March 1, 2022, at 4:00 PM

Original link

The meeting was called to order at 4:01 PM; it being noted that the following Members were in remote attendance: Mayor E. Holder; Councillors M. Hamou, J. Helmer and S. Hillier

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

That Items 2.1, 2.2, 2.4 and 2.5 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

2.1   1st Report of the Accessibility Advisory Committee

2022-01-27 ACCAC Report

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 1st Report of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on January 27, 2022:

a)    the Community Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (CDIS) Accessibility Working Group members BE INVITED to attend a future meeting of the Accessibility Advisory Committee in order to discuss opportunities for future integrations and collaborations; and,

b)    clauses 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 5.1 and 6.1, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.2   Single Source Procurement SS-2022-071: Xalt Real-time Fire CAD to RMS Interface

2022-03-01 SR - Single Source Procurement SS-2022-071 Xalt Real-time Fire CAD to RMS Interface

2022-03-01 SR - Single Source Procurement SS-2022-071 Xalt Real-time Fire CAD to RMS Interface App. A

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated March 1, 2022, related to Single Source Procurement SS-2022-071 for Xalt software from Hexagon (Intergraph Canada Ltd.) to allow an interface with ICO Solutions Records Management System from the Hexagon Fire Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD):

a)    the Firm Fixed Price Statement of Work, submitted by Intergraph Canada Ltd., doing business as Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure division, 10921-14 Street NE, Calgary, Alberta, T3K 2L5, for the installation of the Xalt – Integration Software, at the quoted purchase value of $65,420 (HST excluded), BE ACCEPTED; it being noted that this is a single source contract as per the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy Section 14.4 d), there is a need for compatibility with goods and/or services previously acquired or the required goods and/or services will be additional to similar goods and/or services being supplied under an existing contract (i.e. contract extension or renewal);

b)    the Quote number 2022-84528 submitted by Intergraph Canada Ltd., doing business as Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure division, 10921-14 Street NE, Calgary, Alberta, T3K 2L5 for the purchase and annual maintenance of the Xalt – Integration Software, at the quoted purchase value of $39,663 (HST excluded), BE ACCEPTED; it being noted that this is a single source contract as per the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy Section 14.4 d), there is a need for compatibility with goods and/or services previously acquired or the required goods and/or services will be additional to similar goods and/or services being supplied under an existing contract (i.e. contract extension or renewal);

c)    subject to approval of a) and b) above, the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this contract;

d)    the approval and authorization provided for in a) and b) above, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract or having a Purchase Order, or contract record relating to the subject matter of this approval;

e)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute any contract or other documents, if required, to give effect to the actions set out in a) to c) above; and,

f)    the funding for this procurement BE APPROVED as set out in the Source of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report. (2022-C09)

Motion Passed

2.4   2022-2023 Single Source Award Recommendation for Housing Stability Service Programs; Including Housing First, Supportive Housing and Day Drop-in Programs

2022-03-01 SR - 2022-2023 Single Source Award Recommendation for Housing Stability Service Programs Including Housing First

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated March 1, 2022, related to a Single Source Award Recommendation for Housing Stability Service Programs, Including Housing first, Supportive Housing and Day Drop-In programs:

a)    the Single Source, as per The Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 14.4 d), BE ACCEPTED at a total estimated cost of $3,642,900 (excluding HST), for the period of April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, with the option to extend for four (4) additional one (1) year terms, subject to confirmation of the Provincial and Federal funding, to administer Housing Stability Services, Housing First, Supportive Housing and Day Drop-In programs, to the following providers:

  •    CMHA Thames Valley Addiction & Mental Health Services – Street Level Women at Risk (SS-2022-060) 

  •    St. Leonard’s Society of London – Project Home (SS-2022-061)

  •    London Cares Homeless Response Services Housing First (SS-2022-062)

  •    CMHA Thames Valley Addiction & Mental Health Services – Housing Always (SS-2022-063)

  •    CMHA Thames Valley Addiction & Mental Health Services - No Fixed Address program (SS-2022-064)

  •    Mission Services - Roger Smith Wing Supportive Housing (SS-2022-065)

  •    Youth Opportunities Unlimited – Cornerstone Housing (SS-2022-066)

  •    Regional HIV/AIDS Connection - John Gordon Home (SS-2022-067)

  •    Youth Opportunities Unlimited Housing First Mobile Team (SS-2022-068)

  •    CMHA Thames Valley Addiction & Mental Health Services – My Sisters Place Day Drop-in (SS-2022-069);

b)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary in relation to this project; and,

c)    the approval, given herein, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into Purchase of Service Agreements with each program. (2022-D04)

Motion Passed

2.5   Irregular Result RFP 21-71 Consultant for Employment Services Transformation Single Bid Award Recommendation  

2022-03-01 SR - Irregular Result RFP 21-71 Consultant for Employment Services Transformation

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development and with the concurrence of the Director, Financial Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated March 1, 2022, related to an Irregular Result RFP 21-71 for a Consultant for Employment Services Transformation Single Bid Award Recommendation, as per the City of London Procurement Policy Section 19.4 “Only One Bid Received”:

a)    the Request for Proposal (RFP 21-71), submitted by StrategyCorp, BE ACCEPTED, at the cost of $79,500 (plus H.S.T.);

b)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary in relation to this project, and;

c)    the approvals, hereby given, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract or having a purchase order relating to the subject matter of this approval. (2022-S04)

Motion Passed

2.3   Licensing Agreement for the Creation of a Food Hub in Cavendish Park, 136 Cavendish Crescent

2022-03-01 SR - Licensing Agreement for the Creation of a Food Hub in Cavendish Park (1of4)

2022-03-01 SR - Licensing Agreement for the Creation of a Food Hub in Cavendish Park, (2of4)

2022-03-01 SR - Licensing Agreement for the Creation of a Food Hub in Cavendish Park, (3of4)

2022-03-01 SR - Licensing Agreement for the Creation of a Food Hub in Cavendish park, (4of4)

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report, dated March 1, 2022, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on March 22, 2022, to:

a)    authorize and approve the Agreement between The Corporation of the City of London and Hutton House Association for Adults with Disabilities for the creation of a Food Hub at Cavendish Park 136 Cavendish Crescent; and,

b)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the above-noted Agreement;

it being noted that the communication, as appended to the Added Agenda, from L. Thorne, with respect to this matter, was received. (2022-S12)

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

2.6   Pet Limits for Approved Foster Organizations

2022-03-01 SR - Pet Limits for Approved Foster Organizations

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by M. Hamou

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the staff report dated March 1, 2022, with respect to Pet Limits for Approved Foster Organizations, BE RECEIVED; it being noted that the current regulation of no pet limits for Approved Foster Organizations will be maintained. (2022-P14)

Motion Passed (4 to 1)

Voting Record:

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by M. Hamou

Motion to approve the delegation requests from W. Brown and M. Blosh, Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by E. Holder

Seconded by M. Hamou

Motion to restrict the number of and types of rescue animals in foster homes to be the number of animals allowed in private homes.

Motion Failed (2 to 3)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   K. Pihlak, Executive Director, Oak Park Co-operative Children’s Centre - REQUEST FOR DELEGATION STATUS

2022-03-01 Sub. Delegation Request K. Pihlak (1of4)

2022-03-01 Sub. Delegation Request K. Pihlak (2of4)

2022-03-01 Sub. Delegation Request K. Pihlak (3of4)

2022-03-01 Sub. Delegation Request K. Pihlak (4of4)

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the following actions be taken with respect to the delegation from K. Pihlak, Oak Park Co-Operative Children’s Centre, related to the Bi-Lateral Child Care Agreement:

a)    the Mayor BE REQUESTED to call on the Provincial Government to:

  •    sign the Bi-Lateral Child Care Agreement before March 31, 2022; and,

  •    emphasize the importance of growing the highly-trained workforce of early childhood educators in Ontario;

b)    the Licensed Child Care Network BE THANKED for their advocacy and for their work as early childhood educators;

it being noted that the verbal delegation from K. Pihlak, Executive Director, Oak Park Co-Operative Children’s Centre, with respect to this matter, as well as the communications, appended to the agenda, were received. (2022-S01)

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Voting Record:

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by M. Hamou

Motion to approve the delegation request from K. Pihlak, Oak Park Co-operative Children’s Centre, with respect to the Bi-Lateral Child Care Agreement.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

4.2   COVID-19 Response Update and Program Funding Wind-down

2022-03-01 SR - COVID-19 Response Update and Program Funding Wind-down

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by M. Hamou

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated March 1, 2022, with respect to a COVID-19 Response Update and Program Funding Wind-down:

a)    the Mayor BE DIRECTED to write a letter to the applicable Ministries with respect to the need for the continuation of Provincial Social Services Relief Funding (SSRF) and Federal Reaching Home COVID response funding; and,

b)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED. (2022-S08)

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

4.3   Draft By-laws: Program Regulating Distribution of Flyers By-law and Distribution of Graphic Flyers to Residential Properties By-law

2022-03-01 SR - Draft By-law Program Regulating Distribution of Flyers By-law and Distribution

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated March 1, 2022, related to a Program Regulating Distribution of Flyers and Distribution of Graphic Flyer Deliveries to Residential Properties:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report (Appendix C), BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on March 22, 2022, to regulate the distribution of graphic flyers in the City of London; and,

b)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report (Appendix D), BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on March 22, 2022, to amend By-law No. A-54, as amended, being “A by-law to implement an Administrative Monetary Penalty System in London” to designate the Distribution of Graphic Flyers By-law;

it being noted that the communications, as appended to the Added Agenda, from J. Arthur, D. Ronson and S. Trosow, with respect to this matter, were received. (2022-C09)

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   Deferred Matters List

CPSC DEFERRED MATTERS as at February 18, 2022

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by M. Hamou

That the Deferred Matters List for the Community and Protective Services Committee, as at February 18, 2022, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

5.2   (ADDED) 1st Report of the Community Safety and Crime Prevention Advisory Committee

2022-02-24 CSCP Report

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

That the 1st Report of the Community Safety and Crime Prevention Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on February 24, 2022, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

6.   Confidential

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by E. Holder

That the Community and Protective Services Committee convene In Closed Session for the purpose of considering the following:

6.1.    Solicitor-Client Privilege

A matter pertaining to advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose, regarding flyer deliveries to residential properties.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

The Community and Protective Services Committee convened In Closed Session from 6:07 PM to 7:08 PM.

7.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 7:39 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (2 hours, 55 minutes)

Chair, can we do a sound check for chambers, please? Testing, testing. Perfection, thank you. We’re just gonna wait another couple of seconds to see if other committee members show up.

All right, it’s 401. And so we are now officially late starting. So we’ll get started now. I will call the meeting to order.

The fourth meeting of the community and protective services committee. It is a virtual meeting, as so many have been because of the COVID-19 emergency. So please check the city website for current details of COVID-19 service impacts. Meetings can be viewed via live streaming on YouTube and on the city website.

