[5:31] Please be seated. That was the Hugh Grant Love. Actually,

[5:35] did you all get Okay. Well, you wanted me to switch it up. Good morning,

[5:39] everyone, and welcome to our county council meeting on Wednesday, June 10th,

[5:43] 2026. It is 9:30 a.m., and I am calling this meeting to order. As we gather here

[5:49] today, we acknowledge on behalf of the county of Renfruit and our community

[5:52] that we are meeting on the traditional and unseated territory of the Algangquin

[5:57] people. The county of Renfruit was established in 1861 on these lands which

[6:01] have been cared for by the Algangquin people for thousands of years. We

[6:06] express our gratitude to the Algangquin people for their stewardship of this

[6:10] land and honor their rich history and culture. We also thank all the

[6:14] generations of indigenous peoples who have maintained a deep connection to

[6:18] this territory and we are committed to fostering respect, reconciliation and

[6:22] understanding. And if you would join me now in standing for a moment of silent

[6:26] reflection.

[6:49] Oh [singing] Canada,

[6:53] our home and [singing] native [music] land.

[6:58] True patri [singing] love

[7:02] in all of us. [singing]

[7:08] [music] [singing]

[7:16] » [singing]

[7:21] [singing] >> Explore.

[7:25] God keep our land. Glorious

[7:31] and free. Oh Canada,

[7:37] we stand [music and singing] on guard for thee.

[7:43] Oh Canada, we stand on [music and singing] guard

[7:50] for the [music]

[7:55] » Thank you. Please be seated. Would the clerk please do roll call?

[8:03] » Sure. And good morning. Councelor Bros. >> present. Councelor Doncaster,

[8:12] » Councelor Donahue, >> Yotm Diesel,

[8:16] [snorts] >> Councelor Emo,

[8:19] » present, >> councelor Gardini,

[8:24] » present. >> Councelor Gills,

[8:28] » present. >> Councelor Hodnot.

[8:34] Councelor Yan,

[8:39] » Councelor Lynch >> here,

[8:41] » Councelor Mayville >> present.

[8:44] » Warden Murphy >> here.

[8:47] » Councelor Nicholson. Councelor Proctctor.

[8:54] Councelor Service >> here.

[8:57] » Councelor Shoulist. >> EOTMO.

[9:01] » Councelor Watt >> present. Councelor Wear

[9:05] » here. >> Thank you. And we have quorum.

[9:08] » Thank you. At this time, is there any disclosure of pecuniary interest or the

[9:12] general nature thereof? >> I see none. Uh I have a resolution that

[9:19] the minutes of the county council meeting of May 27th, 2026 be adopted.

[9:23] May I have a mover and seconder, please? Moved by the member from Laurentinian

[9:26] Valley. Second by the member from Laurentian Hills. Were there any errors

[9:30] or omissions? I see none. All in favor? Thank you,

[9:36] council. Good morning, members of council, staff, and those joining us

[9:40] today. The county of Renfruit celebrated World Tra uh [clears throat] Trails Day

[9:45] on June 6 by heading to Parliament Hill to attend a special banquet marking an

[9:50] incredible milestone. The TransCanada Trail reaching 30,000 kilometers in

[9:55] length. Thank you to operations chair Glenn Doncaster and manager of capital

[9:59] works for attending at the event. Chair Doncaster highlighted the Ottawa Valley

[10:03] Recreation Trail, Al Gangquin Trail on the National Map, officially joining the

[10:08] TransCanada Trail Network late in 2024. Officially, uh, sorry, the Algangquin

[10:15] Trail initially added 132 km to this worldrenowned system and it continues to

[10:20] grow. Which reminds me, we're one week into the 2026 Silver Chain Challenge and

[10:26] Lannarch County has pulled ahead of our friendly active living competition.

[10:31] It's not boo. Yeah, it's boo. But don't worry, there's still plenty of time uh

[10:37] to help Renfruit County catch up. The challenge runs all through June. So,

[10:41] grab your running shoes, hop on your bike, and get moving on trails,

[10:45] sidewalks, and neighborhood roads across the county.

[10:49] I recently had the pleasure of attending the Garrison Pedawa business lunch. The

[10:54] collaboration with Garrison Pedawa remains a key strength in our region and

[10:58] events like this reinforce the importance of maintaining strong

[11:01] connections. I was also pleased to attend the Association of Ontario Road

[11:06] Supervisors event held in Pedawala. It was a great opportunity to recognize the

[11:10] dedicated professionals working in public works and infrastructure who play

[11:15] such a critical role in keeping our communities safe and connected. Hosting

[11:20] this event within our county showcased not only the expertise within our

[11:23] workforce but also the importance of the ongoing training, innovation and

[11:28] knowledge sharing across municipalities. In addition, I participated in the

[11:32] recent Ontario East Economic Development Commission quarterly meeting where

[11:36] discussions focused on regional priorities, economic growth

[11:40] opportunities, and strategies to attract investment in Eastern Ontario. These

[11:45] meetings continue to highlight the value of working collaboratively across

[11:49] municipal boundaries to advance shared goals and strengthen our regional voice.

[11:54] June also provides an important opportunity to recognize and celebrate

[11:58] members of our community. June is seniors month in Ontario, a time to

[12:03] acknowledge the invaluable contributions of older adults across Renfruit County.

[12:08] Whether through volunteerism, leadership, or simply the wisdom and

[12:11] experience they share. Seniors continue to play a vital role in strengthening

[12:15] our communities. I would like to thank all of those who support and engage

[12:19] seniors throughout our county, including staff, caregivers, and community

[12:23] organizations. June is recognized as National

[12:27] Indigenous History Month in Canada, an opportunity to honor and celebrate the

[12:31] rich histories, cultures, and contributions of First Nations, Inuit,

[12:36] and Matei people. It is also a time for reflection, learning, and continued

[12:41] commitment to reconciliation. As we recognize this important month, we are

[12:45] reminded that reconciliation is not just about awareness, but about ongoing

[12:50] action, relationship building, and respect as we continue to work together

[12:54] in our communities. June is also recognized as Pride Month, a time to

[12:59] celebrate diversity, inclusion, and the contributions of 2LS

[13:04] GBTQI plus individuals within our communities.

[13:09] It is an opportunity to reflect on the importance of creating safe, welcoming,

[13:14] and inclusive spaces for all residents. Renfruit County is strongest when

[13:18] everyone feels valued, respected, and able to participate fully in community

[13:23] life. Acknowledging events like this continues to reinforce our Y statement

[13:28] across the corporation to cultiv cultivate a compassionate,

[13:32] collaborative, creative, and inclusive environment, providing our community

[13:36] with meaningful support and innovative solutions.

[13:40] Congratulations to Mayor Lorie Hodnot on receiving the AMCTTO diploma in

[13:45] municipal administration award. This is a well-deserved recognition of her

[13:49] leadership and commitment to public service. It's great to see strong local

[13:53] leadership in Renfruit County recognized on a provincial stage and that's why

[13:57] Lori is not with us today. She is in Deerhurst uh accepting her award. We're

[14:03] also excited to see every year after premiere tonight on Amazon Prime Video.

[14:08] This new series written by Barry's Bay Carly Fortune is certain to be a huge

[14:13] hit. This is a really incredible moment showcasing the local stories made in the

[14:18] Madawaska and Ottawa valleys on a bigger stage. Congratulations to everyone

[14:23] involved in bringing this project to life and putting our region uh in the

[14:27] spotlight. Craig, are you in this series at all?

[14:30] » Uh I am not. >> Okay.

[14:32] » I'm not telling you I am. >> So I had to ask Craig the other day if

[14:36] he was uh in the new series Tom Green Farms. And in fact, he wasn't in it, but

[14:41] he does get a cameo. >> I am in it.

[14:44] » Oh, you? [laughter] >> Okay. We'll have a discussion about that

[14:47] later. >> We'll talk about the signatures later.

[14:50] » Autographs later. All right, I will remind those assembled here of the

[14:54] following. The county of Renfruit, experience our history, share our

[14:57] future. This concludes my address for this session of county council. Thank

[15:00] you and I look forward to the business of today's meeting and although it's not

[15:04] a beautiful day to govern. It is a great day with the rain. We needed it. So,

[15:08] welcome everyone.

[15:12] And at this time

[15:16] you miss Burke. >> Okay. Uh I will ask Mr. Burke to

[15:21] introduce our delegation.

[15:26] » Thank you Warden and good morning county council. We're very pleased to welcome

[15:29] back to the chambers Miss Lorie Huber of KPMG who is your audit partner to

[15:34] present your audited financial statements for the year. Just a couple

[15:38] comments. Miss Huber and I uh will be here this morning. While the resolutions

[15:44] to approve those statements for the consolidated file in RCHC are later in

[15:48] the day in committees, uh we both may not be here. So now is perhaps the

[15:53] better time to ask questions when her presentation is done. If you're looking

[15:57] to tie our financial statements audited into our year-end reporting, I direct

[16:02] you to note 13 of those statements which do tie into our reporting as we

[16:06] presented in April. So there have been no changes to your net surplus that was

[16:11] described then. And finally, uh just a big thank you to Lori and her team. This

[16:17] is a a very large group project to bring these statements together and a lot of

[16:22] work. And I think uh the team at KPMG and especially my own staff as well

[16:26] really make that easy. So thank you to those those individuals as well as

[16:30] yourself.

[16:34] » Welcome. So, always nice to see you, Lori.

[16:43] » Thank you. And good morning. Uh, it's hard to believe another 12 months have

[16:48] gone by. It doesn't feel like it was 12 months since I was standing here at the

[16:51] podium talking about the previous year. So, in your package today, you would

[16:55] have seen our presentation, which is our annual audit findings, which is meant to

[16:59] highlight the results of our audit. I won't go through it in a lot of detail.

[17:05] I will make sure that we leave some time for any specific questions either on our

[17:09] work from the external audit point of view or the financial statements between

[17:12] Daniel and I. But certainly uh we'll touch on the things that are meaningful

[17:17] uh to complete the fiscal 2025 year. So we are essentially complete. However,

[17:23] recognizing the the the presentation today, ultimately the

[17:29] county financial statements will be accepted and approved ideally at the

[17:33] subsequent council meeting. So, I like to say we are done save for the

[17:37] conversations that need to happen in the approvals. To the extent anything does

[17:40] happen in this intervening period, we need to be mindful of that. And so,

[17:45] recognizing that we will update our subsequent events with the team up to

[17:49] and including that date. Certainly not expecting anything to happen, but lots

[17:52] of things happen these days. So I just wanted to make sure that I had given you

[17:55] that disclaimer. So what was new and different this year? You would have seen

[17:59] in our report. So save for any operational items, we always need to

[18:03] consider any changes to either the financial reporting framework or the

[18:07] auditing standards. It was actually a quiet year this year, which is nice.

[18:10] There has been a lot of years of change in recent years, but fiscal 2025 was

[18:15] quiet. If there is any interest in terms of what are some of the things that will

[18:19] be happening in the future, there is a lot of information in the appendices of

[18:22] our report which I certainly won't go through any of those in detail but to

[18:26] say you might have heard in other conversations there is changes to the

[18:29] reporting model for municipal government financial statements and that will be

[18:33] coming in 2027. We've already done some webinars to which county team has been

[18:38] uh present at and we will continue to do that to make sure they are in a good

[18:42] position for those changes that will be coming in fiscal 2027.

[18:47] As a reminder to the group, our ultimate opinion on the county's financial

[18:51] statements are consolidated. So that means it's part of a group. So the

[18:54] housing corporation uh financial statements are included in the overall

[18:59] consolidation. At the start of any fiscal year, we do set a level of

[19:02] materiality. We don't audit all of the transactions that culminate into the

[19:06] financial statements. We'd be here for a very long time if we did. So you will

[19:10] see that we did execute our audit this year at an overall aggregate financial

[19:14] statement materiality of 4 million. It was up a little bit from the previous

[19:18] year, but you can see on the right hand side of the screen, if you're following

[19:21] along, we look at the benchmarks being either total revenues or total expenses.

[19:26] So if you have some growth in those benchmarks, which tends to tend to be

[19:29] the case, materiality, everything else being equal, we'll follow along. So we

[19:34] can go anywhere in our judgment or in our opinion, uh up to 3%. And so you can

[19:39] see there's certainly still a healthy margin there at the $4 million mark.

[19:44] In terms of risk assessment, you will also see in our report, and I know I've

[19:47] said this in previous years, overall, we sit down with the team early on before

[19:52] we execute our audit to understand what is new and different that might have any

[19:56] implications to our audit plan. I would still rate the county's financial

[20:00] statement audit to be a lowrisk audit. There was certainly nothing

[20:03] significantly uniquely different this year. In addition to those risk

[20:08] assessments that we make as part of our audit plan, we are also required to

[20:11] consider specific presumed risks of fraud that are inherent in any financial

[20:16] statement audit in Canada. And you'll see that on our report. I say this every

[20:21] year, but I do tend to get this question often. It's certainly not unique to your

[20:24] organization. It is required to be addressed in every single audit that we

[20:29] do annually and you will see the work that we do. So essentially the

[20:33] presumption is that management in their role to the extent they might be

[20:36] interested to have a bias in reporting a certain financial statement result. We

[20:41] as the external auditor need to come in and to identify non-rine type

[20:45] transactions that culminate into the financial statements and also look at

[20:49] the segregation of duties and some of the key internal controls with respect

[20:52] to financial reporting. So that work has been completed and you can see in terms

[20:56] of our findings, nothing significant to bring to your attention.

[21:00] In terms of the quality of the books and records, I think the treasurer has

[21:03] already spilled my thunder here. If you've had the chance to read through

[21:06] his report, uh his report had mentioned that the previous uh previous reported

[21:11] surplus is what is included in your draft financial statements today. So

[21:14] another way to say that means that there was actually no auditor intervention. So

[21:18] essentially the financial statements as you see them today were what were was

[21:22] provided to us at the start of the audit. So through our audit review there

[21:26] was nothing that impacted surplus. I'm using my words carefully because if you

[21:30] have read through our report there are some corrected items that have been

[21:33] incorporated into the financial statements which are balance sheet

[21:36] reclassifications that did not impact surplus. So again

[21:40] from an from an overall point of view certainly the quality of the books and

[21:44] records remained high and I always like to say to councils in terms of the

[21:47] reporting that you see throughout the year when you don't see a lot of

[21:50] year-end auditor intervention it tends to give you more confidence in terms of

[21:54] the quality of the reporting that you're seeing uh during the year. Outside of

[21:59] the numbers as you'll recall a financial statement audit does require us to make

[22:02] sure that we understand the systems process and controls that come into the

[22:06] financial reporting process. So, we've done that again this year. If I thought

[22:10] there was a significant deficiency in internal controls, I would need to make

[22:13] sure that I made that clear to you here today. Pleased to say, we've not made

[22:16] that determination. You will see in our report that we have carried on a legacy

[22:22] item from previous years in terms of areas of best practice related to the

[22:27] review and approval of journal entries and the documentation and the evidence

[22:31] of that review. So that's certainly nothing uniquely different this year and

[22:35] certainly something the team will will continue to think about moving forward.

[22:39] We can skip through a couple of more pages in our report. I'd mentioned the

[22:43] reporting model. I'll stop briefly on page number 16 of our report. This is

[22:48] what we call specific topics and I think it's a really good one that we've

[22:51] started to include in our report for the last couple of years because I think for

[22:54] yourself as a group being those charged with governance you don't really know

[22:56] the requirements that we have as your external auditor in terms of the things

[23:01] that we need to report to you to the extent they exist. So it's somewhat of a

[23:04] checklist but at the end of the day all of these things have been considered and

[23:08] pleased to say none no such matters exist. So again a clean clean story

[23:13] again this year in terms of our independence that's really the beauty

[23:17] that we bring to the table as that external set of eyes and so to the

[23:21] extent we might provide any non- audit services to the corporation through the

[23:24] course of the year we can we just need to be mindful that we're never putting

[23:28] ourselves in a position to be auditing our own work that's really the spirit of

[23:31] the independents however that being said we've actually not been engaged to

[23:35] provide any non- audit services so there's certainly nothing from that

[23:38] point of view that might be thought to get us into any any difficulties there.

[23:43] That takes me to the final piece that you'll see at the start of our

[23:46] appendices and that's our our single deliverable really after a lot of hard

[23:49] work which is our independent auditor's report. The body and content of the

[23:54] report is consistent with previous years. There was no changes to the

[23:57] standard this year based on the findings presented. It is a clean audit opinion

[24:02] that is being proposed again for December 31, 2025.

[24:06] It's also a good reminder when you take a look at the the content of the report.

[24:11] I always like to say there's sort of three legs to the stool in terms of

[24:14] financial reporting. A good reminder that the financial statements really are

[24:17] meant to be a product of management along with the internal controls

[24:20] ourselves as your external auditor. And then the third leg really being yourself

[24:25] and the oversight of the work that you do in that regard relative to financial

[24:29] reporting. The balance of the report is meant to be moreformational items. happy

[24:34] to go through anything that you might have seen or piqu your interest um on a

[24:38] previous review, but perhaps this is a good place to stop and welcome any

[24:42] questions from the group if there are any.

[24:44] » Excellent overview. Thank you. Comments, questions, concerns.

[24:51] » Member from Abston Brmley, please. >> Uh pardon me. [clears throat] Thank you

[24:55] very much, Madam Chair, and thank you through you to Miss Yuber. uh very

[24:59] pleased at the overall uh result and I think that that uh merits stating up

[25:04] front and there were a couple of questions. We're just scrolling kind of

[25:07] furiously here. Um okay, this was on this is note nine

[25:15] tangible capital assets. This is within the uh audit itself, the

[25:20] statements themselves. And I'm just kind of curious uh in the

[25:27] note below uh largely it is it is with respect to the donated asset uh of the

[25:33] former CP rail and uh I'll note as at December 31,

[25:38] 2025, the portion of the Canada Pacific Rail Corridor acquired of $51,162,828

[25:46] is recorded as a tangible capital asset. Uh, but the construction in progress in

[25:51] [snorts] the chart is showing a a balance of 128 million. I'm wondering

[25:56] what is the 77 million of work in progress that's not uh the CP rail line.

[26:04] » If I may, Daniel, I'll ask you to provide some further insight to that

[26:08] one. >> Thank you, Lori. And excellent question.

[26:12] The balance would be primarily in the linear assets under construction.

[26:17] So uh in consultation with our partners in public works, we typically will not

[26:22] capitalize a linear asset until it has passed

[26:27] through the um the period in time where the guarantee on the work has lapsed or

[26:34] I forget what the technical term for that is but after we're past the

[26:37] holdback period. So the bulk of those jobs and some of them are big multi-year

[26:42] projects on certain segments where the engineering was sitting in whip for

[26:47] several years as we slowly build our way towards that. So that's what the bulk of

[26:51] the the rest would be.

[26:55] » Thank you for that. >> A followup to to to that answer.

[27:00] » Yeah, he did say he had two questions. Yeah,

[27:02] » this is a followup that I'm my second question is still outstanding. This is a

[27:06] follow-up to that one. So ultimately and I just use this as an example. So rooms

[27:10] creek culvert uh just with respect to process uh we had some challenges in

[27:16] 2025 that work is carried forward to 2026 but it's not necessarily the work

[27:20] itself. It is in fact when I'm going to refer to it as colloquially as a

[27:25] warranty period let's say is once we are satis satisfied that the contract has

[27:31] been completely fulfilled that's when it it is removed from construction in

[27:36] progress >> three warden that that would be correct

[27:40] now some of it is actually multi-year projects though where you know the

[27:43] initial work such as design or traffic study could have been several years ago

[27:48] and it could have been carried forward over a number of years. Some of them are

[27:52] quite multi-year um endeavors to do some of these linear assets.

[27:58] » Uh thank you. >> Thank you for that.

[27:59] » Uh so the second question that I have and this is on the segmented

[28:03] information. Uh it is note 14. It's uh page 23 of the actual statements. I

[28:10] don't know what page it is of the uh the today's agenda report. Uh but one of the

[28:15] things so uh ultimately the 2025 uh wages under themselves uh saw a

[28:22] pretty substantial increase of 14%. I don't know how much of that uh would be

[28:27] um enhanced or expanded uh employment. You know I liken it to often retail uh

[28:34] year-end uh reports talk about same store sales because sales could go up

[28:39] but we built 10% more sales. Uh but one of the things that that particularly

[28:44] jumped out at me and I'm presuming this is heartthub related but I'm seeking

[28:48] guidance. Uh so within the social and family services in 2024

[28:55] um salaries, wages and benefits was 33 and

[29:00] a4 million and in 2025 it's 40 and 3/4 million.

[29:06] uh it's an increase of of 7 12 million or almost 23%. I'm wondering uh what

[29:13] drove uh a very substantial increase uh in that particular column.

[29:21] » So through you warden perhaps that's another question that Daniel could

[29:25] answer more fully. Uh my response would be it's a combination of all of the

[29:29] factors in terms of rate headcount and so on but certainly Daniel please

[29:32] provide further context. Yeah, and that's a that's an excellent point and

[29:36] it would also include things new projects like the heart hub. However, I

[29:41] imagine that uh the bulk of the adjustment would have to do with the

[29:45] long-term care homes. So, as we have almost weaned ourselves off those agency

[29:51] contracts which were in purchase service, we have substantially increased

[29:56] the salaries inside the homes to our benefit. We're not hiring external

[30:00] agencies. We're bringing those those employees inhouse. So I believe that

[30:04] that was the the bulk of the increase was in in long-term care actually just

[30:08] to come up to our budgeted salary staffing

[30:13] of interest. Long-term care which we think of as health is in our financial

[30:17] and FIR reported under social and family services. The only thing in health is

[30:23] functionally the paramedics and the Ontario health team

[30:28] » supplementary. >> Uh thank you. And it was uh so um Mr.

[30:34] Burke um mentioned uh you know it has long been uh an irritant to me uh that

[30:41] in fact long-term care is housed under housing uh rather than health and that's

[30:47] driven I know from FIR reporting uh but it seems misplaced actually one of the

[30:53] things might be consideration I don't know if those are the only ones uh that

[30:57] kind of get funneled here uh that is not intuitive that that perhaps in the

[31:02] future Mr. Burke might give some insight into that. So ultimately then

[31:08] this is really only catching up with what would have been masked by a

[31:14] purchase service in years past. If in fact I was to have uh say the last five

[31:20] years of statements open, I am probably going to see a change uh in the trend

[31:26] line uh of that uh where we are still getting the same services but it is now

[31:33] allocated to purchase service as opposed to wages and benefits

[31:40] » through you. There would be some of that for sure. Buried in there is also the

[31:45] service level enhancements that have been approved over the last few years to

[31:49] bring us up closer to that 4 hours of care as well as the standard uh union

[31:54] agreements and non-union wage increases that have been approved as well. So

[32:00] combination of all of the above, but I would imagine the bulk of it is the

[32:04] recovery from um the declining purchase service and the onboarding of additional

[32:10] staff now that the HR situation inside the homes has improved.

[32:17] » Thank you. >> Anything further

[32:22] member from Renfruit, please? >> Uh thank you. um appendix number six

[32:25] where you talk about your AI and Clara um just a couple questions the the

[32:32] amount of integration between your system and our system

[32:38] how can we be assured that our information is is compartmentalized when

[32:42] it's shared uh and what safeguards are in place

[32:46] » so through you warden that's a great question and that's one I've been

[32:50] getting a fair bit so just to give you clarity in terms of the integration of

[32:54] the two systems. So, we never enter um the county's GL, if you will. We have a

[33:03] portal that essentially is our liaison between client data and what we pull to

[33:10] actually execute the audit. It is housed in Canada. It is restricted access and

[33:16] it is removed upon completion of the audit. Um, in terms of AI,

[33:22] um, we've been getting this question a lot. I would say KPMG continues to be

[33:27] conservative. Actually said this to Daniel this morning. Uh, we are not

[33:32] using AI as a sole source of audit evidence. I think that will change at

[33:37] some point in the future. We are using AI to sort of be our assistant and our

[33:41] helper to ask questions and to sort of guide us, but it's certainly not

[33:45] integral to the the work that needs to be done to support the audit opinion.

[33:50] That's where we are today. I do think the journey is is traveling at an

[33:55] exponential pace and I do think that will change dramatically in the in the

[33:58] years to come. Two years or less is my guess.

[34:03] If you stick around, we have a whole AI report. The

[34:07] » It's exciting actually just having some conversations in the back earlier around

[34:11] what what we can use AI for. It's pretty neat.

[34:14] » For good, not evil. >> Correct.

[34:16] » Is there anything further? Member from Renfruit, please.

[34:22] » Thank you. Just chasing buttons here. Um on note

[34:28] number 13 um on page 21 of the of the report of the

[34:35] uh statement um it talks about our uh it talks about our our uh debt issued

[34:44] and the budget was proposing 17 million and we actually only issued 2.9. So, I'm

[34:49] kind of curious as to why those numbers are so uh are so out of align out of

[34:55] alignment. >> If I may, uh Daniel has his hand. Yes,

[35:00] thank you. >> For sure. So, the the primary drivers

[35:06] behind our planned budgeted debt were three items. The RCHC renewal plan for

[35:11] what at the time of the budget was a 24 unit build and two paramedic bases.

[35:17] At the December mark, we were partway through a singular paramedic base. So

[35:21] that's that's the bulk of the distinction right there. I won't say

[35:24] those jobs are carrying forward and the anticipated draw on debt will also carry

[35:30] forward in the next budget as well. >> Thank you. That's what I assumed, but

[35:35] thank you. I appreciate it. >> A member from Whitewater, please.

[35:42] » Thanks, Warden. Question start off. Lori, thank you. I appreciate the work

[35:47] that's gone into this in the summary and the questions have been really good. Um,

[35:53] I'm going to go on off a tangent. Last night I was part of an an audit uh

[35:58] presentation for our hospital and in that audit presentation the auditor

[36:04] happens to be KPMG also provided a comparison of 10 years worth of expenses

[36:11] and revenues as well as comparators against other similar size similar

[36:17] service providers. Is that a level of service that can be offered to upper

[36:22] tiers and by KPMG in this case? >> So through warden we absolutely could.

[36:28] So that would be a value ad. We actually have been working hard behind the scenes

[36:32] to build some databases and some PowerBI reporting to pull.

[36:37] But the data that we could pull for municipal governments is only as good as

[36:40] the most recent FIR submission. So if there is interest, I could certainly

[36:44] have a conversation with Daniel at this stage. it would be the 2024 FIRS and we

[36:49] could go back 5 years and pull some data depending on who the team would would

[36:54] suggest would be the most meaningful comparators. We do tend to see we used

[36:59] to do it when it was when it was sort of new and different.

[37:03] We have found over the years it can go down rabbit holes that might not

[37:06] necessarily be productive. So I think it's a bit of a balancing act, but

[37:09] certainly I'd be happy to take that back to the team and see what would be

[37:12] meaningful for this group. Thank you for that. Anything further?

[37:18] Well, thank you so much and Oh, member for Mist Romley.

[37:23] » Uh, beg your pardon, Madam Morton. I just wanted to wait to see if there were

[37:26] any others uh that uh councelor emo opened the door. I wanted to actually

[37:32] commend uh through you, Miss Huber, and KPMG. Uh there were links on one of the

[37:37] slides to [snorts] kind of the governance section of the KPMG website

[37:42] and there's some fantastic information there and there is some fantastic

[37:46] information that is AI driven. Um I downloaded them to my hard drive which

[37:51] is now crashing because I've downloaded too much stuff to my hard drive. But

[37:55] ultimately uh one of the items AI governance principles for boards uh

[38:00] report then there are some of the ones that are a little bit more concerning.

