For Immediate Release
March 2, 2006

 

Municipal Affairs Minister unaware of Rural Summit recommendations

Queen’s Park, Toronto – Lanark-Carleton MPP Norm Sterling today asked Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister John Gerretsen how the McGuinty government would be responding to the recommendations of Ottawa ’s Rural Summit, only to discover that the Minister seemed unaware of the specific recommendations.

“Some of the recommendations that came out of this summit require provincial legislative changes,” said Mr. Sterling.  “I would expect the Minister to be aware of these recommendations and to have a plan to study and deal with those recommendations requiring provincial input.  The Minister has obviously not done his homework.”

Two of the proposals that would require changes to provincial legislation are:

- Petition the Province to review, justify and amend, as necessary, the wetland evaluation system and to provide an appeal process to the method of classification.

- Develop a scalable by-law licensing fee structure, with fees related to neighbouring rural communities.

“Unlike Ottawa City Council which is showing that it is listening to its rural residents, the McGuinty government has ignored rural Ontarians for the past two-and-a-half years,” said Mr. Sterling.  “Premier McGuinty is ignoring rural Ottawa – he’s ignoring the rural residents of his own hometown.”

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For more information, please call Lanark-Carleton MPP Norm Sterling at: (416) 314-7900


 ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY INSTANT HANSARD

THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2006 – QUESTION PERIOD

 

Mr. Norman W. Sterling (Lanark–Carleton): My question is for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. In November, Ottawa held a rural summit to improve relations between the rural residents and the urban residents in the city of Ottawa . Many of the recommendations of the rural summit have been adopted by the city of Ottawa in their 2006 budget, and I want to congratulate the city of Ottawa on their efforts.

Your officials were there, Mr. Minister, and there were several recommendations dealing with changes that would be necessary to provincial legislation and provincial regulations. Can you report to the Legislature what response you have to those recommendations?

Hon. John Gerretsen (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): I would like to thank the member for the question. We’re always looking at ways in which we can improve the relationship between municipalities and the province of Ontario . We’re looking at the City of Ottawa Act . I’ve had a number of conversations with the mayor of Ottawa over the years as to how that can be done, both through the Municipal Act and the City of Ottawa Act . I have not spoken to him specifically with respect to the recommendations that may have come out of the particular meeting that he’s talking about, but I would be more than pleased to review that with my officials and get back to the member as to what the government intends to do with respect to those recommendations.

Mr. Sterling: Let me help the minister. One of the recommendations was to allow the municipality of the city of Ottawa to have different licensing structures for the urban and rural areas. Another recommendation was for the province to bring forward legislation and regulation to allow, as necessary, the wetland evaluation system and to provide an appeal process for the method of classification to a wetland.

Mr. Minister, can you promise that you will at least look at these two very important issues for the rural residents of the city of Ottawa ?

Hon. Mr. Gerretsen: I can certainly state to the member that we will be looking at that. There was a meeting, I should say, about two or three weeks ago when a significant number of members of the cabinet met with the leadership from the city of Ottawa . I was not at that meeting at the time; I was out of the country. But I know, from talking to my colleagues, that it was a very successful meeting, and a number of the recommendations that came out of that meeting are currently being reviewed by a number of different ministries. Action will accordingly be taken at some time in the future. We will advise the member of that at that time.