their review process regardless.

That’s correct. Okay, thank you for that. Staying on the same theme, Mr. Mayor, I don’t want to provide a lot of prescription as to what the consultant ought to do and review and fine but i’ll just make three points why I think it’s important that we we deal with this matter tonight and and three of my colleagues on council in one way or another has already touched on these points.

The report is from the process of the, I’ll call it the new boundaries, the ones that will be in effect, are in the bylaw, and will be in effect for the 2026 election at this point in time. at this point in time. The review began, and I think in 2020, so we’re here in 2025 now, so that’s five years. The election is in 2026, so let’s call it six years.

And then the results of that election will be in place till 2030. So that gets us 10 plus years. So, you know, if we’re going to have something that was done that long ago, it’s timely to have a review because it’s going to be in effect for some period of time and certainly certainly we’ve seen changes uh in the last several years we’ll see them in the next few years or another five years and it’s a it’s appropriate and timely to review something after that period of time secondly and again my colleagues brought this up, and I’ll be very clear that I did not support the original report, and one of the reasons was it divided the Cherrywood communities along the Third Concession. I did not agree with dividing those communities. those communities. I actually floated around an alternative boundary. It didn’t prevail. Council eventually adopted the boundary between Ward 3 and Ward 1, which is the third concession.

And independently, a member of the community, a resident, appealed that feeling that it was a wrong decision to divide the communities onto the Ontario Land Tribunal that ended up not dealing with that appeal and the appeal was ultimately withdrawn. So today, if you’re in any of the Cherrywood Hamlets and you’re on the north side of the third concession, you’re voting in Ward 3.

If you’re across the road on the south side of the third concession, you’re voting in Ward 1. I didn’t think that was right at the time, and I don’t think it’s right now. and I don’t think it’s right now. And as it was at one time referred to the Ontario Land Tribunal, I think it’s worth looking at that again to see if there is a better solution to that.

And I won’t prescribe what that solution is because I don’t think I should, and the clerk would probably agree that I shouldn’t. The clerk would probably agree that I shouldn’t. The third thing is, you know, there’s been some talk about prediction in populations. So, again, 2020, we’re looking at data. How is the city going to grow? Where’s the population going to go? What’s the density? What’s going to be the final population of the wards in 2040 and 2050 or something like that.

And we know predictions don’t often go the way we think they’re going to go. Life happens in between and things change. In particular, with what I’ll call the new wards, in particular with what I’ll call the new wards, they are somewhat lopsided in population.

I know the consultant said, well, the municipality will grow and those will begin to equal out over time, although it was a considerable time. And yet, if we look where the population is going, and we look at the new Ward 2, we’ll see that density condominiums are largely going to occur in Ward, the new Ward 2. They’re going to occur in the city center. They’re going to occur along Liverpool Road.

They’re going to occur along Kingston Road from Dixie to Brock Road. They’re going to occur on Brock Road. They’re going to occur along Kingston Road from Dixie to Brock Road. They’re going to occur on Brock Road. They’re going to occur on the Pickering Parkway. All in new Ward 2. How many condominiums do we expect to grow to add to the density and population in Ward 3, the new Ward 3? in Ward 3, the new Ward 3? None as of this time. So, do I have a concern with, is it worth looking at population projections that were used and what those predictions might be for today or for the future. I think so. Effective representation and and representation by population are important factors. And I don’t think we ought to have two wards, the two new ward boundaries, Ward one and two, representing as much as 80% of the population where the third award being award three, being at 20% or a little more than 20%. I don’t think that was what was envisioned when the report was originally done.

I think that’s the direction it’s going, but it’s not for me to make those final predictions and make any recommendations to the boundaries. It’s up to the consultants working with staff, and that’s what this motion does. It asks the consultants to go back, look at their predictions, look how growth has occurred, how is growth going to occur? And what ought to be the boundaries for the upcoming elections to ensure that there’s effective representation and to ensure that at least not on a lopsided basis, there’s representation by population.

population. And so, Mr. Mayor, my council colleagues, I won’t speak anymore to what I think ought to be done, because that’s up to the consultant, and I won’t speak at all to what I think boundary changes ought to be, if any, because I don’t have all the facts in front of me that the consultants will look at.