[38:04] KPMG and Anthropic sign global alliance and launch a digital gateway powered by

[38:09] claude. So Claraara seems to be going on a date now with

[38:14] Claude. But there is also somewhat of a

[38:17] concerning element. Uh this is Claude mythos what frontier AI vulnerability

[38:23] discovery means. So uh I don't know for those in the room how closely you've

[38:28] been following the it's almost now revolution AI is moving so fast that

[38:33] it's barely could be called evolutionary anymore.

[38:36] » So anthropic claude has been their kind of baseline uh foundational um program

[38:42] AI platform. Uh but they have mythos that actually seems now to have

[38:46] frightened >> Anthropic

[38:49] » and Anthropic is not releasing it. There was a slide within there uh and I

[38:54] haven't brought it up again because my computer is crashing with all the data

[38:57] that's on it. Uh but ultimately it was showing that almost akin to the touring

[39:02] test for those who know what the touring test was that the capacity of AI now to

[39:08] mask itself in comparison to elite level hacking is almost nil.

[39:17] So e even the worst hacker on the world and most accomplished hacker in the

[39:21] world still has hopefully an element of humanity left. Mythos will have no

[39:28] humanity. So I I am I have a foot in both of those

[39:33] camps with respect to AI. It is phenomenal

[39:37] and it is profound >> and it is profound in both directions of

[39:42] concern and of progress. Uh but mostly this was to say this is I think a

[39:47] fantastic resource. There's also information for audit committees which

[39:51] we don't precisely have here but uh there is that is a tremendous resource

[39:55] and I would encourage council to avail themselves of that as well.

[40:00] » Completely agree there's a whole host of information. I could have a half day or

[40:04] a full day or multiple day session talking about it but I won't bore you

[40:07] with the details. But if there's any interest, happy to take that offline and

[40:12] provide what we need to make do your job >> easier.

[40:16] » So, thank you to our finance team. Thank you to KPMG and especially to Lori and

[40:22] your colleagues. Always lovely to see you.

[40:30] » Correspondence. >> All the correspondence that has been

[40:33] received has been forwarded to the appropriate committee to be dealt with.

[40:37] » Excellent. And now I'm going to turn this over to

[40:41] Chair Bros with the DMP report.

[40:46] » Thank you, Warden. To the council of the corporation of the county of Renfro and

[40:51] members of county council, we your committee of a whole development and

[40:54] property wish to report and recommend as follows. Item one is an information item

[40:59] and it's just a uh draft of the 2027 to 2036 forest management plan for the

[41:08] Renford County forests. And of course the uh being a draft plan, there's an

[41:14] opportunity for input from anybody who would like to recommend changes or maybe

[41:21] other information to be included. Moving to resolutions. Uh, number two,

[41:27] Upper Ottawa Valley Drive Property Surplus Land Resolution number

[41:31] DP-CC-260556.

[41:36] Moved by myself, seconded by committee, that county council declare surplus to

[41:40] the needs of the county of Renfruit, the county-owned property on Upper Valley

[41:44] Drive, [clears throat] excuse me, and described as part 29, concession one,

[41:50] Stafford, part uh 249R207

[41:57] in the city of Pemrook and that staff proceed with the disposal process in

[42:02] accordance with policy GA-02 disposal of corporate asset and the

[42:07] background is attached.

[42:11] Resolution number three is the forest sector committee terms of reference

[42:14] update resolution number DP-CC-26 0557

[42:20] moved by myself seconded by committee that county council approve minor

[42:24] amendments to the terms of reference for the forest sector committee to revise

[42:29] quorum to be defined as a majority of the voting members of the committee and

[42:34] clarify that the chair shall vote only in the event of a tie. Once again,

[42:39] background is attached. Resolution number four is Care for

[42:43] Health and Community Services Green Space located at 425 Cecilia Street,

[42:48] Penrook. Resolution number DP-CC-260563.

[42:54] Moved by myself, seconded by committee that county council execute a memorandum

[42:58] of understanding between Kinsman Court Home for Men and Women, Pemrook, Inc.,

[43:04] Care for Health and Community Services in the county of Renfruit to establish a

[43:08] cooperative framework for discussion and pre preliminary due diligence regarding

[43:14] the potential use of the green space associated with 425 Cecilia Street

[43:19] Penrook. Again, the background is attached. Moving to bylaws. Number five

[43:24] is a transfer payment agreement to fund Enterprise Rent County for 2026 to 2029

[43:31] 2030. Resolution number DP-CC-260558

[43:37] moved by myself, seconded by committee, that county council adopt a bylaw

[43:41] authorizing the corporation of the county of Renfruit to enter into a

[43:45] transfer payment agreement with the province of Ontario for financial and

[43:50] program support of Enterprise Renfruit County for a three-year term commencing

[43:55] April the 1st, 2026 and ending March 31st, 2029 with an option to renew for

[44:01] for a fourth year ending March 31st, 2030 at the discretion of the province

[44:07] and the full background is there for your review. Item number six is the

[44:12] official plan amendment number 51, OPA51, resolution number DP-CC-2600559.

[44:21] Moved by myself, seconded by committee that county council adopt and approve

[44:25] official plan amendment number 55, OPA 51. Sorry, amendment number 51, OPA 51.

[44:34] And the full background is attached

[44:39] and all of this is respectfully submitted by myself as chair and

[44:43] committee members. Thank you, Warden. >> Thank you. So, we'll go back to

[44:48] information item number one. Number two.

[44:55] Number three.

[44:59] Number four.

[45:03] Number five.

[45:06] And number six, formerly known as number five.

[45:11] The report as a whole. Could I have a mover, please?

[45:15] » So moved. Warden. >> Thank you. All in favor.

[45:18] Thank you, councel. Now we'll move on to Vice Chair Lynch with the

[45:24] oper >> what

[45:29] » Dan said,

[45:34] » the chair is here. >> Yeah.

[45:37] » However, >> All right.

[45:40] » I missed you earlier, by the way. You You snuck in and I didn't see you.

[45:45] » Do you want to do the report? >> I apologize. I I can't. Sure.

[45:48] » Excellent. >> We're ready.

[45:50] » Whatever. >> Do you guys want to take it in the

[45:52] parking lot? Fight it out. >> Council Lynch, it's all yours.

[45:57] » Thank you, chair. >> To to the council of the corporation of

[46:02] the county rent, members of county council, we your committee of the whole

[46:06] operations wish to report and recommend as follows. Under information, we're on

[46:10] starting on page 351 of your diligence. information. Number one was capital

[46:15] works contracts information is there. Number two is the

[46:20] former CN line trail name and the information is there.

[46:26] Number three is county road 51 Pedawa Boulevard expansion. The information is

[46:31] there. Number four is the PWC 202534

[46:37] county structure 201 Brooms Creek Culver and Dam Engineering Service Services

[46:42] contract amendment. The information is there

[46:46] and under resolutions which is paragraph number five terms of

[46:51] reference transportation advisory committee resolution number OPCC

[46:57] 260569 moved by chair seconded by committee

[47:01] that the county approve the terms of reference for the transportation

[47:04] advisory committee. The background is there for your information. Number six

[47:08] is rural transit for the county of Renfruit. Resolution number OPCC260570.

[47:16] Moved by chair, seconded by committee, the county council approve the brief

[47:19] titled rural transit for the county of Renfruit. Again, the background is there

[47:24] for information. Number seven, Highway 17 extension advisory committee update

[47:30] resolution number OPCC260571.

[47:34] Moved by chair, seconded by committee, and you might want to get a coffee for

[47:38] this one. Whereas the recent announcement regarding the expansion of

[47:43] 47 correction of 17 is welcomed as an important investment in the economic

[47:48] growth, transportation safety, and long-term infrastructure needs of the

[47:53] county of Renfruit.

[47:56] And whereas the county of council, the county rens extremely disappointed with

[48:02] the limited progress achieved to date on the highway 17 expansion and fourlaning

[48:07] project and requests accelerated action and greater accountability from the

[48:11] province of Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation. And whereas Highway 17

[48:17] is a critical transportation corridor supporting residents, businesses,

[48:22] emergency services, Garrison Pedawala, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, National

[48:27] Defense, Nuclear Energy Development, Regional Economic Growth, and Canada's

[48:32] Supply Chain and Transportation Work Network. And whereas continued delays in

[48:37] advancing forlaning and related infrastructure improvements are

[48:41] impacting economic competitiveness, commuter safety, trade movement, and

[48:46] regional growth opportunities. Therefore, it be resolved that the

[48:50] county of Renfruit request the province of Ontario and the Ministry of

[48:54] Transportation to establish and communicate defined timelines,

[48:58] milestones, performance metrics, and regular public reporting for all

[49:02] remaining phases of 517 correction highway 17 expansion and four

[49:07] laning project to Deep River, including planning, environmental aspects,

[49:12] indigenous consultation, design, land acquisition, tendering and construction,

[49:18] And further that this resolution be forward to the Prime Minister of Canada,

[49:22] the Federal Minister of National Defense, the Federal Minister of

[49:25] Infrastructure, the Federal Minister of Natural Resources Canada, the Premier of

[49:29] Ontario, and all related provincial ministries requesting that Highway 17

[49:33] expansion project be recognized as nationally significant infrastructure

[49:39] eligible for federal funding participation and accelerated investment

[49:43] support. The background is there for your information.

[49:48] Number eight is PWC202658,

[49:52] rehabilitation of County Road, Round Lake Road, resolution number OPCC260575,

[49:59] moved by chair, seconded by committee that the council defer the

[50:02] rehabilitation of County Road 58, Round Lake Road until such time as full

[50:07] rehabilitation can be undertaken and advise the tenders accordingly and the

[50:12] staff proceed with the necessary interimm works including

[50:16] padding, guide rail repair, repair and replacement to ensure the continued

[50:20] safety of commuters. And the staff review the asset management plan to

[50:24] define to identify potential alternative surface sealer type projects for

[50:30] completion as part of the 2026 capital program and report back to council with

[50:35] options for consideration and the background is there for your

[50:38] information.

[50:43] Number nine is posted speed limit to county road 26 Dor and Road resolution

[50:49] number OPCC260578. Moved by chair, seconded by committee

[50:54] that the county recommend that the posted speed limits on County Road 26,

[50:58] Dorne Road between Highway 17 and Murphy Road in the town of Pedawa remained

[51:03] unchanged and the information is listed below.

[51:08] Under bylaws, we have paragraph 10, supply and diesel, supply and delivery

[51:13] of diesel fuel, gasoline, and heating oil. Resolution number OPCC260581

[51:19] moved by chair, second by committee that the county adopt a bylaw to approve the

[51:24] extension of contract PWO20128

[51:28] supply and delivery of diesel fuel, gasoline, heating oil and above ground

[51:32] storage tanks for one year to WOT incidents unlimited Penrook Ontario in

[51:37] accordance with the contract documents and the background is there for your

[51:41] information.

[51:49] Number 11 is policy PW25, standing corn snow fence program resolution number

[51:56] OPCC260582 moved by chair, seconded by committee

[52:00] that county council adopt a bylaw to approve county run through public works

[52:04] and injuring policy PW25 standing core corn snow fence program and the

[52:10] information is there. Number 12 is property acquisition 386396

[52:16] Madawaska Boulevard. Resolution number OPCC260586

[52:22] moved by chair, seconded by the committee that the committee adopt a

[52:25] bylaw to to authorize the acquisition of the following lands parts 1 and two on

[52:31] plan 49R21129 from 386 Madawaska Holdings for the sum

[52:37] of $53,680.

[52:40] Part three of plan 49R 21129 from Tianis Holdings Limited for

[52:47] the sum of 27,670.50

[52:52] and part four of plan 49R21129 from 386 Madawaskco Holdings and Tianis

[52:58] Holdings tenants in common for the sum of $28,671.50

[53:04] 50 cents and the lands described be dedicated as part of the public highway

[53:08] system upon registration of the transfer of documents and the information is

[53:13] there all of which is respectfully submitted by myself vice chair. Thank

[53:18] you Warden. Thank you. And we'll go back to information item number one.

[53:25] Number two,

[53:29] number three,

[53:33] number four,

[53:36] number five,

[53:40] number six, number seven.

[53:47] Member from Pedawa, please. Thank you, chair, and through you. I I support this

[53:52] wholeheartedly, the resolution. Uh I'm just wondering with the recent

[53:56] discussions we've had about Highway 17 and the timelines, specifically

[54:01] referring to the section from Deep River to Greenwood Road, I know there has been

[54:06] some discussion about updating or perhaps making a more specific

[54:10] resolution. So, in terms of this one that's going

[54:14] out, I guess my question is, are we contemplating a more specific and an

[54:19] additional resolution in terms of that particular section of the highway and

[54:24] advocating for its fourlaning at the same time as the construction

[54:29] that's ongoing? Yes, I think you should write it. But I

[54:36] I do believe that's the the direction that we sort of went on Monday to

[54:44] » bring it to operations. >> Okay. Oh, it's being brought to

[54:47] operations at the end of the month so you don't have to write it.

[54:53] » Member from Renfruit, please. >> Yes. And thank you Warden and through

[54:58] you to my friend Excuse [clears throat and cough]

[55:01] me. It's been a long-standing um

[55:06] a long-standing I guess uh uh thought and action that uh both projects would

[55:16] be would be continue to highlighted be highlighted to the ministry. Um that was

[55:21] a commitment I think we made in 2014 and we've kept that commitment in terms of

[55:27] as you're aware advancing the um uh and this is just for public education

[55:32] because you're very aware of this because you helped form it but in terms

[55:36] of the the uh strategy of u talking about the improvements that are needed

[55:42] to Meath Hill from Meath Hill through to Deep River and so that was always the

[55:47] second phase once there was some confirmation. So, we've been working

[55:50] away quietly on that. I think we and making those presentations, but I think

[55:54] that has to become more public. And I and I, you know, I'm glad to see that

[55:58] we're bringing it back to operations with a with a new um with a new motion

[56:03] to support that. So, yes, it's always been a long-term commitment and we've

[56:08] never wavered from it. We haven't been as loud about it, but I think that's

[56:12] about to change. Thank you. >> Yeah. So I think the the idea is let's

[56:18] get a resolution signed, sealed, delivered before AMO so that if there's

[56:24] the appetite to ask for a delegation that we have something from this body

[56:30] member from Whitewater, please. >> Thank you, Warden. Uh like uh councelor

[56:35] service said, I'm I'm in full support of this approach and uh it's it's prudent

[56:41] upon us to look that this far forward to try to influence this kind of provincial

[56:46] infrastructure for the future development of the county. And I would

[56:50] pile on the electrical grid is another example where we need to to focus some

[56:56] of our advocacy in the same way looking out 20 years making sure that these this

[57:01] this type of provincial infrastructure is ren county is included in the

[57:07] provincial plans as part of the discussions that happened

[57:10] on Monday. Um there was discussion about and I apologize I'm just going to flip

[57:15] back here. um a provincial connecting the east transportation plan

[57:23] » and that no sorry >> meeting

[57:26] » yeah that was part of a closed meeting >> sorry I'm reading right off the uh I'm

[57:32] referencing the conversation but I'll I'll pull that back and I'll say I'm

[57:36] looking at the 2022 connecting the east transportation plan that was released by

[57:41] the province and this prioritizes the investment in highway infrastructure in

[57:46] eastern Ontario. I know I suspect that they are going to

[57:51] be reviewing this document. In this document, it looks at Highway 17 within

[57:56] County of Renfruit and only a portion of it is freeway. Once it hits Pedawa, it

[58:01] is designated as arterial. So for us to strategically ask for investment

[58:08] on Highway 17 in the county, we are also going to have to advocate that it's

[58:12] recognized as a freeway requirement. Um, I'm wondering if staff could

[58:17] comment. Have we h do we have the opportunity to influence the next

[58:20] version of this connecting the east transportation plan and and how might we

[58:25] ensure that that our strategic needs are recognized?

[58:31] » I can start and then turn to Mr. Perkins. Thank you through you, Warden.

[58:34] Uh, yes. So, uh, staff is aware that I think the the connecting the east

[58:38] document, it was from 2022 and then Minister Monron, uh, drafted that and

[58:42] Highway 17 plays a prominent I think it's number two in terms of action items

[58:46] moving forward. Um, as we understand it, the and Mr. Perkins, I'm sure, can

[58:52] identify exactly where, but Highway 17 switches from a control corridor to a

[58:55] different type of corridor somewhere after the Pedawa Plains towards Chuck

[58:59] River. And you'll notice that usually when the snow snow hits that wall. Uh so

[59:05] that's likely why it changes from from a freeway to an arterial. So that it's a

[59:09] very astute point. I think that that may be the first step in in changing how

[59:13] they reference highway 17. Um, but as I understand it from conversations with

[59:18] the MTO and uh members of parliament or provincial parliament that there will be

[59:23] an engagement on the new connecting the east, whatever it's being called,

[59:26] Eastern Ontario transportation plan uh is coming out very shortly and we'll

[59:30] we'll be able to influence that and and um I think we've heard from you, but we

[59:35] will definitely circulate you and bring that to committee if and when we get

[59:37] notice of of that plan. And um I'll leave it to Mr. Perkins if he has

[59:41] anything to add about the uh the controlled corridor.

[59:46] Uh thank you and through you warden. Uh actually the Ontario Ministry of

[59:50] Transportation uh improving transportation in eastern on regional

[59:53] Ontario had a meeting yesterday so it's already started. So thank you.

[59:59] » Wonderful. Anything further on number seven? Member from Renfruit please.

[1:00:05] » Thank you. Just to pile on to my friend from Whitewater you warden. I think it's

[1:00:09] important for um those conversations that Mr. Perkins just uh spoke about to

[1:00:16] do a couple of things. One is to ensure that the um as the highway progresses

[1:00:21] the um uh the ability for the and I can't remember the the technical term

[1:00:27] but the larger trucks that are only allowed to work on the 400 series

[1:00:32] marches along with that construction um because because right now they have to

[1:00:36] stop in our empire and download into smaller vehicles. So that's the first

[1:00:40] thing. The second thing is if we can get uh from the province as part of that um

[1:00:46] process uh a standardized

[1:00:51] report across the province on progress so that we can measure our progress in

[1:00:57] this project with other projects because what we're what we're doing right now is

[1:01:02] thankfully the member from Amiston Brmley was able to find us the I guess a

[1:01:07] bastardized Gant chart. I can't quite figure out what it was. U which showed

[1:01:12] some some of their milestones and how they're able to speed that up. And you

[1:01:16] know, in these chambers, we've all tried to to capture the the rapid speed of the

[1:01:22] Bradford uh express train uh sorry, the bypass. It's going so fast. It's an

[1:01:27] express train, I think. But if we could be able to have a standard recording

[1:01:32] format or measurement format for all of the construction projects across

[1:01:36] Ontario, then we can match it up. So it's apples to apples and not apples to

[1:01:41] gold bricks like the air in Bradford. So thank you.

[1:01:45] » Agreed. Anything further member from Abbiston Brmley please?

[1:01:49] » Uh just on that final comment uh madame chair um it does seem

[1:01:55] uh almost hypocritical that every municipality in the province of Ontario

[1:01:59] now must have an amp asset management plan and our asset management plan lays

[1:02:03] out the year when we're going to do roads. If any rate payer within any of

[1:02:07] our communities says, "When is my road getting done?" Hold on a minute. Let me

[1:02:11] flip through and I'll find that. Doesn't seem to be available at a

[1:02:15] provincial level. I think that that would be it would

[1:02:19] behoove the province uh to participate in the same uh process uh that they are

[1:02:26] in fact requiring of us. That gives some indication

[1:02:29] uh to our communities. I recognize uh there is there is a a stair coming

[1:02:35] directly across from the room from me here. This is our maintenance. It is not

[1:02:39] our expansion. Uh but just the same expansion

[1:02:43] uh would go a long way uh towards managing expectations

[1:02:50] and I say that advisedly. I understand all of the competing principles that the

[1:02:55] province of Ontario has uh for infrastructure development.

[1:03:00] Uh but it is important I think to also continue to um communicate to our

[1:03:07] residents when we expect to have some of the major infrastructure expansion

[1:03:12] happen here as well. And uh that was simply consistent with the asset

[1:03:17] management plans uh that are required of us. It doesn't seem like a big leap.

[1:03:24] [clears throat] >> I agree with you. And it's really funny

[1:03:28] like I I've often wondered why why didn't we know that the 407 would be

[1:03:34] expanded uh through through co to the 115. Why didn't we know why don't we

[1:03:40] have firm timelines? It's ridiculous. Um member from Greater Madawaska please.

[1:03:47] » Thank you and through you Warden. Uh just tying into

[1:03:51] what the counselors have said already. I think if we did have that chart, we'd

[1:03:55] also see that that the BR the Bradford bypass

[1:04:00] originally started 30 years ago, the planning for that. And yes, it's moving

[1:04:04] rapidly now, but it was started 30 years ago. So, I think if we did have a asset

[1:04:12] management plan from the province that people could look at and see that, okay,

[1:04:15] this project is started and how long it takes on the average for large projects

[1:04:20] to take place. I I think that would be useful. So, thank you.

[1:04:26] » Thank you for that. Anything further on seven?

[1:04:29] Number eight, member from Ku Haggerty and Richards.

[1:04:33] » Could I have that severed please? >> Yes, sir. Number nine,

[1:04:40] Doran Road, member from Pedawa. >> Thank you, chair, and through you. I I

[1:04:46] understand that this has been uh it's been recommended that the speed limits

[1:04:51] remain unchanged on that section of road. However, the town of Pedawa firmly

[1:04:56] believes that and in order to enhance the safety of our residents and anybody

[1:05:01] else driving on that section of road, we will try and find a way to advocate for

[1:05:06] those speed limits to be reduced. I I guess my question is I know that uh the

[1:05:12] operations committee is looking at upgrading or amending or

[1:05:17] changing the road policies. My question is, with these new policies in place,

[1:05:24] will there be any flexibility in terms of making it easier for some of these

[1:05:29] arterial roads to become collector roads or making it more flexible in terms of

[1:05:36] getting speed limits reduced on some of these roads, whereas the present policy

[1:05:41] makes it a little tough to do those things.

[1:05:45] » Thank you for that, Mr. Perkins. >> Yes, thank you. Sorry,

[1:05:50] » I'm sorry. The chair had his hand. >> Sorry, member from um just a couple of

[1:05:56] points on that and then I'll let Mr. Perkins go. Um

[1:06:01] so all of the uh whether on in operations um the

[1:06:09] standard policies are used the standards that come from um the province and and

[1:06:16] other associations on the classification of the road and then subsequently the

[1:06:22] characteristics of the road based on that. So, um there may be some

[1:06:28] flexibility in that. I the other option um that I would point out that I'm I'm

[1:06:35] aware I'm sure that the member is aware of is that the town could take over that

[1:06:40] road as a municipal road and have full control over it. So, Mr. Perkins,

[1:06:45] » Mr. Perkins, >> thank you, Warden, and thank you, Chair.

[1:06:49] Uh actually like uh as the chair just explained uh

[1:06:54] when uh Mr. Hanrath brings back that report, you as a council have the

[1:06:59] opportunity to do whatever you wish.

[1:07:06] Thank you for that. I'm not going to name names,

[1:07:11] but two people in this room witnessed one person in this room speeding on

[1:07:16] Doran Road last week, and both of them gave me hell for it. It's such a nice

[1:07:24] road. Uh, all right. Thank you for that.

[1:07:28] Anything further on nine, 10,

[1:07:33] 11, and finally 12.

[1:07:38] the report as a whole except for number eight.

[1:07:42] May I have a mover, please? >> So move.

[1:07:46] » Thank you. All in favor? Wonderful. Thanks. And now we'll go back to number

[1:07:50] eight. Comments, questions, concerns. Member from Kilu, Hagerty, and Richards,

[1:07:55] please. >> Thank you, chair. I guess I should lead

[1:07:58] this off. Um, [sighs]

[1:08:01] I just want to lead off by saying that u there was a couple facts that I didn't

[1:08:05] include. Uh at our last meeting at the operations meeting um the total project

[1:08:13] in reality was 7.67 km. In 2023 2.52 km were completed.

[1:08:22] Um, in 2024,

[1:08:26] our president of the Round Lake Property Association came to council November

[1:08:31] 12th of 2024, and he had heard about uh the deferment of the 5 km or that it

[1:08:39] wasn't not in the plan, whatever, whichever phrase you'd like to use. And

[1:08:44] then in 2025 I had issued um

[1:08:49] no August 2625 I announced the deferment to the Round Lake Property Association

[1:08:54] AGM. Um

[1:08:58] in the actual facts and I'll use rough numbers. It shows that there was

[1:09:03] $630,000 over budget for this project.

[1:09:10] 130,000 of that was for the culvert, which was not included in the original

[1:09:15] budget, I believe. So, in reality, it's $500,000 over budget.

[1:09:22] During my short time here, I have never seen uh a budget

[1:09:29] so so low, like $500,000, like something happened. And yes, we all understand

[1:09:36] that uh because of situations that we have no control, prices have increased

[1:09:41] dramatically. Um and I do believe that there are other people that would like

[1:09:46] to speak on this matter also.

[1:09:51] » All right, I'll open it up to comments. Member for My Prior, please.

[1:09:56] » Thank you, Chair. Uh just to say that I've contacted or I spoke with Director

[1:10:00] Perkins and uh Mr. Hanrath. One of the information purposes that was given to

[1:10:05] us was there there was only two biders for this and that sort of narrowed it

[1:10:09] down. The the contract in previous years for the same road there were three

[1:10:16] bidders two of them that are listed as well as H&H which has now been bought

[1:10:21] out by BEI. So in fact there could have been three but there's only two. That

[1:10:26] was one of the persuasions on my side. The second part was we have a $600,000

[1:10:34] uh surplus at this point. We're contemplating that this is going

[1:10:41] to be eaten up by the paving charges in September.

[1:10:46] Don't know that for sure. So I'm saying we have it today. We can

[1:10:52] spend it today and worry about September. As I look at the CEO going,

[1:10:56] "Yep." But he's not going. >> No, the the the CEO is going to respond

[1:11:01] though. >> So with those two factors, the my vote

[1:11:06] last time was to accept. This time around, I'm I'm going to oppose it.

[1:11:12] Thank you, chair. Sorry, Warden. >> Yeah. No,

[1:11:17] no, please do. >> No, I can. Sure. Certainly. Thank you,

[1:11:22] Warden. It's certainly something worthy of response. more from the treasur

[1:11:26] perhaps or even the director. Um we are very concerned uh yes on your on your

[1:11:31] recent financials there is a a slight surplus if you will of around $600,000.

[1:11:36] Uh we know um quite with certainty that the fuel charges and the overages will

[1:11:42] likely eat up all of that. Um and this year more than any other year in the

[1:11:47] past we are now near completion of all the capital projects that we said we'd

[1:11:51] complete on time and on budget so far. uh I don't think we'll be in a surplus

[1:11:56] position at the end of the year. Uh and this would most certainly um it would

[1:12:01] most likely certainly if you can say that uh push us over uh into a deficit

[1:12:07] situation with with this overage. Uh we understand that this road is important

[1:12:12] but again I'll go back to the original recommendation two weeks ago. It would

[1:12:16] not have been a wise decision for us knowing that there are increased costs

[1:12:20] coming to this council to recommend going $600,000 over in a budget um at

[1:12:26] this time. But again, the decision rests with with you. We are in a situation

[1:12:30] where all the all the pro all the um projects that Mr. Perkins and staff have

[1:12:35] put together are at budget and we have an unknown fuel search charge amount

[1:12:41] coming to us at the end of this year on every single project that we've

[1:12:43] completed to date.

