Last week several municipal reforms with significant ramifications, were put forward by the Honourable Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Steve Clark. While we look forward to reviewing the upcoming legislation, the announcement and several aspects of the proposed legislation has created widespread concern within our sector, regarding timing, implementation, and lack of engagement with local government professionals.

Reserving any specific comment on the policy, AMCTO is concerned with how these reforms were brought forward, notably:

• This legislation will be introduced on the eve of the 2018 municipal elections and will impact provisions within the Municipal Elections Act.  AMCTO has long believed that senior orders of government should engage local government professionals and representative associations,  early and more importantly, provide the appropriate amount of time to ensure that public policy implementation is effective at the local level.  The timing of this legislation will make this extremely challenging.

• This new legislation will create changes to existing election processes within the sector.  Ambiguity exists with how to balance the currently enforced rules and regulations with those of the new legislation.  Naturally, this ambiguity hinders the ability of local government professionals to implement provincial public policy in a fair and effective manner.

• Finally, AMCTO is concerned that the lack of engagement or notice for these reforms to municipal legislation signals a step backwards in the belief that the municipal sector is recognized as a mature, responsible order of government.

AMCTO staff and members will review the legislation once it is released, and will look for ways to provide our technical expertise on how to support public policy implementation at the local level.  We continue to believe this value is best served when our members and association are engaged early in the policy development process.