Mayor Andrew Hallikas was busy from dawn till dusk at the AMO conference. Below, Hallikas described to the Fort Frances Times how two allegations went over with the Ministry of Tourism Culture and Gaming, as well as the Solicitor General. From library funding, to policing, fire departments and monitoring of boundary waters, Hallikas debriefed with the Fort Frances Times about what happened during the conference.
“[At the AMO conference,] you’re up at six, there’s a breakfast at seven, and it’s not just a breakfast. Every breakfast has speakers, so you’re eating and that someone’s talking to you about something, you get to pick when you when you want to go to. The same thing with lunch. You don’t get a break at lunch, you go and have what’s called a learning lunch,” said Hallikas. “In addition to that, there’s a huge vendor display, and many of the vendors that sell things to the town of Fort Frances are there so and then many organisations have vendors. So I spend a fair amount of time with vendors and/or organisations. For instance, I spent a fair amount of time with the Ontario Library Services booth because I knew the CEO of Ontario Library Services was there, I spent a lot of time talking to her about library issues. I had a lot of informal discussions, and then I had a chance to meet with other mayors.”
Like his informal discussion with the CEO of Ontario Library Services, Hallikas discussed library funding with the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Gaming.
“They were a lovely group of people at the Ministry of Tourism, so we actually hit it off quite well with them,” said Hallikas.
“The way public libraries are funded, the provincial government gives them what’s called a PLOG grant, and that stands for Public Library Operating Grant. Compared to the total cost of operating the library, it’s very, very small. Last year, our library got, I think, between 19,000 and 20,000 dollars from their plot.
“I think in 2018 it increased over two years. But prior to that, it had never been increased. And since then, it’s never been increased. This is not just our library, it’s the library in Dryden and Kenora and Rainy River and Emo. Right across the province, library costs are skyrocketing. I’ll speak about our library, just the janitorial contract has gone up by a huge amount. Insurance is going up. The wages of the employees go up. And our library has been very, very lean for many, many years. They’re very efficient. You know, we get a good bang for the taxpayer dollars in the library. I’m really proud of them. But nonetheless, last year, the municipality funded the library for well over $600,000. The government funded the library for just over $19,000. So you can see the disparity.”
Hallikas lobbied for increased library funding from the province in light of the stark difference in funding provided by the municipality versus the province.
“That’s the case we we made in a very nice way. The government touts libraries, and so does the municipality, but we put our money where our mouth is, in the case of libraries, to a considerable amount,” said Hallikas.
“It’s such a great thing for any community. It’s the living room of the community. Everybody can go, anybody can go to the library, and the services are free. So, all demographics, whether you’re housed or whether you’re a homeless person, there’s a safe space in your community to go to. No matter what your salary is you’re all equal at the library.
“The nice thing was, the people at that delegation, they were kind of library people. They were pro-library. So it was a it was a good discussion. And again, we were promised that they’re going to bring the points that we made and our concerns up the chain of command to the Ministry.”
While Hallikas left that delegation feeling good about advocating for more provincial tax dollars for the Fort Frances Public Library, he felt best about the delegation that he had with the Solicitor General.
“Our final delegation, was with the Solicitor General. And that was, I think, I felt that was our best delegation. It went really, really well. We felt we had excellent traction with the Solicitor General. I knew it was going to be a good delegation, because the Solicitor General met us at the door, called us by name, so he had learned our names ahead of time. That doesn’t always happen, right? And then he kind of put his arm around me, after he shook my hand, and pulled me to one side, and we had a little private tête-à-tête where he was asking me some some very good questions about Fort Frances that pertain to the delegation,” said Hallikas.
“Usually, the mayor kind of leaps into the presentation, right? But he had an agenda that he wanted to talk to us about. He had clearly looked at why we were there. He was very familiar. He was well briefed. I was very impressed. In addition to policing, we wanted to talk about the fire department as well. And so he had the Ontario Fire Marshall there as well. He was aware that I had been pushing concerns about fishing guides, American fishing guides coming into Canada, bringing American anglers into Boundary Waters, Canadian waters, and they don’t go through customs.
“To their credit, the provincial government has been responding, although it’s primarily a federal issue, but the provincial government has really responded, and so obviously he’d been briefed by the other ministers, because I’ve spoken to Minister Rickford, and I’ve also spoken to Minister Harris about this, and they both have taken action. So the Solicitor General started off by saying we were there to talk about the cost of policing, because it’s really expensive in Fort Frances. It’s millions of dollars, and we have no control over how much it is, they just send us a bill and we figure out how to pay it.
“We can’t budget for it because we don’t know what it’s going to be. So, we we’ve been pushing, along with most of the other municipalities in the province, for reform of the funding formula for policing. Again, to the ministry’s credit. They are reviewing it. We’ve had input. We’ve met with them twice during the year to give our suggestions. So right off the bat, the Solicitor General said, ‘I’m going to check to make sure that fort Frances is not being billed for any policing that has to do with border security.’ He was concerned that we might being being billed for things that we really shouldn’t have. So that was a good way to start it. He wants to make sure we’re not being billed for things we shouldn’t be billed for. And then he also addressed the issue of border security, and we talked about how it’s the federal responsibility, [yet,] the feds are not stepping up. They don’t have enough RCMP, and CBSA. They don’t have enough assets.”
Because of the lack of federal law enforcement assets, the Solicitor General plns to increase funding for the provincial policing of border waters. Overall, Hallikas said he and the team felt very good about the delegation, and wait to see how the fruits of their labour will grow.