The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for council, standing or advisory committee meetings and information upon request. To make a request for any city service, please contact accessibility@london.ca or 519-661-2489, extension 2425. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact cpsc@london.ca. And with that, I will look to committee members to see if there are any disclosures of pecuniary interest.

Seeing none, I will advise that we’re going to have a slight change of order in the agenda today. We have a delegation for item 4.1 that will be moved up to the start of the agenda. So I will put that ahead of the consent items and that is simply because the delegates have requested that they do have another commitment later on this afternoon. So they want to ensure that they get their delegation and there was a little bit of a mix up on the scheduling of this delegation.

So under 4.1, there is the request for delegation status for Kay Pilach of the executive director of Oak Park Cooperative Children’s Center. So I look for a motion to see if committee would like to accept this delegation. It’s moved by Councillor Helmer and seconded by Councillor Hamou. I’ll call the question on that.

Closing the vote to zero. And there we have Ms. Cara Pilach on screen and I do apologize if I’m saying your name incorrectly. But go ahead, you have five minutes to address the committee.

It’s a Cara Pilach, Estonian. But yes, so thank you so much for giving me this space. I see Mariah Golder again, nice to see you. So I am representing the licensed childcare networks advocacy subcommittee.

We are making a delegation request to London City Council. So LCCN is a group of early learning and licensed childcare organizations dedicated to high quality childcare. We work collaboratively with the community to raise public awareness about the importance of early learning and licensed childcare. So we are requesting City Council ask the government of Ontario to sign the bilateral childcare agreement.

As you probably know, Ontario remains the only province or territory yet to sign the agreement. If the agreement is not signed by March 31st, Ontario will lose $1 billion in funding for the 2021-2022 fiscal year. This would be really devastating. Families, educators and centers alike to lose on that funding that would support the children across London and Ontario.

London families deserve quality, safe, accessible and affordable childcare. Ms. Pilac, I don’t know if you can hear me, but your screen appears to be frozen right now. Ms.

Pilac, if you can hear me, if you could try turning off your video and we would still be able to hear your voice, but sometimes that frees up some of your bandwidth. So our delegate has dropped out of the meeting. So unfortunately, let’s carry on with our consent agenda and see if she will be able to rejoin us at some point. Maybe somebody who has contact information for her contact her and see if there’s any assistance that we can provide.

So let’s move to the consent items and see if there is any item that people would like pulled. I do see that item 2.6, the pet limits for approved foster organizations. We do have a delegation request for that as well that does not appear on the agenda. There was a mix up in the email address that the requesters used.

So the clerks were not able to respond to them. So what if we pull 2.6? We’ll deal with the rest of the consent items, but I will look to committee to see if there are any other items that they would like pulled. Councillor Hummoo.

Can we pull 2.3, please? Yes, we can do that. Any other items? I would look for a motion then forward.

All of the consent items, except for 2.3 and 2.6, moved by the mayor and seconded by Councillor Hummoo. Any discussion on any of those other items? None, I will call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero.

0.3 and that was pulled by Councillor Hummoo. Okay, I have a couple questions. The first question is through you, Madam Chair, to staff. I was just wondering about this model and where did it come from?

Is this a model that was just specifically catered to London or are there many of these types of things throughout the city or in other places? So question to staff. I believe that would go to Mr. Stafford.

Community food hubs throughout the province and this one is unique because of the location and it is an early project that we’re trying and figuring out and working with the community to see what works best. There’s some constraints on the property itself as mentioned, the report around zoning and some other issues. It’s a former work shared. So we’re using some shared space and it’s quite unique actually.

So we’re hoping to expand and keep it going. Keep it growing, I suppose, as the way they were awarded and we’re excited about the opportunity to work with the community here to establish this type of an opportunity here in London. Thank you, Mr. Stafford.

Councilor Hummel? Yeah, I’m really excited actually about this project. I hope that this is successful and I hope that this could be put in other places because I see it as something that we could grow and put all around the city and in different places for different reasons as well. So I love this, I love the initiative, I love the idea and I’m really excited about it.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. Any other comments or questions on this item? Councilor Van Hulse, welcome.

Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I also wanna extend my gratitude for those involved and putting forward this program certainly helps with the idea of food security, which has been a priority of the Middlesex London Food Policy Council and our own council. So this is be a nice opportunity to see some innovation happening along this avenue and I very much look forward to the results, so thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Any other comments or questions or concerns, debate being none, is there a motion? Mr. Mary, I assume you’re moving the staff recommendation.

Do I have a second? Seconded by Councilor Hummel. Thank you. No further discussion?

I will call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Great, and I noticed that Ms. Pelac was able to get back into the meeting.

So we can, before we go to 2.6, we will jump back to item 4.1. And Ms. Pelac, if you do have issues with your internet, you can always also turn off your video and that usually bears your bandwidth a bit. But you can go ahead and I’m gonna give you your five minutes starting from now.

Sorry about that, everyone. So I won’t repeat myself too much, but so I am representing the licensed childcare networks advocacy subcommittee. So we’ve been advocating these past two years for the National Child Care Deal. As I was saying, Ontario is the last province or territory to have not signed the deal.

And we are asking city council to help us in advocating to the government of Ontario to get this deal signed by March 31st. So we do not lose out on a billion dollars for Ontario and money for London families, educators and childcare spaces. So before I left the meeting, I was in the middle of talking about how we would also like London City Council to advocate to the government of Ontario regarding the early childhood educator workforce. So ECEs, employed childcare centers work to support the growth development and learning of children zero to five in childcare while supporting parents’ rights to access work.

We are requesting that London City Council specifically advocates the government on recognizing the value of early childhood educators through professional wages. So as I’ve described to folks, a childcare space is an empty room if there’s not a qualified early childhood educator workforce in the room. So we are concerned about the current conservative Ontario government’s lack of recognition of the importance of a qualified workforce for the plan. So the key to stability and quality is growing the ECE workforce and retaining its members.

So our two asks are to advocate to the government of Ontario to sign the bilateral childcare agreement and additionally put a large focus on growing the ECE workforce. And I’ll leave it there. Thank you, Ms. Pilack.

Are there any questions from the committee for our delegate? I’m not seeing any. Are there any comments in general? Oh, Mr.

Mayor, go ahead. Thanks very much. I’d like to thank Ms. Pilack for making your presentation today.

I believe some of this was an offshoot of a meeting that we had with the federal minister for community and social services and spoke very passionately about encouraging Ontario to sign on to the $10 a day agreement. So from that standpoint, one of the suggestions I made was that these various groups lobby their members of provincial parliament. And I may have said councils too. I’m not sure because she’s here today.

So maybe that was the case. Listen, I’m comfortable certainly taking that forward if it’s the will of council to do that. I’m not sure I haven’t seen the wording of that second component though to encourage growth in this. That’s not an area I’m qualified to say.

I’m certainly comfortable with the notion of taking forward if it’s again, if it’s the little council of this approach will take care of program and being part of it. But the second component just feels exceptionally general. I mean, one could imagine that it’s short. I don’t want to say staff, but maybe that’s what you might say that is short staff.

But I’d rather, I think from my standpoint, I’d like to have, I don’t know what that means in terms of numbers. And it’s awfully hard to just simply say we want more. It’s not, I don’t mean money. I’m talking about staff without something behind it that gives them, I think the goal to shoot for it.

Then they know whether they’re higher or whatever it might be. But that’d be my only concern about the second portion is I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if it’s, do a hundred more people in the London region, is that enough? Is it a thousand more in the province of Ontario?

So specificity and would I think help in just terms of getting my head around it. Those were my comments, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Philak for doing that.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the clerk has prepared based on Ms. Pilak’s and the LCCN’s communications that are on the agenda.

Based on these communications, the clerk has prepared some possible wording for a motion that the mayor be requesting. And it will be in E-Scribe. I think if you refresh your screen, you should be able to see it. But the mayor sent to A, sign the bilateral childcare agreement and B, advocate for recognizing the value of early childhood educators through professional wages.

It being noted that the verbal presentation from KPLAC, Executive Director, Oak Park Cooperative Children’s Centre, with respect to this matter, as well as the communications as appended to the agenda were received. So that is a possible wording for a motion. It’s in E-Scribe, this is up to committee. Go ahead, Mr.

Mayor. So Chair, if I still have the floor, I didn’t hear Ms. Pilak make comment to through the professional wages. I heard additional staffing supports in that area, but I did not hear the reference to professional wages.

And it could be my headset, I don’t know. So I’m not sure where that came from. So Mr. Mayor, as I said, it wasn’t based on Ms.

Pilak’s actual delegation to the committee, but the clerk used the submissions, the written submissions that are on the agenda in advance of the committee, anticipating that their motion today. So just draft wording, and again, it’s up to the committee what motion they wish to pass, but that’s where the clerk got that from, from the written submissions. There were two letters appended to the agenda. Yeah, all right, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I will go to Councillor Helmer next, and then Councillor Hamou. Thank you, and I really appreciate and the delegation and the work of the advocacy subcommittee.

Thanks very much for being here today, and for the work that you do teaching our kids. It’s really important. I had sent some language to the clerks before I knew that they already had prepared, which makes sense. I should have known that that would have happened.

Essentially saying, let’s write a letter to the province, encouraging them to sign the agreement before the end of March. I think that’s really important component. We don’t want to miss out on all this money that’s been allocated to Ontario, and we’ll go to waste if we don’t have an agreement to play soon. And second, emphasizing the importance of growing the workforce, the highly trained workforce of early childhood educators.

I think that’s the important thing is that, the estimates for the provinces that have entered into agreements already with the federal government is, in some cases, like Alberta, like 10,000 new people working in that area. That’s a lot of people, and we’re going to need something on an even bigger scale than that in Ontario, right? So I think growing the workforce is the key thing to communicate to the minister and assigning the agreement before the end of March. I think those are the two things.

And the second part I added on and what I sent to the clerk was to thank the licensed childcare network for their advocacy and for the work they do as early childhood educators. Okay, Councillors, Helmer, thank you for that. I would move that if there’s a seconder for that. Okay, so the clerk has received your wording.

Thank you, and she will upload that to E-Scribe with you moving it. And I’ll go to Councillor Hummer. Or are you finished speaking? Councillor Hummer, ‘cause I’ll move on and possibly have a seconder in Councillor Hummer with her comments, but I’ll wait to see if you’re finished speaking first.

I am finished up for now. I will say it is perhaps the height of irony that I may have to step out of this meeting to go over and pick up my kid from childcare during the meeting. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor, oh, Ms.

Pielac, did you want to respond to some of these comments? Yeah, I just wanted to respond to the mayor. I’m sorry, I’m a little flustered, speaking in front of everyone. So I apologize for missing some things out of my presentation, but yes.

So a sentence in the presentation is we are requesting that London City Council specifically advocate to the government on recognizing the value of early childhood educators through professional wages. As Mr. Halmer was saying, we can’t grow the workforce without professional wages. So that’s an important piece to it all, thank you.

Thank you for that clarification. I will go to you now, Councillor Hummer. Thank you, and I will second, but I just wanted to also extend my thanks to this group of people. And just to let you know that sometimes I do, I go into Old North Public School to do, I call it babysitting, but just to kind of take care of the grade, the JKs and the SKs when they don’t have coverage.

