COUNCIL REPORT

Report No. Joint 01– 2016 Council Date: September 6th, 2016

AMO 2016 Conference Report

Recommendation RESOLVED that Council receive Report No. Joint 01-2016 as information.

Purpose: This joint report prepared by C.A.O. Greb and Clerk Lisa VanderWallen provides a high level review of some of the information presented at the 2016 AMO Conference in Windsor without duplicating reports from other councillors.

Background: Mayor David Mayberry, Councillor Valerie Durston, Clerk Lisa VanderWallen and CAO Mary Ellen Greb were given the opportunity to attend the 2016 AMO Conference in Windsor from August 14 – 17, 2016.

The theme of the conference was ‘AMO - Bridging the Gap'.

Review Plenary Sessions

- provided a presentation on her Government's action plan for and took questions from the elected officials at the conference - Outgoing AMO President Gary McNamara provided the delegates with a summary of AMO's recent accomplishments and the areas where AMO continues to lobby the provincial government, namely surrounding energy costs, joint and several liability, and interest arbitration. - AMO Staff provided a report on what's next for Ontario highlighting the possible municipal revenues and exploring the expenditures indicating that there will continue to be a widening funding and financial gap. - Pollster Nik Nanos outlined to the delegates survey results from an AMO commissioned survey titled "Taking the Pulse of Ontarians". A surprising finding from the Nanos Research Corporation poll was that of all potential revenue sources, Ontarians support an increase in the HST, so long as additional funds are required to be directed into infrastructure. - Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown provided remarks to the delegates widely criticizing the Wynne government as did NDP Leader Andrea Horwath. - Region of York's Commissioner of Finance and Treasurer Bill Hughes explained the concept of financial sustainability, highlighting the different pressures faced by municipalities with different population growth pressures (growing vs. declining populations) and infrastructure volume (kms). Report No. Joint 1-2016 2 - Minister of Community Safety & Correctional Services provided an update from his Ministry on the Strategy for a Safer Ontario, highlighting the springtime consultations and feedback received from the public during this engagement process. - Wendy Williams, an Inspector of Constabulary from the United Kingdom spoke to the experience of the UK in overhauling their policing model following a new conservative government mandate and ongoing economic recession. - Ashley Rea Kilroy, the Executive Director of Marijuana Policy for the City of Denver outlined the model the City has taken in legalizing Marijuana and spoke to the various regulatory and social challenges as well as the various costs and revenues of the programs. - Minister Bill Mauro provided the delegates with a summary of the upcoming priorities for the Ministry of Municipal affairs, including updates coming soon the building code for energy efficient buildings. Mr. Mauro also renewed the Memo of Understanding with AMO. - The Minister's Forum featured many different provincial ministers who took questions from elected official delegates. Many questions were related to legal inquiries, energy, climate change, invasive species, and infrastructure. - Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs, Adam Vaughn provided a presentation on the Federal government's commitment to infrastructure spending along with a promise to get funds out to municipalities sooner - the final day of plenary sessions included a speech by incoming AMO president Lynn Dollin and a panel on combating climate change which featured a representative from the Cement Association of Canada, the Rural Ontario Institute, and a representative from Reid's Heritage Homes, who have built Net Zero Homes.

Concurrent Sessions

Public Engagement Beyond the Public Meeting (attended by Lisa VanderWallen)

Including presentations by the City of London and the City of Hamilton, planners from each of the municipalities explained the ways that they engaged with the public outside the typical public meeting model for their Official Plan amendment process. City of London staff explained that they were able to meet members of the public by attending various festivals and events and that they had the greatest success when they did not hold formal public meetings, but instead when the engaged the public in informal settings. The planners recommended that using official terminology, like "Provincial Policies", and "Official Plan" tended to get members of the public to turn away, whereas City staff presence at big community events (like Knights games, Rib festival) was warmly received by the public. London's first event included a launch where Peter Mansbridge spoke on community vision and from this big event, the plan was launched. As a result of this community engagement model, London's Official Plan, known as London Plan, is a very innovative planning document and reads like a story book and does not even include land use planning maps. A major take away from the engagement sessions was that staff organized every public submission and built a searchable database for submissions which are publicly available. This database includes links to how the submission was used to the final draft of the document, showing residents how their vision is included in the plan. City of Hamilton staff spoke to following a similar methodology for reaching their residents which included attending