But I also think it’s not appropriate for me to do so until the consultants do their work and report back to us with their findings. And that, Mr. Mayor, you’re on mute. My apologies. Councillor Pott, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do want to address that, and I think I was also against the time the consultant passed it. and I think I was also against the time the consultant passed in.

And speaking about Cherrywood, many residents have actually called in and strongly opposed to any divisions in their hamlets and they are very frustrated. At the time before that, you know, the consultant was dealing with cherry wood and and this has come up and many I received many phone calls and their frustration and wanted to come in to speak uh before the council as well in sharing their frustration as well so I just want to share that and and unlike if they said what would it be like for Hamlet’s being divided from split Claremont or Greenwood?

You know, equally, Hamlet would not like that. And I strongly stand by the people. And I think they’re quite right. There is a lot of history there. There’s a lot of history there. There’s a lot of community spirits and I think Constable Pickles and I, we know we deal with, you know, the Hamlets day-to-day and, you know, people take pride in what they do.

They have a lot of history, you know, and to divide them there, it will be totally devastation. And it’s, I can’t, I will not support that. And, you know, as I said, it’s pretty frustrating to hear any Hamlet being divided. So that’s all I have to add on to that. I will be supporting the motion today. With that, thank you mr mayor thank you any other debate uh counselor brenner and then counselor robinson thank you mr mayor um I think that the point made by our delegate mr Bentley was dead on when he talked about that in addition to looking at the population component and both um councillor button counselor pickles really did touch on it as well it is also important to recognize the that the importance that each community has and as councillor butt has alluded to when you take a hamlet regardless of its size and you divide it in half you’re really dissecting it you’re dissecting a neighborhood and I think it’s important that when the consultant is looking at the previous recommendation looking at what previous recommendation, looking at what can and cannot be done, engaging the community, that they’re also looking at components of community importance and the importance of neighborhoods, and in particular, the Hamlets. Councillor Butt was very correct when he said, could you imagine dividing Claremont in half and what kind of an outcry it would be I’m looking forward to this passing and I’m looking forward to the consultant reporting back and I think it’s a reasonable time frame and it’s a reasonable cost thank you thank you Councillor Robinson You have the floor.

Yes, thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Thank you. I’m just curious if staff can answer this question for me. If they can just explain, the boundary review is not being issued as a request for proposal to ensure that it is transparent I mean we’re we’re calling on watson and associates is there a reason why it’s not going through a request for proposal and why we’re saying who we want to do this ward boundary change with our clerk change with? Councillor Pickles? Councillor Pickles? Thank you.

Through you, Your Worship, to Councillor Robinson. Councillor Robinson, we actually thought it was very important to use the same consultants that did the original review because they have the basis for it. They had guiding principles that they used, and we really wanted to do an apples to apples comparison, if you will, instead of starting fresh all over we don’t want to undertake a full war boundary review it would take too long to do that we already have the base foundation of data so we feel like that can be built on and I think it’s very important that the same consultants that did it originally do it again same consultants that did it originally do it again. Okay, because just listening to the way everyone’s speaking here tonight, it’s quite obviously that, you know, the Ward 3 councillors and, of course, other councillors want to see all of Ward 3 basically staying in Ward 3 that, you know, none of the Hamlets get divided.

So do we really need to spend $35,000 on Watson and Associates when, you know, this is what the councillors want? And, you know, as soon as Watson and Associates sees this, you know, they’re going to do their best to appease the three or four councillors that have already mentioned that this is what they want to see.

So I’m just curious, like, why are we even spending the $35,000? Why don’t we just go ahead, not split the Hamlet and save the taxpayers $35,000? And then on top of that, why was it the last time the ward boundary was done why did they not utilize the ward boundaries at that time was it because it was too close to an election oh counselor I think um counselor pickles mentioned that the boundaries were status quo and then there was a petition and that position of council was changed to do as the recommendation of the consultant.

It was subsequently appealed to the OLT and the OLT did not hear the appeal in time for the boundaries to take effect. the appeal in time for the boundaries to take effect. After the appeal was withdrawn, the bylaw is the bylaw of standing, which would be the new boundaries effective 2026. Right.

