While many new municipal leaders, including Fort Frances Mayor Dan Onichuk and Couns. Tannis Drysdale and Rick Wiedenhoeft, were gathering for the first time at the annual general meeting of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association last week in Thunder Bay, it also was the first such meeting for the new Liberal government at Queen’s Park.
And while it’s certainly too early to start cheering, there were signs the “Centre of the Universe” (Toronto) was willing to really listen to northern concerns.
Mayor Onichuk, for one, came away feeling that the province is focusing in earnest on municipalities. Coun. Drysdale took it a step further, saying she noticed a “genuine sense of co-operation and an understanding of what municipalities are facing.”
There’s no question cities, towns, and townships in our neck of the woods are facing dire financial straits these days, thanks largely to provincial “downloading” of services for everything from land ambulances to social housing. Compounding the problem is the lack of provincial land tax reform that’s left many municipalities crying foul that the so-called “unorganized territories” are not paying their fair share.
Which, in turn, leaves said municipalities (or, more accurately, local residents and businesses) shouldering even more of the burden.
Obviously, towns on their own may not be able to bring about much change. But as a group, under the NOMA banner, they present a powerful lobbying force.
Better still, NOMA will be working with municipalities from northeastern Ontario to devise a common position paper representing their stances on various issues, as well as with the Northern Ontario Development Network and Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce to produce a revised, 12-point “Northern Sustainability Solutions” document.
There is strength in numbers. It’s high time we, as northerners, did a better job using that to our advantage.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
