Councillor Kelly's Review of Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) Conference in Toronto
- Ward 5 Staff
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Yesterday evening, I got home from 3 days in Toronto, representing the City of Ottawa at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association Conference (ROMA).
This is something I do each year as the City’s official delegate for this term of council, and given that so much of what we do as municipalities is directed or driven by the province and its policies, it is an important opportunity to learn and advocate on behalf of rural Ottawa and the people of Ward 5.
My main focus for the conference was the two official delegations, with provincial ministers Rob Flack, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and Trevor Jones, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness.
With Minister Flack, the focus of the delegation was to advocate for greater supports from the Province to ensure infrastructure is aligned with growth. Too often, we see thousands of new units built either through village growth or urban boundary expansion, but we are stuck using the same infrastructure that has been in place for decades. This infrastructure was never designed to handle the volumes it sees now, which creates dysfunctional communities where schools, roads, and healthcare simply cannot keep up.
This was one of the reasons I opposed the last urban boundary expansion. Not only does it chip away at our rural community, but it leaves residents of rural communities with next to no options to get from their homes to the rest of Ottawa without driving through very dangerous roads that are way past capacity. I used the growth along March Road as an example.
The second part of this delegation was a request that the Province require that municipalities clearly show how much we are budgeting for mandated core services vs. spending on other initiatives that are not core city services.
Many rural residents want to see the core services delivered efficiently and effectively. Things like garbage pickup, road maintenance, ditching and drainage, snow plowing, etc. Often times, the sense is that we are spending money on other initiatives while letting core services slip. Having this in place would be a great tool for municipal representatives to ensure accountability and clarity on what staff are prioritizing.
The delegation with Minister Jones was a simpler request. Agriculture is incredibly important to our rural communities. The context of this delegation was the fact that we lose approximately 319 acres of farmland every day in Ontario, and if we don’t do more to protect it, we will be sorry.
I raised the issue of land that is being farmed and has been farmed for decades, but is not zoned AG. The argument was that there is a lot of land not zoned AG, but instead zoned RU (rural countryside), that is, and has been, contributing to the agricultural fabric of our communities, and losing that is detrimental to our ability to feed ourselves and remain an agricultural community.
Another notable conversation happened during the Zone meet up, were we met with representatives from the other rural municipalities near us (Mississippi Mills, Beckwith, etc), to discuss common themes and heard from our Zone representative, Christa Lowry, on what initiatives they are bringing to the ROMA table on our behalf.
It won’t come as a surprise that I raised the issues around the IESO and the procurement process for energy projects like BESS. I remain absolutely convinced that the provincial government and the IESO continue to ignore their responsibility to:
be active in the conversation with communities where these projects are being proposed.
be there to provide information and answers to questions that people can actually rely on.
ensure the discussion with communities happens much earlier. Until this happens, the conversations will continue to be contentious.
There was, of course, lots of great discussions and other learning opportunities during the conference, and I look forward to providing a full report in the coming weeks.
As always, if you have a question about this or any other Ward or City issue, just send an email to Clarke.Kelly@Ottawa.ca or call our office at 613-580-2475.
Be sure to stay in touch with what's happening in West Carleton-March:
• Drop-in and speak with Councillor Kelly at his next Open House
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