FORT FRANCES – Excitement was felt by all who attended the Fort Frances Curling Club for this year’s Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association Conference. For many NOMA members, it has been two years since they have seen each other face to face.
“I am so excited having over 100 people in the room today; how can you not be excited. We haven’t seen each other in person for over two years. We’ve continued doing business. We’ve done well doing business. It’s been great. It’s a really good feeling to have everyone here at the conference tonight,” said Wendy Landry, Mayor of Shuniah and President of NOMA.
For the first time, Wendy Landry outlined the strategic plan for NOMA and Northwestern Ontario. Although some issues have been sunset by the association, like railway taxation and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on Trade, NOMA remains focused on topics such as reducing OPP police costs in Kenora, Pickle Lake, and Sioux Lookout, as well as, Rural and Northern Immigration Pilots to accept new host communities.
“One of the things we did in our strategic planning is reassessed our issue tracker to know where our top issues are and where we can start to make some progress. Some things have been on the books for some time, and we haven’t seen any movement on them. So, we came together as a group and said what we are willing to fight for right now? What is the government not willing to talk about? Railway Taxation was not one of those topics. At this point, we are going to sunset for the time being and set our priorities.”
NOMA’s priorities are outlined in its mission statement, which explains, “NOMA will advance the needs of municipal government whose services contribute greatly to the community well-being in Northwestern Ontario. It will promote activities and support partnerships that contribute to our vibrant and vital region.”
The non-partisan association’s core values are about building a relationship of trust between the municipalities by bringing credible solutions for matters broadly shared by the region. The community leader will perform these values by sharing information on topics that bolster progress in the Ontario Northwest region.
“We made some changes to our administration, and we are updating the municipalities after every meeting,” said Fred Mota, Mayor of Red Lake and Vice-President of NOMA. “So, every municipality is receiving the same information. What happens is the information remains consistent, the messages from NOMA are continuous, and let’s face it, we have a lot of municipalities with a lot of different needs, but we want to focus on the one we think can make a positive impact in change too with our resolution moving forward. Our relationships with the province are very valuable, and we appreciate what the province does for us, but we need to be active to represent everyone in the NOMA district.”
NOMA’s support system will assist in inventorying municipal “modernization projects” that will improve the efficiency of these projects and maintain public access to services within the Northwest. The critical takeaway from being able to share resources across municipalities with focused and short learning sessions on practices and policies to aid in maintaining Northwest interest.
Some of NOMA’s shared policies and programs development that is of crucial interest include a regional perspective on available financial tools that will help meet the maintenance, repair, and replacement of Northern Transportation projects, of which NOMA states that “Northern transportation is a key part of success for the region and all of Ontario.” However, part of that acknowledgement comes with the responsibility of extinguishing the stigma on highway 17 from Kenora to Thunder Bay as being “one of the worst and most dangerous highways in Canada,” as stated by the Kenora District Municipal League. Therefore, NOMA is petitioning the Ministry of Transportation to review the regulations on highway maintenance and change snow clearance times from every 16 hours to 8 hours for snow clearance.
Another fundamental interest for NOMA will be investing in a continued effort in community wellness by ensuring health services are available to the people. The Kenora District asks the Government of Ontario to reconsider the changes made to the Public Health Unit Funding, where they lower the cost of public health funding by five per cent. The five per cent drop in funds creates a substantial problem for Northwestern Ontario will increase the Northwestern Ontario Health Unit’s annual levy.
With the energy displaced in Fort Frances at the Northern Ontario Municipal Association Conference, the public can be assured that your election officials are doing all that they can to thrive in a time of change.