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Report No. Joint 1-2016 3 city events and approaching people at these events for feedback on small feedback cards. The City also appointed a large subcommittee of over 50 people in the community to reach out at various events to get feedback on the future of Hamilton and bring it back to Council and the planners. Hamilton and London both advocated for the use of digital technologies including survey on the spot technologies which use smart phone applications. Hamilton and London emphasized that public engagement needs to go beyond the public meeting, since public meetings tend to attract mainly "STP"s, which is the "Same Ten People".

ORPP and Potential CPP Enhancement Impacts on the OMERS Plan (Mary Ellen Greb) This session focused on OMERS Plan sustainability and affordability challenges, key OMERS Administration Corporation investment priorities and how the OMERS Plan will accommodated proposed changes to the Canada Pension Plan.

The ORPP (Ontario Retirement Pension Plan) is to be cancelled due to the ongoing ratification process of the Federal Canada Pension Plan (CPP) which is on track to be finalized in the Fall of 2016. Changes will be phased in over 7 (seven) years commencing in 2019 which will result in higher contribution rates for employees and employers.

The OMERS pension plan is integrated with CPP. OMERS Sponsors Corporation to review impacts and consider next steps.

The OMERS plan is working through the challenges of an aging population. In 1975 there were 10 active members for every 1 retired member. In 2015 there were 2 active members for each retired member. This places a large burden on current and future active employees to deal with the risk.

A sustainability plan is one that can consistently, through both favourable and adverse circumstances deliver an appropriate range of benefits with an acceptable range of costs over the long term. Sustainability is the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

OMERS must be sustainable. A solid funding management strategy includes setting a maximum contribution rate and building a reserve during good periods. Work is underway via the OMERS 2020 Strategy which looks at collaboration between the OMERS Administration Corporation and the OMERS Sponsors Corporation; stable and predictable contributions and benefits which addresses challenges, including plan maturity; as well as investments diversification.

Additional Flexibility is urgently needed. There are only two levers currently available to deal with deficits; increase contributions and/or cut future accruals for working members. We need to look at this now to provide some flexibility in case it is needed.

Provincial Offences Act Modernization (attended by Lisa VanderWallen) Representatives from the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Transportation spoke to the ways that the Provincial Offences Act will be modernized. Beginning first by looking at the challenges facing Provincial Offences Act, the

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Report No. Joint 1-2016 4 presenters explained that the major challenges include the enforcement of fines, the time to resolve cases, the high volume of fines, and the costs for operating provincial courts. The provincial ministry presenters explained that enforcement of fines is a major challenge in that there is currently 1.4 billion dollars in outstanding fines which are currently unpaid in Ontario. For municipalities, these unpaid fines represent lost revenues. The representative from the Attorney General's office explained that there are reforms introduced to improve fine collection which include the option to add administrative monetary penalties (AMPs), POA streamlining, and enforcement rules which mean that now late penalties are not waved and there are provisions that the oldest fine must be paid first and fines can be added to property tax bills. Representatives from the Ministry of Transportation highlighted Bill 31, the "Making Ontario's Roads Safer Act" and the provision in the Act which will prohibit license plate renewals until fines are paid. While this provision of plate denial is a positive step, the reality is that this is only for traffic related fines, so other by-law enforcement fines are not eligible for plate denial. There is also a proposal to make the paying of fines available at Service Ontario locations, but municipalities are apprehensive about this possible change since there are worries about revenue being forwarded to municipalities. Finally, this session ended with a presentation from the solicitor for the Region of York who spoke to the local challenges of POA enforcement including shortages of Justices of the Peace, rising dispute rates, inability to add fines to properties with multiple owners, and the difficulty in collecting fines from out of province offenders. The solicitor also noted that she recommends increasing powers of the Court Clerk and suggests that the possible option of online disputes may lead to more disputes being filed, so she recommended approaching this option with caution.