And so I did that today, I did that this morning, and I have to say I spent about two hours with them and it is exhausting and it is a lot of work, especially when you have 25 to 30 kids in a room and you’re just dealing with pretty much every little situation. But I do think that this needs professional wages though, because first of all, we do have to grow the workforce. There are tons of shortages, but it’s also one of those jobs that can really help grow the middle class because over the pandemic, we’ve seen the middle class kind of shrink in terms of wages. And what we need to do is look at jobs such as ECEs and other semi-professional jobs that would help make up the shortfall in wages through the middle class.

So yet I do believe that they have to pay ECEs better. And yes, I do, I will stock into the motion. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor.

I will go to you, Councillor Hopkins, welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair for recognizing me and for STILAC for being here with the delegation. And thank you for all your work and advocacy that LCCN does on behalf of children. We know how important children are.

And I, when I see you, Ms. Feelac, you remind me of 35 years ago when we started at Oak Park, the daycare nursery and the importance of having childcare centers back in the ’80s was a huge conversation. And I look back and we really have not advanced in the past 35 years. I just want to encourage the committee to support the motion.

I really appreciate Councillor Halmer’s comments about adding a thank you to LCCN because that’s the passionate advocacy that is needed to make us aware of the importance and the work that’s going on in our communities. A couple years ago, we started the LCRN, the London Community Recovery Network conversation. And we found through that process, two years later, the importance of childcare for economic recovery. We need that money.

We need Ontario to sign on. I know I can do my advocacy, but I think it’s really important at AMO but the advocacy, and let’s hope that they’re going to be signing on, but the need is now and having this conversation and having an understanding of the importance of the need to support that professional part of childcare and increase those wages. I think it’s fair to say that we all need a living wage and it has to be looked at through this process. So thank you for allowing me to make these comments.

I want to thank the mayor for his letter that he sent last year. And again, the importance of sending it on to the provincial government now. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins.

Then I will go back to the mayor. Thanks so much, Chair. I’m fairly pragmatic in these things. And what I’m trying to determine is if we send the letter based on this motion, we’re arguing two things.

We’re arguing number one, sign the sign degree. I think many of us can get our heads there and I hope Council will. The second is we’re telling them that they have to pay more money. I think that’s two very different issues.

Now they’re related and I get the interconnection, how to get more money if they’re not paid more equitably. My concern is when you make the argument, you’re making, it’s two different arguments. And I think the second part is tougher ‘cause we’re getting more prescriptive. I know we’re not saying you have to pay them X dollars, but you are talking about professional wages.

I don’t know what that means. It’s again, it’s so it’s prescriptive because we’re telling them that do one and do the other. And then the second we’re not, we’re very general by saying professional wages night. And so I know when I have discussions with premier and ministers and at federal as well, if you’re targeting a very specific thing and the thing that’s most time sensitive in all of this is the childcare agreement.

We heard that from the minister the other day when we had our childcare advocates there. It’s not that I disagree with this, but if you’re asking what the practical best approach would be, you get one, come back and then argue the other. But I think it’s two steps because I think it does make it a bit more challenging when we’re telling the province how to do it. I would love that council would pass A and then and see of course, and then come back and argue B.

And then we, let’s get the first one done first because that’s very specific and not as hard to do as A and B together. That’s just my experience in dealing with politicals at the two different levels. So I don’t know what council wants to do. I probably asked to separate the vote if we’re gonna do that and just pull B out.

And again, it’s not that it’s not a noble initiative, but it’s different than the first and I think it is in steps. You get the first one, then you can come back and do the second, come back in a month, and then do that. I’m not trying to really slow this down. I say in a month or it will be getting close to the repair.

But it’ll be huge for the industry. If we can get the province to sign on to the bilateral child care group, that’s huge in and by itself. That’s a monster win. But then if we start to add little pieces to it, you give them reasons to say no, or to say let’s think about it, or we’ll defer it.

I just think it’s two steps folks, that’s all. Thanks, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

And I will add that the motion has been updated again and it is in eScribe to include Councillor Helmer’s suggested wording, and that would be adding the date. We emphasize the importance of growing the highly trained workforce of early childhood educators in Ontario and to advocate for recognizing the value of early childhood educators through professional wages. So that is what’s on the floor right now, moved by Councillor Helmer and seconded by Councillor Hamou. Is there any further comment or discussion?

And we can vote on B separately as the Mayor has requested. Councillor, Mr. Mayor. Thanks, and please understand colleagues, the reason that I made the advocacy that I did is do wanna get, if there’s any chance to get this through, speaking with the tight timelines, I’m all over A, but I think if you add B to it, it just adds a level of dimension as justified as it may be.

But I think it limits the tools to make the argument, but I’m in the hands of committee and council owners. Mr. Councillor Helmer, sorry, Councillor Helmer. So I appreciate that the clerks are trying to weave the language that I had sent along into what they had already prepared, but I wonder if that might be unintentionally making things a bit more complicated than they could be otherwise.

So in the initial language that I had sent along, I actually left out the part about wages, partly because I think there could be different ways of growing the workforce and people might disagree about what the best way of doing that is, and they may think it should be at a certain level. Some people may think it should be at one level and other people might think it’d be another. Frankly, that is up to the provincial government and the people who are working in that area to sort out what the right level of wages should be. I think as a city council, what we wanna do is say, sign the agreement before this money, please.

And it’s really important that we grow the workforce. Personally, I don’t see how you can do that without paying people better and attracting more people into what is difficult. It’s very important work, but it’s also quite difficult. And I think you have to recognize that through remuneration.

So I’m convinced that that’s what’s required, but I don’t know that we need to get into the details of that in our communication. We can just emphasize the importance of growing. And then I think many other advocates will explain the best way of doing that. And I think it’s really the sort of combo of us supporting the request of signing the agreement now and the importance of growing the workforce.

Maybe we can all get on board with that easily. And the wages piece, I think it’s necessary. I think it’s sort of implied by the growing the workforce, but other people may not. And they may think there’s some other way of doing that.

And perhaps we can leave that ambiguity there. And it can be an issue that other advocates will push with the province very directly. So Councillor, would you like to see be and at the word, after the word Ontario? So after Ontario put a period and eliminate the rest of those words, is that what you want to see in your motion?

All I will say is I had written a motion that didn’t have an A and B, it just had a sort of A. And then the B was the thank you. And maybe it would be easier to just put that language up and we’ll see if people are, it’s essentially what you suggested, which is dropping the last little bit. Because I think the letter needs to do two things.

Encourage the agreement to be signed before March 31st and emphasize the importance of growing the workforce. So, those are the two things that I put in initially in the language. And maybe committee would be more comfortable with that than they are with the way it is now in this sort of hybrid motion. Okay, so Councillor Clerk had already updated it.

Clerk’s like A’s, B’s and C’s. So it continues to have an A, B, and a C. And I invite everyone to refresh their E-Scribe to see the actual motion. Ms.

Pilak, did you want to add something more here? We normally don’t go back and forth with delegates, but your input is valued here. I don’t want to take too much time, but yeah, I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and merit holders thoughts that we want to get that deal signed number one, I completely agree. And perhaps, I agree, maybe leaving off the professional wages and focusing in.

However, we do need a workforce without childcare. Without a workforce, there’s no childcare. It’s an empty room. So, but I do agree, we need to focus on the workforce.

And then perhaps I come back to a committee meeting in a month or two, once the deal is signed. And then we figure out the other details around the professional wages. So I’m in support of whatever Council feels. Thank you, Ms.

Pilak. Are there any other comments, questions? Mr. Mayor, go ahead, sir.

You are muted, Mr. Mayor. I am famous words, and thank you, Chair, and I don’t want to belabor this. What I’m concerned about, not about this, but I think the ABC, the way it’s been worded now is great.

And I think it’s, I’m comfortable with that for sure. I’m just wondering, what do we do in the interim? Knowing that we’re getting, we’re kind of right up against it in terms of budget, and we’re right up against it in terms of the deadline, and we’re right up in terms of when the next council meeting is. And I don’t know if anyone has any thoughts about, if this passes at committee, I mean, technically, we’re not allowed to, I’m not allowed to advocate, but I’d like to, and I’m not the only one, by the way.

I don’t want to think that I’m the answer to all of this, and please don’t imagine that, please don’t. But I’m just worried about the timing, too, because, and that’s why Ms. Beylach is here, because of the timing, and we’re up against it as well. So I’m not sure, maybe offline, we can talk about what we can do separately to promote this if we get great support from committee owners.

So, Mr. Mayor, I think, personally, from the chair, I think you can start writing the letter (laughs) and then sign it after it’s endorsed by council, and you certainly have many more inroads than most people do into the provincial government, through your contacts in the Premier’s office and various ministers. So I’m sure your advocacy will continue on this topic as you advocate for London on many and various topics. I just don’t want to presume that I’m the whole answer.

I mean, we’re all just trying to do our parts to do the right thing, and that’s the point. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Any other comments or, so, you know, since the vice chair is moving the motion, and Councillor Hamou is seconding the motion, there’s not a lot of room for me to step out of the chair. So I’m just going to make some remarks from the chair. I want to thank Ms. Beylach as well for coming today, and also thank LCCN for all of the advocacy.

I know you have been very active. I’ve met with you a couple of times. I know you’ve had discussions with city staff, and the work that you and your group have been doing on this front, in particular, but in childcare in general, in the city of London has been invaluable and very, very necessary and very effective. So thank you for that.

We know, and from my work on the Middlesex London Health Unit and through work in different on the poverty panel and different aspects of my role as city council, that those first two years of life are crucial for in the development of a child and in their future and determining how their future will be. And so COVID as well has shown us who the real essential workers are in our society. We know that our first responders have been so important during COVID. But when we look at ECE workers and long-term care workers, grocery clerks, and all of these people have one thing in common, they tend to make lower wages.

And so that we’re seeing, I think, a paradigm shift in our society, and this is good. And I think from comments that I have heard from Minister Lecce and from different members of the provincial government, I am optimistic that this deal will be signed, and I’m optimistic that it will be signed before March 31st, I think a letter coming from the mayor will only help that. So I am very happy to support this motion. And I know that your advocacy will continue, Ms.

Pilac, as with everyone on LCCN, and we’re going to continue to see great things coming from this sector. So thank you again for coming. Thanks to committee for this great debate. If there is nothing else, then I will call the question.

Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Now we will go back to item 2.6. So as I said, there are two individuals, Ms. Wendy Brown and Ms.

Marie Blosch from the advisory committee, the animal welfare advisory committee for that reports into this standing committee. They would like to speak to us about the item 2.6 on our agenda. There was a mix up with their email address, and so their delegation request is sort of being handled on the fly. So I leave that up to committee.

It is up to you to accept this delegation request, to accept it now, or to accept it at a future meeting. And I just look to committee to see if there is a motion. Councillor Hillier, are you moving that we hear the delegation today? Yes, excellent.

And it is seconded by Councillor Hamou. Any thoughts on that motion? Seeing none, I’ll call the question. Chair Cassidy, I’ll vote manually, yes.