[1:12:47] Thank you for that clarification. Member from North Ala Wilburforce,

[1:12:51] please. Thank you, Warden. Well, I'm in support

[1:12:55] of this resolution and just for the reason that the CEO has indicated as

[1:13:02] well as the fact that we know from bylaws in this report as well that our

[1:13:07] fuel pricing for the coming year has doubled from uh the previous year as

[1:13:13] well. And we know that our winter operations

[1:13:16] were also over budget. So being cognizant of the fact that you know we

[1:13:22] already faced our residents with a 8% levy increase this year and now and we

[1:13:31] had to dig into reserves just to make just to get there and now we're going to

[1:13:36] end up in a deeper uh hole if we go forward with this this year. Thank you,

[1:13:44] Ward. >> Thank you. The word deferred has been

[1:13:48] used a lot that this project has been deferred. And I think for the viewing

[1:13:53] public and for this chamber, can we please get a definitive answer? Is this

[1:13:58] the second year this project has been I know the answer, but I want I want the

[1:14:04] answer in public. Is this the second year that this project's been deferred?

[1:14:09] Please. Uh thank you Warden and thank you for the opportunity for the

[1:14:12] clarification. Uh this project was always scheduled for 2026. Uh even with

[1:14:17] our AMP or our asset management plan overhaul in 2024 where we lowered our

[1:14:21] PCI from 72 to 60. Um this was always scheduled for 2026. So this would

[1:14:26] potentially be the first year for a deferral for this length of road.

[1:14:31] » Thank you for the clarification. Member from Laurentian Valley. Please,

[1:14:36] is there a definite uh item that this will be completed next

[1:14:41] year? This is it. Is it on the list for next year for operations?

[1:14:48] » Mr. Perkins. >> Thank you, Madam Warden. And through

[1:14:50] you, uh yes, this would go forward next year. Uh this the saving or the money

[1:14:55] would be carried forward for next year from this project. So, it will go first

[1:14:59] thing next year. But again, I clarify when we bring the budget to you guys in

[1:15:04] uh hopefully the the I'm not sure how it works when there's

[1:15:08] an election for pre-budget approval for our engineering works. Uh last last few

[1:15:13] years has been in October. So we would bring it in October and then it'll be

[1:15:17] decision to council if you want to [clears throat]

[1:15:19] but it will be on the list for next year. I suppose my only other question

[1:15:23] is next year the costs to complete this project are probably going to be up

[1:15:30] again uh with wages uh with material costs and I don't think fuel expenses

[1:15:35] are going to be much lower then than now. So

[1:15:39] will we still be ahead? >> Thank you for that. Uh member from

[1:15:45] Greater Madawaska. Thank you. And through you, to Director

[1:15:51] Perkins, I'm just wondering um maybe I missed it. I I'm just wondering what the

[1:15:58] PCI of that road is right now and what would it be forecasted to be if this is

[1:16:07] put over to the next year. I'm just thinking of the safety and security of

[1:16:12] everybody that travels it.

[1:16:17] » Thank you, Warden. through you. I'm not sure the exact number of the PCI, but uh

[1:16:21] if there is a deferral, as the resolution states, there would be some

[1:16:24] remedial work done on guard rails and a couple of sections of road that are that

[1:16:28] are bad. Uh again, with the reduction of the PCI in 2024, we're actually going to

[1:16:34] see roads go longer. So, this this was prior to that. So, uh any safety aspects

[1:16:40] of it, if it's deferred, will be repaired. Uh other than that the road

[1:16:44] will be rehabbed as best as possible for this year anyways to to accommodate the

[1:16:48] the bad section.

[1:16:53] » Member from Padawa and then arm prior. >> Thank you chair and through you. So I I

[1:16:58] hear you mentioning that you are going to take some measures to improve the

[1:17:02] safety and the the condition of the road in terms of guard rails and I'm guessing

[1:17:07] some pavement remediation. The money that is spent doing that is

[1:17:11] that coming out of this year's budget for this actual tender or is this money

[1:17:17] being taken from somewhere else? >> Thank you through you. Uh actually this

[1:17:22] money would come out of our operations budget in terms of safety uh equipment

[1:17:26] and that sort of thing. So we would not touch this money at all. We just carry

[1:17:29] it into next year. >> Supplementary.

[1:17:34] » Yes, supplementary. Thanks. So because you're completing some of

[1:17:39] these works, it's going to lower the I guess the scope of the tender for next

[1:17:43] year. Should this be deferred to next year? And I I guess I just also like an

[1:17:48] answer to u the question from my colleague in Laurentian Valley. I know

[1:17:52] you can't predict the future, but how confident are you in the pricing for

[1:17:56] next year in terms of asphalt, fuel, and everything else that goes into this

[1:18:01] project? I think we all hope fuel will come down,

[1:18:06] but Mr. Perkins. >> Yes. Thank you, Ordinant. And uh through

[1:18:10] you.

[1:18:14] Yeah, if we if we do the safety guardrails and that sort of thing this

[1:18:16] year, if there is a deferral, that would definitely change the scope of the

[1:18:19] project for next year. Uh unfortunately, I I can't speculate as to what it'll be

[1:18:25] next year. If I had, I wish I could. Uh the the biggest concern here was that it

[1:18:30] was 26.33% over budget. So as staff, the second last project of the year cuz

[1:18:37] there was two projects in that week that were tendered. Uh as staff, we had to

[1:18:42] bring it forward and and recommend we go next year with it, right? So uh but no,

[1:18:47] uh potentially, yes, if we do all the safety improvements this year to guard

[1:18:52] rails, um it should potentially lower the scope of the job.

[1:18:57] Thank you. Um, member from Arm Prior. >> Thank you, Warden. Just another thanks

[1:19:05] to Director Perkins for bringing that forward for the two contracts that were

[1:19:09] put out. One was Bulier, I believe, and then Round Lake. with the two quotes

[1:19:14] that we got from Bulier and Round Lake. From what I understand, the

[1:19:20] cost of the Ashvalt was cheaper the second time with BEI than it was

[1:19:27] with Buler. So, we're actually saving monies

[1:19:31] not using the rate from the Bulier rate, if that makes sense to anybody. So

[1:19:35] hypothetically, not hypothetically, Buler paid $2 per yard and we're now at

[1:19:42] 175 for Bonnet for the Round Lake. So we're saving money today. We don't know

[1:19:47] what we're going to be spending in 2027. Thank you.

[1:19:53] » Um, >> member from Deep River, were you going

[1:19:58] to answer that or did you also have a question?

[1:20:01] » Well, kind of just a bit of both. >> Kind of a comment, whatever. Um, so I

[1:20:07] wasn't issued my crystal ball last last week, so I can't really use that. But,

[1:20:13] um, when we look at historically, sometimes we don't know

[1:20:18] why the prices fluctuate whether they're going up or down. Um, but when you look

[1:20:24] at these types of construction projects, the one of the two biggest factors that

[1:20:28] we've seen in the last couple years is uh, steel costs. And hopefully we have

[1:20:33] some certainty a year from now um on what what that u industry uh is facing.

[1:20:43] Um and secondly is the the cost of pavement is is

[1:20:48] generally tied very closely to the cost of oil. So, if fuel prices are going to

[1:20:53] come down, and hopefully they will, well, Alberta doesn't hope that they do,

[1:20:58] but um when you look at constructions, if if

[1:21:03] that's so that could make so both steel and and oil prices um are significant

[1:21:09] factors in in a lot of the projects that we have. So, I think there's going to be

[1:21:13] some more stability, but like I said, it wasn't issued my crystal ball, so I'm

[1:21:16] not sure. I've got the member from Renfruit and

[1:21:21] then the member from Whitewater, please. >> Uh, thank you. So, [clears throat]

[1:21:26] just a couple of points that have been rattling around for me. One is, uh, I

[1:21:31] worry about our capacity to bump this to next year and [clears throat] complete

[1:21:34] it as an add-on to what could be a busy year anyway.

[1:21:42] So, then that begs the question, what could be bumped off next year's list? So

[1:21:46] then it becomes a cascading uh problem. The other uh question I have is is there

[1:21:51] any carveouts of this project to make it a little more comfortable so the gap

[1:21:57] isn't $662,000? Uh you know I heard some conversation

[1:22:02] about uh about remedial work this year taking it out of operations uh out of

[1:22:08] the operation budget as opposed to the capital side. uh is there an appetite to

[1:22:14] go ahead and do those uh do those what was termed remedial work using

[1:22:20] operations money and then also issue this contract. So that's kind of where

[1:22:25] I'm coming at it from the last question would be a the remedial work will that

[1:22:31] include pavement being put down and then churned up next year um as as the whole

[1:22:37] project goes forward. Thank you. >> So I'm going to turn this over to Mr.

[1:22:40] Perkins, but in order to lower the scope of the work, we would have to retender

[1:22:44] it as well because the tender went out for those

[1:22:50] kilometers with these parameters. Am I wrong, Mr. Perkins?

[1:22:55] » No, thank you. Word through your No, that's correct. Um,

[1:23:00] yeah. No, that's correct. Thank you.

[1:23:12] Uh, no. I think member from Renfruit had a second question that wasn't answered

[1:23:17] though. Um, member from Whitewater.

[1:23:21] » Thanks, Warden. I just wanted to say um I appreciate this being severed and this

[1:23:29] discussion about prioritization about you know PCI and level of service.

[1:23:37] It's it's probably the first of many to come and we're going to have to make

[1:23:43] tougher and tougher decisions because we just can't keep increasing

[1:23:49] property taxes uh beyond what's affordable. Um so these

[1:23:53] types of discussions this contemplation the exploring for alternatives trying to

[1:23:59] understand you know where is the push and pull how does that reflect next year

[1:24:04] and the year after that these are the types of discussions that I believe we

[1:24:08] need to continue to have and I and I expect that when we do the budget again

[1:24:12] this year um what I was hoping for just because I didn't realize it before we

[1:24:20] got into more in-depth discussions about this since the last meeting uh the CEO

[1:24:24] had mentioned a fuel search charge and I was hoping that maybe we could

[1:24:30] just understand that contractual process that we have in place when it comes to

[1:24:36] the tendering for roads. We tender, we see a value, we approve that value, but

[1:24:41] obviously there is some changes to those costs as the price of fuel goes up and

[1:24:47] down. I'm wondering if you can just get a better appreciation for that. what the

[1:24:52] the the percentage of magnitude that has on an overall project, not just for

[1:24:56] council, but for any of the public that might be watching.

[1:25:01] » I throw this over to Mr. Perkins.

[1:25:06] » Uh thank you Warden and through you. Uh ashvault of course is the largest

[1:25:09] component of all of our projects, right? So obviously is a direct correlation to

[1:25:15] what the cost of the projects are. So and then the fuel is is anotherary

[1:25:20] price, right? But the but right now the cost of ashvault is what is the majority

[1:25:24] of the pricing for us.

[1:25:30] Yeah. Fuel again with the AC index u as the vice chair pointed out with Bular

[1:25:36] road and uh and with uh Round Lake Road the AC charge actually changed in the

[1:25:42] time that they bid both those jobs. Uh but anyways the at the end of the season

[1:25:47] when all the bills come in that's when we actually pay the AC search charge and

[1:25:50] or sorry the fuel search charge and the AC index. So uh we really don't know

[1:25:56] until October what the actual cost of everything is

[1:26:04] » supplementary. >> Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that

[1:26:07] director. Um in terms of the magnitude of that change

[1:26:13] uh just to use an example like if if if ashalt and fuel as a combined represents

[1:26:20] 80% of an approved budget and say we approve that tender at 2 million. If the

[1:26:27] price goes up of of fuel by 10%. What will that 2 million do? What

[1:26:35] magnitude of impact does a percentage change in fuel have on that final price

[1:26:41] that you calculate in October? And I'm not looking for a precise figure, but I

[1:26:44] just want to make it clear that that fuel that the change in price in fuel

[1:26:50] and ashalt we can't forecast. And when we get the

[1:26:54] bill when it closes in the end, it could be substantially different.

[1:27:01] » Yeah, the answer is yes, you are correct. But go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

[1:27:05] » Oh, thank you, cheer. Or thank you, Warden. Yes, that's correct. Thank you.

[1:27:09] Sorry.

[1:27:12] » Uh member from Abston Bramley, please. >> Uh thank you very much, Madam Chair. So,

[1:27:17] a couple of comments, but I want to correct the record on a few things. I'm

[1:27:20] not sure uh which councelor had said our fuel is going up next year. Our fuel is

[1:27:24] not necessarily going up next year. uh it's contained within this report uh

[1:27:29] in at our committee meeting and then in a follow-up offline conversation with

[1:27:33] Mr. Perkins, uh, our vendor, uh, it is still

[1:27:39] essentially rack plus or rack minus, whatever it was under our former

[1:27:42] agreement. Uh, you may be unfamiliar with rack pricing. Uh, I have it on my

[1:27:47] farm fuels, but it is a little bit of an esoteric uh, consideration. It's a

[1:27:51] little bit like the uh, the um, fuel search charge or the AC index.

[1:27:56] Ultimately uh there is published every day uh what

[1:28:00] the major uh petroleum vendors have as their rack price.

[1:28:05] Maybe it's 123 for E10 gasoline. And then your price on your bulk tanks is

[1:28:12] going to be perhaps that rack price plus 2 cents maybe minus 5 cents if you have

[1:28:18] enough volume and depending on where they're delivering it to. So our fuel is

[1:28:22] not going up in 2027. our pricing is the same. Our fuel will go up if in fact the

[1:28:29] price of fuel across the globe uh is still high or is going up. That's number

[1:28:34] one. Number two, uh notwithstanding uh councelor Mayville's comments about

[1:28:39] there being initially the uh Round Lake being 7 whatever kilometers. Well, uh

[1:28:45] Bulger Road that actually divides councelor Bro's municipality from my

[1:28:49] municipality. I travel it when I come up here. Um there's a small section of it

[1:28:53] we're doing this year. is it was allocated to be done this year. There's

[1:28:57] another section will be done next year, but the the road is not the project.

[1:29:01] That segment is so there was only ever been this segment that is in front of us

[1:29:08] now that in the AMP in November 2024 that we reviewed in the AMP in November

[1:29:14] of 2025 that we reviewed, it was clearly identified this section of Round Lake

[1:29:19] Road was going to be done in 2026. nothing has been deferred that was

[1:29:25] supposed to have been done sooner. That's a done deal. So ultimately uh I

[1:29:30] had outreach and it's my understanding that almost everybody from council had

[1:29:34] outreach uh from the low bidder in this instance uh with questions comments in

[1:29:39] the outreach that I had. I said I am always open to new information but I've

[1:29:42] not heard any in the room. I'm will repeat my comments that I made at at uh

[1:29:49] the operations committee a couple of weeks past uh wherein certainly the

[1:29:53] residents along there have been looking for this to happen uh but this is a

[1:29:59] 26.88 not 33 26.88% overage

[1:30:04] staff brought that to us. we council can do whatever we want, but I was staring

[1:30:08] straight into that camera and I'm saying we're looking at a pretty substantial uh

[1:30:12] levy increase in 2027 and here we are with staff recommending

[1:30:18] that we not go over budget on this and push it to next year. For those who are

[1:30:22] concerned that it could be more money next year, I chaired operations in 2015.

[1:30:27] 2015 I think we paved about an extra six kilometers or probably somewhere on the

[1:30:31] order of 18 to 20% more kilometers than we had budgeted because oil had

[1:30:36] declined. Ultimately it is imprecise ratio though there is a connection

[1:30:42] between the AC index and the price of oil. There is a one ratio on the fuel

[1:30:47] search charge and what fuel is. And in the outreach uh that I had from uh the

[1:30:53] low bidder uh what I suggested is in 2015 there were structural issues that

[1:30:58] were driving and depressing the price of a barrel of oil. It's entirely man-made

[1:31:04] today. It could end tomorrow. As far as the president of the United

[1:31:09] States is concerned, it's ended 10 times already. It'll probably end three times

[1:31:14] this week before it's up. So I would say that if that in fact it

[1:31:20] is somewhat rolling the dice to push this project to 2027

[1:31:27] keeping in mind that we have a margin of $600,000 from what we thought it would

[1:31:30] cost. But there is the least risk. Uh it is

[1:31:35] said I think that the blackjack table favors the house the least uh at the

[1:31:40] casinos. This is the blackjack table. uh there are some pretty substantial odds

[1:31:45] [snorts] uh that this might uh might come in cheaper next year as far as our

[1:31:48] capacity to councelor Emo's comments this is a done deal like unless we're

[1:31:53] changing the scope all of the preliminary work is done uh last comment

[1:31:58] and again to correct the record uh when councelor Mayville had suggested that

[1:32:01] the the um Thomas the 125,000 that's a whole separate line item the very top

[1:32:07] line is on page 359 of the agenda report it clearly shows that The budget for the

[1:32:12] construction of this was just under 2.3 million. The bid was just under 2.9.

[1:32:19] That can't be changed. It's 610,000 on the total project. A couple of things

[1:32:24] or one thing that certainly mitigated against it as is common practice.

[1:32:28] Everybody in the room I think understands when we are tendering these

[1:32:31] we have a 10% contingency. So on top of the the um the uh uh initial budget,

[1:32:38] there was 10% of that contingency, we lower that to 5%. So we've actually

[1:32:44] diminished the overage on this by $83,000

[1:32:49] by changing it from 10 to 5. Otherwise, we're up at about a $750,000

[1:32:54] overage on this. So all of these things are still the

[1:32:59] compelling thing that it might cost us more next year with respect to monies

[1:33:05] that may be available this year. How much of that is actually deferred work

[1:33:09] like carryover work? We're not saving money. We're just not spending it,

[1:33:14] right? We're going to we're going to fix the the deck uh surrounding the house

[1:33:18] even though the roof's been leaking for 3 years because because uh we just don't

[1:33:24] have the money for it this year. We're not saving that money. It's allocated.

[1:33:28] If we spend that money that we are saving, then we're going to have to tax

[1:33:33] for it again next year. We will have spent the money for projects that we

[1:33:36] have funded. Uh my my colleague to my right here has two roads in Deep River

[1:33:42] uh that are funded right now. Um so that's where we're saving the money.

[1:33:49] almost every project, every road project on this year's uh roster is over budget.

[1:33:56] The proponent uh the actual low bidder on this uh has uh was the successful uh

[1:34:03] bidder on seven of the capital projects. Across those seven capital projects, it

[1:34:09] was just under 400,000. All of them are over budget and we still carried forward

[1:34:12] with them. if and and and I think it was something

[1:34:16] on the order of about 5% was our total overage on those seven. If in fact Round

[1:34:23] Lake goes forward, it will now be eight. But the overage goes from 5% to 10%.

[1:34:30] That's a pretty substantial jump. So I don't have that crystal ball either, but

[1:34:35] I do know that this is substantially over. And

[1:34:41] what is the risk of pushing it? Yeah, the risk is not that it's going to cost

[1:34:45] the same thing. That's no risk. We'd spend the same next year as we would

[1:34:49] spend this year. The risk is that it might be more.

[1:34:53] But I have I have uh some certainty that there is a value even in establishing

[1:35:01] that we are fiscally responsible in this room. For all of you rateayers at home,

[1:35:07] uh this is the appropriate decision. I treat this much like I treat uh replays

[1:35:12] in professional sports. The call on the field was to defer this. There'd better

[1:35:17] be some compelling evidence [snorts] uh to suggest that we change our minds

[1:35:22] from that and I have heard none in the room.

[1:35:25] » Okay. Thank you. Uh member from Greater Madawaska, please.

[1:35:29] » Thank you. And I'll be quick. Warden, uh to Mr. Perkins, um just wondering, do we

[1:35:34] have a vehicle count per day that uses this road? Secondly, do we know what is

[1:35:41] the uh average type of vehicles, whether it be large commercial um vehic um

[1:35:47] motorcycle, regular cars, whatever. And then I'm just going to go one further.

[1:35:52] Have we received complaints from the residents about accidents or or or

[1:35:57] damage to their vehicles on these things? I'm just going back to safety

[1:36:00] issue again. >> Uh thank you. And through you wouldn't

[1:36:04] take me some time to compile that, but no. Uh we haven't had any we haven't I

[1:36:08] have not heard any direct complaints on that road for for you know for that

[1:36:13] situation but uh but as for the average daily traffic numbers and that'll take

[1:36:17] me a little while to get that put together for you.

[1:36:21] » Okay. Uh member from Madawaska Valley please.

[1:36:24] » Yes. Uh Warden I just want to be on record here. Um I'm not a fan of

[1:36:29] deferring any projects. I think we got uh very competitive uh bids and local

[1:36:36] businesses and uh I really like I said you you don't win with deferring any

[1:36:41] project as far as I'm concerned. >> Thank you.

[1:36:45] » Thank you. Is there anything member from Renfruit please?

[1:36:48] » Yeah I just uh we've talked about this a lot. So just in terms of should this

[1:36:53] motion be defeated then is there the opportunity to make a

[1:36:58] motion for this project to go forward or does that have to go back to committee

[1:37:02] or what's the process? I want to make sure understand procedurally and I think

[1:37:06] everybody else may need to understand that.

[1:37:08] » I think through you and I think our staff understands if this motion is

[1:37:11] defeated then that means that you've accepted the the the lower bid will be

[1:37:14] accepted and uh it will go ahead. I mean but but the the issue now is that we

[1:37:22] have um we would have brought this to committee uh and identified how this is

[1:37:29] going to be paid for. This goes beyond delegated authority as it's outside of

[1:37:33] budget. >> Uh wait yeah 20 28.66%

[1:37:38] or whatever you referenced earlier uh 88. Um the understanding is that the the

[1:37:43] the project would go ahead. Um we would have to seek a a a resolution

[1:37:51] [gasps] for uh from council. Then it would be it would then direct staff to

[1:37:55] to accept the lowest tender. Um,

[1:38:01] yeah, I'm just trying to find out what that resolution would be, but would be

[1:38:04] to accept the the the quotation or the the RFP response from BEI incorporated

[1:38:09] and that funds be taken from I mean typically we won't even talk

[1:38:14] about where the funds would be taken from. We we determine that at the end of

[1:38:17] the year when we determine if there's a surplus or not. It's just that that

[1:38:19] council resolution is that you accept the lowest bid.

[1:38:23] » Thank you. A member from Laurentinian Lurentin Hills, sorry.

[1:38:29] Sorry, I got all >> Thank you, [clears throat] Warden. Um, I

[1:38:32] can't remember. Are we able to move up another project? Should this be

[1:38:36] deferred? Are we able to move up an any other project that was not on the

[1:38:40] original list? Yeah,

[1:38:43] » that sorry that was in the resolution that was that we would we would move

[1:38:47] forward sorry through your word is that the resolution states that we don't do

[1:38:50] this and then we would identify other microservicing um jobs that were due to

[1:38:56] be completed in 2027. Microsurfacing is easy doesn't it's easy. Yeah, I say that

[1:39:01] cuz I don't do it. Uh microservicing is a project that doesn't require

[1:39:05] designing, right? microservicing can just be tendered and and the the

[1:39:09] proponent would go out and do that if they should win. Uh and it doesn't

[1:39:13] require design work. This because of design work requires planning to do

[1:39:16] that. So uh a 2027 project of similar or equal value to to some amount and that

[1:39:23] report would come back to you in two weeks directly to council on what

[1:39:26] projects would be in the microservicing world be brought forward um that would

[1:39:32] be essentially come out of next year's budget. Right? So there would be some

[1:39:36] room to accept this project next year if those projects move into this year.

[1:39:41] » What he said. >> So to be clear, we are not next year. We

[1:39:46] do not have to again bump another project should we defer this because

[1:39:51] some of the work scheduled for next year is actually going to be done this year.

[1:39:56] [clears throat] >> So sorry, you're still over budget,

[1:39:58] right? If Well, you're going to retender this project, right? You're probably

[1:40:02] you'll likely resculpt this project. retender it and there may be again

[1:40:07] crystal balling it you you run the risk of being overbudget or on budget or

[1:40:12] under budget right that's the risk you take I think the reference was made of

[1:40:15] rolling the dice and that that is definitely the case

[1:40:19] » so I've still got a lot of hands up we've been at this a long time and I see

[1:40:24] some people that want to take a break so would you like to take a break now and

[1:40:29] come back or do you want I'm getting finish this fine

[1:40:34] Uh I've got the member from Renfruit and the member from Abston Bramley.

[1:40:39] » And I you know I apologize for hammering on this but what is do we have a sense

[1:40:44] of what the remedial when we talk about the um the interimm works ashalt padding

[1:40:50] guard rail repair repair and replacement. Do we have an an idea what

[1:40:55] that cost is that's going to be pulled out of operations for this year?

[1:41:00] » Mr. Perkins. Thank you, Warden. And through you, uh, no, we don't have it

[1:41:04] because we've not we don't know what the resolution is going to be here today, so

[1:41:08] we haven't done an actual estimate. >> Member for Adam Bramley.

[1:41:16] » A couple of things. First off, I think uh, correct me if I'm wrong, councelor

[1:41:20] Gardini. I think what I think it was inferred uh, that it was this road. I

[1:41:26] think what councelor Gardini was talking about is what we desri discussed uh when

[1:41:29] we when we deferred the deep river projects. Could we in fact then

[1:41:34] resurrect the Palmer road project uh that there would be an alternative road

[1:41:39] perhaps where we could spend these monies and advance a project from the

[1:41:42] future amp into this year. Perhaps I am wrong. Uh I am getting the nod that is

[1:41:47] so I'm presuming that that we're in June now. Uh, Palmer Road I think was the

[1:41:53] only one that was relatively shovel ready and I don't think there's anything

[1:41:56] else on the roster on that. Uh the other the the main comment that I want that I

[1:42:02] put my hand up for though was in in all previous uh tenders where they've been

[1:42:08] over budget and on most of the road works they have been there is has been a

[1:42:14] comment attached with each of them saying that staff are confident the

[1:42:17] savings in in other areas can pay for these. Staff are now saying we do not

[1:42:23] believe that. So I don't think I I do think that we would have to allocate

[1:42:29] that that uh where the funds would come from because if in fact it was [snorts]

[1:42:36] it was the the fuel search charge and AC index that boosted Round Lake

[1:42:44] then it's going to boost all of the other projects cuz they're contained

[1:42:48] within what they bid on was an AC index of this what they're what ultimately

[1:42:52] they will be paid for is what the AC index index is I assume at the time that

[1:42:55] the ashalt is put down. So I do not believe that there are

[1:43:01] monies sufficient in our capital budget to pay for this overage. And I think

[1:43:05] that uh if in fact the resolution is defeated to defer this then it does

[1:43:11] return to that in fact then we would go forward with this but then the component

[1:43:17] of that is where will we fund it because this is unfunded and we need to do that

[1:43:24] because otherwise we're lame duck. I expect that this would be done before

[1:43:28] nomination day anyway, but that looms in 2026 where it wouldn't loom in other

[1:43:33] years as well. I I would suggest that we do uh need to identify where the funds

[1:43:38] would be drawn from. Okay,

[1:43:44] with that anything member from Renfruit?

[1:43:48] » I think we probably need a recorded vote, please.

[1:43:52] » Thank you. >> Oh, Mr. Perkins.

[1:43:55] » Yeah, my apologies. The average daily traffic on County Road 58 is 2,431 cars

[1:44:01] per day. Yeah. Unfortunately, I can't tell you which, but but as you know, it

[1:44:05] is a major hauling route for for our logging companies.

