Mayor urges Hwy. 35 widening during meeting with premier
Offered a last-minute one-on-one visit with Ontario’s premier, City of Kawartha Lakes Mayor Andy Letham used the opportunity to push for the widening of Highway 35 South, more long-termcare beds and strategies to attract new doctors to the municipality.
Letham was one of six Ontario mayors to sit down with the Premier Doug Ford on Monday, but with others representing major cities such as Ottawa, London, Mississauga, Windsor and Guelph, he was the only one to bring a rural agenda to Queen’s Park.
He called it an excellent opportunity to share local issues directly with the premier.
“We talked about some of the progress the city has made in this last term with its core services review, our 10-year financial plan … he mentioned most municipalities don’t do that or haven’t done that, and he was very impressed with our restructuring, bringing council down from 16 to eight councillors,” Letham said.
“’Good for you’ was his comment about less government.”
Ford recognized the significance in the mayor’s push for widening Highway 35, south of Highway 7, especially with the Highway 407 extension to Highway 35/115 at Kirby due to open in 2020, he said.
“He said he would look at the schedule and look at moving it up … he realized it’s a bit of a priority,” Letham said.
The mayor also spoke about legislation to allow for expansion of natural gas into rural Ontario. “Hopefully, that will include Bobcaygeon,” Letham said.
On long-term-care beds, Letham said the province government has expressed a commitment to add 15,000 extra long-term-care beds across Ontario.
He told the premier of the plan to build a new Victoria Manor here and how, if requirements and the criteria for funding was lowered, it could mean greater eligibility for the municipality.
“If they can change the legislation to lower the criteria, maybe we can keep the manor and build a brand new facility… we could add 150 long-term-care beds immediately in our community,” Letham said.
The premier said that’s exactly the type of thing the municipalities need to work on with the province, the mayor said.
Letham also asked Ford to reconsider some areas of “bonusing” — the practice of offering private businesses financial incentives to locate in certain areas.
Under the Municipal Act it’s prohibited, but the mayor asked whether they would look into lifting the regulations for rural municipalities looking to attract new doctors.
Currently, some private businesses such as pharmacies can offer doctors free or below market value rent as a way to increase business, Letham said. Municipalities cannot do that with their properties, but if that regulation was lifted, it could make a difference in bringing in new doctors, he said.
The premier and his people seemed open to looking at the issue, Letham said.
Ford told Letham that he would invite him to a followup meeting in the near future.