Thank you, Councillor Hummer. The motion carries five to zero. So I will see if the delegates are here and ready to go. So I’m looking for Ms.

Bloch and Ms. Brown. If you would like to join our committee, you will have five minutes to address the committee. Welcome.

  • Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for hearing our delegation. So we heard a delegation by the rescue group that was involved in this incident in 2021. We were informed that the increase in the volume of animals related in that incident time was related to an emergency influx from a hoarding situation, but the fire itself was completely unrelated to any matters that pertain to animal care and animal welfare.

So in looking at this matter very carefully and having made a recommendation which was also attached for your review, the rescue group, what we have sort of come to a decision about is that rescue groups will experience such circumstances involving hoarding of animals and cats with kittens as they work to deal with the overflow from the city run facilities as well. And just to address and respond to the community at large and in their work to be able to then distribute those animals to foster. So in that situation, it was an emergency. So they did have that high volume in that moment.

Those animals needed to be vetted and then distributed to foster situations. We feel that limits would severely inhibit rescues and being able to respond to such circumstances and severely inhibit the number of animals who can be helped. Further limits would undermine the city’s no-kill policy as rescues may be faced with no other alternative, but to either move forward with euthanasia or disobey the limits. We also feel that in addressing this issue, rescues that if they were ever in violation of animal welfare related issues and complaints, that could be addressed under our current bylaw and policies.

We know that rescues operate on limited funds and they rely on charitable donations. So we feel that this issue could be helped by allowing a two-way dream in terms of rescues also being able to look to the city-run shelter when they are beyond capacity as does the city-run shelter look to them when they are. So we feel that would also help address this issue in terms of volume of animals. But our conclusion is that we would recommend no change to we would recommend not limiting the numbers that can be fostered.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Brown. Are there any questions for the delegate?

Well, there is a staff report with a recommendation on the agenda and it agrees with the comments from our delegate today. So the— and the recommended motion in the report is that the attached be received. It being noted that the current regulation of no-pet limits for approved foster organizations be maintained. So that is a recommendation from staff in the staff report.

I wonder if there is any discussion or a mover or an alternate motion. Mr. Mayor, you’re moving the staff recommendation? Actually, I have a question for staff at the appropriate time, sure.

Now would be the appropriate time, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. So through you to— I’m not sure it’d be by law enforcement.

But in terms of those facilities or those homes where people have fostered animals, can we have some sense of the range of numbers of animals and which types that you have seen on investigation? Is that you, Mr. Catolic? Madam Chair, Heather Chapman is at the meeting tonight and she could answer that question.

Thank you. Go ahead, Ms. Chapman. Through the chair, with regard to the question on numbers, animal services under our contract would respond to pet limit complaints.

We haven’t received pet limit complaints at approved organizations, fosters, or rescues to the best of my knowledge. So we wouldn’t have a good general number as to how many animals we are seeing in these rescue environments. What I can tell you, if it helps, is we have within the city of London in 2022 14 approved fostering organizations. And then those organizations themselves rely upon a number of rescues and to the best of my knowledge, we are at about 335 rescues within the city of London in 2022.

Some will be rescuing and sheltering cats and others will be rescuing and sheltering dogs. A few might have both, it’s not that common. Cat volumes, obviously, because of the nature of the animal, the size and whatnot typically might be higher for guardianship in a home where dogs would be less. But again, to answer the question, I’m sorry, I don’t have one because we haven’t been receiving complaints at rescues.

So we’ve had no need to investigate. So through you, Chair, when we talk, I’m just chatting about 320 rescues. Does that mean there are 320 homes or individuals that through, I don’t know if I’d almost call it a licensing agreement, but with the smaller number of official foster homes, are these the number of animals or are these the number of homes that have, quote, permission to be able to do this? These are the number of homes that have permission to do not the number of animals that they house.

And through you, Chair, who authorizes, who gives permission to the, what sounded like a fairly small number to now 320 rescue homes? Who gives authorization for that? Through the chair, within the pet licensee or within the animal control bylaw and dog licensing bylaw, there are provisions that allow the city representative for, so in our case, it’s the deputy city manager of planning and economic development and/or Mr. Catolic, as I think we might have reworded the bylaws recently with the improvements that were made earlier this spring.

So the agreement is between, and I shouldn’t say agreement, it’s an approval is between the city representative and the approved foster organization. In the approval, there are a number of conditions that the organization has to meet to receive the approval and to receive the benefits of the bylaw, which would be no pet limits, free of foster tags. If you adopt from a rescue that’s approved in the city of London, you receive your license free that year in the full calendar year after that. So that agreement is between city representative and the organization, and then the organization has their designated rescue homes or foster homes that then take in a number of animals.

Hopefully that covers the question. It does, thank you. So Chair, only ‘cause I’m really trying to understand more than it’s just in the report, but this is helpful, so we have 320 approved rescue sites supported by 18. I think it was, I could be stand corrected on that, agencies, if you will, that authorize that.

It’s 320, what would stop it from being 3,200 through you, Chair, to staff? I’m not trying to be ridiculous. I’m just trying to understand the magnitude of this. Ms.

Chairman. So could I ask Mayor to rephrase his question? Yeah, I’m not sure I understand. Where I’m going with this is it’s currently 320 sites where they’re, that have been good enough to open up their homes, obviously they’ll have animals.

Why, what stops it from being 1,000 more than 3,320 or 2,000 more? Like, are there any limits on the number of sites or homes, if you will, and does that, does that break down between houses and apartments? Or is that strictly homes or how does that work? For the chair, the city doesn’t limit the number of rescues that an organization proof, foster organization uses themselves.

The city does have the approval with the actual foster organization. So the lead themselves. And there is a process to which somebody would approach animal services to, if they wish to also be an approved foster. And so in that realm of conditions that I spoke of, there are certain things that have to happen.

First for us to even consider approving them. And number one, they have to be formalized enough that they have a website can show that they’re adopting animals and as I say, there’s a good number of conditions there. We also though, we can’t possibly approve just all of a sudden if we had 25 more approaches tomorrow because we have to look at the resources that we have on the back and in animal services. And so as part of this agreement or approval with the city, one of the things that the city offers is through our animal hospital.

There’s a certain number of animals that go through there yearly for spaying and neutering and the medical care that goes along with that. So the primary focus of the animal hospital is shelter animals first. Then we have our TNR program trap neuter return. Those are for feral cats in the community, which is important to stay on top of.

We also have our low income subsidy program for those households that I wish to have pets and wish to be responsible owners but can’t afford the service fees of a private practice. And then as time permits, and luckily we do have time that permits, our veterinarian can also offer spots for spaying neuter to our rescue partners. Those that are approved through this, well, I keep saying approved, but that we have an agreement with. So they get the benefit of coming through the hospital.

So we can’t all of a sudden just approve 100 more because we don’t have the resources on the back and to be able to support that. So Chair, just based on that we have 18 franchises and I’m just trying to look at it from business terms. And we have 300 licenses for individuals that have been approved by these franchises. Again, I’ll apologize for the business reference.

From a health and safety of the animals, what do we do from an inspection standpoint? I know what they do in business in terms of food industry with restaurants, bars, bakeries and the like. What do we do in terms of inspection to maintain the health and safety of the animals that are being held or maintained by the rescues through the chair? Ms.

Chapman. Through the chair, in a private residence, we, the city, take no inspection processes under this approval. It’s the same as if there was abuse or neglect or abandonment reported in any household. That falls to the provincial level, which we all used to recognize as the OSPCA, but it’s now a provincial animal welfare services.

So if there was any complaints of neglect, abuse, abandonment, et cetera, it would be investigated by the province. However, in saying that being a partner with our rescues organizations, the animals that do come through our animal hospital are seen by the veterinarian. If there was any inclination that the animals were not being well taken care of, there would be a discussion, I believe, between the veterinarian and the province, the provincial level of animal welfare. So finally, Chair, and then I’ll stop, but, and I appreciate Ms.

Chapman, your help on this and helping me understand this. Much of this came about because of a fire that occurred two and a bit years ago, and as a result of that house fire, a person who is a city of London approved foster organization rescue, I presume, had 40 cats in their care custody and control. And obviously, it wasn’t a good situation for anyone, either the owner or not, you know what? I have to think 40 cats is insane.

I just think that’s a ridiculous number if I can be bold. And so what I’m trying to understand is, and maybe I’m coming back to those who are responsible, and I’m not talking about the city, but for the 18 franchises, if you will, if they maintain track of how many pets and of what variety, and whether, I mean, that would be a pretty easy, much easier thing to control, I think, than to have just carte blanche, and maybe it isn’t carte blanche. I really admire the people who are doing this for every great heartfelt reason, but I don’t think there’s anybody that would imagine that 40 cats in a home is normal, reasonable, or intelligent. It’s bad.

And by the way, fire or otherwise is what I’m saying. I think there are limits to what one can do. So heavy, no limits. I’m not sure I’m there based on what I’ve heard, and I am grateful for the folks who provided some commentary prior, but I’m nervous about this, and perhaps other colleagues have some questions, so I’m gonna stop right now, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Any other comments from the meeting? So go ahead, Councillor Humber.

I have a question through you, Madam Chair. Currently, how many cats can you have in a normal residence? Ms. Chapman?

Through the chair, the bile permits up to eight cats in a single family dwelling, based on how many dogs you might have as well. So if you are a cat and dog lover and you want to have dogs, you can have a maximum of three, that then brings your cat number down to eight. So it’s a combined total, never more than three dogs. Thank you.

So I will just comment because I am the one that brought this as a submission to Council. I believe it was last year. I’ve had a lot of consultations with people from the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. I’ve had consultations with city staff about this as well.

And it had been originally in 2014, in early 2014, the staff recommendation to have limits on the number of rescue animals in a home. The Council of that day, heard delegations from the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and from other people that deal with these situations, and that Council chose not to put limits. There has been sort of a shift in thinking, even in city staff, from my consultations with city staff, in these intervening years. In that staff no longer support the idea of limits in foster organizations.

Our city veterinarian as well doesn’t support the idea of limits for these foster organizations. And from what I have been told from our city staff, none of the cats that were in this home that had the fire were in poor health or were poorly looked after. They were healthy and well looked after, according to our city staff. And I believe that is based on the veterinarian’s assessment.

So that is the, what is behind this staff report. I don’t know if Mr. Catolic or Ms. Chapman wants to comment further on that whole idea around limiting the number of animals in a foster situation and why or why not limiting the number of animals is something we should do.

I see your hand up again, Mr. Mayor. Do you want to hear from city staff or do you want to speak first? I’d love to hear from city staff, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Catolic or Ms.

Chapman, do you want to comment on the staff report? It’s been, or is Catolic here. I could begin and Heather Chapman can continue if there’s anything she wishes to add. Back in 2014, I believe that was the year when we looked at all of the animal control bylaws and at that point we recommended a limit in fosters.