Rural Economic Development: Building on Inherent Strengths (Mary Ellen Greb) Small and rural municipal governments need solutions to attract and retain residents, develop economies, and support local businesses. The panel of delegates offered their perspectives on community development from the standpoint of youth engagement; community training & development and economic development.

Director Andrea Brown, highlighted the benefits of the partnerships that have expanded the programming offered at the Fusion youth (ages 12 to 17) activity and technology centre Rural Community Hub Model in Ingersoll. The Community Building has built community exponentially by:  Driving economic development  Building skills and job readiness  Development youth entrepreneurship partnerships  Building capacity in the community

Programs offered at the Centre include Recreation & Leisure; Culinary; Leadership; Art and Music. Since the development of the Centre youth crime in Ingersoll has dropped 80 to 90%. Youth feel a sense of belonging in their community; adult perception on youth is more positive; Youth are changing eating and exercise habits and socially excluded youth are now getting out and meeting people.

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Report No. Joint 1-2016 5 Katie Nolan (OMAFRA) discussed Economic Development that works in Ontario’s smallest places via a “Teeny Tiny” Summit. Teeny Tiny Places are rural; villages or hamlets with populations under 1,000 with; no economic development staff; no strong drivers of economic growth and have stable or declining population. The first summit was held in Seeley’s Bay on March 30, 2016 bringing together municipal staff; volunteers; business support organizations; and anyone with an interest in learning about how to approach economic development in a Teeny Tiny Place. Some of the key takeaways from the summit were: a. Teeny Tiny Places are filled with skilled, visionary people who are committed to their communities; b. Rural Ontario is filled with beautiful, teeny tiny places to explore c. Rural places are positioned to make life better for all Ontario Best advice:  Be what you are  Know what you have

Best practices for success include designing highly functioning, collaborative, municipal- volunteer relationships:  Inform and educate your volunteers about processes (budget cycle, liabilities etc.)  Help them learn the language  Understand your shared goals

Madelaine Currelly, CEO, Community Training and Development Centre (Northumberland County) outlined the results and outcomes of a Rural Economic Development Study undertaken in the County. The purpose of the project was to;  Introduce technology solutions for job search  Built a local skills inventory  Interview employers re: employment needs – validate the 2014 Environics study of 500 (small, medium & large) Canadian employers  Interview job seeks to compare their perceived existing skills to the skills required by employers  Use the results of surveys to build a competency model for key sectors and build a pilot competency tool

The study concluded that there is a disconnect between employer needs and perceptions, and the job seeker’s evaluation of their personal skills. There is a training deficit in soft skills and basic job skills competencies (within personal skills). To address this training deficit a pilot video series is being developed to teach personal effectiveness skills in a competency format.

Future goals include increasing the number of industry competency videos based on the pilot success; developing an online training tool for basic competencies; seek further funding to design an online training model for industry specific competencies; building a competency screening tool for employers and create a reference link on competencies for the Northumberland County website.

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Waste Management in Ontario - Waste Free Ontario Act (Lisa VanderWallen attended) In a panel that included the Deputy Minister for the Ministry of Environment, the Waste Operations Manager for the Region of Durham, and the Vice President of Legal Affairs from Unilever Canada, delegates learned about the upcoming changes that may be coming in Ontario with the onset of the Waste Free Ontario Act. Delegates learned that for residential properties, there is a diversion rate of 66%, putting Ontario only behind Nova Scotia. A troubling reality is that while residential diversion has been progressing well, the overall diversion rate is only at 25%, since there is only 13% diversion for non- residential waste (industrial and commercial). The panelists explained that the major change that will be coming with the Waste Free Ontario Act is the transition to producer responsibility for waste and that there will likely be geographically based standards for producers. The panelists explained that the new legislation is a legal framework for companies to use to achieve full producer responsibility and delegates were surprised to learn that some major corporations, like Unilever, welcome the legislation since they feel the process may allow them to adopt efficiency measures and embrace a circular economy. Delegates were encouraged to wait for the regulations to come out but to commence a few tasks: request a staff report updating Councils on Bill 151; undertake activity based costing (following a template which will be circulated to all municipalities shortly); and to determine whether their municipality is still interested in providing roadside collection services, since these may be subsidized by producers soon. Overall, municipalities were told that the Waste Free Ontario Act will be a positive development for local level actors since it will mean that there is better access to funds forwarded by the private sector.

