Council Preview
By John Swartz
It’s that time of year again. When council starts its meeting Monday At 12:30 p.m. the board of Orillia Power Generation Corporation will present its year-end report. The city of Orillia owns 100% of OPGC.
OPGC operates six hydro power generating stations and two solar generating plants. The revenue generated in 2024 is $10.5 million. The company earned approximately $300,000 less than planned but they also spent about $500,000 less. That means they only missed their target net profit of $5.9 million by only $47,000.
The board is also reporting to Council OPGC agreed with the Chippewas of Rama to build a solar energy facility in Rama Township which will generate 25 MW of electricity.
The board is declaring a $1 million dividend payable to the City, due at the end of June. This is in addition to the interest payment each December it makes to the City, which was $309,000 in 2024.
OPGC also paid the City $70,000 in 2024 for services provided by the City, property taxes, and rooftop rentals for its solar installations.
Planning Meeting
Next on Council’s agenda is a planning meeting scheduled to start at 1 p.m. Moe Zadeh of Magma Development is applying for a zoning amendment in order to construct an eight story apartment building on Barrie Road immediately west of three apartment buildings he has built.
The development site spans six lots. Only one of the lots is large enough to qualify for provisions under the City’s tree bylaw and the developer plans to keep only 21 of the 72 trees on all six lots.
The developer wants to create an easement over the easterly property at 95 Barrie Road in order to qualify 36 parking spaces from that property and count them toward the 228 parking spaces needed for the new development. The developer said in the report 95 Barrie Road was built with 90 parking spaces when it only 45 were required.
The development will create 197 apartments
Any zoning change Council agrees to will come with a holding provision until the developer gets a record of site condition from the ministry of the environment. The City also wants a new shadow study and efforts to reduce shadows on neighbouring properties across the street and to the west (which may result in some change to the structure). The developer is also being asked to submit a landscape plan with the objective of planting trees along the side bordering Barrie Road.
Regular Meeting
When council gets to its regular business the first item is recognition of National Indigenous History Month. The Mnjikaning Kendaaswin Elementary School Choir will sing the National Anthem and a song written by Lorraine McRea (former chief of the Chippewas of Rama). Then Ben Cousineau, community researcher/archivist of the Chippewas of Rama will read a land acknowledgement.
Next, Mayor Don McIsaac will present Certificates of Bravery to Jordan Duffy and Chris Landra. Duffy intervened in an assault taking place in Couchiching Beach Park and was in turn attacked and severely injured. The incident happened May 26 and Landra came to Duffy’s aid stemming significant blood loss.
The chair of the Orillia Public Library Board, Deb Watson and CEO Meagan Wilkinson will then make a deputation to the library’s 2024 annual report. Highlights include, almost 210,000 visitors and 310,000 items borrowed, which does not include 107,00 items borrowed using the library’s online resources. The final Remembrance Day week-long exhibit drew 13,000 visitors.
The financial year-end met to the dollar the $3 million budget.
Council then has the public forum followed by a closed session. In the closed meeting there are 5 items. One is to discuss the external legal council’s opinion on mootness relating to the Strong Mayor Powers many on council are opposed to. Without documentation this suggests counsel either advised any action in court to stop the designation would fail because of prior decisions, or the designation doesn’t stand a chance for the same reason. Of course no one is talking so taxpayers are in the dark. At least we now know who the legal counsel is, Sylvain Rouleau, of WeirFoulds LLP.
The next item is a report on exempt employee group compensation. That means management pay. Following that is a report billed as taxpayer subsidy to neighbouring municipalities regarding funding for the Orillia Public Library. The terminology suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of how libraries are funded. In some sense the city does subsidize residents of Oro-Medonte and Severn who use the library. But, the city is obligated to fund a library, as are all municipalities.
Severn does have a library in Coldwater. Oro Medonte divides its library funding between Barrie, Orillia, and Severn. Their councils determine how much they will spend. There is nothing in the Library Act stating how much funding a municipality has to provide, just that they have to provide something.
On a pro rated basis according to library cardholders who are residents of the townships the library board sends a proportional funding request to each municipality annually. For many years the amounts the townships are willing to spend has been less than asked for.
Several Orillia councils have wrestled with this at budget. Of course the City could just reduce the overall budget by the amount the townships do not pay, but then the problem becomes what to cut from the budget. The cost of operating the library is determined by the services residents use and/or ask for. Reducing the budget in one area does not just affect township residents it also affects Orillia residents.