So we do have new boundaries right now that are supposed to be taking in effect for 2026, correct? That’s correct. Right. But so now we’re going to spend another $35,000 on Watson and Associates to basically just try and keep the Hamlets all together to appease the Councillors. I don’t think that’s a fair summary. I think the three Councillors that mentioned they had concerns about Cherrywood in particular, and the delegates spoke to that.

And Ms. Enright, who was the person who did the appeal, also had a concern about splitting up Cherrywood. So that would be only one facet of the review. I don’t think the councillors have taken any position about what a preferred outcome would be with the exception of the commentary on Cherrywood. I don’t think we’ve gone down the path of making recommendation.

And I think the clerk has been quite clear that that would be inappropriate for us to to do that. So I don’t think what you’re suggesting is fair to what actually is happening with the exception of the Cherrywood analogy, which I think is fair.

Well, I’m just saying, because I remember at the beginning, you know, when they were talking about the ward boundary changes, you know, it does, it changes the about the ward boundary changes, you know, it does, it changes the support with the councillors, like, you know, who supported them in the past. I mean, they’re going to lose some of their support and they’re going to gain support from other places.

So, I have heard a lot of rumours and the councillors speaking, you know, when I first got elected about, you know, not wanting to change the boundaries because they would lose support and then gain support either way, but mostly they didn’t want to lose support, so they don’t want to change the boundaries. So, I just don’t want to see this process go through and, you know, waste the taxpayers another $35,000 when, you know, we’ve just had that done.

The boundaries have been changed. You know, maybe when the new council comes in after this election, then maybe, you know, that they could revisit again. But to spend the $35,000 now where we’ve already got a new boundary and then have to do it again, probably when the new council comes in. I just think it’s a big waste of money and I can’t I can’t support it just for that reason, because we haven’t even had an election with the new boundary changes as of yet.

So I understand that. So, yeah. Thank you for your comments. We have four questions, please. Yes please yes absolutely any other comments being none councillor Robinson has requested a recorded vote for the motion that’s been duly moved and seconded clerk and councillor Robinson no councillor Brenner yes  but yes Councillor cook yes Councillor Nagy yes Councillor pickles yes mayor ash yes your worship that’s carried six to one thank you next item is the all-inclusive care for elderly the pace moved by councillor cook second but councillor pickles operative clauses are as follows the Pickering council supports community care vision for implementing one connect and Pickering in the region here can country encourage the government and interior to provide necessary funding to community care durham to implement evaluate and scale one connect to meet the growing needs of durham.

Staff at Pickering assist the region of Durham in community care to support expansion of day-to-day program services and to get identification of Pickering neighbors, which have a high proportion of at-risk adults that benefit from this model, and that the persons listed be copied of this proposal. Councillor Cook. Thank you, Mayor Ashe.

It’s a pleasure to work on this with Councillor Pickles. I think this is vital in our community. When you see the figures, we have a large proportion of elderly and aging right here within Pickering, substantively larger than other municipalities. I don’t need to go into great detail on this because I think Mr. Milosz did a fantastic job in his explanation of services, why this funding is vital and the successes that a PACE program has had in the United States. I also do appreciate the fact that we would be ahead of the curve, as he noted that Ontario would be getting, is ahead of the rest of the provinces and bringing together and moving forward with solutions that provide wellness centres and day programming and in-place supports for our aging population.

So I will also ask for a recorded vote. And I do hope we do have a unanimous support on council. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor and council. Thank you. Councillor Prickles. Thank you. And, you know, I couldn’t present it better than than james did anyway but I i think the important point to note is you know this is an effective way to add to quality of life for for some of our residents and you know it wasn’t it wasn’t james that that came to me or or council cook members of the community came to us independently and then I reached reached out to james and it turned out that uh I i heard about councillor cook’s interest in this and we worked together on the motion and I just want to emphasize that we’re supporting a funding request of the provincial government here. We’re not looking at spending municipal funds on this. We don’t generally expend monies on health and social service matters.

But it is important to the community. I think we should support it. And where they have said we can provide assistance to them is with demographics, with information on neighborhoods, with information on planning and our facilities. And I think we can do that.

