Budgets, LPH property topped city's list at Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference
Conference took place in Toronto earlier this week
Rising budgets for outside boards and agencies, and the future of the Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital (LPH) property, were high on the list of priorities for the Thunder Bay delegation at this year's Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference.
This year's conference took place in Toronto, and wrapped up earlier this week. The event gives smaller municipalities in Ontario a chance to discuss issues directly with provincial ministers and staff.
"One of the big main issues that we wanted to get across to the province is our inability to regulate tax levy increases from outside boards and agencies," said Coun. Trevor Giertuga, who chairs the city's intergovernmental affairs committee.
Giertuga said council directed both internal departments and external boards and agencies to come back with budget increases of no more than 2.6 per cent for 2026.
However, while internal departments met that goal, outside boards and agencies didn't.
"The police came in at 9.1 per cent," he said. "That's out of our purview."
"We don't have any regulations for these boards and agencies," Giertuga said. "They levy us and we've got to pay it."
Another issue was the future of the 144-acre, provincially-owned LPH property on Algoma Street North. The hospital itself closed in 2018.
"We would like to get our hands on (the LPH property) and to have control over what happens to that property," said Coun. Shelby Ch'ng, a member of the intergovernmental affairs committee. "We've been given signals that the province is looking at divesting, but first they need to go through their ministry to make sure they don't need the property."
"And we're assured that Thunder Bay is on the list to, to notify when that does happen."
The LPH property has been listed as "under review" on the provincial surplus property website for years. CBC contacted Infrastructure Ontario for an update on Thursday, but did not receive a reply.
Highway safety improvements needed
Rick Dumas, mayor of Marathon and president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) was also at the ROMA conference, where he also raised a number of issues, including the need for the province to reduce the population requirements for the Building Faster Fund.
"Outside of the city of Thunder Bay, all the rest of us are under 20,000 population," Dumas said. "Most of us don't get the opportunity to get ... these funds to build our homes in our community, but yet we need to build homes in our communities."
Highway safety in the north, was also a major concern for Dumas.
"We always leave a day early because we know in most cases during the winter, there's going to be some sort of closure from the storm or an accident," Dumas said. "It might not be for the whole day, but it could be for several hours."
"That's an added cost to all of us for traveling for hotel rooms."
NOMA has been advocating for twinning the highways in northern Ontario where possible, and what's called a two-plus-one highway system in other areas.
A two-plus-one highway includes a central passing lane that alternates direction every few kilometres, with a median that prevents head-on collisions.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford addressed the issue during a speech at ROMA, saying the province is spending $30 billion over 10 years on roads, highways and bridges.
"It has been very disturbing to hear all the accidents up north," he said. "We're doing everything we can to twin roads, two put (two-plus-one) roads, to make it safer, making sure that the roads get plowed and salted as quickly as possible, because there's been tragedies over the holidays, and no one wants that."