How it could be determined what services township residents use and cutting only that would be a Sisyphean task. One cannot just cut back heating by 10%, or lighting by 5%, or staffing by 2% and then say “good job.”
This writer was a member of the Orillia Public Library Board for 13 years and a member of the finance committee the entire time and thus involved with preparing the budget and presenting it. The city does not have a big stick in this fight and likely never will unless changes are made to the Library Act. Heck, if the city really wanted to attack financial contributions they would go after the province about the pitifully low annual grant. The amount may have changed in recent years, but SUNonline/Orillia noted in 2019 the grant had not changed from $46,000 annually in 20 years.
Still on the closed session, there are two remaining reports regarding a development agreement with Lakehead University and a property of interest the city may want to buy or sell (no information given which it is).
Back in public, next is a report from councillors Jeff Czetwerzuk, Janet-Lynne Durnford, Luke Leatherdale and Whitney Smith about their attendance at the annual Ontario Small Urban Municipalities Conference held in early May in Collingwood.
They attended sessions on homelessness and affordable housing, water and wastewater services, the relationships between municipalities and their business improvement areas, and a presentation by the City of Stratford on their cost recovering from a cyber attack.
Councillor Jay Fallis has a report urging the City to take steps to becoming a bird friendly city by creating a working group to investigate.
30 cities have already gone through the process (a 54 page application) to get the designation from Nature Canada. The working group will report back to council in September on the feasibility of pursuing the project.
Doctor, Doctor
Next is a report from Melanie Delion the community physician recruiter, and Dr. Stephen Morris regarding how the physicians recruitment committee intends to use $500,000 council approved in the 2025 budget. The money was intended to create a program to attract doctors to the area and the motion includes releasing $100,000 of the total four years now.
The report outlines and breaks down the cost of – paying bonuses to doctors relocating to here, Canadian doctors studying or practising out of the country locating here (licensing and Ontario qualification costs), covering additional costs to doctors already established here for mentoring new and relocating doctors, and bursaries for students, among other things. There is even a line to cover immigration and work permit fees, which may be recognition of the situation south of the border where some doctors have expressed their intention to get out and come north.
All this is to attract up to eight doctors. It’s a shame the province has not addressed doctor shortages in almost all Ontario communities and the strength of the magnet pulling doctors to the GTA to practice as specialists. The committee notes, but does not give specifics, other provinces have dealt with these issues. What is reality is Orillia property taxpayers have to pay for a solution with no guarantees to a made-up problem.
Anchors Aweigh
Next is report from development services responding to a letter from Randy Trudeau asking the city to waive fees at boat ramps and parking to Métis and Indigenous people based on treaties and the Constitution guaranteeing access to traditional fishing.
Currently there is no fee to use boat ramps owned by the city, but there is a charge to park trailers. Residents can apply for a permit to park trailers for free. Staff’s recommendation is to receive the report, meaning no change to current policy. They say no other municipality nearby makes this concession except for Midland.
An alternative recommendation is to create a permit for $120. The rate for nonresidents at the moment is $10 an hour to a maximum of $50 per day.
Hold The Bus
Development services has a report recommending renewing for a five-year term the agreement with Lakehead University Student Union for student transit passes. The new agreement raises the cost per student in steps from $150 to $192 by the 2029/2030 school year.
That money comes out of student union fees each student pays. The student union said 1843 students counted in the program this school year resulting in revenue of $ 277,371 for a rated transit.
A new aspect to the agreement is allowing students who do not reside in Orillia and do not use Orillia Transit to opt out of paying the fee.
The Budget And Strong Mayor Powers
Staff have a report for council to approve the mayor include 5 items in the 2026 budget. They are:
- Short-Term Rental Accommodation – to add a licensing fee
- Hospital Update – contribution to hospital reserve
- Stormwater User Fees Structure
- On-Demand Transit Service Study – remove a $115K 2025 budget item for consultants and have staff do the work.
- Tree Planting – relates to established policy and not the ice storm.
This is in light of responsibility for preparing the budget from staff to the mayor and there’s no point doing work on something that the mayor may reject.
Enquiry Motions
There is one from councillor Smith to have staff report on the feasibility and costs of establishing a dog park at the Orillia Recreation Centre by the summer of 2025
Council meetings are open to the public or can be watched on the City’s Youtube channel. However, this meeting’s livestream will not include the OPGC meeting and will being at 1 p.m.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia; Images Supplied)