The main difference back then and where we are today is we did not have a city veterinarian to which we could go to for animal advice. This was largely based on municipal scans and internal research. So that is one of the main reasons that at this point, AWAC had the same position back in 2014 not to have limits but the main difference is that we’re relying highly on the recommendations and the partnerships that Dr. Tracy Satchel currently has as a city employee.

Thank you. Mr. Catolic, I’ll go to you, Mr. Mayor.

Thanks for you to staff. Do we know based on our city veterinarian or by reports we received from the groups, how many animals of what type are in each of the rescues? The rescue homes? Chair, on the London Animal Care Center’s website and it had been formerly on our own city website until the change to the website.

There is a link that posts year-end statistics. The city posts our own monthly but the rescues we had been gathering their statistics and posting them on an annual basis. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but we do know year-to-year how many pets are being adopted out through our rescue partners. In the report, there was mentioned that in the years of 216 to 221, we had transferred ourselves out of the city shelter, 936 animals to our rescue partners.

And I just wanna point out that even though we transferred 936, that’s not the only animals that they would have been caring for. They have their own rescues that they’re taking in from the community as well. Thank you for that. I do wanna clarify something, Chair, I heard earlier.

There were four cat deaths. I can’t say that it was related to that fire but it does not clear here but it said the reporting of four cat deaths where that fire occurred. So whether that was maltreatment, I don’t know whether that was as a result of the fire, I can’t comment. But it seems to me a little odd, if you do it with well-intended people, oh my goodness, they are.

If they’re gonna do this to support rescue animals, they got a huge heart. But if our bylaws are very clear about how many dogs, how many cats any home should have, there’s a rationale for that. And it kind of makes sense for me to go to those kinds of limits. If we’re talking about just someone’s home, if we’re talking about a facility, that’s different again.

But if we’re talking about someone’s home, ‘cause can you imagine I take in six, eight dogs in my apartment, which would be impossible? But let’s say I did or let’s say I had a home with a backyard and it took six, eight dogs and how challenging that can be. I just had someone talk to me about a concern they had about a neighbor, but just had two dogs. But I’m just not sure, maybe Mr.

Potol can tell us why. If it’s good enough for a normal home to have, I apologize, Ms. Chapman, I don’t know if he said four dogs, three and eight cats, why that wouldn’t make sense for folks who are kind enough to reach out and provide that support for rescue animals. I wonder if you can just shed some logic on that if that’s possible, please.

Ms. Chapman. - Through the chair. With regard to the logic on the normal day-to-day household, I believe that at the time in 2014, we set a limit.

Based on what you typically would see in the normal family situation, where we have people working all day and kids going to school and the different things happening and we increased the limit back in 2014 to the eight number. The advice of the animal welfare committee to bolster the city of London to the no-kill and reach that 90% live release and not have to euthanize so many animals. We were told that there are plenty of homeowners, residents in the city of London who would open their hearts and their homes to animals and be good caretakers to those animals and that the lifting of the number to eight would not have any substantial negative impacts to our community. And I think that’s the findings that we have seen over the course of the years since we changed the numbers.

What I will say about the no limit for the approved organizations. Yes, Councillor Cassidy mentioned it back in 2014, Civic Administration did suggest a limit and that was before the professional advice of the veterinarian. And just to share with you, because she’s not here herself, a discussion I had with the veterinarian, you could have one person with one animal who’s doing a terrible job with that animal and not being a responsible owner and have all kinds of problems, barking, a mess in the backyard, odors and whatnot. Or you could have one person who is fully dedicated to the commitment of caring for the animals and take care of 12, 15, 20, and you would see no impact.

And I think that’s the group that we’re describing in our rescue community. If they’re doing a good job and they’re fully focused on that and that is maybe their full-time work or their part-time work, they have the ability to care for a lot of animals and do it well. Mayor, you’re muted, Mr. Mayor.

I was speaking so well, Chair. I don’t know that we have the kind of statistics that would back up the comment that these are great or not great, good or not good folks. I presume they’ve been vetted by the original group in some fashion, there’s there. But I have a feeling, Chair, that as a result of this discussion today, there’s gonna be a lot more people paying attention to noise by law, order by law issues, and rightfully so, because I think people deserve the privacy and I think that’s part of it.

And so I guess, like I’m not comfortable with just saying, don’t pick a number, just go. I just don’t, that to me has no sense of a lot. There’s no logic to it. And I’m not doubting people’s passion for their animals ever, but, you know, and I don’t know if this will, just so that we can get, we can either receive this report, which means it’s fine.

And if that’s the way it goes, I’ll vote against it. But I’m thinking that for rescues, that the limits that apply to individuals that have their own home, that’s the limit that have their own animals, that’s the limit that should apply to rescue animals in total. And if there’s a way to word emotion like that, and chair, here I am now, with apologies to you, putting emotion on the floor, you’re laughing at me, I know you are, that we restrict the number of rescue animals to the number associated with what individuals in their private homes could have, where they not rescue. And so, I’d like to put that forward.

And I think that’s, to me, that’s the most you made for now. So, Mr. Mayor and to committee, I do know that, oh, Councillor Helmer has his hand up now. So, I will go to Councillor Helmer.

Marie Blosch was also one of the delegates on our schedule today. Ms. Brown spoke, and I assumed that Ms. Blosch was not going to speak.

Ms. Brown only spoke for about three minutes. So, I will allow Ms. Blosch to speak, but at first I will go to Councillor Helmer.

I just say that I’m going to go to Ms. Blosch, because I do know that she is on the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and has been for a number of years. And I do know that she works with foster organizations, as well so she may have some insight to add from the perspective of the foster community. I will go to Councillor Helmer first, however.

I’m happy to just stay on the list. Just getting on there, it was a lot of back and forth. At the beginning there, I’m happy to hear Ms. Blosch first, and then I’ll weigh in.

Thank you, Councillor. Ms. Blosch, go ahead. Okay, thank you very much, Chair.

I do appreciate it. I understand the concern that expressed by the mayor, and I can talk a little bit from the perspective of a rescue group, as well as from someone who has foster and animals. It’s, 40 animals in a home is totally not typical. It is a large number, and it’s not what most rescues do.

It is not what most rescue homes have. Animals come and go. There may be a larger number if there were kittens, for example, but keep in mind, these are temporary. These animals are up for adoption.

And we did have, the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee did have a delegation from Salt, from Bonnie Smith, the organization, it was her home, that in her organization that had the 40 cats in the home that had the fire. And she explained to us that it was an unusual situation where she had an intake of a very large number of animals from a hoarding situation. And she had took all of the animals in an emergency situation, and she took them into her home temporarily before she could disperse them to various foster homes. So it was an unusual situation.

It was a temporary situation. And it’s just very unfortunate that there was the fire. But, so I’ll just kind of try to put that into context. And I think it’s really important to remember a couple of points.

One is that this, it’s an unusual situation. There haven’t been complaints about the number of animals in foster homes. They are, foster homes come and go. They’re volunteers.

And sometimes people will say, we love the animal that we fostered, we’re going to adopt, and we don’t want to foster anymore. That happens a lot. The really thing that I really would like to stress as well is that the reason that the city, the London Animal Caring Control can have a 90% no kill rate is that so many animals are taken by the rescue groups. If they weren’t taken by the rescue groups and put into these private homes, they would be killed for space like they used to be.

And if you put a limit, and this is one of the arguments that we had to say don’t put any limits on, if you say there’s a limit, we’ll probably, how are you going to enforce number one? And if you start inspecting homes, we’re going to lose the homes that we have. And then these animals are going to have to stay at the city shelter. They’re going to end up getting killed for space.

And we’re going to go back to what we really wanted to stop. And all this caucus that we’ve made, which is so wonderful, is we’ll end. And so that’s one of the biggest arguments. And that’s why Wendy Brown was talking about it being a two-way street.

Because when the city shelter fills up, they call the rescue groups and say, come and take some of these animals and put them in your private foster homes because we don’t have any space. But when there is a situation like Bonnie Smith from Salt was faced with, where she had a big intake of animals, she couldn’t call up the city shelter and say, can you help me out? Could you take a few of these animals temporarily till I find a foster home? And so that’s what we were talking about with the two-way street.

But anyway, I hope that helps. Thank you, Ms. Blasch. I’m going to go to you now, Councillor Helmer.

If you’re speaking, Councillor Helmer, we can’t hear you because you’re muted. Can you just come back to me? I’m just in the middle of something. Sorry.

Are there any other committee members who would like to speak? I wonder if Councillor Himmu would mind taking the chair. Sure, I’ll take the chair. Thank you, Councillor Himmu.

So I did open up this can of worms here because of, through my letter last year, because I was also concerned the way the mayor is concerned. I had the same concerns that the mayor did. But I have learned a lot in the intervening months since I wrote the letter to council. And I have come to understand that the city veterinarian, who was not a member of staff, back when the original staff recommendation took place back in 2014, is not in favor of putting limits on the number of animals in these foster organizations.

And it’s for the reasons that have been laid out by multiple people today, but mainly as Ms. Bloch pointed out, the foster, the animals going into these homes are there temporarily. It’s not a matter of somebody having 40 cats and that will be the case for many, many years. It’s the cats, the animals go into a foster home and then hopefully go right out again in pretty short order.

And that particular fire, I was told by city staff who told me it was the opinion of the fire department that the animals had nothing to do with the fire starting. They just happened to be in the home when there was a fire. So if there were four animals in that home or 44 animals in that home, the possibility existed for an animal to get harmed by the fire. So I had nothing to do with the animals in the home themselves.

We do have a trap and release program where we trap stray cats on the streets of London and there are many of them. We spay or neuter them and then we release them because these are cats that are feral and cannot be adopted because they don’t tend to like people. So rather than keep them in a situation that’s not natural to them, they are released back to their home colony on the streets of London, but they can’t reproduce anymore. So that we have seen over the years, the number of stray and feral cats on the streets has declined in London and I fear that if we put a limit on the number of foster animals that a home can take in on a temporary basis, that we will see an increase in the number of stray animals on the street because people do do that.

We do know that some people take in an animal, have good intentions and then for whatever reason they find they cannot care for that animal. So they just let it go out on the street, which is very inhumane. And so this alternative is having these foster organizations look after these, hopefully temporarily unwanted animals and find a home where they are wanted. So I fear the unintended consequences if we put a limit on the number of animals that can be fostered, knowing that the fostering is temporary and eventually these animals will find a loving home.

And that is the intent of these foster organizations. That is what they want to do when they’re taking in these animals. So those are my comments. Councillor Haimu, I’m ready to take the chair back if you’re ready to seat it.

Thank you. - Thank you. Thank you, thank you. And I will go back to Councillor Haimur.

Thank you, I’m sorry for stepping but I’m meeting for a moment, I guess what I would say colleagues, I’m not in favor of the mayor’s proposed motion and I would be in favor of receiving the staff report and leaving things as they are for the time being. I’m listening very carefully to the advice for our staff and from the advisory committee and sort of through our staff from the veterinarian. And I guess the way I approach this issue is for a kind of harm reduction overall welfare of the animals approach, you know, we live in a world where there are a lot of animals who are abandoned and people have to take them in and we’ve got lots of people in the community who are taking on that work. It’s not particularly easy at times.

