Written By David Gomez
MIDDLESEX COUNTY - Ontario municipalities have a critical need for more provincial help in maintaining and improving infrastructure. That was one of the key messages that emerged at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference this month, attended by Middlesex County Warden and Middlesex Centre Mayor, Aina DeViet. “I don’t want to sound really glum, but right now… sometimes I feel like we’re getting crushed,” said DeViet of the pressures being placed on Ontario’s cities and towns.
DeViet and her team of delegates raised their concerns about long-term funding for roads, water and other services in a meeting with Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma. Concerns include meeting requirements for new housing. “If we’re supposed to be building these houses, then we need pipes in the ground and roads for them,” says DeViet.
Health care was another flash point for the province’s mayors, with long-standing issues about funding being raised. Wardens in smaller communities were united in their calls for a strategy to ensure adequate facilities, sharing concerns about situations like hospital emergency departments being forced to keep reduced hours because of a doctor shortage. “How do you attract a doctor to come when there’s nowhere to practice?” said DeViet.
Job creation was another top item on the agenda at the conference. In a meeting with Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, Vic Fedeli, DeViet and her team focused on attracting business locally. That included raising long-standing plans to improve the industrial base on lands near highway 402 in Middlesex Centre. “Our municipality is well positioned, it’s a matter of a penny dropping and the ripples spreading in our community,” says DeViet.
Ultimately as DeViet puts it, “I didn’t walk away from anything jumping for joy”, adding “Sometimes things move too slow for me. It’s glacial.” But she says the AMO conference proved mayors are having an impact on provincial policies. “They are listening,” says DeViet.