[1:44:12] » Pardon me. >> Four trips are Gwen and I

[1:44:14] » Oh, yeah. Yeah. Four of those trips are Gwen and Craig coming from the bay. A

[1:44:21] member from Gil, Lou Hagerty, and Richards.

[1:44:24] Well, thank you for all the conversation. This has been really

[1:44:28] enlightening. Um, if let's hope or whatever this gets

[1:44:33] deferred. Uh, would we basically have a budget amount of

[1:44:39] 2600 $2.6 $6 million and whatever the amount is that we're going to have to re

[1:44:46] put repairs back into that road um

[1:44:51] that will still have to be repaired the following year if it gets moved to the

[1:44:55] following year. Having said that, so we have a bucket of $2.6 million.

[1:45:03] Is there a possibility that the scope of the project could be

[1:45:08] changed to do per se half the road or an just a section of the road just like the

[1:45:15] first part of the project was that was done 2.52 is that a possibility as

[1:45:21] opposed to just no it's not being done this year.

[1:45:24] » Okay. So number one the repairs to the road once again that Mr. Perkins said

[1:45:29] are being taken out of a different budget. The budget for this will be the

[1:45:34] budget for next year. The second uh question which is what the member from

[1:45:40] Renfruit asked is can we change the scope? We can but we would have to

[1:45:46] retender.

[1:45:53] Okay. Now are we ready with the recorded? Oh, they're ready. All right.

[1:45:57] Would the clerk please call the vote?

[1:46:03] Member from Laurentian Hills. >> Just for clarification, we are voting

[1:46:08] whether we are still in favor of deferring this.

[1:46:11] » That is correct. Thank you for doing that. I should have done that.

[1:46:18] » Councelor Emo. >> Uh I'm opposed.

[1:46:24] » Councelor Gardini >> in favor.

[1:46:28] Councelor Grills in favor.

[1:46:35] » Councelor Lynch. >> Opposed.

[1:46:41] » Councelor Mayville >> opposed.

[1:46:47] » Warden Murphy >> in favor.

[1:46:52] » Councelor Nicholson >> in favor.

[1:46:59] Councelor Service >> in favor.

[1:47:03] » Councelor Shoulist >> opposed.

[1:47:12] Councelor Watt >> in favor.

[1:47:18] » Counselor where >> opposed.

[1:47:23] Councelor

[1:47:29] Bros >> in favor.

[1:47:34] » Councelor Doncaster >> in favor.

[1:47:37] » And councelor Donahghue >> in favor.

[1:47:45] The motion passes at 118 votes to 72. >> Thank you for that. Uh, so it is 11:12

[1:47:54] a.m. I would suggest that we be back in our seats at 11:25, Peace.

[2:01:41] Welcome back everyone. Uh there are no consent items. Uh and now I'm going to

[2:01:45] turn this over to Mr. Belmore with his staff report.

[2:01:49] » Thank you madam morning and good morning county council. The recommendation this

[2:01:53] morning is that county council approve the ratification and adoption of

[2:01:56] employment bylaw number three concerning the collective agreement with the

[2:01:59] Ontario Nurses Association ONA and its local 049 county of Renfruit Bonnes

[2:02:04] Manor and Mirmishi Lodge for a 2-year contract term effective from April 1223

[2:02:09] to March 31, 2022 and that bylaw number 128-21 be repealed.

[2:02:14] » Thank you. May I have a mover and secondary to get it on the floor,

[2:02:17] please? Moved by the member from Greater Metawaska, second by the member from

[2:02:20] Renfruit. Background discussion. >> Thank you. And as uh the background

[2:02:25] indicates here, uh council uh previously authorized us to enter into negotiations

[2:02:30] to prevent going to interest arbitration based on advice from uh legal counsel

[2:02:34] and other arbitrated settlements that had been reached. And we were able to

[2:02:38] get a 2-year deal with ONA. uh they you know they were happy that we were

[2:02:42] looking for a 4-year deal originally but they have other asks other than just the

[2:02:45] monetary items supposedly to come for that 2-year period. So actually as part

[2:02:49] of the minutes of settlement for this negotiation we've agreed to already

[2:02:53] enter right into the next round of negotiations. So we are continuing

[2:02:57] negotiations for the fact we're expired already for this ratification. Um,

[2:03:05] I think it covers everything in the background that we we met the directives

[2:03:09] set by council which were uh to match hospital central and uh we'll get this

[2:03:14] in place and keep bargaining and bring you back an update in the near future

[2:03:18] I'm sure. >> Thank you. Comments, questions,

[2:03:21] concerns? Seeing none, all in favor? Thank you,

[2:03:25] councel. Um, and Gwen, do you want me just to read this resolution? Yeah. Uh,

[2:03:31] so I have a resolution that council approve amending the committee structure

[2:03:35] bylaw 36-26 to reflect the name change of the

[2:03:38] Renfruit County Forest Sector Committee and that bylaw 36-26

[2:03:43] be repealed. May I have a mover and secondary please? Moved by the member

[2:03:47] from North Wilburfor, second by the member from Headclair Mariah.

[2:03:50] Discussion. It is just a housekeeping item. All in favor? Thank you councel.

[2:03:56] We have no close session. Uh we have no reports from external boards. We have no

[2:04:01] notices of motions. We have no written motions. Do we have any announcements?

[2:04:07] Member from Gilu Hagerty and Richards, please.

[2:04:09] » Thank you, chair. Um I passed out a bunch of documents prior to the meeting

[2:04:14] and uh summertime events that are happening Kill Hagerty Richards this

[2:04:19] this summer. So hopefully we'll see you there.

[2:04:21] » Lovely. Thank you. Member from Greater Madawaska.

[2:04:24] » Yeah, just quickly through you warden. Uh, I just want to say we had our

[2:04:28] guitars and gasoline uh concert out in Calabogi this weekend and the rain did

[2:04:35] not deter anyone. However, I do want to point out something that uh that I

[2:04:41] noticed that happened there. We had a lightning strike about a kilometer away

[2:04:48] and there was an orders order put out to evacuate by Chief Nolan's crew and

[2:04:57] this the staff the volunteers the staff and all of the people that were

[2:05:01] attending it was it was they just flowed out. Everything flew they flowed out to

[2:05:08] their cars. They they took shelter quick and a lot of that had to do with our

[2:05:13] paramedics. Our paramedics had drones in the air with speakers

[2:05:19] advising people that there is a hazard and that they need to seek shelter

[2:05:25] immediately and the use of those drones and the

[2:05:30] volunteer and the organizers uh Tracy and Jay who were running it and

[2:05:37] I'll shout out to them. They had their volunteers get everybody out of there

[2:05:41] and he I think Chief Nolan could attest that I've I've I was a police officer

[2:05:47] and I went I a lot of concerts and a lot of things emptied out. This flowed so

[2:05:51] well and I I want to thank the paramedics for those drones that I did

[2:05:55] not know had speakers that were that loud, but people even that were partying

[2:06:00] and they could hear it. So, thank you Chief Nolan and the paramedics and

[2:06:03] Sierra team for being there. >> How lovely of you to share that with us.

[2:06:07] It's sort of the modernday air raid siren

[2:06:10] » right >> through drones. Thank you, Chief Nolan

[2:06:13] and to all of your crew. That's really neat story. Uh do we have any

[2:06:19] other announcements? Member from Pedawa, please.

[2:06:23] » Thank you, Warden. Uh civic center days in Pedawa take place this weekend.

[2:06:27] There's a craft beer festival on Saturday and on Friday the Pedawa Sports

[2:06:32] and Entertainment Hall of Fame has their 2026 induction ceremony. Allison Aman, a

[2:06:38] Commonwealth game swimmer, Hec Clue, harness driver and marathoner

[2:06:42] extraordinaire. Glenn Douglas, a former CFL player, and the legendary

[2:06:48] entertainer Tom Green. Tickets are only $5. Food is served. Live entertainment,

[2:06:53] fun for the whole family. >> Thank you. There's actually a write up

[2:06:57] about all three of them and the leader today. Uh, anything any other

[2:07:01] announcements? uh member from Deep River.

[2:07:06] » Uh thank you Warden. Um not really an announcement but not a

[2:07:11] report but uh um just I think everybody knows I was at the FCM uh annual

[2:07:18] conference uh last week. Um I just wanted to point out that um councelor

[2:07:26] Tim Tierney from Ottawa is now the president of FCM.

[2:07:31] Um Tim's been involved with FCM for probably 15 years or so. Um

[2:07:38] so that was that. I will put together a report, a written report uh for my

[2:07:43] colleagues. Um one I just wanted to point out one thing. I did um at the

[2:07:49] opening of the uh conference, there was an indigenous market that was set up and

[2:07:54] I was able to purchase a um a wood carving of a of a an arrow head, but

[2:08:02] inside the arrow head is engraved a bear's face. It is the coolest thing.

[2:08:07] I'll bring it I well, I have a picture, but I'll bring it in and show everybody.

[2:08:11] It's just as soon as I saw it. Um I have seven or eight um artist drawings of

[2:08:17] bears in my house. So when I saw this thing I had to buy it. But one of the

[2:08:22] things I noticed in at at uh at the conference um and in Edmonton proper is

[2:08:29] um the sign and and it's it's due to probably the percentage of of um the

[2:08:36] percentage of the general population that is indigenous. But um everything

[2:08:42] that happens, every step you take uh whether it was at the conference or it's

[2:08:47] in the city has an indigenous component to it. It's just it's

[2:08:53] indigenous culture is part of culture. That's what it is. [snorts] And

[2:09:00] it doesn't matter what you do. Um, and that's what it's something that I

[2:09:06] found completely um different than here. Um, and I I say

[2:09:13] I I do believe it's it's because of the the percentage of the population. Um,

[2:09:19] but it was um um it was really nice to see it and and

[2:09:24] it like I said, it didn't matter doesn't matter what you do, there's something

[2:09:28] indigenous about it in Edmonton. So anyway, I'll leave it at that for now.

[2:09:33] » Thank you for sharing that. Uh any other announcements?

[2:09:38] Uh don't forget we're having our drone show on Canada Day as opposed to

[2:09:42] fireworks if anybody wants to come. Oh, member from Deep River.

[2:09:46] » Your drone show is not the first drone show in Redford County because Deep

[2:09:50] River had one two years ago >> and I confirmed with your mayor, not on

[2:09:55] Canada Day. We're the first Canada Day drone show. I Oh, I I confirmed because

[2:10:01] I thought maybe >> kids.

[2:10:04] [laughter]

[2:10:07] Mom and dad, don't fight. >> All right. Uh, is there any new

[2:10:12] business? Seeing none, I have a resolution that

[2:10:17] bylaws listed be deemed read three times and passed. May I have a mover and

[2:10:20] seconder, please? Moved by the member from Arm Prior, second by the member

[2:10:23] from Pedawa. All in favor? And I have a bylaw to confirm the

[2:10:29] proceedings of the council of the county of Renfruit at the meeting hel-6

[2:10:35] being a bylaw to confirm the proceedings of the council of the county of Renfruit

[2:10:38] at the meeting held on June 10th, 2026 be now deemed read three times and

[2:10:44] passed. May I have a mover and second moved by the member from Kilu Hagerty

[2:10:47] and Richards, seconded by the member from Greater Madawaska. All in favor and

[2:10:53] a resolution that county council adjourn at 11:35 a.m. May I have a mover and

[2:10:58] seconder? Moved by the member from Laurentian

[2:11:02] Hills, second by the member from Whitewater. All in favor. Thank you,

[2:11:07] councel. And we will begin health committee in five minutes.

[2:16:58] Uh thank you everyone for your patience. Uh we are going to reconvene uh as the

[2:17:03] health committee. I'm calling the meeting to order. It is 11:41.

[2:17:07] Uh I would invite first Miss Van Starkenberg. Has the role been called

[2:17:11] please? >> Yes. Thank you chair. We have quorum.

[2:17:14] » Outstanding. Thank you. Uh, I would invite disclosure of pecuniary interest

[2:17:18] and if there is any, the general nature thereof, please.

[2:17:22] Uh, the chair recognizes none. With that, I'd seek a motion to adopt the

[2:17:26] minutes of the health committee meeting held May 13th, 2026, please. Uh,

[2:17:32] councelor Bros. seconded by councelor Pcell. Any errors or omissions?

[2:17:40] All in favor? Those are carried. Uh, I would seek a motion that the board of

[2:17:45] health minutes for March 31st, 2026 be received, please. Uh, councelor Weir,

[2:17:51] seconded by councelor Mayville. Um, we do have several members of the board of

[2:17:56] health present. If there are any questions or comments?

[2:18:00] I see there are none. All in favor? That is carried as well. Um,

[2:18:08] I'll complete this. Uh, there are no delegations and presentations. There is

[2:18:11] however a change to our agenda this morning. Uh there is a very

[2:18:16] time-sensitive issue uh that has has come up that is requiring us uh to move

[2:18:20] into a closed session. And as part of this closed session, uh Chief Nolan

[2:18:25] actually has a meeting uh that is going to be conflicting with us in short time

[2:18:29] frame. Uh so I am going to advance the close session to the front of this

[2:18:35] meeting. Uh whereupon we will recommence then at item number six. But in order to

[2:18:40] to receive this closed session, which did come after the uh agenda were

[2:18:45] circulated within that time frame, I'd now seek a motion to suspend the rules

[2:18:49] procedure moved by councelor Nicholson, seconded by councelor Watt. Uh all in

[2:18:54] favor that is carried. So with that then um bear with me. I'm going to have to go

[2:19:00] back to the uh the email then Ms. Van Stark for the wording here.

[2:19:20] Uh, sorry. Do bear with me.

[2:19:28] » Oh, Lord. Uh, my computer's freezing up again. Uh, I wonder if someone would be

[2:19:32] so kind as to read. Oh, Miss Van Starkerberg, if you could read the

[2:19:36] resolution and I will seek a motion then.

[2:19:40] » Yes. Thank you, chair. That pursuant to section 2392 of the Municipal Act 2001

[2:19:46] as amended, the health committee move into a closed session for the following

[2:19:50] reason. I a trade secret or scientific, technical, commercial, financial or

[2:19:55] labor labor relations information supplied in confidence to the

[2:19:59] municipality or local board which if disclosed could reasonably be expected

[2:20:04] to pre prejudice significantly the compet competitive position or interfere

[2:20:10] significantly with the contractual or other negotiations of a person, group of

[2:20:16] persons or organization. and it's for the

[2:20:21] » for the

[2:20:24] paramedic programs.

[2:20:26] » Okay. Thank you very much. Uh you've heard the resolution. I'd seek a mover.

[2:20:30] Councelor Lynch, seconded by councelor Shoulist. Um any question? All in favor?

[2:20:37] We are enclosed.

[2:52:34] Uh thank you everyone for your patience. Excuse [clears throat] me. Uh we are out

[2:52:39] of closed. However, lunch is here. So we are going to recess uh until 12:45.

[2:52:44] I just want to remind everyone in this room and those that may be streaming uh

[2:52:48] we will be picking up business at item number six on our agenda. That is

[2:52:52] communications. When we return.

[3:23:24] Uh, welcome back everyone. We're just slightly delayed. It is 12:48. We are

[3:23:28] picking up where we left off. And as committee will recall, uh, where we left

[3:23:32] off was at item six, communications. Uh, it is the Ministry of Long-Term Care

[3:23:37] spring bulletin and a co-ayment update. Uh the recommendation is that the

[3:23:42] communications be received as information. I would seek a motion

[3:23:44] please. Uh councelor bro seconded by councelor Weir. Any questions?

[3:23:50] [sighs and gasps] All in favor? That is carried. Uh moving

[3:23:54] on to consent reports there. And as item number seven and uh as always we will

[3:24:00] begin uh with Mr. Quaid uh the long-term care consent report. It can be found on

[3:24:04] page eight.

[3:24:08] Thank you chair. through you to committee. Uh item number one is just

[3:24:12] the Ministry of Long-Term Care Inspection Statistics. As you can

[3:24:16] remember, about four months ago, I brought some numbers from 2024 and 2023.

[3:24:25] [clears throat] Excuse me. These are releasing uh the 2025 statistics. Uh key

[3:24:31] highlights would be uh just that they are increasing their frequency which

[3:24:37] we've said here again at health committee on numerous times. Uh the top

[3:24:41] issues remain the same this year related to uh

[3:24:46] abuse and uh infection control, excuse [clears throat] me. And uh the

[3:24:54] monetary uh penalties seem to be issued more frequently now uh because there is

[3:25:02] no uh voluntary corrective action. It's either you receive an order or uh you

[3:25:08] are compliant with the act. Uh number two is the Ministry of Long-Term Care

[3:25:16] Inspection Reports. These reports we only received because again as you

[3:25:20] remember uh a couple months ago we had an inspector and there was a bit of an

[3:25:24] issue with the inspector. So there was a delay in receiving these reports. The

[3:25:29] first one was related to a family member where we had received some

[3:25:33] documentation. It was in the moment. It was video

[3:25:37] surveillance and we did not feel it constituted a uh report of abuse or

[3:25:42] neglect. However, the family reached out to the ministry who came in and said we

[3:25:47] should have reported it. So, they uh give us gave us a written notification.

[3:25:52] Uh the second incident uh was related to a plan of care that hadn't been updated

[3:25:59] uh in a timely manner and then an infection control issue which uh they

[3:26:04] observed a staff member not wearing proper PPE to protect themselves when

[3:26:09] they were performing a medical procedure. And uh on the 28th of April,

[3:26:16] uh there were no findings of non-compliance. They came in to uh

[3:26:23] interview or investigate an alleged uh verbal and emotional abuse by a resident

[3:26:28] or from a resident. Uh and during this time, they also reviewed four of our

[3:26:34] programs as well, and there were no findings of non-compliance.

[3:26:40] And lastly, this one I think I've brought up previously. It was related to

[3:26:45] administering a medication to a family or resident. We allowed a family member

[3:26:51] to administer the medication. However, when the resident is within the home, uh

[3:26:57] they want us to ensure that the actual staff is the one who witnesses

[3:27:03] or actually administers the medication. Uh so unfortunately our staff member had

[3:27:09] given the medication to uh the power of attorney and they administered the

[3:27:14] medication but they did not stay and observe the pills going down the

[3:27:18] resident's throat. So therefore uh we uh got an order which is kind of funny

[3:27:24] because we do send them home with medications over a weekend in a lunch

[3:27:27] bag and then they come back after the weekend. So, a little frustrating but uh

[3:27:32] it is a written notification. And then uh number three lastly is a delegated

[3:27:39] authority and this was uh for our grounds contract. So we've had uh JWK

[3:27:46] contractors for the past couple of years and they've been doing an excellent job.

[3:27:51] We did uh have a some bids submitted. There was a previous contractor who uh

[3:27:58] unfortunately we had to break contract with in 2021 who had submitted a lower

[3:28:04] bid. Uh however, given the fact we had to cancel the contract in 2021, we are

[3:28:11] uh requesting to go with the higher bid even though uh or sorry and that's uh

[3:28:18] under policy GA01 and it is because of the performance

[3:28:24] that they did not meet uh our contract. So uh it's still within budget and it

[3:28:30] was about an $11,000 difference. Thanks.

[3:28:35] » Thank you. Excuse [clears throat] me. Thank you very much, Mr. Quaid. Uh,

[3:28:38] returning to item number one, questions or comments committee,

[3:28:43] item two, and finally item three.

[3:28:49] Seeing none, we'll go directly then to Deputy Chief Gier if you would be so

[3:28:53] kind as to take us through the emergency services consent report.

[3:28:57] » Thank you, chair, to your committee. Um item number one EOP communicationary

[3:29:03] assistation uh for life saving. Uh so we have some member of the county ranch for

[3:29:08] primary services here team Matt Kru Sea Doyle and Devin Kenan. Uh were recently

[3:29:15] recognized for the AOP commission station of lifeing acknowledgement. Uh

[3:29:20] this happened in June last year. Uh if you guys remember uh sever storm in the

[3:29:26] along park uh we responded with uh all our partner like the provincial

[3:29:33] uh art team, the Ontario park staff, the ministry of natural resource aviation

[3:29:38] services and [clears throat] the patient family. Um and with all of us working

[3:29:45] together we managed to extricate and treat that patient and now is um is in

[3:29:53] good health. Uh so this recognition highlight the professionalism the

[3:29:58] clinical expertise and teamwork demonstrating for all the frontline

[3:30:02] staff that was involved in that in that incident.

[3:30:07] Point number two, uh, point of care ultrasound. The county of Ran through

[3:30:12] has implementing the point of care ultrasound, uh, through the community

[3:30:18] permit program and we're expanding through our service. Um, we also partner

[3:30:24] with the Entro Health to expand the knowledge through um, multiple services

[3:30:30] throughout the province. So far we have um trained over 42 participant over 12

[3:30:39] different services across the province. Um doing this course they need to

[3:30:44] prompter and do a lot of scanning to make sure they meet their competency. Um

[3:30:50] and is a partnership with uh here in Penrook with the uh the Algo College

[3:30:55] where we use our lab to make sure we have a nice simulation and all that. uh

[3:31:01] for a bigger picture. Um this technology also can uh help support

[3:31:09] the uh long-term facility where we can start using some of that technology to

[3:31:14] uh uh prevent some transportation for some patient that we that need per say a

[3:31:19] CT scan or an X-ray to there some some scan we can do to prevent that. Uh the

[3:31:26] course was well received about 94% of um satisfaction with high value of

[3:31:34] extensive and on practice knowledgeable instructor and good feedback throughout

[3:31:40] the the course. Um item number three medic connect. Uh

[3:31:46] we're start working with a company called Axon Border Warm. Um, and what

[3:31:54] we're trying to accomplish is to uh use that technology to be able to transcribe

[3:32:00] and use that tool to actually reduce the burden of the administrative uh

[3:32:05] component of documentation. Uh, also the the cognitive load on the parame

[3:32:15] quality of patient care that we we're offering. We're trying to work

[3:32:20] throughout all the different policies and uh privacy issue where we're working

[3:32:26] with our the department make sure it meet all the regulated and the

[3:32:31] compliance for the corporation. Um we're also working um

[3:32:38] uh one sec.

[3:32:44] Uh to make sure that you know all the consent and privacy and the record

[3:32:48] retention is are all in practice. Um we're also going to make sure that we

[3:32:53] have a strong evaluation in place. Uh because we're leading the front with

[3:32:58] that technology. So we want to make sure that our technology is is well evaluated

[3:33:04] to make sure that we can replicate and uh probably publish some of that work

[3:33:08] that we're doing. Um item number four uh flood response uh

[3:33:16] permic services update. So the level of the water has decreased and declined.

[3:33:22] We're under the minor flooding threshold. Um and we um we want to just

[3:33:30] make sure that we thanks all the the responsive municipality and partner uh

[3:33:35] that are that was strong caliber calibrator and professionalism

[3:33:39] throughout the the flooding season. Um all the coronation respond across all

[3:33:45] the region play an important role supporting community and safety of of

[3:33:49] all res residents and well-being um throughout the county. So

[3:33:57] um item number five medication buyout program. So we started working with a

[3:34:02] self-rescript uh soft um return program. Uh and this has gave us a a really good

[3:34:11] opportunity to return all our experation medication uh for a credit and so far we

[3:34:19] uh received three $3,200 of credit uh based on the the purchase of of

[3:34:25] medication. So if we continue that like over next year we hope to increase that

[3:34:31] credit. So it's say costsaving for logistic department.

[3:34:36] Item number six, the CR the CR team status uh update. So over the past 12

[3:34:44] months uh we have about 95 deployment across a range range of operational

[3:34:51] challenge. Uh we assess treat more than 278

[3:34:56] uh people. uh permit. We're providing high quality

[3:35:01] care uh extended from spring season to uh to the flood response to uh and we

[3:35:11] did about 277 uh wellness assessment during that flood

[3:35:16] response. Um and to make sure that everybody was safe in their home. uh

[3:35:20] they had all their medication and they didn't want need to be

[3:35:25] room from their own just from a safety perspective. We also were invi invited

[3:35:31] to Tiger X 2026 that was a large scale multi- agency training uh exercise at

[3:35:39] the CFB Trenton. Uh and we work with the coast guard uh the United State Coast

[3:35:45] Guard, the OP regist response team and the 424 scadrant. Uh this our team uh

[3:35:54] member train across land, air and water environment and this exercise uh

[3:36:00] strengthened our calibration and gave us um a better perspective around how to

[3:36:06] communicate in that complex multi-justal uh response.

[3:36:12] uh and give us some better tool to respond in our backyard in the in the

[3:36:17] along park.

[3:36:21] Item number seven, Ebola response. Um as you know Ebola is uh is an outbreak in

[3:36:30] Angada and you know the risk of travel. So, our uh dispatch center starting to

[3:36:37] start to screen and on travel history, potential contact uh and symptoms and

[3:36:45] all that information will be communicated to a paramedic as stirred

[3:36:49] last week and we want to make sure that all this is continue because the risk is

[3:36:54] is a potential uh even if you know we know that in nothing in Ontario or in

[3:36:58] Canada at this moment but uh the screening and to make sure that we have

[3:37:03] preventative measure in place that are important for our parame safety.

[3:37:08] And finally, uh item number eight, uh the parake service week was May 17 to

[3:37:15] May 23rd. Uh the county of participated in parake service week align with the

[3:37:22] Ontario association permit chief. Uh the theme this year was better care third

[3:37:27] year which highlight the trust compassionate and evolving role of

[3:37:31] primary into the healthcare. Uh we went through multiple different uh domain

[3:37:37] each day. So, Nlloxxone awareness, overdose response education, our peer

[3:37:43] support team uh for paramedic wellness, new uh new orientation and teamwork,

[3:37:50] community uh parame medicine in M and patient care uh partnership in RF county

[3:37:56] industry health. Um and I think that was successful and well received by the

[3:38:00] primary services this year.

[3:38:07] Thank you, chair. >> Thank you very much, uh, Deputy Chief,

[3:38:11] excuse me. [clears throat] Uh, committee, we will return to item

[3:38:14] number one found on page 10, the commissioner's citation. First off, uh

[3:38:18] please extend uh Deputy Chief Gier to um Mers Crusher

[3:38:24] Doyle and Keenan our commendation uh on on the actual rescue uh and the

[3:38:32] outstanding outcome but also on their being recognized by the um the

[3:38:36] commissioner. Uh any questions or comments?

[3:38:40] Uh item two, point of care ultrasound.

[3:38:46] Item three, the medic connect.

[3:38:51] Item four, the flood response.

[3:38:56] Item five, the medication buyback program. Councelor Service, then

[3:39:00] councelor emo. >> Thank you, chair, and through you. I'm

[3:39:04] just wondering who subsidizes this program, who's providing the funding for

[3:39:09] these credits for their expired medications and the credits once we get

[3:39:15] them. What does that allowed us to do with those credits?

[3:39:19] » Deputy chief, please. >> Thank you, chair.

[3:39:24] Through you. Um, so the the so we partner with Silvercript to purchase

[3:39:29] some medication uh at the moment. So everything that were in the permit bag

[3:39:36] um from you know treating a diabetic emergency to our old piece of medication

[3:39:41] that we carry. So uh silver script this year offer us a buyback uh perspective.

[3:39:50] I don't know where they get their money, but because we're purchasing medication

[3:39:55] from them when they capture all our expiration medication, they able to give

[3:40:00] us some credit on the future purchase of medication. So is net, you know, revenue

[3:40:06] for us because we need to purchase that medication anyway.