And because of the nature of the problem, there’s so many animals that are abandoned and mistreated, it’s quite a severe issue. And so a lot of people have to take it on and it leads to some very challenging circumstances. I’ve got a number of people in my ward who foster animals, sometimes at pretty significant scale. And I do think there are some scale issues when you get to a large number of animals at any one property, if it’s not run very professionally.

And even sometimes when it is run very professionally, you get these scale issues that do cause nuisance. And so we have to balance the nuisance that are caused by the scale issues with the welfare of the animals, which, you know, if there was not a place for them to go, in many cases, what would be done is euthanized animals. And so that is a really difficult circumstance to be in. And we’re basically picking between bad options, slightly better options, and we’re not really in an ideal world.

So I think in an ideal world, you could have a limit that was pretty reasonable and you wouldn’t have so many mistreated or abandoned animals and you wouldn’t have such a huge problem. And I think that would work pretty well. The world we’re in right now is there’s so many animals that are mistreated and abandoned that sometimes there needs to be circumstances where a large number of animals would be at one property for a short period of time, sometimes for a longer period of time. And so I think in that circumstance, I’m gonna listen to the advice from our staff and especially the advisory committee who frankly work on this issue a lot more closely than I do.

And I think the existing nuisance bylaws, like sound issues, older issues, the animal welfare legislation that exists already to make sure the animals are being well cared for. I think those are the appropriate tools and that we don’t have to have a separate additional limit on these specific organizations and these specific circumstances where they’re fostering. I just don’t know that it’s necessary or that it’s going to increase the overall welfare of the animals. In fact, I think it might lead to the opposite outcome motion if we want to avoid.

So I’ll vote against the motion if there’s a second or four it. I’d be happy to move the staff recommendation. My apologies to Flora for picking up your time, Councillor Helmer. Any other comments?

The mayor’s proposing a motion. Is there someone who would like to second that motion? And I’m not seeing a second. Oh, Councillor Hamou, are you seconding it or do you have a comment?

Okay, so. - Okay. And so Mr. Mayor, your motion is that whatever limits exist in private homes should be the limit on foster homes for animals as well.

Mr. Chair, if the clerk’s able to capture the spirit of what you’ve just said, that’s exactly it. That the number and types of animals that are in rescue homes do not exceed the numbers and type for private individuals in their own way. Thank you, Mr.

Mayor. And if the clerk could, clerk that up, I’d be grateful. And again, apologies, Chair. Thank you.

And it’s been seconded by Councillor Hamou. Is there any discussion further on this motion? So I believe the wording is in e-scribe. So the motion is in there.

I will say to the mayor, I did not even honestly, for a second, think about your comments in the committee meeting yesterday. It was you that pointed them out. So thank you for pointing them out. I don’t see any further discussion, not from visiting members or from committee members.

So I will call the question on that motion. Closing the vote, the motion fails two to three. Go back to you, Councillor Helmer, if you’re able. We need to put the staff recommendation on the floor.

And I will say I’m always open to, if there’s a better way to do something, we can revisit the issue. I just don’t agree with the particular approach we had in the motion in front of us. And I think leaving things as they are for now is the right way to go ahead. So I’ll put the motion to receive the report on the floor.

Mr. Mayor. Yeah, thank you. And I respect what Councillor Helmer, what you said to chair.

I just really feel as I, and this is on me. You know, as I had read this earlier, I certainly could have gone to staff to get more information to help make perhaps even a better recommendation than a motion on the fly. So I understand the challenges, but I think, well, look, if we’re all talking about the betterment of the animals, I think we all get that. And the welfare is the key.

And I just don’t know how it can be served with significant high numbers. So respectfully, I wish the motion could be amended to say with more stats coming from like more accountability on the folks that run these shelter, these rescue animals, or make these arrangements. I just feel there’s a dearth of information. I don’t think once a year, frankly, is enough.

And I don’t think having 320 rescue facilities that are veterinary could even imagine looking after them. I could be wrong on it. And I just felt that there was certain, I felt wanting from this. And it’s my fault, not having gone to staff earlier and asked those questions.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just might suggest I think there might be more information because I know that the motion from last year was that staff review the bylaw. And that’s what staff have done.

And that’s why they’ve made this recommendation today based on their review. So perhaps in time for council or before council or ready to bring to council, staff could have more information on what may be different today compared to 2014 when they were recommending limits. I know they said today that we have a staff veterinarian, which we did not have in 2014. And if they could speak more to how, what kind of oversight there is on these foster organizations.

And if they could bring that to council and speak to edit, council, maybe that will make you feel more comfortable with the current situation. And I’ll go to councilor Hamou. Thank you, Madam Chair. Is there a type, maybe through you to whoever can answer this?

Is there any type of licensing that you have to do when you are a rescue shelter or parent or whatever it is? I’ll go to you, Ms. Chapman. Mr.

Chair, we have licensing tags that are specific to the rescues. So the city supplies those tags to the rescues each year. They’re very similar to the normal license tag that you would get through the shelter. But we alter the shape and size and color from year to year to identify that these are, for example, 2022 foster tags.

So they are licensed in that manner so that if there is a complaint and the animal service officer is addressing an animal or the animal’s owner with the animal guardian, we can identify that it’s a foster animal as opposed to an owned animal. We also provide them with a pet card that the rescues would use to identify themselves as an approved organization should an animal service officer need to approach that home. And just to speak to the approval again, that’s between the city and these organizations, as I said, there’s a number of conditions. If we were receiving complaints and found that these organizations rescues weren’t meeting the conditions, we’re a problem, whether it’s noise or odor or something else, and we couldn’t resolve that.

And it was a repeat problem. What we would do is we would revoke the approval. They would then be limited to the same number as everyone else. And they would not be able to use our program or facility.

They wouldn’t be able to offer their adopters free licensing for this year and the next. So there are those consequences connected to repeat violations. But as I said earlier, we haven’t received any complaints. Councilor, hello?

Thank you. And I have a follow up. Well, not really a follow up, but is there, so the 40 cats, I’m assuming that’s kind of an odd or rare situation and that’s an assumption. I’m just wondering how often does that happen when there are more than say 10 animals in a rescue home?

And for how long? Like I’m just wondering how much of a problem this is. Ms. Chapman.

Chair, it is a problem when we run across hoarding in the community in a private citizens home. And that’s when we reach out to our rescue partners as well as our shelters, sometimes the Humane Society. And we try to address the hoarding situation. And when it is a true hoarding situation, typically those animals aren’t receiving proper care that they need.

So we try and extract them from the home in the ways that we can and get them into our shelter system and or into the rescues. The rescue themselves that have higher volumes that are caring for the animals and caring for them well, we don’t consider those hoarding situations. As Ms. Bloch said earlier, it’s temporary.

If you have a spike in numbers, a high number like that one, it is temporary until they can get them out into the foster family’s hands. And Ms. Bloch might be able to, no, she’s not with civic administration, answer the question as to how often you might see that volume of animals in a rescue environment. And just how long are you really with?

Like how long it would be, say 20 to 40, like how long would it be filled with that many cats? ‘Cause that’s where I think is the issue is having that many cats for that long of a time. Like if it was just eight to 10 cats, maybe that’s, you know, it’s just 40 cats, it’s such a huge number. Okay.

  • Isn’t that Ms. Chapman? Sure, I think it’s the goal of the rescues to have a reasonable number that if 40 sounds very high to most people and including myself. So a more reasonable manageable number more often.

So I don’t think you’re going to see a 40 number and many rescues very often. But as Ms. Bloch explained earlier, the particular incidents that had the fire, they had a very high number of cats in that home at that time because they had taken on a hoarding situation and taken those animals into their home. And my assumption would be that they would reach out to their rescue partners in their own organization to disperse those cats into other homes and have a smaller number in their own.

They just hadn’t got there yet. I did also want to remind what we heard from Ms. Bloch as well and from Ms. Chapman just now was that these cats were in a private home in violation of the bylaw as a hoarding situation.

And so were rescued and removed from that home and temporarily put with this foster organization. So our policies that we have limiting the number of cats or animals in a private home seem to have been working in that situation to remove it from the private home but put it in this foster organization. So Councillor Halmer has moved to the staff recommendation. Is there a second for the staff recommendation?

So I will second the staff recommendation. Councillor Hamou, did you have another comment or did you want to second that? I’ll second that as well. Okay, so I will take your second, that’s preferred.

Any other discussion on this item? So I will call the vote on that then. We have the staff recommendation on the floor. It’s been moved and seconded.

Closing the vote, the motion carries four to one. Thank you and I want to thank our delegates for coming today and I want to thank committee that was a really thorough discussion. It was an important issue and there are a lot of intricacies and details and complex issues involved. And I think the entire committee cares about the welfare of the animals in our city and that’s why it took us so long to get there.

So thank you everybody for that. Now we will move on to, there are no scheduled items. We have two remaining items for direction. And the first is 4.2, it’s the COVID-19 response update and program funding wind down.

I’m gonna go to Mr. Dickens to see if he would like to introduce this item to a committee. Thank you Chair and through you I’m happy to introduce this report for committee. This is the sort of the conclusion or the wind down of our fourth installment of the social services relief funding that we have received from the province of Ontario as well as the wind down of the federal reaching home COVID relief funding.

Throughout the last two years we’ve been bringing reports forward to committee and council with a number of one time time limited programs, services and investments that were provided to us through the province under the SSRF umbrella. Every time we received an installment of social services relief funding we were unaware of whether there would be a future installment, round two, round three and this final round of round four. However, we did know that with our installments that there was an expiry date and that expiry date would be moved along the continuum along the calendar as new investments were made by the province. We felt that given these programs and the funding that is supporting them are required to come to an end March 31st that we should bring forward a sort of a roll up report for council that outlines all of the good work that has been happening with the fourth installment of SSRF but also to make it abundantly clear to committee and to the public that these great initiatives, these new programs, they are winding down and coming to a conclusion at the end of March.

There have been many efforts made as noted in the report for committee by both provincial groups such as ALMSA and AMO as well as locally as part of submissions of the pre-budget submission by council as well as advocacy at the administration tables that we sit at for the continuation of the SSRF program. So there have been many attempts and many efforts locally by council and by staff to advocate for the continuation of this level of funding. At this point, we have not received any indication from the province that the funding will continue beyond the end of March and therefore we felt it was incumbent upon us to bring forward this report. We do ask in the report again for increased advocacy to the applicable ministers both at the federal and provincial levels leading into the budget season for the continuation or the same level of funding that SSRF and the reaching home is provided on an ongoing basis.

Well, this report is not filled with good news stories or a lot of good news that has come through these programs. The SSRF funding really was not meant to solve homelessness. It was not an investment to eliminate and resolve the issues that communities face. It was a much needed lifeboat, if you will, to help the entire service system pivot and be able to operate in a COVID reality.