Innovation through Collaboration: Municipal Service-Sharing Agreement (attended by Mary Ellen Greb) Municipal Governments are sharing a range of services, from transportation to administration to emergency management staff. Three case studies offered advice on key effective collaborative working arrangements and why they are important for rural Ontario. Two small municipalities in the northern part of Huron County have implemented a service sharing agreement in order to improve efficiency and obtain significant savings. To bring this about the following departments of the two municipalities merged Public Works, Building Department, Drainage and Water and Sewer Services. There was also a merging of the payroll, asset management, accounts receivable/payable, IT support, Health and Safety as well as preparation of the FIR for the merged Public Works, Building, Drainage and Water and Sewer department. A new Director of Public Works and a new Chief Building Official have been hired with full implementation of the plan scheduled for 2018. Administrative structure is now being examined for potential integration at a future date. The Town of Deseronto is a small municipality with a population of 1,800 people located within Hastings County near the City of Belleville. The small municipality has developed a transit system to provide greater employment, educational opportunities as well as

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Report No. Joint 1-2016 7 access to support services for low-income residents. The municipality received seed funding from the Ministry of Community and Social Services for $225,000.00. There was a perception that public transit is too costly a venture; won’t survive and will end up being a large drain on municipal financial resources. Often the need for public transit is not recognized as important. If we are to keep our smaller municipalities viable that must be an effort to bring about transit if we are to maintain or grow our population. The vision was ‘an inter-connected transportation system in Prince Edward County that is sustainable, barrier-free, affordable and meets the needs of people in the community.’ Partnerships were formed with social services and local businesses. The province has a gas tax allocation for public transit which has continued to increase as transit access increased. Partnerships have made an impact. There is now a reduced contribution from the Town of Deseronto to operate; increased gas tax funds; increased ridership; increased bus fare revenue and increased promotion of service. Insight Breakfasts Playing to Win - Using Games to Drive Painless Change (attended by Lisa VanderWallen) In a presentation provided by Strategic Advisory Managing Director of Grant Thornton LLP, Mitchell Osak, delegates learned ways to incorporate online games to encourage change. Mr. Osak used a psychological analysis of the human's desire to win and explained that municipalities can harvest this by creating games to achieve desired results. Citing an example from the State of Hawaii, Mr. Osak showed that the state was hoping to encourage residents to access online services and that they were able to get people to buy into the program by creating an online game which included avatars, and points which were converted to credits. Mr. Osak explained that the keys to incorporating this method are to have clearly defined final goals and then to design a program that achieves these goals. Mr. Osak explained that Hawaii saw massive increases in online service use only after creating a game around accessing the services. Using these games may be a very valuable tool in encouraging energy use and even in potentially meeting Future Oxford goals. What is Keeping your CAO up at Night? (attended by Mary Ellen Greb) Presented by StrategyCorp, attendees learned the result of a survey conducted in the Fall of 2015 involving 25 CAO’s of 25 upper and lower tier governments in Ontario. Issues Percentage of CAO’s Succession Planning 44% Funding & Taxes on Operating Expenses 42% Council Role, Direction & Conduct 30% Funding & Taxes on Infrastructure 30% Public Expectations and ability to keep up 21% Growth 17% Economic Growth 17% Gaps in Social Services 12.5%