[3:40:12] » Cerebo, please. >> Thank you. So, this is not an invitation

[3:40:16] to uh people to bring their expired

[3:40:19] medication or medication unused to a paramedic station and

[3:40:23] » No, no. >> Good. Just wanted to be clear on that. I

[3:40:26] I assumed that, but it just looked too uh too inviting. Thank you.

[3:40:31] » Thank you, chair. >> Thank you. Anything further on item

[3:40:34] five? Item six, the Sierra team status update.

[3:40:42] Item seven, the Ebola virus. Councelor Service, please.

[3:40:46] » Thank you, Chair, and through you. I'm just wondering how we would know here

[3:40:50] [clears throat] in Renfruit County if there is somebody who's traveled to one

[3:40:53] of these affected countries and then have now entered Renfruit County. How

[3:40:58] are we able to track that? And are we going out to do any screening with any

[3:41:03] of these individuals? >> Deputy Chief.

[3:41:09] » Uh, thank you, Chair. you. Um this is a good question. Um I think the screening

[3:41:14] start from you know when they arrive to the country and after that uh each

[3:41:20] patient who entered the the country who has traveled to a certain area will be

[3:41:24] screened and be in quarantine. um that information will probably go to

[3:41:29] the public health of the region to make sure that they respect the quarantine

[3:41:33] and if they have to uh go to a hospital or be treated that's you know this is

[3:41:39] where the screening will start uh but you know from a screening and and I

[3:41:44] don't think that a region would be aware of where that person will go uh but they

[3:41:49] have like really strict standard in place from a quarantine and to uh ensure

[3:41:54] the symptom of any sort expand that regard.

[3:42:00] » Thank you. >> Thank you. Anything further?

[3:42:03] Uh one thing and I thought perhaps uh councelor service this uh might have

[3:42:07] been what you were bringing forward. Uh often and I shouldn't say that but I

[3:42:12] know that I was sitting on the board of health and I can't remember whether it

[3:42:15] was the 2014 outbreak or the 2018 2018 outbreak. uh but there was a a

[3:42:21] contingent from Garrison Pedawa actually traveled to and at that time I don't

[3:42:25] know I think it was perhaps Sierra Leone Liberia not positive of that u but there

[3:42:30] was a pretty substantial team uh medical team that was uh at that outbreak from

[3:42:37] Padawa so there was a direct vector I think often in Renfruit County we think

[3:42:41] we are uh insulated or indemnified from some of these these things that happen

[3:42:45] across the globe uh but in that instance there was you're unaware of any direct

[3:42:50] uh connection out of the garrison at this point.

[3:42:53] The council service let the record show that he is shaking his head. [laughter]

[3:42:58] » I forgot I had to put that on the record. I am unaware of any direct uh

[3:43:03] relationship with Garrison Pedaw and any of these.

[3:43:06] » Yeah. And and in fairness uh this was not like a confidential or a secret

[3:43:10] mission. I'm quite convinced that you would be aware and likely we would be

[3:43:14] aware. Uh but as uh the deputy chief has suggested our uh the vector by which we

[3:43:20] became aware was that there was a pretty substantial uh uh component uh to the

[3:43:28] return uh through public health and working with the uh the medical

[3:43:32] establishment uh in the garrison as well. So we will certainly be aware at

[3:43:35] the time if that comes up. Uh moving on then to finally to item number eight,

[3:43:41] the paramedic services week.

[3:43:45] Uh, I see none. Just bear with me. I would now seek uh that um motion that

[3:43:51] the communi uh sorry that's the wrong one. That the consent reports be

[3:43:54] received as information, please. Councelor Watt, seconded by councelor

[3:44:00] Service. All in favor? That is carried. Uh we have uh two discussion reports as

[3:44:08] well. So once again, Mr. uh you will kick things off with a

[3:44:12] long-term care discussion report please page 16. Thank you chair through you to

[3:44:17] committee. uh resolution uh multis sector service accountability agreement

[3:44:23] schedule F form of compliance and declaration recommendation that health

[3:44:28] committee recommends the county council authorize the warden and CAO to sign the

[3:44:34] schedule F declaration of compliance issued pursuant to the multis sector

[3:44:39] service accountability agreement for the county of Renfruit Bonishair manor

[3:44:44] senior adult day program >> thank you very much I'd seek a mover

[3:44:48] Councelor Bros. Seconded by Councelor Lynch. Background please.

[3:44:52] » Uh the background Bonire Manor has been operating a senior adult day program in

[3:44:57] Renfruit since February 1997. The program is available to residents in and

[3:45:03] around the communities Monday to Friday 8 to 4:00 p.m. Access into the day

[3:45:09] program is through the Ontario Health at home and uh for the continuation of

[3:45:14] funding the Bonoshair Manor senior adult day program. Ontario Health is

[3:45:19] requesting the signed schedule F declaration of compliance for the period

[3:45:24] of April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026 as attached.

[3:45:32] Thank you. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That is carried. Uh thank

[3:45:39] you. That was a single item from long-term care. I would turn once again

[3:45:43] Deputy Chief Gren for the emergency services discussion report, please.

[3:45:46] Thank you chair to committee. Um the bylaw is crossborder agreement uh for l

[3:45:53] county. Uh the recommendation is that el committee recommend that the county

[3:45:58] council adopt a bylaw to enter into land emulence crossber agreement between the

[3:46:04] county of r the corporation of the county of rainf to the corporation of

[3:46:08] county of lanarch for the provision and payment for land emulent services.

[3:46:14] » Uh thank you. Do I once again seek a mover please?

[3:46:18] Councelor Weir, seconded by councelor Doncastaster.

[3:46:22] Background please. So the background is the province is a seamless service

[3:46:26] delivery model. Uh what that mean is the closest available primary services

[3:46:32] regardless of the municipality boundary is required to respond to emergency

[3:46:36] call. Uh these crossborder response most commonly occur in a rural area uh where

[3:46:43] crew from a neighboring municipality are closer to the incident or um to the

[3:46:50] local resource are temporary unavailable due to increased call demand. Although

[3:46:55] the provincial legislation reconizes a cost sharing agreement for crossborder

[3:47:00] services ended in 2015, seven municipality including the county

[3:47:05] of Renfruit and the county of Lannarch have mbal agree uh to continue the

[3:47:11] practice. The proposed agreement is a 10-year term expiring in December 31

[3:47:19] 206. >> Uh thank you very much deputy chief.

[3:47:23] questions, comments. I'll start with councelor Doncaster, please.

[3:47:29] » Thank you, chair. Um, [clears throat]

[3:47:34] my first question was around um it's stated that I guess the the

[3:47:40] accounts are reconciled once a year kind of thing. Is there any historical data

[3:47:44] on how um how much how how many calls are being

[3:47:50] done in both directions? But I'm quite convinced the data exists. I don't know

[3:47:54] if it's been compiled. Uh, Deputy Chief. >> Yeah, the data exists. I don't have the

[3:48:00] the specific number with you. We're talking about about $15,000 a year uh in

[3:48:06] term of exchange of money. Uh, and so with the county of Lannarch and the

[3:48:10] county of Rent, we're both cost sharing. Uh, so we have a a plus minus $15,000.

[3:48:18] » Is it plus or is it minus? So, so we're charging some money to

[3:48:25] Lannarch and we're paying around $15,000 to Lannarch.

[3:48:30] » Okay. >> And follow up. Y

[3:48:33] » um same well same issue [clears throat] obviously. Um I'm just wondering if uh

[3:48:39] we uh quite some time ago we had an agreement with the city of Ottawa. Have

[3:48:44] we reopened that um can of worms and and

[3:48:49] tried to come up with an agreement with the city of Ottawa?

[3:48:54] » It's it's been difficult to find the can opener. Uh what I will say is that's

[3:48:58] consistent with what uh the deputy chief had identified. So in through to 2015 uh

[3:49:04] the ambulance act actually mandated uh that there be a financial

[3:49:09] reconciliation. We are obligated our paramedic services as uh all paramedic

[3:49:13] services right across the county are participating in the seamless delivery

[3:49:17] of emergency service. The province as a 50% funer 50% less whatever from last

[3:49:24] year. Um ultimately uh this is appropriate.

[3:49:29] It was unclear to anyone uh why the ambulance act in its in the amendment in

[3:49:37] 2015 removed uh that financial reconciliation be a

[3:49:42] mandate from this one. Uh I'm certainly am pleased uh that we continue to see uh

[3:49:50] paramedic services uh will do the proper and just uh and

[3:49:56] equitable thing whether we are told to do the proper and just and equitable

[3:50:01] thing or not.

[3:50:05] » Deputy chief you wish to add? >> Thank you chair um to you. Um

[3:50:12] so for the Ottawa situation uh we don't have an agreement with them at this this

[3:50:17] moment. Uh what we're uh working on or we've been working on is to reduce

[3:50:23] reliability in term of the number of call we do in in that region. uh we are

[3:50:28] reduced from our MPDS um response like the the color that we

[3:50:36] are uh responsible to respond in that municipality also the time uh frame of

[3:50:43] which we are responsible to go and and help in that region. So that remov like

[3:50:49] our responsibility to to do that. Um I can find more information if you require

[3:50:56] in that regard.

[3:50:59] » No,

[3:51:03] I'm I'm glad I gave you the opportunity to jump on your soap box on that issue,

[3:51:07] but uh no, I just wondered if we had reopened that concept to see if the city

[3:51:13] of Ottawa would pay. uh because that's pretty much pretty much a one-way street

[3:51:19] in that direction. So, [clears throat] >> so in in in fairness and as a reminder,

[3:51:24] uh MPDS, a medical priority dispatch system has substantially changed uh some

[3:51:32] of the pressures that we were experiencing.

[3:51:34] Uh there have been some other changes. One of the things with the seamlessness

[3:51:40] is the closest ambulance responds to a call. Uh where there is an an imbalance

[3:51:46] in this is typically uh there is much more transfer from

[3:51:50] Renfruit County or even direct bypass that is going directly into the city of

[3:51:54] Ottawa. So essentially if a county of Renfruit par um ambulance

[3:52:01] uh is at a hospital in Ottawa, it is effectively considered a city of Ottawa

[3:52:08] ambulance. If they are are uh utilizing substantial amount of their their

[3:52:14] ambulances or in a code zero where they have none available

[3:52:18] uh then our ambulances are considered their the city of Ottawa ambulances. So

[3:52:23] that that continues to be. So I'm I'm quite certain that there would be an

[3:52:27] imbalance there. But the the the irritant uh remains from 2015 there has

[3:52:34] not been a an an agreement a direct uh biparty agreement um with the city of

[3:52:41] Ottawa. Anything further?

[3:52:46] Uh all in favor? That is carried. Uh, I now seek a motion

[3:52:51] that the discussion reports be received as presented. Please, councelor Watt,

[3:52:56] seconded by councelor Gardini. Further and final opportunity for any question,

[3:53:01] comment. Seeing none, all in favor. That is

[3:53:05] carried. Thank you. Uh, there are no deferred reports. There are no verbal

[3:53:10] reports. There was in fact a closed session, but we did tend to that up

[3:53:14] front. Uh is there any other new is there any new or other business?

[3:53:21] Uh with that then I would seek a motion to adjourn with a recommendation being

[3:53:25] that this meeting adjourn and the next regular meeting be held on Wednesday

[3:53:29] August 12th 2026.

[3:53:34] Uh, councelor Weir, councelor Mayville, all in favor that is

[3:53:41] carried. And councelor Gardini, five minutes. Uh, so let's say uh 125 then

[3:53:48] that gives us 7 minutes. 125 sharp.

[4:03:03] Thank you. Uh good afternoon and welcome to the Renfruit County Housing

[4:03:06] Corporation Board annual general meeting. It is Wednesday, June 10th at

[4:03:12] 1:28. Um I'd like to call this meeting to

[4:03:15] order and Miss Van Starkenberg has roll call been taken.

[4:03:19] » Yes. Thank you, chair. And we have quorum.

[4:03:21] » Thank you. Are there any disclosures of pecuniary

[4:03:25] interest and general nature thereof?

[4:03:30] » Seeing none. Uh there are minutes a recommendation that the minutes of the

[4:03:35] April 8th, 2026 meeting be approved. Can I get a mover in a second, please? Moved

[4:03:40] by the member from North Ala Wilberforce. Second by the member from

[4:03:43] Martin Prior. Any errors or missions? Seeing none. All

[4:03:49] in favor? Carried.

[4:03:54] Delegations and presentations. Uh we will have two this afternoon. And the

[4:03:58] first one um I will ask um the chief operating officer, Miss Patrick, to

[4:04:04] introduce the delegation, please. >> Thank you very much, chair, and through

[4:04:07] you to the board. Good afternoon, everyone. It's my uh pleasure to invite

[4:04:12] uh Jennifer Drosski, community housing manager, and uh Kevin Ratit, real estate

[4:04:16] manager, up to the podium to provide a brief overview of the uh Renford County

[4:04:21] Housing Corporation annual general report for 2025.

[4:04:56] There we go. Good afternoon. [laughter and gasps] It's my pleasure to

[4:05:01] present a few highlights from the 2025 Brenfruit County Housing Corporation AGM

[4:05:07] report on behalf of our community services department. And you'll see that

[4:05:12] we have a photo up on the first slide. You may recognize a few faces on the

[4:05:17] screen. This was from an event that happened on May 19th in Renfruit. We

[4:05:23] were very happy to um celebrate the opening of a triplex on Francis Street.

[4:05:32] And uh just wanting to note that uh this construction and construction like this

[4:05:38] is what really is part of our vision forward and it demonstrates the county

[4:05:45] of Renfruit's stewardship role and deep commitment to ensuring deeply affordable

[4:05:52] housing within the county.

[4:06:02] I just wanted to take a few moments to review to you review with you what's

[4:06:08] fundamental for the services that we provide.

[4:06:11] A culture of collaboration and care is the foundation for how the county of

[4:06:16] Renfruit provides services. This is our MESA philosophy and practice

[4:06:23] within community housing specifically. Over the last several years, services

[4:06:29] have transformed ever more so recognizing and responding to support

[4:06:34] health, wellness, and community connection.

[4:06:39] Our goal is to help our tenants remain safely and affordably housed.

[4:06:44] We do this through inclusive and ongoing partnerships,

[4:06:50] staff training to support a traumainformed

[4:06:53] practice and well-being supports such as wellness check-in meetings at tenant

[4:06:59] homes as well as community gardens. We rely on the support and skills of our

[4:07:06] team in a multid-disciplinary way through our peer committee and we are

[4:07:11] committed to advancing relational investment by increasing outreach

[4:07:16] services and through partnerships that are colllocated at our facilities such

[4:07:22] as the Boys and Girls Club that is at one of our units at Lee Street and

[4:07:26] Pemrook providing services to those in the

[4:07:29] community as well as the Barry's Bay and senior support services that are

[4:07:34] coll-located with us at our apartment at 75 Stafford Street in Berries Bay.

[4:07:43] Our values within community services and I'm sure for the whole county of

[4:07:48] Renfruit, all of us here are equity, collaboration, empowerment,

[4:07:54] transparency, and compassion. And we've believed that

[4:07:58] this is essential for supporting people but also necessary to achieve outcomes.

[4:08:04] These values come to life when we let real-time data guide our work.

[4:08:10] Through our 2025 by name list, we were able to learn more about 131 individuals

[4:08:18] that were experiencing homelessness. And this provided us with an up-to-date

[4:08:23] picture of the needs in the community that helps us to target the supports

[4:08:28] that we tailor for these people. Of those individuals, 22%

[4:08:34] 29 people identified as indigenous and that understanding is helping us to

[4:08:40] shape a more culturally responsive support system.

[4:08:46] We are also seeing the connections between housing and health more clearly

[4:08:50] than ever. 50 out of 370 mental health clients

[4:08:56] through the Pemrook Regional Hospital, about 13.5%

[4:09:01] reside within Renfruit County Housing Corporation Homes. And for us, this

[4:09:06] reinforces the importance of working collaboratively with our health service

[4:09:10] providers, including our hospital providers partners.

[4:09:17] 142 tenants were supported and continue to be supported by the county of

[4:09:22] Renfruit's community paramedic program within Renfruit County Housing

[4:09:26] Corporation. And this service is helping us to deliver more integrated wraparound

[4:09:33] care that promotes health and housing retention

[4:09:37] together. This work is improving alignment across community housing,

[4:09:41] health, and emergency services and is directly informing our vision forward

[4:09:46] priorities and the system improvements that we are committed to advancing.

[4:09:56] This slide here captures six ways that our community services department moved

[4:10:01] forward in 2025. And I'll take a few moments to walk us

[4:10:06] through each one of these areas with a quick example.

[4:10:11] First, we strengthened integration across our programs and service areas.

[4:10:17] And I believe a good illustration of this is embedded in our practice of

[4:10:21] crossprogram case conferencing. An example, when we're supporting a

[4:10:27] family tenency, we bring children's services, Ontario works or community

[4:10:32] support services, and community housing staff together to help that family

[4:10:38] navigate the individualized supports and benefits that may be available to them.

[4:10:44] We advance modernization and datainformed initiatives. We recently

[4:10:48] onboarded a data program called Invisio which is helping us to track measures

[4:10:53] and outcomes that are aligned with our community services strategic plan. And

[4:10:58] we're now on boarding a Corey to replace our current tenant management software,

[4:11:04] Yardi. And we believe that Corey will give us an improved ability to customize

[4:11:10] our data needs. And uh we believe that will be really helpful to inform

[4:11:16] decisions moving forward. We're also moving forward with um bringing our

[4:11:21] annual review annual information review system online. And this will provide

[4:11:27] tenants with another convenient option for reporting their information compared

[4:11:32] to the current uh paper process. We expanded collaboration with our

[4:11:37] community partners. We're meeting them more often to coordinate supports.

[4:11:43] And because of those relationships and because we are meeting frequently and

[4:11:47] talking frequently, the relationships are becoming ever so welldeveloped. And

[4:11:52] this is helping us to respond more quickly and effectively. We responded

[4:11:57] flexibly, sorry, we responded flexibly to an evolving health crisis and we

[4:12:03] continue to adapt our services to meet the changing health and wellness needs

[4:12:08] of our tenants. A good example is our response to high

[4:12:13] content supports throughout 2024. You may recall that we built up our staff

[4:12:19] skill and technical level that helped tenants deal with this very complex

[4:12:27] issue. We did this through working um in a pilot with the Peenrook Regional

[4:12:33] Hospital mental health services to learn more about how to best support people

[4:12:38] that may be struggling with high content issues or or hoarding. And as a result

[4:12:43] of this, our staff are now far better equipped to help tenants in these

[4:12:47] situations. We increased outreach for complex client

[4:12:52] needs through our community supports outreach program. We we introduced

[4:12:57] additional services for housing tenants that help support people with necessary

[4:13:03] life skills. Examples of that being help with budgeting or even help with uh

[4:13:09] guidance for housekeeping tasks. And finally, we improve cross program

[4:13:15] coordination through our human services integration focus. We introduce pro

[4:13:21] cross program supervisors within our community services team. And at the same

[4:13:26] time, we steadily increase knowledge transfer between our programs. All of

[4:13:31] this combines to help our team work more seamlessly,

[4:13:36] which results in improved service pathways for the people that we are here

[4:13:41] to serve.

[4:13:47] This slide offers a glance of our community housing weight list statistics

[4:13:52] and you can get a closer look at that on pages 25 and 26 of the AGM report. What

[4:13:58] I'd like to highlight here is that while the weight list numbers are high and

[4:14:04] they continue to grow, they don't actually capture the true community need

[4:14:09] for deeply affordable housing. These figures only reflect the people who have

[4:14:13] applied for rent geared to income support and we suspect many others

[4:14:18] haven't applied at all because the wait times are so long. We receive doz dozens

[4:14:24] of calls every day from the public and from our partners with inquiries about

[4:14:31] how much longer it's going to take for somebody to get into housing.

[4:14:38] For our weight list, there's essentially three parts to it. The weight list

[4:14:44] altogether is a chronological weight, but there's a priority ranking. The

[4:14:49] first priority goes to those that are identified under the housing services

[4:14:54] act as having special priority status and those are people who have

[4:14:58] experienced domestic violence or human trafficking. They are offered the vacant

[4:15:03] units first. This is followed by our local housing

[4:15:08] prioritization called MESA community housing prioritization.

[4:15:12] And this provides an advanced community housing pathway for some people that are

[4:15:19] residing within the heart hub bridge housing when they're ready to to move on

[4:15:24] from that programming. And then the the more broader um part of

[4:15:29] the weight list is what we refer to as our general chronological weight. And

[4:15:34] unfortunately um for those folks the the wait is quite long upwards of of 10

[4:15:40] years or or more. I wanted to provide an update um

[4:15:45] regarding the work that we're doing to improve the the weight list. Starting in

[4:15:50] May 2026, we had two students join us to kick off our weight list modernization

[4:15:56] initiative. And this work is really about ensuring that the information we

[4:16:03] have is accurate and we want to ensure that it is accurate so that we can focus

[4:16:09] our limited supports and limited resources to those that need us the

[4:16:13] most. We are strengthening our application eligibility review so that

[4:16:17] applicants clearly meet income and asset requirements. And this is aligned with

[4:16:23] the community services priority of directing limited resources to those

[4:16:27] with the greatest depth of need. Eligibility continues to be confirmed

[4:16:32] when an applicant initially applies, but new for 2026, we will introduce a

[4:16:38] bi-weekly or sorry by annual review to determine continued eligibility.

[4:16:44] Those check-ins will also create an a natural opportunity for community

[4:16:49] services staff to to connect with applicants on the wait list to update

[4:16:54] their information, but to also um connect them with um possible interm

[4:17:00] supports while they wait. And we're doing this so that no one is simply left

[4:17:04] on the wait list with no point of contact or no path forward for help.

[4:17:17] This slide here provides an overview of our rent affordability and homelessness

[4:17:21] prevention programs. At the top we have um rent geared to income housing. So of

[4:17:28] course that is within Renfruit County Housing Corporation, but there's also um

[4:17:33] units within five nonprofit housing providers across the county of Renfruit.

[4:17:39] And uh we'll look over at number three. Um rent geared to income um is also for

[4:17:45] the rent supplement program. So as I mentioned a bit earlier, there is um

[4:17:50] income um criteria that must be met to qualify. The asset limit to qualify for

[4:17:59] housing. One's family must be um having $50,000 or less in assets. And there are

[4:18:05] certain, you know, exemptions there such as owning a vehicle or locked in

[4:18:10] retirement plans and so forth. And then um the income part of it is defined

[4:18:15] within the housing services act and more information about um income levels and

[4:18:21] rent amounts are on page 23 of the AGM report. Um but I just wanted to

[4:18:26] highlight that the maximum rent for onebedroom within Renfruit County

[4:18:31] Housing um for 2025 was 8 63 and the annual income cutoff for the

[4:18:40] one-bedroom unit was 38,500.

[4:18:44] The emergency assistance and homelessness prevention program funded

[4:18:48] through HPP from the province of Ontario is delivered through the community

[4:18:53] supports division. And this helps connect people with urgent financial

[4:18:59] assistance. So they're able to stay housed or they're able to acquire a

[4:19:04] home. And this can help with expenses such as um utility disconnection fees or

[4:19:11] last month's rent. the rent supplement program. Um we also

[4:19:15] refer to this as private market rent gear to income. And um for 2025 we

[4:19:22] assisted 74 households on average and the average monthly subsidy was about

[4:19:29] $540 for those households.

[4:19:33] The rent allowance program for 2025 assisted about 210 households. 70% of

[4:19:42] those households were um households without children. And the amounts that

[4:19:47] we issue for households without children is $300 per month directly over to the

[4:19:52] landlord. And for households with children, the amount is $400 per month.

[4:19:57] And lastly, we have the emergency minor home repair program. And this program is

[4:20:03] for lowincome homeowners and can help with um essential repairs. So that could

[4:20:09] include something like uh a roof repair or even an accessibility modification at

[4:20:14] a doorway so that somebody can get into their home. And for 2425 fiscal year, we

[4:20:20] assisted 20 households. And for 2526 fiscal year, we assisted eight.

[4:20:29] [snorts] And last but not least, um I wanted to take this opportunity to to

[4:20:35] thank all of council for your continued leadership and support for the programs

[4:20:41] and the people within community services. Um I also

[4:20:46] would be remiss if I did not recognize the heart of everything that we do, that

[4:20:52] being our county of Renfruit staff. And I say county of Renfruit staff because

[4:20:57] it really is, you know, inclusive to all of the county of Renfruit staff. When

[4:21:01] we're supporting people in housing, you know, there's community services, we

[4:21:05] have finance, we have development and property. It's a it's it certainly is a

[4:21:10] a team approach. And uh I think we can all reflect upon the county's why

[4:21:16] knowing that our services do cultivate a compassionate, collaborative, creative,

[4:21:21] and inclusive environment, providing our community with meaningful support and

[4:21:26] innovative solutions. Thank you. And I'll pass the mic on to my colleague

[4:21:30] Kevin Ratitz. [panting]

[4:21:46] Thank you, Jennifer, and and through you, chair. Good afternoon.

[4:21:54] So, in our housing in our [clears throat] housing portfolio, we

[4:21:59] have uh,32 residential units. Um and that

[4:22:05] translates into about 1.1 million square feet of real estate. Of course um these

[4:22:11] units consist of um apartments, town houses,

[4:22:16] single and semi- detached homes which are located throughout the county and in

[4:22:21] the city of Pamroke. So, in 2025, [clears throat]

[4:22:27] um it was another another busy year and just I'll mention some you'll see some

[4:22:32] of the projects and milestones uh up on the screen. Of course, there was the 135

[4:22:39] Francis Street uh triplex and that's where we removed a uh wartime home from

[4:22:45] the property and replaced it with a 2100 ft um triplex.

[4:22:52] There was the um over 2024 Vimemy uh Boulevard. We converted that uh space.

[4:23:00] It was a storage space, a garage. We converted that into a two-bedroom

[4:23:05] uh apartment. And of course, the Palmer Rapids septic system replacement, that

[4:23:10] was a uh unplanned or an emergency project where we had to replace a a

[4:23:16] septic system. And I think the price tag on that was about $283,000.

[4:23:21] for that emergency repair. And the Lee Street project that was

[4:23:26] somewhat of a a significant and I'll say unique project where we did a 8 unit uh

[4:23:33] rehabilitation. Um there was a lot of u coordination and

[4:23:39] scheduling involved for that that project. Um we had to vacate the uh and

[4:23:46] and relocate the tenants uh before we were able to uh conduct the work. And

[4:23:52] that work involved um we addressed some of the um structural

[4:23:59] deficiencies. There were some foundation issues. uh drainage concerns as well as

[4:24:06] and of course we uh uh upgraded u some energy efficient uh units with

[4:24:13] insulation. Um [clears throat] so with that project

[4:24:17] there we were able to there was some considerable cost savings uh due to the

[4:24:21] fact that the uh the contractors um were on site for a period of time and

[4:24:28] of course evidently they were just able to move from uh unit uh to unit. So, not

[4:24:33] only was there cost savings, but um it reduced the uh the timeline of the

[4:24:38] projects, which we completed that project in about a 9-month period. And

[4:24:43] you can see some of the the pictures up there. It does you can see the Lee

[4:24:48] Street photo um of the uh the new newly renovated uh unit. [clears throat]

[4:24:57] And then of course over at the uh 700 McKay uh care for building, we um

[4:25:04] constructed uh another uh eight bedrooms and upgraded the kitchen facilities and

[4:25:11] laundry facilities.