In March 2020, it became abundantly clear that congregate living settings were no longer safe, that vulnerable populations were at high risk of contracting COVID-19 and that there could be some very significant side effects, including death in those congregate living settings. So the SSRF funding and while it matured and changed over time was an effort to keep people safe, to keep them healthy and to really reimagine the services that support individuals and families experiencing homelessness. The good news in all of this is that as a service manager, the city of London and through our partners and in the community and the county of Middlesex, we have not left any money on the table. We saw our operating budget over the last two years nearly triple in one time temporary relief measures to address COVID and we’ve been able to use those funds in the community in a number of different ways.

You’ll see in the report, there was actually an installment of SSRF that had some flexibility and we were able to make some investments in the capital projects and we were able to use that funding to go towards the creation of 100 affordable housing units. So this is the report. These initiatives that we’ve been bringing forward over the last couple of years, we’re all going to be winding down at the end of March. We wanted to create one centralized report to bring all of this to the forefront for you and for any discussion.

Myself and Mr. Cooper are both on the call today if there’s any questions, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dickens.

Are there any comments or questions from committee? From that, Councilor Helmer, I know you’ve been having issues with your internet. So I’m looking to committee first, I do have a couple of visiting members that would like to jump in and I’m going to go to them. So I’ll go to Councillor Lewis first and then to Councillor Hopkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair and for giving me an opportunity to speak as a guest at committee. This is a really hard report for me to accept, especially in light of the experience that I had last week and I want to share that with everyone. Councillor Lehman and I had the opportunity to visit the Fanshawe Winter Response site at the Fanshawe Golf Course last week. And we had an opportunity to talk not just with our staff, but with residents who were staying there.

And this Winter Response program can only be called in any measure of the word from what I heard from the actual participants, a success. People are moving into permanent housing. One of the residents has been able to return to employment. They’re learning life skills for living on their own, helping prepare meals together, helping clean up the space together.

We’ve bought the trailers, we’ve got property. We need to find a way to continue to deliver this. I want to tell you what one of the participants shared with Councillor Lehman and I when we were there. He said, you know, I don’t mean to joke ‘cause I know we’re at a golf club, but it feels like I’ve won the lottery and gone on vacation.

It’s not a siege mentality here. I don’t have to sleep with one eye open. He was really clear that this was far superior to the shelter experiences he’s had and to the Winter Response program last year. Because putting it out, Fanshawe Golf Course, I know received a lot of criticism at first from people who have some experience in delivering housing and homelessness relief programs.

But to hear the individual’s talk that we had a chance to talk to, those criticisms bear no weight with me. This was a relief for them. It was an opportunity to get away from some of the negative influences in the street culture. And yes, they had some days where they were bored, but they were warm, they were fed, and they were developing a sense of community.

You know what one of them said to me is, we’ve been here for a couple of months now. There’s about 30 people living here and no one carries a weapon. That wouldn’t happen downtown. Everyone carries a weapon downtown.

He said, you know, the police haven’t been here once to break up a fight or to deal with a problem between the people who are staying here and the staff or the residents. He said it took a little while to get used to being out there, but it actually gave him a sense of dignity and a sense that the city and the people of the city cared about him. And I think that reflects very strongly and positively on the work that our staff did to pull this together in really the 11th hour because the SSRF funding was in question. I think it speaks very highly to London Cares and the work they’ve done providing support out there.

We need to find a way to keep this going. This one in particular. This winter response that we were able to offer at Fanshawe Golf Course has been a success. And there’s a number of other programs winding down in here too.

And I’m sure that there has been some success stories coming out of those. Ultimately, the goal does need to be housing for all. But we know that that goal is years down the road and is a stretch goal because people are, there are always going to be individuals who are struggling to maintain housing on their own. And unfortunately, people will fall on hard times.

One of the people that I had a chance to talk to made it really clear. Not everybody who’s homeless is an addict or has a mental health problem. They develop those problems because they become homeless. And the addiction or the mental health problems develop because of how hard life on the street is.

And that’s the only way they have to escape sometimes. So this idea, the stereotypical idea of all, they’re all drug addicts. And they’re all there because they’ve made bad choices. It’s not true.

One fellow had an accident, had to have vertebrae in his spine fused and couldn’t work. You know, there but for the grace of God could go anyone in this community. So I don’t know how we find the funding ‘cause we all know that municipal budgets and property tax dollars are limited and they only stretch so far. And housing support services are difficult.

But we are doing things that are working. We are doing things that are helping people transition back into a more stable long-term housing option. And the winter response that we’ve provided out the golf course this year has been a key component of helping many people move through that and transition back. And we’ve gotten them paper ready.

And they’ve been able to get clothes through donations. They’ve been able to learn to cook meals for themselves. And we have to give credit to our partners too. And folks like the London Food Bank were involved in that.

And we thank them for that. So we’ve got to find a way to engage community partners more to keep this going. I don’t know what the budget answer is. Obviously we have to continue our advocacy.

But if you could hear the stories that I had a chance to hear last week, you wouldn’t question for a moment the value we got out of the dollars that we put into this. It was worth every cent. So I hope as we move forward, we can continue to advocate both with provincial and advocate with our federal partners too. Senior levels of government have to be part of the solution here.

But I just have to take the opportunity to say that the staff who were involved in this program have my sincere gratitude and thanks. They’ve done an amazing job. And they have really changed the lives of many Londoners who were living on the street, who were sleeping in doorways or sleeping in shelter beds, who now have the one fellow we talked to that day earlier in the morning had been driven into the city to sign the lease for the apartment that he was going to be moving into in the middle of this month. That’s a success story.

And we’ve got to find a way to keep those going. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Hopkins. Thank you, Madam Chair for recognizing me here.

And I just want to make a couple comments and a quick question through you to staff on the importance of the SSRF funding. I know as a board member representing the city of London at AMO, there is a lot of advocacy that AMO is doing around the need for this funding to continue. And I know Mr. Mayor, we’re going to keep you very busy with all these letters going to the ministers at the province on behalf of municipalities to keep this funding going.

It is so important, I know on OPCM that you’re part of. It’s also something that they’re advocating as well, especially the large municipalities. This funding has given us an opportunity to do a lot of great work in the community. As Councillor Lewis mentioned, it is when you’re starting to see what we can do and then continue that work.

We need the funding and maybe through you, Madam Chair, if I can go to staff. And first of all, thank you to staff for the report and the work that goes on in the community as we as a municipality become more responsible for the needs in the community. If this funding does not continue, where do we go and how do we build upon the work that’s already being done? Thank you, Councillor.

Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair. And through you, I would just note that the provincial organizations that have been doing the advocacy is greatly appreciated.

I know AMO is well connected to AMSA and they attend our service manager meetings as well. And there’s a lot of coordination when it comes to joint advocacy and through the Federation of Canadian municipalities, there’s also a voice that is championing the need to continue this funding. As for the impact of not having this SSRF funding, you will see in a report that there will be a number of programs as they wind down, people will be transitioning to other types of services. So some folks will be moving back to a traditional shelter system as they have now grown to more of a full capacity.

As we see COVID cases decline and vaccination rates increase, staffing levels have stabilized and we expect those spaces to again fill up. There will be people that are in these temporary programs that our staff team and Mr. Cooper’s team have been aggressively matching to housing benefits and rent supplement programs so that we move them from a hotel response or temporary response into a apartment unit and housing with supports to do our best to ensure long-term housing success. The net number of people that are going to be left without or end up on the street is not a finite number our team has at this point.

We know a number of people as the weather warms up will thank us for the services that they’ve received through the winter and then we’ll go about their way transitioning back to self-resolving their homelessness. Some of that will be in the form as we see it play out every spring and that might be through encampments but it might also be through self-resolving with friends, families or in different means. So yes, some people will absolutely transition back to unsheltered homelessness. We don’t expect that number surprisingly, perhaps to some given this report.

We don’t expect that number to be overly high. We have seen a lot of people transition already from temporary services as part of a wind down plan to more permanent housing services, housing options. But yes, we will have an impact in our community when we see a decrease in the number of temporary resting spaces, some of those additional shelter beds or some of those programs, for example, through CMHA and my sister’s place. It had great success matching individuals to housing supports and into permanent housing.

So we’ll continue over the next 30 days to continue to assess people for their eligibility as it relates to housing benefits. And we’ll do our best to make sure we match people if it’s not to housing to the appropriate community services as well. Thank you, Councillor Huppins. Yeah, and if I can do a quick follow up, Madam Chair, through you, if this funding does continue, or where do you see the needs going?

You spoke a lot about supports, but where can this money go to help? Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the question.

As it relates to housing with supports and various housing programs, I’ll actually ask Mr. Cooper to weigh in. His team has been developing and compiling a large number of support programs. Thank you, Mr.

Cooper. Thank you, and through the chair, the additional funding, if it does come to fruition, would be looking to continue to expand our programs to support the coordinated access work we’ve been doing to support the housing with supports and supportive housing programs that we started a number of years ago, kind of pre-pandemic, but that have obviously seen a significant demand as the pandemic has wore on. We will see, we’ve seen a lot of successes through the winter response and connecting to resources and finding permanent housing for individuals. That’s where we’re gonna put a lot of our effort.

Obviously, we’re gonna shore up the system, and we know there’s a number of agencies in our community that have expressed some concerns and challenges moving forward. And so we’ll look to try and assist them where we can, but also really double down, so to speak, on those resources and those supports to get people housing, because we always recognize and stay steadfast that the solution to homelessness is housing. And so a lot of the work that we’re doing through our housing stability action plan, but also the core action plan and the 3,000 unit, the part roadway to 3,000 units, you’ll start seeing those really aligned and really intertwined, and a lot of good, I think solutions come as the units become available to our resources. Thank you, Mr.

Cooper. Hi, Madam Chair, if I could just add my thanks again, and Mr. Cooper mentioned housing, and we know council and the importance of affordable housing in particular. And that’s why this funding is so important to municipalities, and really once again, thank you to staff for all the work, and here’s hoping that we can continue this funding.

Thank you, Councillor. I’ll go to Councillor Halmer, and then Councillor Hamill. Thank you, I really appreciate what Councillor Lewis said in particular off the top of the meeting. I guess this is both a difficult and great report to read, which is on the one hand, if the funding were to end, and all this were to come to an end a month from now, I think we’d be facing some really serious problems in the community.

On the other hand, you read the report and you’re like, look at all these great programs that have been funded by the province and the federal government through these pandemic relief measures. In many ways, the pandemic has really forced us to re-examine how we were delivering certain services. And I think some of the lessons that have been learned throughout the pandemic are here to stay. We may get the disease under control, the spread of the disease will be less, we’ll be able to move back to a bit more of a normal life, but we’re not gonna go back to the old way of doing things everywhere.

And if we can do things better, I think we should keep those new things that we’ve learned. And I think in this area, homelessness prevention, there are some things that we’ve learned that are better. I know from talking to Unity Project, this really forced them out of a very small inadequate facility that was very difficult to deliver the kind of program that they wanted to for the participants in their program. And being forced to go into a hotel space has allowed them to do things differently in a way that they just wouldn’t have got to until they changed physical locations.