And, you know, if the provincial funding comes through, Community Care Durham can do their work. We can assist them and many people can benefit from a better quality of life. And I know James also said that he wished to speak further with health and social services at the region. And I’m sure that Councillor Brenner, as our representative on that committee, would be willing to assist James in bringing some of these ideas forward as well as Council Brenner has been a great booster of quality of life so in our community so I’m very happy to have the motion here and be working with Council Cook on it and you know James did a good sales job there so it is it is a very dignified and important program thank you if there’s no other debate was there a request for a recorded book yes moved by counselor uh cook madam clerk we do record a book thank you counselor cook yes Councillor Nagy? Yes. Councillor Pickles? Yes. Councillor Robinson? Yes.

Councillor Brenner? Yes. Councillor Butt? Yes. Mayor Ashe? Yes. Your Worship, that’s carried unanimously. Thank you. Bylaws including 11.8 revised. May I move in? Moved by Councillor Butt, seconded by Councillor Nagy. Any polls? I move in move by Councillor Bott second Councillor Nagy any polls being done all those in favour suppose that item is carried um confidential report your worship yes I’m just drawing your attention to the map tax bylaw that was referred back to staff. Oh, 11.1. If we could do that.

Oh, yeah. Bylaws would be 11.2 through to 11.8. 11.1 is referred back to consideration in February. Should I recall vote? Yes, please. Should I recall a vote? Yes, please. So the first I’m going to send out the results of the first vote is null and void because 11.1 should not be included. So move the bylaws moved by 11.2 to 11.8.

All those in favor? Oppose that items carried. Thank you. Prior to the regular council meeting, an in-camera session was held at 5 p.m. in accordance with the provision of the Municipal Act and Procedural By-law to consider matters pertaining to proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or receipt of advice that is subject to solicitor client privilege, including communications necessary to the purpose, a trade secret, or scientific, technical, commercial, financial, or labour relations information supplied in confidence to the municipality, which, if disclosed, could reasonably be expected to prejudice significantly the competitive process and interfere significantly with the contractual or other negotiations of a person, of persons or organization a trade secret or scientific technical commercial or financial information that belongs to municipality and has a monetary value or potential monetary value and a position plan procedure criteria or instruction to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on behalf of the municipality those matters that were disclosed in closed session as they pertain to the potential divestiture of City of Pickering’s interest in a lexicon an economic development opportunity in the Pickering City Center and the expropriation of lands required for the construction of a new fire hall at 1521 um 1521 bailey street is moved by councillor cook and second by councillor robinson that the confidential memo and presentation of director of economic development the advice given and motion moved that the confidential direction provided to staff at the aim camera session be approved. Debate? Being none. All those in favor? Opposed? That item is carried. Any regional councilor updates? Being none. Other business? Okay. Councillor Cook, you’re first thank you Mr. Mayor I’d like to give notice of motion that myself and Councillor Brenner are working on connecting the staff to extend the winter snow maintenance clearing program that’s currently in place and has seen some success. We’d like that extended to Alex Robertson Park for the 2025-26 season. So I’ll come forward next month. That’s all. Thank you. Councillor Daigie. If Councillor Butts got a notice of motion he should go first. I want to talk a little bit ladies first you go ahead okay well I just wanted to mention although Mr. Bentley rather stole my thunder uh that I had the opportunity and absolute pleasure to um attend transport Canada’s announcement today that the Pickering federal lands will officially not be used for an airport now or in the future instead with the vast majority of that land, including the areas with the highest conservation value, to be transferred to Parks Canada, to be added in time to Rouge National Urban Park. With this addition, Rouge Park becomes one of the largest urban parks in the world. And with this having been discussed periodically over the years by Council, including most recently by this Council just under two years ago. It felt obviously very important for me to make the time to be present for that announcement.

The event was hugely well attended by community members, including most of the board of Land Over Landings, as well as former members of the Claremont District Community Association, White Vales Community Association, mayors and councillors from Uxbridge, Toronto, Whitchurch, Stouffville, Markham, Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, Mississaugas of Credit First Nation, and of course I was there representing Pickering. Former Mayor David Crombie was there as well.