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Managing Personnel Problems Strategic Management of the Organization Managing Relationships with Senior Governments <10% Managing Citizen Engagement Emergency Preparedness LDC Consolidation

CAO’s are responsible for the welfare and success for the municipality:  Is the job of the CAO and head of the municipality to be a corporate manager and organization leader or to extend the role to a community leader, regional economic and social development champion, or a community convener?  The ambiguity of the line demarking the professional opinion of the CAO from the political opinions of Council is perilous.  The definition of the CAO role in the Municipal Act may no longer provide adequate legal foundation for the reality of the task at hand. Understanding the Total Cost of 'Municipal Risk' (attended by Lisa VanderWallen) Presented by Frank Cowan Company, this information breakfast included information on changing realities for municipalities in terms of risks. Cowan Company reviewed recent Case Law results and noted that, overall municipalities are adopting better risk management practices leading to a reduction in the number of claims that have been filed, but that the startling reality is that the total settlement costs have increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Delegates received clarification on the legal principle of Joint and Several Liability and were taught that this is not a legislative thing, but instead of principle of common law, so it is difficult to provide policies or guidance around it. Municipal actors were encouraged to adopt good records management policies, good risk management policies, and to consider hiring risk management professionals to save on their premiums. Frank Cowan Company also shared insights on new challenges and opportunities presented with the shared economy. Municipal Action on Radon: Preventing Lung Cancer (attended by Mary Ellen Greb) The expert panel made up of members of the Canadian Cancer Society, Ontario Lunch Association, Canadian Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists (CARST) and Radiation Safety Institute; discussed the radon problem, what it is and how municipalities can raise public awareness and take proactive local measure to protect people from the dangers of radon. A presentation was made by the City of on its’ Radon Gas Mitigation Program. Municipalities are exposed to liability should they not enforce the existing legislation concerning Radon contained in the Ontario Building Code. Guelph has taken an aggressive approach to this due to a study showing that 18% of homes in the Guelph area having higher levels of radon that what is acceptable. This translates into many more homes having it below the acceptable levels.

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Report No. Joint 1-2016 9 There are ways to mitigate the radon resulting in the risk of related lung cancer being removed. Cap and Trade: The Basic Explanation (Valerie Durston attended) Cap and Trade: The Basic Explanation Presented by Joan Byng, Manager, Cap and Trade Design and Implementation for Union Gas. The Cap and Trade program was announced in April of 2015 with a Goal to start the program in 2017. Many find the Cap and Trade complex to understand therefore the presenter Joan Byng provided the basics.

 (blue line)Indicates historical greenhouse gas emitted into the atmosphere  (dotted line) Indicates the trajectory of future emissions if business continues as usual  (Red line) Indicates the future emission target. Cap on allowances equals Cap on Emissions. Ontario’s program is set to reduce Green House Gas Emissions at a pace of 4-5 percent between now and 2020 which will be 15 percent lower than 1990 Ontario’s levels. Ontario has already reduced 6 percent of 1990 GHGE successfully by closing coal fired generation plants.

Every emission set at moving that target down (refer to the red line) there is an allowance required for emitters to cover off that emission. A way of looking at it is almost like a permit (if you will) to be able to emit into the atmosphere.

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Report No. Joint 1-2016 10 There are two ways emitters get those allowances. The primary way is through a government auction. The government puts out into the market the same number of allowances that they have set the target of emissions at and they auction them off at intervals during the year, targeting at 4x’s a year. That’s how the government collects revenue and attaches it to those emissions.

Not everyone pays for allowances. In the Ontario system there are a certain amount of free allowances and some of these free allowances are being granted to large industry which is meant to protect their competitiveness without jurisdictions. The cap is meant to reduce 4-5 percent per year. What that does is as emissions reduce over time it puts price pressure on the allowance in the market.

The only way to manage that price pressure is for the economy to overall reduce their emissions. The price is set on the targets supply and demand subject to the floor prices established by the government and the floor price increase 4-5 percent every year. That gives you the basics of what the Cap program is. The trade piece is when those entities are successful in reducing their emissions more than the allowance they have, they can take those allowances and trade them on that target and that is the trade of Cap and Trade.