[4:25:17] Um in 2025 the capital projects we had approximately it's we kind of averaged

[4:25:22] in the last few years about about $5 million uh in capital projects both

[4:25:27] planned and unplanned. Uh last year we had over 130 projects that were

[4:25:32] completed and uh some of them involved you see paving of parking lots uh over

[4:25:38] at the Bronx and Reynolds complex. We replaced some exterior doors. to be was

[4:25:44] about over 40 doors that were replaced. Um the over at 41 Vimemy in Renfruit, we

[4:25:51] had a porch roof. We installed new porch roofs and uh Spruce Street uh roof

[4:25:57] replacement as well as other buildings where we replace the roofs and the

[4:26:02] regarding the electrical electrical upgrades. We did uh four buildings last

[4:26:07] year where we converted the existing fluorescent lights to LED and we

[4:26:12] continue with that this year. I think we have another nine sites scheduled uh to

[4:26:17] do that conversion this year. As you can see in the chart, probably about half of

[4:26:22] our projects are related to u structure.

[4:26:31] And of course uh every year we we encounter and deal with uh emergencies

[4:26:36] uh or unplanned projects. Um but one good news story as you see up there at

[4:26:42] 2025 uh we had we had no fires and um as of

[4:26:48] 2026 to date um knock on wood uh no no fires and we trust that that trend

[4:26:56] continues. But of course we did respond to multiple uh building system failures.

[4:27:00] As you can see in some of the photos up there in the top right hand corner, we

[4:27:05] replaced some um furnaces with high efficiency furnaces. We replaced some

[4:27:11] electrical panels that were damaged due to uh water. And then of course the

[4:27:16] middle picture was uh one of those emergency projects where um

[4:27:23] the sanitary sewer line failed. It was a a 60 unit apartment complex and as you

[4:27:29] can see in the picture um it uh it the original u sanitary line which was

[4:27:37] located underneath the slab of the building of course was approximately

[4:27:41] about you know 50 plus years old it had failed. Uh so in order to address that

[4:27:46] and correct that repair that sanitary line um we had to cut through the uh 8

[4:27:54] in slab in the hallway um a probably about 20 in wide and it was about 50 ft

[4:28:01] in length and so it was uh it was a considerable emergency project but I

[4:28:07] think we were able to have that restored within about a 3-day period. And of

[4:28:12] course um we did have some u storm and sanitary backups over at Solivan

[4:28:17] Crescent. And last year there was a total of 73

[4:28:22] um sewer backups in in the portfolio.

[4:28:29] So on the operations and maintenance side of the business, you know, we

[4:28:33] continue uh continue progression from reactive to pro proactive maintenance

[4:28:38] model which uh we've had some success with that. [sighs]

[4:28:41] Um we are able to 2025 we maintained a vacancy rate of about 3 to 4% which

[4:28:47] which is about uh 35 to 40 units and as you can see we completed 102 vacant uh

[4:28:56] units. We repaired them and and turned them over. As I indicated earlier, uh

[4:29:00] 2025 was a busy year busy year. You can see where [clears throat]

[4:29:05] there was 30 over 3,700 work orders, which averages about 300 work orders per

[4:29:11] month. And uh if you look at the chart, you can see about 50% of that, half of

[4:29:16] that is related to electrical and plumbing. And then of course in the

[4:29:21] portfolio we completed um 100% uh inspections, building inspections in the

[4:29:28] portfolio. And I'll maybe just elaborate a little bit on that. That's uh it's a

[4:29:34] um considerable uh time consuming exercise. We estimated that there was

[4:29:40] probably over a thousand uh staff hours involved in this annual exercise. And

[4:29:46] what that consists of, we have the building infrastructure coordinators.

[4:29:51] They will do inspections within the the units. Um so they they go to the unit

[4:29:56] and do a walk through, a visual inspection and they have a uh inspection

[4:30:00] list um for a report which there's about uh 80 plus line items on that report and

[4:30:07] the uh information is documented on that reported by a lot of pictures. And then

[4:30:14] of course it doesn't end there. Uh [clears throat] because of the items

[4:30:18] that's identified, there's work orders created uh in order to address some of

[4:30:23] the priority um issues or priority items. And sometimes it's not only a

[4:30:30] work order, it translates into uh small small projects.

[4:30:35] Um again a very uh timeconsuming u exercise each year but very important

[4:30:45] and 2026 uh some capital projects again we have about uh $5 million

[4:30:52] uh scheduled for this year uh consisting of there's probably 70 plus projects

[4:30:57] planned projects of course there will be some emergencies and unplanned projects

[4:31:01] uh as well um We in I believe it was it's seven seven units to date we have

[4:31:13] uh moved to the digital keying systems. It's a fob system. Uh in we did a pilot

[4:31:19] project in one of the uh units where we've replaced and modernized the uh

[4:31:25] laundry equipment, the washing machines and dryers which were uh currently they

[4:31:31] were currently coin operated and we upgraded them replaced them to uh modern

[4:31:37] technology. And of course uh we have uh several

[4:31:41] roofing projects and insulation projects this year u upgrades to elevators and we

[4:31:47] anticipate doing uh possibly another triplex replicating the 135 Francis

[4:31:52] project and um also we continue with balcony inspections and some complexes

[4:31:59] where we'll be actually removing the uh balconies.

[4:32:07] Sorry. Sorry.

[4:32:11] Um in the revi revitalation revitalization strategy uh vision

[4:32:17] forward. You know we continue incrementally increase unit density by

[4:32:22] converting wartime homes to triplexes or possibly even quadlexes. Um we're going

[4:32:28] to replace units that have been the higher priority that has been identified

[4:32:32] for devestment through our building condition assessments. Um we received

[4:32:37] that report in 2024. And of course there's u other

[4:32:41] opportunities within the county for um development redevelopment of properties.

[4:32:47] Um as as you can see up on the screen there's a couple of potential uh

[4:32:52] development sites in in the county

[4:33:00] and uh moving forward into into the future. Um, you know, some of our

[4:33:06] priorities, you know, we want to continue with the uh transition to

[4:33:10] proactive maintenance and long-term asset management. Uh, continue with

[4:33:15] supporting tenant the well-being uh through uh safe and secure and

[4:33:21] well-maintained communities, improve accessibility,

[4:33:25] um, energy efficient energy efficiency and long-term sustainability uh, while

[4:33:30] reducing maintenance and operating costs. um in the housing portfolio with

[4:33:36] new development and building upgrades and continue with u maint maintain low

[4:33:42] vacancy rates and reduce u unit turnovers.

[4:33:46] Of course, all these uh priorities are only made possible uh with our continued

[4:33:54] um dedication and prof professionalism uh from our staff. And um in our

[4:34:01] division, we are are fortunate and I sincerely say that we are fortunate to

[4:34:06] have a a team that is um very conscientious uh committed uh a

[4:34:13] remarkable a remarkable work ethic and they really do care what they do each

[4:34:17] each and every day. And uh a thank you to uh the senior leadership team for for

[4:34:22] your guidance and um also a big thank you to county council for your ongoing

[4:34:28] support. Thank you.

[4:34:33] » Thank you Kevin and Jennifer. Um two very good reports and I think I'd like

[4:34:38] to echo what uh Jennifer said in thanking all the staff everywhere for

[4:34:44] what you do. I mean, it's not an easy job to do. Um, you know, helping people

[4:34:48] maintain their basic, um, need for housing. Are there any

[4:34:54] questions? I'll take the first question from the city of Penrook, please.

[4:34:58] » Madame Chair, Mr. Ratis, and Mr. Umbrowski, thank you for the wonderful

[4:35:02] report. Uh, I live in an area where there's social housing is sort of all

[4:35:08] around me. I grew up uh you know in in a private home with my parents and uh

[4:35:13] other people didn't have the opportunities perhaps that I had in a

[4:35:17] very humble environment. Uh but I know that uh social housing you know in many

[4:35:23] uh instances uh you know when families encounter a sinking ship you're their

[4:35:28] life raft till they can get on to better things. And I know particularly that uh

[4:35:33] two individuals that I knew that I kind of grew up with, they're a little bit

[4:35:37] younger than me. Uh they ended up in social housing due to circumstances

[4:35:43] beyond their control. And I remember one young boy, he had three paper routes in

[4:35:48] order to help his mother offset the costs of the rent. And I mean, as I

[4:35:53] said, you were their life raft till they could go on to better things and be

[4:35:57] rescued. and that you know today that one individual that had the three paper

[4:36:01] routes has a very successful business and he employs 70 people and it's

[4:36:08] because of organizations that I think such as the boys and girls club who

[4:36:13] reached out to these individuals and uh show them that there were other things

[4:36:17] available for you know that perhaps kept them out of mischief. uh they learned

[4:36:22] something. They learned to uh uh coexist with one another. Uh they learned about

[4:36:27] relationships. And as a former mayor of Pemrook some

[4:36:31] years ago, I went to one of those Boys and Girls Club meetings on Cecil Street

[4:36:37] and I saw for myself the dedication of the staff uh you know the volunteers and

[4:36:43] the parents to help those children uh lives become better.

[4:36:49] another individual faced the same circumstances and I hope I'm not going

[4:36:53] on too long. Uh is now in a leadership role. He joined the military and he's in

[4:36:58] Latafia and I mean if it wasn't for you know folks such as Renford C County

[4:37:04] Housing Authority and the excellent staff to keeping the buildings in shape

[4:37:08] whatever and your interest and your uh your commitment uh you know those folks

[4:37:15] probably wouldn't have had that chance. Uh, councelor Watt and I were talking

[4:37:18] earlier a little bit during the break. Uh, we've been friends, well, I think

[4:37:22] we've been friends for uh, 60 years and uh, we were just discussing about small,

[4:37:28] you know, councils as opposed to this county setting. And he said to me, what

[4:37:33] do you think? I said, well, you know, our situations are different in a

[4:37:36] smaller community council. But I said, this group are professional. I mean, uh,

[4:37:42] you know, we're very fortunate as municipalities that we have the Renfruit

[4:37:46] County Group such as this one to help us carry on and make life better for

[4:37:51] everyone. So, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[4:37:58] » Thank you for sharing that. Are there any other member from Aron Prior,

[4:38:02] please? >> Thank you, chair. Thanks,

[4:38:04] [clears throat] Melissa. Thanks, Kevin. Melissa, the question you had was or

[4:38:08] didn't one of your statements was that do you review the applicants to bring

[4:38:12] their applicants applicants or applications up to speed every six

[4:38:18] months or semianually? Geez, what a day. Been a long day.

[4:38:22] semianually people that are in the residence today.

[4:38:28] Do we do a semianual or annual update on what their

[4:38:36] income is? Like hypothetically, I got in there, I was a

[4:38:42] Tim Horton server and now I'm the manager. So my my wages have tripled.

[4:38:49] Does that get taken into account? and then I get moved out or how does that

[4:38:54] work? Thank you. >> Yeah.

[4:38:58] » Thank you. Through chair through chair to to council. Um for current tenants,

[4:39:05] we have a process called annual information review. And that's when we

[4:39:10] have tenant households confirm a lot of information you as to you know who all

[4:39:16] is living there um any special needs they may have along with their financial

[4:39:22] information. So we focus over on assets and assets are you know self-disclosed

[4:39:28] to to us and then income we require um verification of income most commonly

[4:39:33] that is uh their income tax assessment for the previous year. So most

[4:39:38] definitely we do evaluate their income to determine the level of subsidy that

[4:39:44] they may receive for those whose income is higher. They can continue to reside

[4:39:50] within Renfruit County Housing Corporation because it's the housing

[4:39:53] services act that speaks to the social assistance part of it, the rate of

[4:39:58] subsidy, but it's the residential tenency act that protects people's

[4:40:03] rights to continue living within their home. So, if somebody's income is now

[4:40:08] high and and I think it's great a lot of tenants, you know, um have been able to

[4:40:13] increase their incomes um they still have a home with Renfruit County Housing

[4:40:18] and we appreciate that people, you know, are reluctant to move um because the

[4:40:24] rents are just so unaffordable in the community. When we think about, you

[4:40:28] know, what a one-bedroom costs in the private market or a two-bedroom or a

[4:40:31] threebedroom, um, despite income increases within our CHC households, it

[4:40:37] still isn't enough to have people venture out along the housing continuum.

[4:40:42] » Thank you. >> Are there any um member from North Alono

[4:40:48] Wilberforce, please? >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you,

[4:40:51] Jennifer and Kevin. Excellent presentation. I think I have a question

[4:40:55] for each one of you. Um, Kevin, I know that I was really pleased to see that

[4:41:01] 100% of the unit inspections have been completed and I'm just guessing that

[4:41:07] that may have had some impact as to the reduction in the fires and hopefully

[4:41:13] being proactive that helps uh keep that number at zero.

[4:41:21] And for Jennifer, I was just curious as well. I know there's a new program where

[4:41:27] rather than move toward eviction as quickly as maybe we did in the past,

[4:41:33] there's more intervention now, more support, and I'm just interested

[4:41:38] year-over-year what that reduction in eviction notices might look like. Thank

[4:41:43] you.

[4:41:47] » Go first. >> Uh, thank you for that question. Thank

[4:41:50] you, chair. Um yeah, we're we're optimistic and um I said we hope the

[4:41:58] trend continues where there there are no fires. Um regarding the building in

[4:42:05] inspections, we would think that uh you know there's some dividends being being

[4:42:11] paid through those um inspections.

[4:42:20] member from Admir Bramman, please. Uh >> thank you very much, Madame Chair, and

[4:42:24] as with all of my colleagues, uh thank you to Miss Dumbroski and Mr. Ratit's uh

[4:42:29] outstanding report. Uh the the it's always important to recognize um those

[4:42:35] folks that are leaving precarious lives within our community. We must embrace

[4:42:38] them. Uh there was one question I had on the capital projects page. So, uh, it

[4:42:45] appears that vacancy turnover is just under $3 and $10 of of our capital

[4:42:50] expenditures. Is that kind of consistent with with uh with rental properties?

[4:43:00] » Um, I may direct that over to Mr. Mr. Davis.

[4:43:09] [laughter] >> I do like to involve as many staff as

[4:43:12] possible. Mr. Davis, please. >> Thank you, Chair and three. So, um, to

[4:43:16] be to be blunt and and open, I think we'll have to get back to you on that

[4:43:19] question to see if, um, what's consistent with the public compared to

[4:43:23] the private market. >> Thank you,

[4:43:27] » member from uh, Greater Madawasco, please.

[4:43:30] » Thank you. And through you, chair. Just a quick question. I know that I we're

[4:43:36] looking at some housing changes in Armp Prior, Renfruit, some rehabilitations of

[4:43:41] that. Um, as we progress and as we move forward, um, areas such as Cobden that

[4:43:49] may be growing with a mine area that that will attract workers, is there any

[4:43:54] thought going down the road of possibly selling some units and run through an

[4:43:58] armpire and then purchasing properties in in other areas that may be growing

[4:44:04] within the county?

[4:44:11] Um, >> Mr. Davis.

[4:44:14] » Sure. I don't mind, Chair. And >> you're going to give me whip last year.

[4:44:18] Don't go there. >> No, I I don't mind, Shar. And thank you.

[4:44:20] And through you. So, when we look at our portfolio as a whole, our 132 units, um,

[4:44:26] we typically look at rebuilding what we have in those locations. Other locations

[4:44:31] like your municipality where may not have our RCHC units, um, we'd be looking

[4:44:36] for partnerships. Um, we've engaged with some partnerships already to see what we

[4:44:40] can do in your municipality and any municipality in Renford County. We've

[4:44:44] talked openly about a care for partnership. We've talked openly about a

[4:44:48] um, our empire regional health as a partnership to expand our portfolio

[4:44:52] while Deep River, sorry, Deep River 2, thank you uh, CEO. While we look at

[4:44:57] these units, um, I think we've talked about this in the past during our vision

[4:45:01] forward or 5-year plan. when we replace a unit with three units, this is when we

[4:45:06] can look at internally with our CEO and director Patrick, what can we divest

[4:45:10] ourselves with after that? So, it's not a matter of building more than 1,032

[4:45:15] units. That's not our our standard, but we have an opportunity now to divest

[4:45:19] ourselves with units like we talked about openly about the 24 units at

[4:45:23] Nelson Street. With those monies, we then can look at the partnerships and

[4:45:27] build somewhere some other locations. >> Yeah. and like it does benefit that we

[4:45:32] have municipal lands and other municipal lands in our portfolio.

[4:45:39] » Okay, thank you. Miss Dan Broski would like to answer one of the questions from

[4:45:44] Yeah, >> thank you through chair to council. Um,

[4:45:50] thank you councelor Bros for uh raising the the point about the the efforts that

[4:45:56] we are doing to help people stay within their homes. Uh we can call it housing

[4:46:02] retention, we can call it eviction mitigation, but it really is about

[4:46:05] helping people stay in their homes. And uh we are doing everything that we can

[4:46:11] with a health and a traumainformed collaborative lens. We are working

[4:46:16] within our own team within community services. Um really having meaningful,

[4:46:23] you know, collaborative meetings through our peer committee. Um turning over

[4:46:27] every single option. um talking with mental health services and and other

[4:46:33] support providers and trying to come up with a plan not just for the person but

[4:46:38] with the person so that they can overcome some of the challenges that

[4:46:43] they're facing. I'd like to say that we're very close to having a no eviction

[4:46:47] policy within Renfruit County Housing Corporation and uh I I talk about it

[4:46:54] very generically because um this has to do with people and of course you know

[4:46:59] all the circumstances are are individual um but you know that is our mission to

[4:47:04] keep people in their homes. >> Thank you for that. Are there any other

[4:47:09] questions or comments? Member from Renfruit please.

[4:47:12] » Uh thank you very much. an excellent report and I really enjoy just comparing

[4:47:16] numbers. Uh so I'm curious uh if you can offer some insight into the graph that

[4:47:24] shows households that moved out of our CHC units. Last year we're 65 and this

[4:47:29] year we're 95. So that seems like a pretty significant increase and I'm just

[4:47:33] wondering you know what you can offer on that please.

[4:47:42] So the reason for moveouts can be for a variety of of reasons. Um we really

[4:47:49] don't have any trend that's pointing out to say that it's any one given thing. Um

[4:47:56] generically, you know, people we find move because they are choosing to to

[4:48:02] move communities. um they perhaps have opportunities for other services or

[4:48:07] employment or or family connections or in some situations

[4:48:13] um they become homeowners or in some situations their close relationships

[4:48:18] change and they may now cohabitate over in a spousall like relationship. Um so

[4:48:24] there's a variety of reasons. >> Okay. Thank you. and and just the

[4:48:30] waiting or the weightless modernization. Um

[4:48:35] it's it looks like we have more of a requirement for one bedroom and it looks

[4:48:40] like an older adult population when I look at the when I look at the little

[4:48:46] bar graphs. Is that is that a fair assessment?

[4:48:49] » Yes, through you chair to council. That absolutely is a fair assessment. The

[4:48:54] biggest pressure point is for the one-bedroom and twobedroom units with

[4:48:57] throughout our portfolio. >> Thank you.

[4:49:01] » Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Member from Whitewater,

[4:49:05] please. >> Thank you, Chair, and to Jennifer and

[4:49:09] Kevin. Thank you for all you do throughout the year. We only get to uh

[4:49:15] to really recognize it when you come here to do the AGM presentations.

[4:49:19] Usually, it's bad news if we see you between AGMs. Um, but I I thank you for

[4:49:25] that. Your presentation today was really good. Like from a it was

[4:49:31] uh it really spoke to the improvements that

[4:49:35] were making in the process. Jennifer, from your side, the six uh areas that

[4:49:40] you highlighted within the community services development department, the

[4:49:44] examples you gave of how you're increasing integration, modernization,

[4:49:49] collaborate, that that is exactly, I think, what council has wanted. Uh we

[4:49:54] may not be able to make the difference and build another thousand homes, but we

[4:49:57] can do better to to support the people that we can within the resources we

[4:50:02] have. So, I I want I want to recognize you and of course the director and her

[4:50:06] whole team for that type that that investment you're making in those

[4:50:10] efforts. And Kevin, it goes without saying

[4:50:14] trying to be proactive and making sure that the limited dollars that we have

[4:50:19] available are are supporting these the limited assets we have. When you take a

[4:50:25] look at the money we're putting in to repair uh a portion of a building

[4:50:29] knowing that the roof is next and we can't afford to do the roof, but it's

[4:50:33] going to cause more damage. This is the type of thing that you're tackling. And

[4:50:37] I know we're not throwing enough money at you to solve it yet, but you are

[4:50:41] making headway and we're seeing it with the examples at Francis Street. So, I I

[4:50:46] just want to I want to thank both of you and your teams for this type of

[4:50:49] investment and effort. Uh, I have a couple questions about

[4:50:53] numbers and sorry, they're going to be more for Jennifer and Kevin. [laughter]

[4:50:57] Um, when I look at the total number of households that Renford County Housing

[4:51:02] supports between the different programs you

[4:51:05] outlined, it's about 1,525

[4:51:09] households. Add in the heart hub at another 12 to 24

[4:51:15] depending on the state of it. We're really right now based on the dollars

[4:51:19] we're going to talk about later in the in the agenda, we're supporting 1,550

[4:51:25] households within Renford County. Is that approximately?

[4:51:28] » That's very close. Yes. >> Good. And with that 1,550 households, we

[4:51:34] still have almost 2,000 on the wait list

[4:51:40] and right now no way to meet that demand. So that's, you know, that's a

[4:51:45] total demand right now of of 3,500 people who are asking for affordable

[4:51:51] housing. We're able to support,550.

[4:51:55] You had mentioned about affordable housing at $863.

[4:52:00] $863 was a single bedroom for affordable housing. Is there anywhere within the

[4:52:06] county of Renfruit, not the corporation, but the geographical area where that

[4:52:12] type of rent is being offered outside of something that you're managing?

[4:52:20] » Thank you. Through you, chair to council. No,

[4:52:24] the rent amounts within the private market are astronomical. If we were to

[4:52:29] look today to try to find ourselves a onebedroom or a twobedroom, a

[4:52:33] onebedroom, if we're lucky, may cost us 16 to $1,800 plus utilities. And a

[4:52:40] two-bedroom might cost us, you know, upwards of $2,200. Of course, you know,

[4:52:46] there are, you know, some homes that, you know, are a little bit less than

[4:52:50] that, but really a little bit less than that. It's it's impossible for for folks

[4:52:55] unfortunately especially those that that have lower incomes.

[4:52:59] » Good. And that's reality we need to keep to to bang bang down the not for-profit

[4:53:05] homes. You're right now we have partnerships with the not for-p profofit

[4:53:09] homes. There's five of them listed in the chart. about 200 are directly

[4:53:15] working with your portfolio to manage the remainder that they manage as not

[4:53:22] for profofits not using you as a resource. They're not offering

[4:53:26] affordable rents are they >> through you chair to council. Yes, they

[4:53:32] but they are not offering rent gear to income for their market unit

[4:53:41] rents. Um each nonprofit housing corporation has their own guidelines as

[4:53:47] to what that affordable rent rate may be.

[4:53:52] um in some situations they may have received um previous you know iterations

[4:53:57] of government funding that tied them to CHC, Canada Mortgage and Housing

[4:54:02] Corporation rates and you know certain percentage calculations as far as

[4:54:07] average market rent and all of that to have their their rents below a certain

[4:54:11] level. Um but through talking with the nonprofits um it's my understanding that

[4:54:16] their rents are you know a little bit lower than uh what they they could be.

[4:54:21] So um yeah outside of the the private market um they are the only other ones

[4:54:28] that I am aware of that are providing that level of deep affordability in

[4:54:32] housing. >> Perfect. So the point I'm trying to make

[4:54:36] and I just want to make sure I wasn't veering off is that there's no one else

[4:54:40] in the community that can come to this that can meet this demand.

[4:54:45] Even the not forprofits run by, you know, fundraising and and and and

[4:54:51] gaining access to things like CHC, they still can't offer affordable housing.

[4:54:56] And it's it's frustrating because we all

[4:55:00] just keep saying, "Oh, can we just uh we talked to the poor treasurer about uh an

[4:55:05] affordable tax rate. Well, who's going to take us up on the affordable tax

[4:55:09] rate?" No one can afford to provide affordable rent. So, you're going to

[4:55:13] create a rate that that can't even be taken advantage of by the private

[4:55:17] market. Um, so I guess what I'm saying is just recognizing the problem,

[4:55:22] quantifying it, and saying that there is no easy solution. and we need to

[4:55:26] continue to work through it. Um, the last thing I'll say is I'm encouraged.

[4:55:31] We have a new board member for CADCO and I'm very curious

[4:55:36] to learn more about how organizations like CADCO are making this work in other

[4:55:42] communities and how we might be able to apply that locally. So, I'll sum up

[4:55:47] there. Chair, thank you so much. I really appreciate the time that was put

[4:55:50] into these presentations. >> Thank you. No pressure, Craig. Uh one

[4:55:55] I'll take one more question from administr Brammley please.

[4:55:59] » Thank you very much and just as preamble. So this it is such an

[4:56:02] incredibly complex uh the uh social housing community housing as I'm sitting

[4:56:09] here listening to uh councelor Nichols and I'm even thinking I don't know if

[4:56:13] people remember quants uh in the 2008 um it's it's a quantitative analysis uh

[4:56:20] that's how they could break up these mortgages into these little trenches

[4:56:23] etc. But I'm struck uh we almost need to have a job description for a quant here

[4:56:27] to be able to follow all of the different mathematical formulas as to

[4:56:31] how to provide this is an incredibly complex framework

[4:56:37] of market uh rates rent geared to income social housing etc. So I'm I'm slowly

[4:56:42] gaining an appreciation for your capacities. This question though is it

[4:56:47] kind of came up uh at an earlier uh meeting some some weeks ago. So under

[4:56:53] the SP the special priority populations um is is the uh theou I believe that we

[4:57:01] have with RVH so is that creating a new SP?

[4:57:09] » Miss Patrick please. >> Uh thank you chair through you to

[4:57:13] councelor Donahghue. It's a very good question. um theou um councelor

[4:57:19] Donahghue is referring to we had uh brought a draft before um committee we

[4:57:23] have we're still in negotiations with RVH we have not finalized it and that is

[4:57:27] one of the things that we are uh talking to them about um some of the particulars

[4:57:32] of what that would look like um I think as um committee will recall when we

[4:57:37] spoke about that we're really looking about um essentially targeting the same

[4:57:41] population uh that we would be working with that may be homeless and not able

[4:57:45] to return return home, but um really in deep deep uh low income and in deep need

[4:57:51] both medically and socially. Uh so uh that may look like one of our MESAs

[4:57:57] prioritizations or or potentially um it could be SP. So that's one of the things

[4:58:03] that we're still working on, but I can bring back an update at a future

[4:58:05] meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um I think that's it for

[4:58:12] these presentations. I think they well I know the general consensus here is that

[4:58:16] it's a very emotional uh portfolio that you have with between the two of you and

[4:58:22] we thank you for everything you do and um good luck for another year. Did you

[4:58:28] have anything else you wanted to say? >> No, thank you.

[4:58:33] » Okay.

[4:58:42] Okay, communications. There are no other communications. Uh, no consent reports.

[4:58:49] Discussion report. I'll hand this over to Miss Patrick, please.

[4:58:54] Thank you, chair, and through you to the board. So, we have three um resolutions.

[4:58:58] May I go ahead and read the first one, chair?