The room was packed solid with community media, elected officials, also a number of former and current MPs, including four cabinet ministers, Minister Holland, Minister Ananda Sangri, Minister Guilbeault and Minister Anand. Of course, our own MP, Jennifer O’Connell, who kicked off the whole event beautifully, bringing everyone to their feet for a standing ovation as she confirmed the protection of the lands right off the top of her speech.

And finally, one of the recurring themes of the afternoon that I really wanted to repeat here was that community advocacy does matter, grassroots movements do make a difference, and green infrastructure is just as crucial and vital as grey infrastructure.

So I wanted to leave on those words and thank you for allowing me to share because there’s been virtually nothing in the news and that’s honestly mind-blowing to me so well I have an opportunity I have a tv in my office there has been some uh press on it tonight and I will be issuing a press release tomorrow on behalf of council uh supportive of the government’s decision to uh make that determination and um we’ll be going from there counselor but thank you Mr. Mayor my point is constant pickers and I we’ve received many emails in regards to the frequency of accidents happening at the main intersections and some being fatal um I can only urge and I know Casa Pica is looking into with the regional to get more regional involved as well as the Durham Police involved in regards to making sure that our routes are safer to travel. However, I do want to emphasize in most cases, the accidents have been that people speed too much and are traveling at higher speeds so we want to conscious our residents to please obey the traffic lights um you know amber if you see amber that is equally to beings you have to stop and not proceed so you know there’s according to the police there is has been um from their reports that people are not obeying the traffic lights as what they should so I just want to emphasize that and I know constant pickles is already looking into make our regional roads safer thank you Mr. Mayor thank you uh anyone else nope um a confirming bylaw would be in order what moved by councillor but second by councillor cook uh the bylaw confirmed the proceedings of tonight’s meeting um all those in favor opposed that items carried adjournment would be in order.

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2. Summary

Meeting Details

• Date: January 27, 2025
• All council members were present and participating electronically

Delegations

Community Care Durham Presentation

James Malosh and Melissa Rudan from Community Care Durham presented on their “One Connect” program:

• Serves over 1,100 individuals in Durham region
• Delivers 9,000 meals and 2,300 drives annually in Pickering
• Provides 3,000 days of adult day programming
• Supports 50 high-needs clients in Pickering

Key points about One Connect:

• Based on U.S. PACE model for all-inclusive care of the elderly
• Aims to help frail older adults maintain independence at home
• Integrates health and social care needs
• Would be first program of its kind in Ontario
• Requesting $1.7 million from provincial government to support 50 clients
• Cost per client is less than $100/day, compared to over twice that for long-term care

They are seeking council’s endorsement and support to work with city staff on planning future sites.

Pickering Professional Firefighters Association Presentation

Mike Palachik spoke in support of the Fire Master Plan recommendations, including:

• Adding 5 fire prevention staff
• Building a dedicated training center
• Adding 5-6 new firefighters per year for 5 years
• Relocating Station 5

He emphasized this will be costly but is needed to move the fire service forward. The association expects council to adopt and implement the recommendations.

Ward Boundary Review Presentation

Matt Bentley spoke regarding the notice of motion for another ward boundary review:

• Expressed concern about lack of public consultation mentioned
• Reminded council of extensive community input in previous review
• Requested comprehensive public engagement if another review is done
• Noted previous review was based on best practices and supported by residents

Key Motions/Votes

• Motion to endorse Community Care Durham’s One Connect program passed unanimously
• Fire Master Plan recommendations ratified unanimously
• Motion for another ward boundary review passed 6-1

The council also dealt with several other agenda items and bylaws during the meeting.

Sandy Beach Road:
This long-awaited project is finally gaining some traction. The detailed design for the reconstruction of Sandy Beach Road and replacement of the Krosno Creek culvert crossing is continuing to progress which will address issues of poor drainage and road conditions. The project will also include a multi-use path on the west boulevard and a sidewalk on the east boulevard to address issues of pedestrian safety. Utility relocations and property acquisition are anticipated to occur in 2025 with roadworks commencing in 2026.