Ontario’s Cap and Trade Targets  A reduction of 6 percent below Ontario’s 1990 levels by the end of 2014 Ontario did meet that target principally by closing coal fired generation plants  A reduction of 15 Percent below Ontario’s 1990 levels by the end of 2020  A reduction of 37 percent below Ontario’s 1990 levels by the end of 2030  A reduction of 80 percent below Ontario’s 1990 levels by the end of 2050 Compliance Periods  January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2020  January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2023  And each subsequent 3 year period Where are these Emissions coming from? There are three main sectors:  60 Mt/yr. from transport fuel usage  40 Mt/yr from small natural gas users.  40 Mt/yr from large industry, including no combustion/fixed process emissions (Mt/year is……Mega tons/year)

Learning Lunches Disaster Proofing Canadian Communities (attended by Lisa VanderWallen) In a presentation sponsored and provided by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, delegates learned about the insurance industry's response to major crises in Canada, with the recent Fort McMurray example being a positive example of the ways that

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Report No. Joint 1-2016 11 insurers are able react immediately alongside emergency personnel. The insurance bureau estimates that the greatest risk for municipalities is flood-related, accounting for 75% of the disasters which will qualify for federal compensation. The presenters also explained that 17% of all Ontario homes are at a high risk of flood and recommended that municipalities continue to limit developments in flood plain areas and advocate for improvements to the building code. The insurance bureau explained that they are advocating for greater contributions from the federal government to the Federal Disaster Fund and suggest that there needs to be greater emphasis at the Canada level to ease the strain on provinces and municipalities. The five recommendations from the bureau are to reinstate the pre-2015 funding thresholds, reimburse upfront disaster costs, expand program coverage, expand available of and access to insurance products, and improve federal assistance. MPAC: Transforming Relationships into Partnerships – A New Approach (attended by Mary Ellen Greb) Carl Nell, Vice-President Municipal and Stakeholder Relations for MPAC reviewed the improved customer service model that will be fully implemented in 2017 in an effort to create partnerships with all stakeholders. This includes specific time lines for the processing of building permits; supplementary and omitted assessments as well as improved communications to municipalities affected by appeals to the Assessment Review Board.

Commentary The 2016 AMO Conference was well worth attending offering diverse concurrent sessions, solid keynote speakers and networking opportunities with municipal and provincial politicians and staff, presenters and exhibitors. The extensive program intertwined the common goals of municipalities in meeting the challenges of provincial mandates as well as shaping their future.

There are takeaways for South-West Oxford from AMO: - Public engagement strategies should focus on bringing the municipality to the public, rather than counting on the public to attend municipal public meetings. Scheduling public meetings tends to attract the same people so the input received is unintentionally biased. To reach the public, staff should aim to meet with different community members at events that are already taking place and ask for general input rather than seeking answers to a specific planned question.

- At this point, Provincial Offences Act modernization will not mean significant improvements in revenue sources for the Township, but there is promise that there are more administrative powers to come at the local level.

- The Waste Free Ontario Act is going to have significant impact on the way that Ontario manages its waste. While we wait for the roll out of Regulations to be enacted by the province, municipalities should continue to monitor the legislative changes and determine whether their municipality is interested in continuing waste collection services and should be compiling data on activity based costing. The transition to produce

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Report No. Joint 1-2016 12 responsibility is a promising development for municipalities since there will be greater contributions to waste management by the private sector.

- Determine what action the municipality will take to ensure that the public is educated about the dangers of Radon Gas as well our responsibilities under the Ontario Building Code for new structure/modifications.

- Public transit in rural municipalities is possible at a manageable cost

- Maintaining our local identify while merging functions with other municipalities is possible…we need to move beyond our current service sharing model to examine opportunities for improvement.

Jointly submitted by

______Mary Ellen Greb Lisa VanderWallen C.A.O. Clerk

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