Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) delegates have returned from a productive showing at the 2025 Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) annual meeting and conference in Ottawa this week.
NOMA president Rick Dumas and his team met with government and opposition leaders to set priorities of Northwestern Ontario’s 37 municipalities.
He said NOMA’s advocacy at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario is about ensuring that Northwestern Ontario communities have the tools to thrive.
Labour, immigration, skills development, long-term funding stability for Confederation College, northern highway safety and the two-plus-one expansion model were among the key issues.
“We’ve been bringing forward highway safety concerns in the past, and we’ve seen improvements in our highways,” Dumas said. “We’ve been working with the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM), our sister organization for Northeastern Ontario, and were able to identify some key aspects of the concerns we have and addressed those with government officials.”
Dumas said they want to see the two-plus-one highway system pilot start in North Bay and continue in a timely manner.
“We want to see highway lane widening, cutting out the corners and the rock cuts,” he said. “We want to see a continuation of the twinning of the highway between Thunder Bay to Nipigon and work continued at the Shabaqua intersection for commercial vehicle traffic.”
They also discussed the twinning, widening, or two-plus-one system between Thunder Bay to the Manitoba border.
“These are all things that we’re definitely not going to happen tomorrow, but we want to make sure that the government’s fully aware that we have major concerns about our highways,” he said, adding some of the issues have been addressed with increased OPP patrol on highways, reinforcements and more staffing at the way scales.
Dumas says he is optimistic NOMA can become part of a committee with the Ministry of Transportation, FONOM, engineers and designers to meet every six months and give input on highway development.
He said, according to Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Strategic planning, advocacy and engagement, which are all part of NOMA’s representation of its municipalities throughout the Northwest, and the continuation of funding from the Northern Ontario Resource Development Fund, were also addressed.
“We met with college and university Minister Nolan Quinn in regards to education, training, viability and immigration, and that was an opportunity to address Confederation College’s concerns about the importance of newcomers and immigration,” Dumas said.
“We also spoke with Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu about the importance of the Rural Community Immigration Pilot.”
Dumas said a reduction in newcomers, who typically work in the service sector, will result in the closure of corner stores, gas pumps, and restaurants in small rural communities.
“We’ve heard that over and over again from our membership, that we need to support these programs,” he said.
Dumas said in these times when our American neighbour “is not so keen on working with Canada right now,” Canadian governments must work together.
“We’ve seen huge dialogue between provincial and federal governments across the floor,” he said. “I see that we’re working together, and we’re walking across the floor, and we’re shaking hands with the opposition. . . . And we’re all going to be working and talking from the same page.”
