Bruce County’s warden is feeling confident heading into this year’s ROMA conference.
The Rural Ontario Municipalities Association will be meeting in Toronto from January 19th-21st.
The county will be well-represented, with Warden Luke Charbonneau, Deputy Warden Don Murray, and senior members of Bruce County staff.
Charbonneau says that they’ll be holding delegations with the Solicitor General and Attorney General of Ontario surrounding security costs at the courthouse in Walkerton.
“The Walkerton Court House is really a critical institution in Bruce County, and the Municipality of Brockton bears the brunt of funding security for that facility,” he said in an interview with Bayshore News. “And unfortunately, the funding they receive doesn’t necessarily align with their budgets, and so we’re going to be pushing both of those ministries to make sure that funding for court security doesn’t have to be borne by the municipality, and to make sure that the municipality gets the kind of support they need and gets to be a partner with the province in deciding how the facility is secured and making sure the funding is in place so that their local taxpayers don’t have to bear the brunt of that on their own.”
Charbonneau has roughly a dozen different meetings on his schedule for the conference.
Bruce County staff will be taking part in panel discussions as well:
– Commissioner Claire Dodds will be involved with a panel talking about negotiating approvals for energy procurement
– Director of Long-Term Care & Senior Services Megan Garland will be busy in her role as the Chair of the Advantage Board
– Director of Planning Jack Van Dorp will be part of a panel discussion recent changes in Land-Use Planning
– Bruce County Public Library Director Brooke McLean will be addressing the topic of Leadership to Protect Employees from Unreasonable Behaviour, which she will be taking part in as her role as AUPLO Chair.
Charbonneau says that overall, the group heading to Toronto is confident that the time they’ll be spending at the ROMA conference will be productive.
He will also be taking part in delegations about funding disparity for rural communities.
“We spend, as municipalities, a lot of time writing grant [requests] and chasing one-time funding for different things, and I think that time would be better spent actually providing services,” he said, which is particularly important considering that Bruce County produces 22% of Ontario’s beef and 30% of electricity, and should therefore be receiving enthusiastic support from the province.
Other topics for discussion including housing affordability and the labour market — Charbonneau says that because of the low unemployment rate and high cost of living, it’s difficult for employers to hire and retain skilled workers.