[4:59:00] » Yes, please. Okay. Thank you. So through you to committee uh resolution number

[4:59:06] one audited financial statements. The recommendation is that Renford County

[4:59:10] Housing Corporation board of directors approve the audited financial statements

[4:59:14] for the Renford County Housing Corporation for the year ended December

[4:59:18] 31st, 2025. Could I get a mover and a seconder,

[4:59:22] please? By the member from Pedawa, seconded by the member from North Ala

[4:59:26] Wilberforce. Background, please. >> Thank you, chair. Uh and through you to

[4:59:32] the board. So, um, earlier in the meeting, uh, Lori Hunner was here to

[4:59:36] present an overview of the financials, which included that of the Runford

[4:59:40] County Housing Corporation. Uh, the financial statement is attached in the

[4:59:44] package and, uh, we're happy to take any questions if uh,

[4:59:50] sorry if there are any. >> Are there any questions on the financial

[4:59:53] statement? A member from Whitewater, please.

[4:59:58] » Thank you, chair. uh and and I suspect that this this may be bounced over to

[5:00:03] our treasurer. So, uh in the report there's a note number nine that talks to

[5:00:08] municipal sub subsidies and the page number

[5:00:13] 16 is on the bottom of the page in it. It talks about uh the comparison

[5:00:20] to 2024 2025 between a number of the different programs.

[5:00:25] And I see the $6,700,000 of base funding which I just wanted to

[5:00:31] confirm my understanding that that is property tax.

[5:00:35] And I second question is uh the capital portion of funds that are used to

[5:00:42] reinvest are they included in this chart or did I they're somewhere else in this

[5:00:47] in this report? Two questions. >> Mr. Burke, please.

[5:00:54] Thank you and good afternoon uh housing corporation committee. So it's very

[5:01:01] difficult to draw a clean line between where the RCH as a corporation ends and

[5:01:08] the county as a municipality begins. So, of that 7 million or we'll say $7

[5:01:16] million in direct subsidy, the lion share would be property tax

[5:01:22] requirements. However, of course, a portion of that

[5:01:25] belongs to the city of Pemrook as well as there is a federalbased subsidy in

[5:01:30] there as well. So if you were to look at our internal financial statements, what

[5:01:34] you would see is a housing department and from there there's an expense of

[5:01:38] transferring dollars into the RCHC corporation.

[5:01:42] So mostly property tax. The portion of that that is capital in the 2025 year is

[5:01:51] only about $300 or $400,000 as we continue to consume the internal

[5:01:56] reserves of the RCH corporation. When you look at this in 2026,

[5:02:02] should you still be here looking at these things, uh you will notice that

[5:02:06] the property tax component will jump to about $9 million and the bulk of the

[5:02:12] jump will be of course capital contributions.

[5:02:17] » Thank you, chair. Thanks, treasure. >> Some of us will and some of us won't.

[5:02:22] Are there any other questions on that? Seeing none, all in favor?

[5:02:28] carried. Uh item two, please. >> Thank you, chair, and through you to the

[5:02:32] board. Item number two is the annual general report. The recommendation is

[5:02:36] that the Renford County Housing Corporation Board of Directors approve

[5:02:39] the 2025 annual general report as presented.

[5:02:43] » A mover in a second, please. Move by the member from Gentian Valley, second by

[5:02:47] the member from Kiloo, Hagerty, and Richards. Uh background, please.

[5:02:53] » Thank you, chair, and through you to the board. I think Mr. Radits and Mr. Rosski

[5:02:57] did an excellent job of overviewing the background. Just um I'll express uh as

[5:03:02] well my thanks to the board for their support uh in the 2025 year as well as

[5:03:06] to all the staff. Um definitely um as was mentioned by the managers, it's very

[5:03:11] much a collaboration, multiple county departments really working together to

[5:03:15] try to meet the needs uh that we see in in our buildings in our community. So

[5:03:19] thank you. >> Any discussion, questions? Member from

[5:03:24] Renfruit, please. >> Yes. Thank you. Uh um [clears throat]

[5:03:28] just a a comment. I was trying to get the question in earlier and I wasn't

[5:03:31] fast enough. Um on page 18 it talks about uh the uh by name list and it says

[5:03:40] there are 131 community members and that 29 of them identify as indigenous. And

[5:03:46] so I'm wondering if that's a a potential partnership for

[5:03:52] homes in in the near future. I'm guessing those 29 are not uh members of

[5:03:59] Alangquins of Pepnagon First Nation. They're some of the other communities in

[5:04:03] our in our community. Is that a fair assessment?

[5:04:09] » Miss Patrick, please. >> Thank you, Chair. Uh through you to

[5:04:12] councelor Yim. It's an excellent question. Uh it's certainly um something

[5:04:17] that the managers and I are working really closely on looking to um really

[5:04:22] have you know stronger um partnerships with our our our indigenous agencies

[5:04:27] that are providing services. We've uh held a number of meetings recently um

[5:04:32] with some of our um agencies that provide indigenous health services that

[5:04:36] are off reserve as well as we do work closely with uh the Pikuagon uh services

[5:04:41] as well and really looking to understand those numbers and what the needs are

[5:04:45] both um you know on and off the reserve. Uh certainly uh one of the things that

[5:04:49] that we do see is is a real need for you know many individuals who aren't able to

[5:04:54] access services uh on the reserve that that may need some supports and and

[5:04:58] looking to what opportunities there may be that we can work more closely with

[5:05:02] some of the agencies providing those services. So it's definitely something

[5:05:05] that it's a priority uh for us. Uh these numbers always have been high. In fact,

[5:05:10] I think when we did the last point in time count, which was back in 2024, the

[5:05:14] percentage was about 40% um of people in experiencing homelessness were

[5:05:19] indigenous. Uh the numbers down in 2025 to about I think it was 22%. Uh but

[5:05:25] again, that's based on uh self-disclosure and it may be higher.

[5:05:28] So, this is just definitely a priority for us that we're working on. So, thank

[5:05:31] you for raising that. >> Thank you. Are there any other

[5:05:36] questions? Seeing none, all in favor? Carried. Uh,

[5:05:42] item three, please. >> Thank you, chair, and through you to the

[5:05:46] board. So, item number three, surplus dwelling, 149 Francis Street, Renfruit.

[5:05:51] And the recommendation is that the Renfruit County Housing Corporation

[5:05:55] Board recommends to county council that the single family dwelling, municipally

[5:05:59] known as 149 Francis Street, Renfruit, be declared surplus and that the board

[5:06:05] approve a capital project to construct a triplex on the site with a total project

[5:06:10] budget of 900,000. Move in a second, please. Moved by the

[5:06:15] member from Headclar Mariah, seconded by the member from Greater Meetaska.

[5:06:22] to the background please. >> Thank you chair and through you to the

[5:06:25] board. So as we uh Mr. Mr. Davis and I discussed with the vision forward

[5:06:30] certainly we're looking for opportunities to um have some

[5:06:34] incremental densification. Uh we have 56 single family homes in the portfolio. We

[5:06:39] had really great success with the um the Francis Street project that we had the

[5:06:44] ribbon cutting for earlier and looking to replicate that model where where

[5:06:47] possible. um and where we have of course the um need to replace some aging

[5:06:52] structures where the repair costs are no longer economical. So we've identified

[5:06:57] that at the 149 Francis Street this would be another location where which

[5:07:01] would be an opportunity for us to uh do another triplex very similar model and

[5:07:06] and again add two units to the portfolio.

[5:07:09] » Thank you. >> Thank you. Are there any questions or

[5:07:12] comments? Member from Pedawa please.

[5:07:16] » Thank you chair and through you. I I love this idea and I love this vision.

[5:07:21] I'm just wondering, it sounds like by the condition of the house that it's not

[5:07:25] going to be uprooted and trucked anywhere and nobody's going to buy it.

[5:07:30] It's just something we're going to tear down. So, in terms of funding the new

[5:07:34] project, because we're creating a triplex, are we going to look for two

[5:07:38] other properties that we can divest ourselves with to fund this project, or

[5:07:42] is this funded with funding we already have in place?

[5:07:48] Mr. Davis, please. >> Thank you. And through you, chair. So,

[5:07:51] um, right now we are still looking at to move this house. So, it's still on our

[5:07:57] portfolio in the sense of the the whole project schedule to move this house. So,

[5:08:02] that's I'll I'll [snorts] kind of leave it at that for now. And um

[5:08:07] when we look at rebuilding a three for one like what we did in Francis and what

[5:08:11] we're planning on doing here, we will like we mentioned just before I'm

[5:08:15] working with Andrea Patrick, her treasurer to divest ourselves of other

[5:08:19] units to make sure we have more in the hopper to move forward.

[5:08:26] » Thank you. Any other questions? U member from Renfruit, please.

[5:08:30] » Thank you. I um just wanted to add something. I sent a note to

[5:08:35] Miss Patrick, Mr. Kelly, and the warden and Mr. Davis on the weekend.

[5:08:41] I found the other home that was taken off the prop, the other Frances Street,

[5:08:46] and it's on a foundation at this point, and they are building around it. So, uh,

[5:08:51] it's, you know, I think it's something for us to, uh, to make sure we remember

[5:08:56] to to speak to the ministry about. We're not wasting

[5:09:00] uh any resources. There is the opportunity for some uh who want to take

[5:09:06] on at least that home. I'm not sure about the state of this one, but they

[5:09:10] were able to start rehabbing it. Uh and uh it looks like they're going to cut

[5:09:15] some walls out of it and and and add pieces to it. Um so, you know, it's a

[5:09:20] it's a really good news story in that sense.

[5:09:23] » Thank you. Any other uh member from Whitewater, please? I can hardly see you

[5:09:29] behind that chair that's in front of you.

[5:09:32] » I did it on purpose and then you can't see me when I start to nod. [laughter]

[5:09:42] » Sorry, we have to listen to all the audit questions.

[5:09:50] Okay. Um chair the two questions and I similar vein as to what has already been

[5:09:55] asked but I just wanted to um as per our vision I I I I support the approach I

[5:10:02] see the approach we're we're at 1032 we're we're saying let's demo one to go

[5:10:07] to 1031 build three go to 1034

[5:10:12] find two other ones to do to to get rid of we're back down to 1032 so the net

[5:10:16] change is zero we're just having to build in order to be able to demo and

[5:10:20] that's part of taking care of our tenants. I just wanted to validate that

[5:10:24] I'm getting the nod from the director. Okay, good. The second question is just

[5:10:28] about the 900,000. I just want a reassurance that this is no, this is not

[5:10:34] a requirement of a net increase in property tax. This is within the

[5:10:38] allocations that currently exist within the corporation, the Renford County

[5:10:42] Housing Corporation.

[5:10:47] » Mr. Davis. >> Yeah, thank you chair and through you.

[5:10:49] So um again working with our partners, our treasurer and and all through the

[5:10:54] process of this kind of um the project. So would be utilizing the coochi funding

[5:10:59] that we have and in the background report and maybe need to be flushed out

[5:11:03] a little bit more. We've had a capital plan utilizing the kochi funds and now

[5:11:08] we're looking at what funds what are the projects we had for coochi just to jig

[5:11:13] it enough or modified enough to make sure we we can account for this

[5:11:16] $900,000. So it's using the existing funds in treasure. Correct me if I'm

[5:11:20] wrong if I if I may, >> Mr. Burke.

[5:11:25] » Uh through you chair. No, the director is correct. So the the funding model

[5:11:29] behind these replacements uh is should be a net zero across the

[5:11:37] 10-year plan, though it may involve an outlay this year. Right. So yes, we can

[5:11:43] dispose of of units to help with the funding. The disposals will not fund the

[5:11:47] new build. I mean, we're not going to take in that much money, but that means

[5:11:50] we can also get rid of the repair items on our 10ear capital plan for those

[5:11:55] units we've disposed of, right? We're we are replacing those units with new

[5:12:00] builds that do not require major repairs. So, our savings come from that

[5:12:04] to help offset and our total cost inside that 10-year capital plan remains the

[5:12:09] same or optimistically a little bit lower as we trade out these older units

[5:12:14] that need uh large dollar repairs.

[5:12:21] » One more. >> That's it. That's it.

[5:12:23] » That's it. Oh, that was >> I have one comment.

[5:12:25] » One more. the uh and I love the approach because what we're doing is we're taking

[5:12:31] the asset management plan for Renford County Housing and we're not just

[5:12:35] looking at it through a capital lens. We are saying we are going to be able to

[5:12:40] save on the operations side of that corporation

[5:12:44] because we're overexpending operation dollars maintaining something that

[5:12:48] shouldn't be maintained. We slide it over to the capital side and it saves

[5:12:52] money. So, we're we're we're looking at our asset management through two

[5:12:57] different sources of funding, operations, and capital. And I think

[5:13:01] that approach, especially in a 10-year vision, gives us the flexibility to be

[5:13:05] able to address this without impacting property tax. And I think that's the

[5:13:09] right approach. So, thank you, chair. >> Thank you.

[5:13:13] Any other questions or comments on that? Seeing none, all in favor?

[5:13:19] Carried. Uh a recommendation that the discussion reports be received as

[5:13:24] presented. Move in a second, please. Moved by the member from North Alona

[5:13:29] Wilberforce, seconded by the member from Headcla. All in favor? Carried.

[5:13:39] There are no deferred reports, no verbal reports, nothing for close session.

[5:13:46] Is there any new or other business? Seeing none, um I have a recommendation

[5:13:52] that this meeting adjourn and the next regular meeting be held at the call of

[5:13:56] the chair. It is 2:38. Moved by member from uh North Alona Wilburfor, second by

[5:14:03] the member from Renfruit. All in favor? Carried.

[5:14:07] We are adjourned. Could we take a fiveminut bio break please?

[5:24:13] » [gasps] >> Welcome back. Um, I'd like to call to

[5:24:16] order this meeting of the Community Services Committee. It is Wednesday,

[5:24:20] June 10th, and it is 2:50 p.m. Uh, Miss Van Starkenberg, has roll call been

[5:24:27] taken? >> Yes. Thank you, chair. We have quorum.

[5:24:31] » Thank you. Are there any disclosures of pecuniary interest and general nature

[5:24:36] thereof? Seeing none,

[5:24:40] uh, could I I have a recommendation that the minutes of the May 13, 2026 meeting

[5:24:44] be approved. Could I get a mover in a second, please? Moved by the member from

[5:24:48] Martin Prior, seconded by the member from

[5:24:52] Pimrook. Are there any errors or emissions?

[5:24:56] Seeing none, all in favor? Carried.

[5:25:02] I have a recommendation that the closed minutes of the May 13, 2026 meeting be

[5:25:07] approved. And if so, the will we are there any errors or omissions? And if

[5:25:12] so, we'll have to go into closed. Are there any? Seeing none, all in favor?

[5:25:18] Carried. Did I get a mover in a second? I did

[5:25:21] not. Could I get a move in a second? Moved by the member from Kilu Hagedy and

[5:25:25] Richard. Second by the member from Renfruit. All in favor? carried.

[5:25:34] There are no delegations. Um, communications. There are four items

[5:25:40] there. Are there any questions on any one of those?

[5:25:48] Seeing none, I have a recommendation that the communic that the

[5:25:52] communications be received as information. Moved by

[5:25:57] member from North Alona Wilberforce, seconded by the member from Laurentin

[5:26:01] Valley.

[5:26:05] All in favor? Carried.

[5:26:10] Uh consent report.

[5:26:15] This uh the agenda includes written items of important information that were

[5:26:18] provided for your review. There are two consent reports. One is the community

[5:26:23] services consent report. Second is corporate services.

[5:26:29] I have a recommendation that the consent reports be received as information.

[5:26:34] Could I get a move in a second, please? Move by the member from Madm Bramley,

[5:26:37] second by the member from headclair Mariah. Is there any discussion on

[5:26:41] either one of those two reports? >> I'm looking right at you, sir.

[5:26:48] » I just my hands are on my phone. Seeing none. All in favor carried.

[5:26:56] Woohoo. Sorry. [laughter]

[5:27:01] There are no discussion reports. Um def there there are no deferred reports.

[5:27:07] [laughter] My French is coming out. Uh verbal reports. No. We do have a close

[5:27:13] session and the recommendation is that pursuant to section 2392 of the

[5:27:18] municipal act 2001 as amended the community services committee move into a

[5:27:23] closed session for the following reason. C. A proposed or pending acquisition or

[5:27:30] disposition of land by the municipality or local board Siccilia Street Housing

[5:27:35] at 252. We're going to move in a second, please.

[5:27:39] Moved by a member from Madam Bra uh sorry, North Alona Wilbur Forest. Slip

[5:27:44] of the tongue, seconded by the member from Greater Madawaska. All in favor?

[5:27:49] Carried. Okay. You know,

[5:35:43] Thank you. We are back. A discussion occurred regarding the potential use of

[5:35:47] the green space located at 425 Ciccilia Street in Penrook. Thank you. Um there's

[5:35:53] no new or other business. Seeing none, um, a recommendation that

[5:35:59] this meeting adjourn and the next regular meeting be held on Wednesday,

[5:36:03] August 12th, 2026. Could I get a move in a second?

[5:36:10] Uh, I'm just looking at Valerie there. See if she wants to raise her hand.

[5:36:13] Yeah. Moved by the member from Brunell,

[5:36:18] Lindok, and Raglin, and seconded by the member from Mar Prior. All in favor?

[5:36:24] Carried. We are journ. and we'll reconvene in 5 minutes at 306.

[5:36:30] Thank you.

[5:42:28] Perfect. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call the corporate

[5:42:32] services meeting of Wednesday, June the 10th, 2026

[5:42:37] at 3:07 p.m. to order. Miss Wilson, has roll call been taken?

[5:42:46] » Yes, Chair. Roll call has been taken and we have quorum. Thank you. Are there any

[5:42:50] disclosures of beinary interest and the general nature thereof?

[5:42:55] Seeing none, thank you. Could I get a mover and seconder that

[5:43:01] the minutes of the May 13, 2026 meeting be approved? Mover, please. Mover from

[5:43:07] Laurentian Valley. Seconder, Greater Madawasa.

[5:43:12] Are there any errors or emissions? All those in favor?

[5:43:18] Opposed? None. It's carried. Thank you,

[5:43:21] committee. At this point, we're moving to item

[5:43:24] number five. And I'd like to invite Chris Ren, the associate director of

[5:43:28] information technologies to the podium to overview his presentation on

[5:43:33] responsible AI use framework. Mr. Ren, please.

[5:43:41] And as you make your way up, I'd like to uh thank your staff. Uh last time we

[5:43:46] were in chambers, I had my fan quit on my uh laptop. They were walking by and

[5:43:51] they said, "Yeah, much better parts." Took it down. 5 minutes later, new fan

[5:43:54] uh off. They scavenged off another one. So, thank you very much for that

[5:43:57] service.

[5:44:06] » There we [laughter] go. Thank you, chair. Through you two uh

[5:44:10] committee. Um before I uh I jump uh into my uh presentation here, um I'm just

[5:44:16] going to uh maybe give a little bit of background as to where this came from

[5:44:20] and how it was uh how it came to be. Um so um the the county belongs to uh a

[5:44:27] group uh that's called the Eastern Ontario IT Collective and it's basically

[5:44:31] made up of all the members of the Eastern Ontario Wardens Caucus and it's

[5:44:36] uh primarily just IT managers and directors. we all get together and we

[5:44:40] work on common goals and issues uh that we all are facing. And one of the items

[5:44:44] that we highlighted uh last year that we started working on was uh we needed a

[5:44:50] responsible use of AI. Um not only is this uh been uh mandated by the province

[5:44:57] uh with the in the EDS TA act uh the electronic data

[5:45:06] gez I always get it mixed up. um uh act uh and um we also used the a consultant

[5:45:15] uh the Perry group uh to help us uh you know put this together and uh my

[5:45:20] presentation today will overview the summary uh executive summary report

[5:45:24] that's in your package uh that can be found on page 76.

[5:45:36] Okay. Um, so to get started, um, uh, I'm just going to start off by saying AI, AI

[5:45:42] is here. If you use a computer, you use a cell phone, you use anything, AI is

[5:45:48] baked into everything nowadays. Um, there's no getting away from it. Um, we

[5:45:52] are standing on the train tracks and the train is barreling towards us. Um so to

[5:45:57] start this project off um last year um our consultant um released a survey to

[5:46:05] uh over 200 uh municipal staff to get a sense of

[5:46:10] where everybody is in terms of AI uh usage. Uh and uh some of the results

[5:46:16] were kind of not so much surprising but you know it really highlighted why we

[5:46:22] need this. uh only about 7% of organizations actually have an AI

[5:46:28] policy. Um 60% of staff are using AI um already

[5:46:35] uh at home and uh bringing those

[5:46:41] uh work hab those what they're using it for uh at home into work with using for

[5:46:47] their work habits and that sort of stuff. Um so the question is uh whether

[5:46:52] or not to adopt AI because it's already here we need to to adopt it.

[5:47:00] So again, basically why this framework was created um again initiative out of

[5:47:07] the EOITC um that uh all municipalities including

[5:47:12] your local tiers can take this framework and use it at home uh to uh to help

[5:47:17] yourself out. And uh it is a requirement of the the EDSTA the enhancing digital

[5:47:25] safety and trust act which uh came into effect in 2024.

[5:47:31] Uh also there are new emerging uh requirements for MIPA. So uh that is

[5:47:36] something else that we have to take into consideration. uh and no longer we need

[5:47:41] to comply with this cuz there are um reputational and uh you know monetary

[5:47:48] fines for not following and having AI policies and guidelines. Um so the uh

[5:47:54] the full the sorry the uh executive report can uh be found in your uh in

[5:48:00] your package as well. Uh what AI is and what it is not. Uh AI is great uh at

[5:48:12] uh drafting emails and agendas and summarizing documents and meeting notes

[5:48:19] uh rewriting content for clarity, brainstorming and reviewing data. But

[5:48:24] what AI cannot do uh it cannot it can confidentially identify wrong

[5:48:31] information. And you may have heard of the term halluc AI hallucinations. And

[5:48:35] that's basically what that is is you ask the AI something and it spits something

[5:48:40] back to you that sounds real, that sounds like it could be legit. Uh but in

[5:48:46] fact it may not be. So there's a lot of reviewing and proofing your work uh that

[5:48:52] is required when you're uh you're using an AI tool. um it performs poorly on

[5:48:57] tasks uh requiring empathy uh and uh requiring local knowledge and it cannot

[5:49:04] exercise qualified professional judgment. So just couple of things that

[5:49:10] you know where AI can struggle.

[5:49:15] The core principle of uh the uh the framework is called uh human in the loop

[5:49:22] always. And basically what that boils down to is AI assist staff but staff

[5:49:30] still make the decisions. Uh every AI output uh must be reviewed uh and uh

[5:49:38] before it's used in uh in a public context. uh human in the loop always.

[5:49:45] That's it's just it's it's the the probably one of the most important

[5:49:50] concepts and principles uh in uh in our AI uh framework.

[5:49:57] What can go wrong with AI? Uh lots of stuff. uh without the governance,

[5:50:04] municipalities face six categories of risk ranging from privacy breaches all

[5:50:10] the way up to non-compliance uh with some of the new uh standards and

[5:50:14] legislation. Uh so privacy and data leakage uh you know concerns about

[5:50:21] uh information being entered into AI tools that

[5:50:26] are used uh to train um other models and uh so we we definitely want to you know

[5:50:35] avoid putting any confidential personal information and stuff like that in

[5:50:39] there. Uh cyber security exposures um AI is becoming a real threat. Um, we're

[5:50:46] getting constantly getting new advanced tax that attacks that uh are getting

[5:50:52] harder and harder to detect and as AI grows and gets smarter, it's going to

[5:50:57] get really really hard to uh keep that stuff out of our network. Um, accuracy

[5:51:02] and accountability gaps again goes back to human in the loop. uh we always need

[5:51:08] need to make sure that we're you know verifying the information that the AI

[5:51:11] tool is providing us and uh you know make sure that it uh we're we're good

[5:51:16] with the content uh loss of public trust um algorithmic bias a lot of the uh AI

[5:51:25] tools out there it's picking up information from everywhere in the world

[5:51:29] and there's there's lots of uh sites out

[5:51:33] there that will try and introduce uh bias into the prompts or in your uh your

[5:51:40] content that you're getting back to uh serve their own needs. So that there's

[5:51:44] something again to be very cautious of uh and regulatory uh regulatory

[5:51:49] non-compliance uh you know w bring that back to MIPA and the uh uh enhancing

[5:51:55] data and safety uh trust act.

[5:52:04] our uh framework um uses five five real foundations

[5:52:11] uh in in its uh organization. Um so one being uh establish accountability um so

[5:52:19] council uh the CEO senior management IT we all all staff we all have a role to

[5:52:26] play in this. It's not just an IT thing. It's not just a management thing. we all

[5:52:31] have to be cautious of what we're using this for.

[5:52:35] Um second uh foundation is uh we need to build an IT governance team so that we

[5:52:43] uh we know what use cases we're going to use this for and we're not just going to

[5:52:47] let uh you know AI run uh run rampant uh without any control or any safeguards in

[5:52:54] place. Uh and then we're going to move on to

[5:52:58] you know our guiding principles. um that's part of this document. Uh and uh

[5:53:04] it's going to be key that staff will know what they can and can't use this

[5:53:07] for. And it's the uh personal information that uh that we really have

[5:53:12] to watch what we're dealing with. Um and we need to define the red line. And

[5:53:18] by what I mean by define the red line, these are hard lines of what cannot go

[5:53:24] into uh or cannot be fed into the uh the AI tools. things like driver's license

[5:53:30] numbers, SIN numbers, all that personal information. Uh and and the last

[5:53:35] foundation is uh uh an use and uh riskbased approach. So as we start

[5:53:43] developing and using AI more frequently, uh we want to make sure that we're we're

[5:53:48] looking at what we're using it for. um everything from lowrisk activities to

[5:53:54] high risk uh that's going that could possibly require a privacy impact

[5:53:58] statement. So there's there's a lot of that stuff that we need to make sure

[5:54:02] that we're doing. Um the accountability structure uh as I

[5:54:08] mentioned we all play a role in this uh from council right down to the staff. um

[5:54:13] we all have to make sure that uh you know we're we're using it uh responsibly

[5:54:18] and that's going to be the key to uh to AI.

[5:54:25] Um some additional guiding principles um uh these uh these principles were taken

[5:54:32] directly from the privacy commissioner from Ontario. um you know uh

[5:54:37] accountability uh privacy and confidentiality

[5:54:41] uh reliability and trustworthiness uh human in the loop. There's that that

[5:54:46] term even there they're using it. um security, safety,

[5:54:55] fitness and or freedom sorry freedom of information and uh files uh temporary

[5:55:04] and disclosure uh and value driven. Uh those are some of our our principles

[5:55:10] that we were going to you know incorporate into uh into our framework.

[5:55:16] The red line. Again, these are items that cannot and should never be uh put

[5:55:21] into uh to AI tools, especially the the personal information, the health

[5:55:26] information, SIN numbers, driver's license numbers, all that good stuff.