2025 Ward 2 Road Resurfacing Projects:
Each year the City publishes a list by Ward of planned roadway resurfacing. Pavement typically has a life span of 25-30 years. Below are some of the upcoming projects for  Ward 2:

1. Echo Point Court – Glenanna Road to north terminus
2. Storrington Street – Walnut Lane to Listowell Crescent (the section from Glenanna Road to Listowell Crescent was completed in 2024)
3. Douglas Avenue – Radom Street to 230m south of Radom Street
4. Garvolin Avenue – Modlin Road to Krosno Boulevard
5. Fairview Avenue – Douglas Street to south terminus (top asphalt to complete the reconstruction project)

Liverpool Bridge Replacement:
We’ve received a number of public inquiries on the status to replacing the now very aged Liverpool Bridge. This is a significant endeavor, but one that must be addressed. The process to hire a Consultant for the design and approvals of the Liverpool Bridge Replacement will commence in 2025. Construction for the replacement of this bridge structure is currently identified in 2028 in the City’s multi-year capital forecast. Please note that timelines are subject to change depending on funding availability, and budget approval.

Beachfront Park Revitalization:
Our exciting waterfront revitalization is well underway! Phase 1 construction from Millennium Square to Alex Roberston Park is proceeding well and the project is on time and on budget! The sheet pile installation and shoreline stone revetment work along Millenium Square and at the east end of the new boardwalk has been completed. The installation of the helical piles that will support the steel framing and concrete deck that will make up the elevated boardwalk structure will commence shortly. Construction is anticipated to be completed by July 2025 so that visitors can again enjoy Pickering’s beautiful waterfront for the summer, and take a stroll, or cycle, along the new elevated boardwalk. The project will also include an art panel installation by indigenous artists.

Playground Replacement:
Improvements to accessibility are underway at a number of our parts – to make the experience more inclusive for all to enjoy. New playground equipment for Lynn Heights Park, Bonita Park, and Bayshore Tot Lot was approved in the 2025 Capital Budget. The process to procure the new equipment will commence shortly and construction will take place in the fall. All new playgrounds will have accessible components to comply with the Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act, 2005.

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More SIZZLE, less STEAK. Me, a writer, blogger, 10 years experience and nearly 40 years living in Pickering. Never contacted at all.

Environmentally sensitive land…we care. You?

I have never been of the opinion that more is better. I remember a time when you could access the waterfront in Toronto from the Scarborough Bluffs to Sunnyside Beach in many areas…unimpeded. Then came the condo boom in the 1960’s.

Pickering has beaches as nice, or better than many fancy resorts. Now, developers/condo builders want to move in and limit access to this beautiful site even further. The Fairport Beach Neighbourhood Association has been there from Day 1 promoting open access to the beaches to the lake to the public.

The east side of Frenchman’s Bay has received all the pressure of development. The “nautical village” was a point of contention. It brought with it all the negative aspects of peak use on weekends during the summer: congestion, traffic, parking, and more. We have supported the cause of stopping condo development on the waterfront by attending every meeting, voicing many opinions, and placing lawn signs throughout the Westshore community.

The west side of the Bay has been the best kept secret for many years until now. Frenchman’s Bay West Rotary Park, located at the foot of Westshore Blvd., is now open to the public at large. It contains pristine sand dunes and a sandy-bottomed beach extending more than 100 yards into the lake.

The north side of Frenchman’s Bay, the spit adjacent to the yacht club, contains “environmentally sensitive” land for plants and wildlife to thrive. The area has been designated for protection by the Environmental Protection Act and has been on the discussion table repeatedly. Diverting attention from the debate does not protect the area.

There have been countless meetings to discuss the area over the years. Developers and condo builders have not attended. Therefore, we have not heard your input, your views, or your side as to how this area can be protected from the encroaching problems you bring with your development. You have not consulted with the 2 community Associations.

The City, Province, and Federal governments have spent millions on restoring and upgrading the waterfront along the Beachpoint Promenade: 3 homes remain on the waterfront, 2 on the parklands. Phase 1 is completed. Phase 2 and 3 are in the works. Windsurfers, kayaks, paddle boards, and non-motorized recreational vehicles are welcome and have full access to the water there. This area is a run-away success. City Councillors have worked hard to maintain and improve this waterfront area and make it as safe and as welcoming to the public as possible.

We ask for your support in maintaining and improving waterfront development.

Paul White
President
Fairport Beach Neighbourhood Association

Please consider adding your signature to the Petition to protect these environmentally sensitive lands: ->  PETITION