[5:55:38] Um the next slide kind of talks about uh uh our risk based riskbased approach to

[5:55:46] uh AI use cases. Uh and we we kind of did this as like a traffic light. So you

[5:55:53] green is your lowrisk activities like uh this is for internal use only drafting

[5:55:59] some emails that kind of stuff. uh really low-level lowrisk uh type of

[5:56:05] activities. And the second tier uh yellow or the medium risk, this is uh

[5:56:10] information that could be released to the public. Um so we want to make sure

[5:56:14] that we're we're starting to really verify what we're putting in there. Uh

[5:56:18] and uh you know, we're we're going to you're going to want to have some senior

[5:56:22] leadership team uh approval, CEO approval. Uh and then the last tier is

[5:56:27] uh the red or the high-risk areas. And these are uh things that we may want to

[5:56:32] have a privacy impact assessment done before uh we we start going down the

[5:56:38] road of using AI for these types of cases

[5:56:46] and why we should act now. Um basically AI is here. We we can't stop it. Um it's

[5:56:54] uh a real paradigm shift in the uh in the world right now. Um and a lot of

[5:57:00] people can relate it back to you know when computers first came out when

[5:57:03] smartphones were first released and email uh was came out. Um

[5:57:13] uh modest AI adoption can return $3 to4 uh in value uh for every dollar spent on

[5:57:21] licensing. So there there is definitely some uh some efficiencies and some cost

[5:57:26] savings to be uh to be had with it. Um you know some reports are are showing

[5:57:31] that uh staff that use it on a monthly basis can save up to 5 to 10% uh of uh

[5:57:38] you know their time uh with the help in the the help of AI tools and uh

[5:57:44] leadership uh viability and genuine support are are crucial um so that the

[5:57:51] staff uh take the note from the top. And that's pretty much my quick summary

[5:57:58] of the executive summary in your package. Um, so if uh that's it for me.

[5:58:05] » Right. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments? And the member

[5:58:08] from Greater Madawaska, please. >> Thank you. And through you, chair. Um,

[5:58:14] we are, as you said, AI is here and it's being used. Uh, I have a two-part

[5:58:19] question. One is um any documentation or anything that is produced from AI,

[5:58:26] we do not have the ownership of that. Is that correct? It would be the AI company

[5:58:32] have ownership of any documentation unless we have a license uh license

[5:58:37] service agreement with them.

[5:58:45] » I'm really not 100% sure on that one. Maybe Craig would have some more

[5:58:50] information. >> Mr. Kelly.

[5:58:51] » No, thank you uh thank you chair and Chris and thanks for the question. So

[5:58:54] we've we've been working hand inand on a lot of things. We were actually just at

[5:58:57] a workshop last week about AI with with a local administrators group too and

[5:59:01] talking about next steps. Um yeah so um AI generally open AI or open AI or the

[5:59:10] new anthropic claude clude um are are super agents or super Google searchers

[5:59:17] right so they don't open AAI doesn't own any data they're assembling it from

[5:59:22] inputs that that that the open licensers put into it

[5:59:28] uh we use by well we use a number of different agents here, right? Some of us

[5:59:34] have chat GBT accounts, but we've as a corporation have adopted Microsoft

[5:59:39] C-Pilot as the accepted accepted use because they're a little more protected.

[5:59:44] Chat GBT is not protected. Clo is very protected, right? In terms of of

[5:59:48] software, Microsoft's in the middle. [clears throat] what we draft on those

[5:59:56] agents uh is if it's protected by an account

[6:00:03] right a paid account in chat GPT's version or a license like co-pilot it is

[6:00:07] specific to us it doesn't get shared out to the broad masses as we understand AI

[6:00:12] at the at the moment uh if so if I type in write me a report on on AI today uh

[6:00:21] because I have a paid account, it is it is um secret. It is proprietary to to my

[6:00:27] account and doesn't get shared to build the matrix, if you will.

[6:00:32] If I have a an open account or a free account, which which many people do in

[6:00:36] the community, and they type in uh how do I get from 9 international drive to

[6:00:42] uh Toronto, that is an an information that gets fed into it, and if you ask it

[6:00:46] many times, then it finds the better route to get to Toronto and it feeds

[6:00:49] that algorithm moving forward. So uh to your question if I ask that question I

[6:00:54] think what's happening here mostly is we don't take everything that that AI

[6:00:57] builds for us if it's a report or if it's an opinion or if it's a uh a

[6:01:01] picture uh we download that information to our

[6:01:06] servers to our desktops or to our our drive then we have ownership of that

[6:01:12] so so it's two-part sometimes we do sometimes we don't but most of the time

[6:01:16] we download that information then all of a sudden it becomes a file and then I

[6:01:20] would say it's open to interpretation and then FIPA and everything else that

[6:01:23] we have >> supplementary.

[6:01:27] » Yeah, thank you. So, uh that gets to my question then. So, that uh we do have

[6:01:32] some licensing service agreements or um through the county with with some of the

[6:01:38] with co-pilot. >> Yeah. Chris, can I say that?

[6:01:41] » Yes, we do. It's uh with Microsoft Copilot is what

[6:01:46] we're we're piloting. >> Yeah.

[6:01:51] Okay. Thank you. And Admission Brownley, please.

[6:01:55] » Thank [clears throat] you very much. Uh Mr. Chair, uh this is quite fascinating.

[6:01:59] The first uh question I have so uh through [clears throat] you Mr. Chair,

[6:02:03] Mr. Ren said that this is the executive summary. I wonder if the report is

[6:02:06] available because this is something perhaps that uh is going to be the

[6:02:10] foundational document within ADM Mast and Brumley as we're starting to wrap

[6:02:14] our heads around AI as well. Is that available?

[6:02:18] » Absolutely. the uh the full uh framework um is available and I can send that out

[6:02:23] to to any of the the the lower uh tier municipalities. Um and inside that

[6:02:28] framework, it also it you're going to get a sample policy so you don't have to

[6:02:33] build it from scratch. Um there is a incident response plan template um and

[6:02:40] uh an sample prompt library to help you maybe use uh the AI tools a little bit

[6:02:46] more effectively. uh it's a fairly large document uh but I can uh certainly make

[6:02:51] that available to everybody. >> Okay. Thank you. The other comments and

[6:02:55] I'm picking up kind of on what I had suggested um this morning during the the

[6:03:00] presentation of the audit statements. So the governance web page [clears throat]

[6:03:04] that uh KPMG has and I'd identified that uh Mr. Kelly had recognized Claude

[6:03:13] uh Claude uh is still a horse and buggy. mythos is now uh the rocket engine that

[6:03:19] is going to truly disrupt and and speaking of or or in picking up on on

[6:03:24] Mr. Ren's comments about uh some of the the particularly white collar let us say

[6:03:30] like some of the uh computers and software uh that have dramatically

[6:03:35] advanced uh how business is done the speed of business if you will and a lot

[6:03:39] of those routine and data uh sensitive things this in my estimation is a whole

[6:03:46] different level what I'm [clears throat] hoping quite soon uh the US I think is

[6:03:50] beginning now to take the tenative first steps uh but I see uh some sort of

[6:03:55] agency that's going to be akin to the International Atomic Energy Agency. This

[6:03:59] thing has capacities that no other technology before now has had. And this

[6:04:05] this is an analysis from KPMG's website. And this probably means more to you, Mr.

[6:04:10] Ren, than to anybody in this room. What used to take weeks for skilled human red

[6:04:16] teams now happens in minutes with Frontier AI. Attackers who gain access

[6:04:21] with missiles class capability, whether through leakage, distillation, or

[6:04:25] computers release, will operate at a tempo most corporate SOC's were never

[6:04:29] designed to match. And on the page before that, it says, "Engineers

[6:04:34] [clears throat] with no formal security training asked it to find a

[6:04:37] vulnerability and received complete working exploits by morning."

[6:04:42] Right? The next day, it delivered these things. This is a Pandora's box. Make no

[6:04:47] mistake, that has been open. and it is released and I agree with the comments

[6:04:51] here. There is now no stopping this or stuffing it back into the box. But I

[6:04:55] think it's incredibly valuable that this is a starting point.

[6:05:00] We need to have enterprise policy on how we're going to use it. But from the

[6:05:05] broader perspective of the community, the people that we represent, our

[6:05:08] civilization, uh we need to move fairly quickly in

[6:05:13] recognizing uh that there does need to be a an international oversight of what

[6:05:18] this thing is going to be doing. Just recently, you may be aware, I think

[6:05:21] about a month ago, within certainly 2 months, it was after this this uh

[6:05:25] adventurism in the Persian Gulf in the straight of Hormuz right now that there

[6:05:30] was an AI agency that's that uh uh decreed to the US military that it was

[6:05:35] not going to provide its AI software. Uh there was another AI company stepped

[6:05:40] forward almost immediately and they're using it for targeting data now.

[6:05:45] So this is is it is a challenge and certainly what I'm

[6:05:52] talking about is much larger than this room but it is also changing

[6:05:58] so fast within this KPMG document. It talks about things that they can do now

[6:06:02] that they couldn't do a year ago and it is just simply astounding

[6:06:07] the speed of change. So that we have you know the template of a policy here

[6:06:12] before us. I would submit that you're pro we probably at least need to be

[6:06:17] looking at that semiannually if not quarterly because the pace of change is

[6:06:22] going to demand uh that we do things to stay on top. It is important that the

[6:06:26] horse not run free of the rain and that's my largest fear.

[6:06:32] » Okay. Thank you and the member from Pedawa please.

[6:06:38] Thank you chair and through you. Well, now I'm thoroughly frightened after

[6:06:42] that. So, there are some concerns and some challenges for sure, but I would

[6:06:46] definitely like to receive the full framework so that it can help our

[6:06:49] municipality going forward. My concern is did AI write the AI policy or was it

[6:06:55] human reviewed afterwards? >> AI was used in the development but again

[6:07:01] human in the loop. It was reviewed by humans. Yeah.

[6:07:06] » Okay. Thank you. Member from Whitewater, please.

[6:07:10] » Yeah, chair. Just my feedback. The I I uh I support the red line idea and the

[6:07:16] riskbased classification. I think those are two good approaches for how to at

[6:07:21] least set the framework for dealing with AI. I'm struggling though internally.

[6:07:26] All of the documents that are generated like the public documents that we see,

[6:07:31] they're all available on the internet. There's nothing stopping any member of

[6:07:34] the public from putting them all in and uploading them all in AI, all of the AI.

[6:07:39] So I guess really we're looking at it how do we control the confidential

[6:07:44] information the closed session information from getting out or

[6:07:52] beyond that how do we you know systems that we might use AI to make decisions

[6:07:58] on your your third category there your tier three maybe those are the ones that

[6:08:03] we focus on. Is there any comments from staff on on on that thought?

[6:08:09] Um there I I think training our staff is going to be a big part of it uh of them

[6:08:15] knowing what and what they can't use it for. Uh but beyond that there are um

[6:08:20] some new security tools that are coming out uh on the market. Um that are

[6:08:25] specifically designed to monitor what's going on in the AI environment. Um, so

[6:08:31] if a staff person feed tries to feed a driver's license number into an AI tool,

[6:08:37] it's going to pick that up and say, "Nuh-uh, you're not doing that." So

[6:08:42] there there are some stuff it it's new. Um, so uh, as these tools uh, kind of

[6:08:48] mature a little bit more, it's definitely going to be something that I

[6:08:51] think we're going to need.

[6:08:55] » So thank you, chair, and through you. So, this is obviously people around me,

[6:08:59] you know, I get excited about this stuff because I to say you can't use this is

[6:09:03] ridiculous, right? And Chris pointed this out. We're all using it. You've got

[6:09:07] to use it, right? I think what it it it's helping staff

[6:09:11] to be a little more empowered in terms of their creativity and reaching outside

[6:09:15] of of their box to find those that information without spending hours in

[6:09:18] the stacks of the library as I equated to, right? People working on calculators

[6:09:24] say goodbye to the abacus, right? When email came out, we said goodbye to the

[6:09:27] fax machine. Remember six years ago, we didn't want to go on Zoom because we're

[6:09:31] all afraid of cameras. Right now, what do we do? 90% of our day, we're stuck on

[6:09:34] a camera and having meetings on that. So, it's it's a natural evolution. It's

[6:09:39] just it's getting it to to not think for us, but start the thinking maybe for us

[6:09:45] or get us through our brain farts sometimes, right? Quite honestly, or get

[6:09:49] us to a point. So instead of um the menial task, we're managing what we

[6:09:55] message to start that that information that we either need to provide the

[6:10:00] public or to you, right? And and we're a humanfaced

[6:10:04] company, corporation. So no jobs are disappearing because of AI, because

[6:10:09] we're we're a humanbased entity, right? We've got to deal with the public on a

[6:10:13] regular basis. But to your to your first point, uh we got to be careful the

[6:10:17] information we feed into it. Well, if everybody did that, then we

[6:10:21] wouldn't be knowledgeable, right? I I agree with the closed items and all

[6:10:25] these other things, but when I look at gosh, we need a new design for a

[6:10:29] paramedic base or we need uh to look at how to do something different. We need

[6:10:34] to reach out across the world. I could spend 14 days googling every single

[6:10:38] website in the world or I could spend 13 seconds asking them with the right

[6:10:42] inputs, find me these things. Right? So, I think it just opened up a whole new

[6:10:47] world. the Pandora's box is is god it's already opened right but it it has

[6:10:51] opened the world to greater prob possibilities

[6:10:55] um in a shorter time limit the unfortunate part is the public's well

[6:10:59] not the unfortunate part you get into these AI wars now with with people that

[6:11:03] you're communicating with right so we we develop an email we humanize it and it

[6:11:08] bounces to somebody and we get a 13page manifesto back right from whomever

[6:11:15] uh from either upper tier lower tier or people in the public, right? We're

[6:11:18] seeing seeing the M dash is coming from everywhere. The the telltale sign of an

[6:11:22] AI written letter. Um, so we have to, as we've said in our own reports, and I've

[6:11:27] said it before, we have to own the words we say. And Chris has pointed that out,

[6:11:30] that human loop. So we better be darn sure that when we say something and

[6:11:35] we've generated it off that we back every single word in that, right, and

[6:11:38] we've read it and reviewed it. So that's just all all my concern that we're all

[6:11:42] using it in some fashion to get to the information there. if you know my my my

[6:11:47] colleague in in emergency services is using it for for good as well, right?

[6:11:51] Their paramedics use it if in need of of establishing um a care before they get

[6:11:58] to the site. Sometimes they they they will use their own GPT based on um uh

[6:12:04] the inputs based on medical uh textbooks and everything else from from around the

[6:12:09] world. What is the level of care I need to to establish before I get to that

[6:12:12] site if if it's outside of their knowledge, right? Uh,

[6:12:17] I might use it if someone asked me a quick question right now. You know, what

[6:12:20] what is the know how many housing units do we need to know? 13 seconds. I'll

[6:12:25] have the answer for you. So, we're not waiting for a minute to go back. So, the

[6:12:29] world is changing very fast. We've ex we've adopted this here at the

[6:12:32] corporation. It's finding those guardrails that we need to put in place

[6:12:35] to make sure that people are using it safely and and not keeping stuff on this

[6:12:38] phone that has a driver's license and SIN number and everything else on it and

[6:12:42] protecting the organization.

[6:12:48] Okay, thank you. Is there anything further?

[6:12:52] Okay, we'll move on to item number six. Thank you very much, Chris. Really

[6:12:57] appreciate it. Uh we have two communication items. We

[6:13:01] have the 2025 financial statements and of the Renford County District Health

[6:13:06] Unit. And we have the package from OMX, the Ontario Municipal Insurance

[6:13:11] Exchange, providing details of their financial position at December 31, 2025.

[6:13:18] And could I get a mover and seconder that the communications be received as

[6:13:23] information? Member from Kilu Hegy Richards, second by a member from North

[6:13:27] Aona Wilburforce. Is there any discussion or questions? Member Fan, Mr.

[6:13:32] Bramley, please. >> Uh, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I

[6:13:35] think that Mr. Burke uh may have identified this when we had our

[6:13:39] discussion about the reserve accounts, specifically WSIB.

[6:13:43] » Oh, he's not here. No, I don't have any. Well, okay. I'll I'll throw this to to

[6:13:48] Mr. Belmore. Um, so I know that in and I think that

[6:13:54] we're all familiar with this with the insurance. there is the the the certain

[6:13:58] sun setting or time frame uh of when a claim can be made. Uh but of course if

[6:14:04] there is an infant perhaps in the vehicle that clock doesn't start until

[6:14:09] they hit the age of majority as I understand it and I think that that's

[6:14:12] what Mr. Burke had >> [clears throat]

[6:14:13] » identified at a previous meeting. I wonder in any of the communications uh

[6:14:17] Mr. Melbour if you might be aware of how long the the uh stewardship

[6:14:25] uh of uh of uh what is it? Um yeah how long uh this is anticipated

[6:14:32] before there would be a distribution of surplus funds

[6:14:37] » through you chair to the council. Unfortunately I'm unaware of that

[6:14:39] information but I can take it back and try and get you an answer.

[6:14:42] » Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Are there any further

[6:14:47] questions? Seeing none, I'll call the vote. All

[6:14:50] those in favor? Opposed? None. It's carried. Thank you very much, committee.

[6:14:59] The agenda includes written items of important information that were provided

[6:15:05] for your review. Number A is the administration

[6:15:09] consent report providing the information technology key performance indicators

[6:15:13] for January to March 2026. and the delegated authority for theou

[6:15:18] extension for RCVTAC integrated virtual care with the Pedawa

[6:15:23] Centennial Family Health Center. Are there any questions on those two items?

[6:15:29] Okay, seeing none, uh the corporate services department

[6:15:34] consent report contained the executive summary for it regarding responsible AI

[6:15:40] use framework. Could I get a mover and seconder to accept the consent reports

[6:15:44] as information? Move, please. Moved by the member from Armpire, second by the

[6:15:48] member from Headclar Mariah. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed? None. It's

[6:15:55] carried. Thank you.

[6:16:00] Almost skipped right till the end. Uh

[6:16:07] 8A discussion reports. The only item within the administration discussion

[6:16:11] report item number one has a recommendation

[6:16:16] that >> I'm sorry.

[6:16:20] » Okay. That the corporate services committee recommends that county council

[6:16:24] approve the following amended corporate policies.

[6:16:27] A policy A7 criminal record checks as amended and B

[6:16:34] policy A8 criminal record check for all

[6:16:38] prospective county of Renfruit volunteers and Renfruit County Housing

[6:16:42] Corporation RCHC contractors amended and that a bylaw to amend bylaw 6303 being a

[6:16:50] bylaw to establish human resources corporate policies and procedures for

[6:16:54] the county of Renfruit be adopted. Could I have a mover and seconder, please?

[6:16:58] Member from Amiston Brmley, second by the member from Laurentian Hills. And

[6:17:03] I'd like to ask the manager of legislative services, our clerk, to

[6:17:07] overview the background, please.

[6:17:12] » Thank you, chair. When I was reviewing the policies, I noticed that volunteers

[6:17:16] included members of our ad hoc committees. And because under the

[6:17:20] municipal act, um, counselors do not need to have a criminal background

[6:17:24] check, I thought I would remove them just for that reason with a caveat that

[6:17:29] our members here at county council do need a criminal background check through

[6:17:33] the long-term care home. But because these members are not on our long-term

[6:17:37] care home, I thought we'd remove them.

[6:17:41] » Okay. Thank you. [snorts] Are there any other I'm sorry, a member from Kilu Hegi

[6:17:46] Richards. >> Thank you, chair. just along the lines

[6:17:49] of the volunteers. So, anytime we get a volunteer to any of

[6:17:54] our functions, we have to do that criminal record check. And is there a is

[6:18:00] there a charge for that?

[6:18:08] » Yes, there is, but I'm not sure what it is right now.

[6:18:12] So take for example if we our our show outside

[6:18:17] um with with all our departments and everything like that and we were had to

[6:18:21] have volunteers at that function all of those people would need to be checked

[6:18:30] » the functions that we have here like our our

[6:18:32] » like our trade show you know that >> staff are all have it

[6:18:36] » okay but if there's volunteers involved pardon me

[6:18:40] » if there's volunt volunteers involved. Yes, we do a criminal background check

[6:18:44] on them, but like when we have county council day

[6:18:48] here, it's all staff.

[6:18:55] » Very rarely do we have volunteers. Yeah, it's not quite like a municipality where

[6:18:59] you have events and festivals and things like that where you have volunteers, but

[6:19:02] that's >> okay. Thank you. Member from Greater

[6:19:06] Madawaska. >> Yeah, just some clarity on the

[6:19:09] volunteers. Are they requiring to get a vulnerability sector check or a full

[6:19:15] criminal back full criminal check? There's a difference between them.

[6:19:25] » Yeah. >> Yes, sir.

[6:19:27] » Thanks through you to uh the counselor for employees and uh long-term care. We

[6:19:33] need the vulnerable sector check. Uh but for and the volunteers, anybody working

[6:19:40] in uh long-term care with the exclusion of some contractors and that sort of

[6:19:46] thing, but then for council here, it's just a criminal record check. So much

[6:19:52] better with the timeline turnaround and all that. Uh it's not the vulnerable

[6:19:56] sector check. It's only those who are in direct

[6:20:01] contact with residents, providing care, interacting with residents.

[6:20:07] » Yeah, thank you. I just I was kind of referring to the just the volunteer side

[6:20:12] of it though. Um I'm just wondering whether because I think there is a um a

[6:20:19] different dollar value for a vulnerability check than there is a

[6:20:23] criminal background check. And I would hate to see the fact that we are all

[6:20:28] clamoring for volunteers everywhere all the time that um they may dissuade them

[6:20:35] from volunteering because they have to pay

[6:20:38] the higher price for a criminal background check than a vulnerability

[6:20:41] sector check. That's all.

[6:20:45] » So again, it's just those who are in direct care with the residents, i.e. the

[6:20:50] volunteers who are again in direct care with those residents. They need the

[6:20:55] vulnerable sector check. We provide them with a letter and uh yeah.

[6:21:05] » Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Belmore and then Whitewater.

[6:21:08] » Thank you, Chair. Uh, so the criminal record check is the lower level of the

[6:21:13] two checks and that is free for people to do for volunteering. the vulnerable

[6:21:18] rec record Records check the VRC that we require for long-term care as a

[6:21:22] condition of the fixing long-term care act. So that's a legal requirement for

[6:21:25] us again say for the few caveats that Dean mentioned for contractors there is

[6:21:29] a fee associated with that. So it's only the folks in long-term care need the VSC

[6:21:34] all of the rest of our volunteers would only need a CRC and those are free.

[6:21:43] » Supplementary supplementary >> supplementary supplementary is following

[6:21:46] that. So currently when we do a criminal background check it comes back either

[6:21:50] positive or negative without any distinction of what the criminal charges

[6:21:55] are and if they want to go further then to to move on is u fingerprint. So are

[6:22:00] we doing this I guess this is to Mr. Belmore are we doing this objectively or

[6:22:06] subjectively that if it comes back that that yes they do have a criminal

[6:22:11] background. uh are we offering them the step that they can then go and get a a

[6:22:17] detailed record of what they have or do we just say no at that point?

[6:22:24] » Thank you chair through to the counselor. So when it comes to

[6:22:26] employment typically we in invite people during interviews to advise us if

[6:22:31] they're going to be successful in getting a clear records check and if

[6:22:34] they're forthcoming and disclosing uh whatever charges may appear on there. We

[6:22:38] can do an assessment in advance if we come to find out after the fact that

[6:22:42] they did have charges. We again do an assessment of what the what the charges

[6:22:45] were and our policy speaks to it going up essentially between the director and

[6:22:48] the CEO to review and say uh you know someone working in long-term care that

[6:22:53] may have had a DUI. They don't have to drive our our people around. They're not

[6:22:57] expected as opposed to plow operator let's say. So we might make an exception

[6:23:01] for that sort of a charge on someone's file. Um I would suggest I'll have to

[6:23:05] ask Dean Director um Quaid specifically whether volunteers are treated

[6:23:10] differently in the home, whether it's mandatory to have a clear one. But for

[6:23:13] employees, we do give them the opportunity uh to provide sort of the

[6:23:17] details behind it to make an assessment. >> Thank you very much. Thank you. And no

[6:23:22] more supplementals. >> Okay. Thank you. And the member from

[6:23:25] Whitewater, please. >> No, it's answered. Thanks, Chair. Thank

[6:23:30] you. I'm curious. I didn't see uh my pet project included in this where uh

[6:23:37] members of uh cabinet ministers and their staffs have to have it before they

[6:23:42] can go into the long-term care. But we'll save that for another day. Are

[6:23:46] there any questions or concerns? All those in favor? Opposed? None is

[6:23:52] carried. Thank you.

[6:23:56] And moving along within the corporate services report, we have a

[6:24:00] recommendation on under item number one that the corporate services committee

[6:24:04] recommends to county council that the audited financial statements for the

[6:24:08] county of Renfruit for the year ended December 31, 2025 be approved. Can I get

[6:24:14] a mover and second please? Member from North Aona Wilberfor. Second by a member

[6:24:18] from Pedawa. Is there any further discussion? This was information was

[6:24:22] overviewed and discussed during county council. Are there any remaining

[6:24:26] questions, concerns? Seeing none, all those in favor? Opposed? None is

[6:24:30] carried. Thank you very much.

[6:24:34] Within the corporate services discussion report, there's item number two. And we

[6:24:38] have a recommendation that the corporate services committee recommends that

[6:24:42] county council approve the following changes to the non-union staff salary

[6:24:46] grid within employment bylaw number one. A the unit clerk position be replaced in

[6:24:52] group two and B the heart hub operations and intake coordin coordinator position

[6:24:59] be included in group eight and that the revised employment bylaw number one be

[6:25:04] adopted. Could I get a mover and seconder please?

[6:25:08] member from Headclair Mariah, seconded by member from Greater Madawasa

[6:25:15] and I would ask that the associate director of people and culture/D deputy

[6:25:21] treasurer to overview the background please. Thank you chair and through

[6:25:25] committee. Uh the first item the unit clerk is is more of a housekeeping item.

[6:25:30] Uh when we prepare our budgets we don't have a job description necessarily

[6:25:34] formalized at the time. uh so we can't undertake the full job evaluation

[6:25:38] process. It's based on an estimate of where we think it will land and in the

[6:25:42] budget package uh presented earlier this year. It was placed as group three and

[6:25:46] budgeted as group three. However, now that since the position has been

[6:25:49] approved, the formal job description has been created, it has been scored using

[6:25:53] our job evaluation tool which places it on group two. So that is why this bylaw

[6:25:58] amendment is coming through here because we're actually moving forward or have

[6:26:01] been moving forward with the recruitment process for filling these roles. The

[6:26:05] second is a new position, the heartthub operations and intake coordinator that's

[6:26:09] been created. This is one of the positions uh supporting the heartthub

[6:26:13] and this will be an employee of the county of Renfruit, which is why we're

[6:26:16] adding it to our employment bylaw so that we can enter into an employment

[6:26:20] relationship with the uh individual for this role and it's fully funded again

[6:26:24] through the heartthub side of our operations. Thank you.

[6:26:29] Are there any other questions, comments or concerns?

[6:26:33] Seeing none, all those in favor opposed? None. It's carried. Thank you very much.

[6:26:38] And could I have a mover and seconder, please, that the discussion reports be

[6:26:42] received as presented? Moved by the member from Laurentin Valley, seconded

[6:26:47] by the member from Brudinell Lindok. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed?

[6:26:54] None is carried. Thank you very much. There are no further Sorry, there are no

[6:26:59] deferred reports. Are there any new updates that require verbal reports?

[6:27:05] Okay, seeing none, we do not have a close session.

[6:27:10] Is there any other new business? Okay, seeing none. And with that, uh, I

[6:27:17] would like a mover and seconder, please, that this meeting adjourn and the next

[6:27:20] regular meeting be held on Wednesday the 12th of August at 2026 on 2026, I'm

[6:27:29] sorry. And a mover, please. Member from Laurentian Hills, seconded by member

[6:27:35] from Madawaska Valley. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed? None. It's

[6:27:42] carried. Thank you very much. It's We are now adjourned at 3:52 p.m.

[6:27:50] » Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you to staff for your uh excellent reports.

Renfrew County Housing Corporation Board Annual General Meeting - Jun 10 2026

Transcript