And I think the unfortunate part is we can’t go back to pre-pandemic levels of funding either. In the meantime, as we’ve been dealing with COVID-19, we’ve also had enormous population growth in London, extreme increases in the price of housing and rental costs, tightening up a vacancy all across the board, especially for the more affordable units. And so the housing crisis that we’re facing now is very different, even than what we were facing two and a half years ago, three years ago. And so I don’t think it’s inappropriate.

In fact, I think it’s really appropriate that the province and the federal government be expected to deliver more on an ongoing basis to help put the issues around homelessness prevention and housing, especially for people who have the fewest resources in our community, not just during the pandemic and that it’s tied to the pandemic, but that this level of increased spending remain. And I think there’s lots of great things that could be done with that funding. And it’s not a fair complete, it’s not over. This round of funding is expiring at the end of March.

There’s nothing to say that the province or the federal government can’t continue or increase, extend some of these programs. And I think that the recommendation from staff to have the mayor advocate for continuation of these funding programs is critical. Because I can imagine that, you know, as the pandemic gets a bit more under control, we started to see a relaxation of some of the public health measures. One of the last places where we’ll see relaxation is in one of the most vulnerable populations, right?

Where people have many multiple overlapping health issues to make them particularly susceptible and vulnerable to an infectious disease like COVID-19, lack of access into healthcare, potentially lower levels of vaccination. You know, this is an area where we’re going to have to keep physical distancing and a lot of these PPE measures in place for a long time. And so I think pushing for sustained investment is critical. And look at the amazing results that have come from the investment from the province and the feds, like they should be really congratulated for stepping up in a major way when we really needed them to have both levels to work with us and the partners in the community to make all this stuff happen on such short notice.

And instead of just saying, well, you know, I guess the program’s over. It’s like, no, no, no, these programs are great and you should continue them. And we look forward to renewal or extensions in April, right? And the sooner we can find out that that’s happening, I think the better.

So I hope that our federal and provincial partners are paying close attention to this report. They see the value in what has been done. And some things might change, but I think the level of investment needs to stay. And we need to build on all the lessons that have been learned so we can deliver even better service in the community.

So I hope that’s where it goes. And I hope the mayor writes a very compelling letter to both the province and the federal government to get them to do so. Thank you, Councillor. So with that wish, does that mean you are moving the staff recommendation in this report?

Sure. Thank you, Councillor. I will go to Councillor Hamou next. I’ll second, but yeah, I probably answered my question, so I’m good.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Any other comments? I see, Nana, I’d like to make a few from the chair.

That’s okay. Just agree with everything that’s been said. And I’m glad that Councillor Helmer brought up lessons that have been learned from the pandemic. I think the biggest lesson that’s been learned is what happens when all three levels of government are all rowing in the same direction.

We hear often when we are faced with the biggest problems that we face in our city, that money isn’t always the only answer or you just can’t throw money at a problem and expect it to go away. But when we have adequate funding, we can see or close to adequate funding or better than funding than what we’re used to. We see the results and the results are shown in this report. This report is evidence of the success that our staff has had in trying to deal with these issues.

And the problems and the issues that we’re facing here were not caused by COVID. It’s just COVID made them worse, exacerbated them and made us look at them from a different angle and come at them with different solutions because we had to deal with both a pandemic and the issue of people living rough and sleeping on our streets, dealing with extreme cold and all of the issues that come along with living on our streets. So I too am really, really grateful for the success that our staff have had in these programs. I’m really grateful with the community organizations that have stepped up and being true partners in these programs such as Atlosa, such as London Cares and Arcade and all of the different community groups, Unity Project, Y-O-U, I can’t remember or name them all.

And I apologize for that, but there have been so many great community partners. And I am very grateful to the provincial government and the federal government for the funding that they have provided. But I agree with Councilor Helmer that this needs to be sustainable funding. It needs to be ongoing funding.

Imagine what our staff with community partners will be able to do if the funding is stable and permanent and long-term. The goal is a permanent housing. The goal is not to put somebody in some place warm for one night. The goal has to be permanent housing with the necessary supports to make sure that that housing is permanent.

So I will mention as well that Councilor Deputy Mayor Morgan and I on FCM have been part of discussions as well. And there’s a committee meeting this week that we will be participating in. And at the top of the priority list for the municipalities that are members of FCM is the federal reaching home COVID response funding and advocating to the federal government to see that funding continue in some kind of permanent stable funding to address the issues of housing and homelessness that we face in municipalities across the country. So this idea of all of these groups coming together, speaking with a unified voice, I know that Mr.

Dickens has told me that the service managers across the country and across the province are also speaking with a unified voice. So it makes sense as well that London should join that voice and the mayor should be our representative and write another beautifully eloquent letter advocating for this position from the city of London. So those are my comments. I see Councilor Helmer has his hand up.

I’m not sure if that’s a gain or if it’s still and now it’s down. So that was still. So we have a motion that’s been moved and seconded. I’ll look one last time to see if there are any additional comments and I’m seeing done.

So I will call the question. I’m gonna check on. Oh, actually I’ll let you report out on that vote first. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero.

Thanks very much. So there is a phone number of somebody who are seeking to participate and we do not know who that phone number belongs to. Is staff anticipating somebody joining this meeting? Any of the staff on the call?

I’m Chair, we know who it is and the city clerk will be joining the meeting shortly. Thank you Ms. Livingston. So I’m going to switch again.

We’re going a little bit out of order. I’m gonna go to a 5.1 first and that is our deferred matters list. I’m going to see if anybody has any comments or questions on the deferred matters list and if not, I will look for a motion on that. Moved by Councillor Helmer.

Seconded by Councillor Hameu. Any discussion? Seeing none, I will call the question. Councillor Helmer.

Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Is an added report from the community safety and crime prevention advisory committee. It is on the added agenda. I’ll look for a motion to receive that.

Moved by Councillor Hameu. Seconded by Councillor Helmer. Any discussion? Seeing none, I’ll call the question.

Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. So that brings us back to item four points. We do have a confidential matter as well. Solicitor client privilege related to 4.3 and it has been recommended to me that we go in camera before dealing with the public agenda.

So before I do that, I do want to read a warning out that this subject matter may create feelings of discomfort and may be triggering to some individuals. It is important to practice self-care when engaging with this material. If you or someone you know requires support, please call ANOVA’s 24/7 crisis and support line at 519-642-3000 or the London Abuse Women’s Center at 519-432-2204. I would like to also address city employees that this subject matter may create feelings of discomfort and may be triggering to some individuals of city staff and it is important to practice self-care when engaging this material.

We do have an employee and family assistance program that offers immediate and confidential support and you can access the EFAP program through your city benefits here at the city of London. So I will be happy to share that information with you. With that, I would like to have a motion to go in camera. It’s moved by Councillor Hamou and seconded by the mayor and I’ll call the question.

We can vote electronically on that. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Members of the public that are still watching, that when we return, we will not be streaming on YouTube, but we will still live stream via the city website. So if you do want to follow along the committee meeting for the public agenda and the public report, that will be via the city website, but not YouTube.

Okay, we are back in public session. Come back everyone and I have Councillor Halmer on my list. Thanks very much. I don’t know if there’s any kind of intro from staff or anything like that, but if not, I’m happy to.

Go to Mr. Catolek to see if you want to speak to the staff report that’s on the public agenda. Yes, thank you. And through the chair, the bylaws before you this evening are in response to council direction.

The draft bylaws before you are based on the municipal purposes of health, safety and wellbeing of persons, as well as the protection of persons and property. The bylaw and appendix A provides residential property occupants the option to request that all forms of flyers not be delivered to their residents, the occupants of these residential premises may place a sign such as no junk mail to indicate their desire not to receive any flyers. The bylaw and appendix C is specific to graphic images of which term is defined in the draft bylaw where the delivery of general flyers bylaw is optional. Graphic flyers bylaw is prescriptive.

And I should add that both draft bylaws do have associated administrative monetary penalties. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Catolek.

I’ll go back to you, Councillor Hummer. Okay, thank you very much. Colleagues, I know we’ve been debating this issue and considering it for quite some time. It was back in September of 2020 when the area I live in and was leafleted with these flyers.

And unfortunately it’s spread throughout the community since then. I will say when people started to contact me, outraged that they were receiving these graphic images of a board of fetuses at their homes and their railboxes unwanted. I tried to do what I could to help. I gave them advice about reporting the content to the ad standards to put up a trespass notice and send one to the organization that was engaging in these activities.

And I have to say over the 18 months or so that we’ve been talking about the issue since it started happening here in London. Unfortunately, none of those activities have really had any effect. So they might be leafletting other parts of the community but they’re discharging different neighborhoods and different people over time. And the harms are continuing.

And so I really appreciate the approach that staff has taken which is to respond from the direction from a civic administration, give us some options about how we want to proceed because at the beginning of the discussion it was not been clear to me what the best way of proceeding would be. I think we have to think of what’s the best and most effective way of dealing with this armful activity. And I think for me it was seeing the options in front of us. I think option C, the by-law C which is more narrow in its focus, I think is the preferred approach.

I’m still not totally sold on the definition of graphic image and I’m gonna give that some more thought between now and the council meeting ‘cause I think it might need some tweaking and if that means a referral to a future meeting, I think we need to take our time to get this right. But I think for now I’m willing to support and happy to move option C. The amendment that has the penalties I think is also important. So I wanna move that as well because I think just having a by-law saying you shouldn’t do something without any consequences unfortunately is not gonna be very effective.

And I think we need to start with penalties for non-compliance right away. So I would like to move those options and I’ll see if there’s a seconder. I really wish that this was not necessary. I wish that people when they realized the harms that were being caused by the distribution of these graphic images that they would just stop, right?

But some organizations and people in our community are so convinced of their righteousness and their cause that they don’t mind inflicting these harms on other people and they don’t care that people are seeing these images of a board of fetuses that their kids are picking in a lot of mailboxes and seeing them that people don’t want them and that it’s triggering for many people who’ve had miscarriages or have had abortions or ectopic pregnancies. I mean, it’s very traumatizing for a lot of people in the community is in fact the precise purpose of distributing the images is to inflame all of that, right? And to come up with a remedy that’s actually gonna stop that harmful behavior I think is actually quite challenging for a municipality or for any level of government. But I think a line has to be drawn in the sand to say what is and isn’t acceptable.

And it cannot be acceptable to distribute this kind of material to people who don’t want it when it’s causing harms. You know, there’s lots of ways people have expressed their opinions about abortion. Should it be allowed? Should it not?

Under what circumstances? What should the rules be? And we’ve been having debates about that for a long time in our country. And that’s going to continue.

But it can’t mean that you can distribute graphic images like this, willy-nilly, wherever you want with no consequences. I just don’t think it’s right. It’s definitely causing harm. We’ve heard that directly from people.

We have to do what we can to stop it. And so I think we have to try this by law approach that hopefully the organizations will get the message and to stop the activity, problem solved, communicate your message in some other way. That isn’t so harmful. And I think that’s what we should do.

I do think it’s going to be a difficult decision. You know, many times we’re called on to do things that are pushing the limits of our authority. Sometimes we have to expand our jurisdiction. And we have broad powers to look after the health and well-being of people in our community.

And for me, that doesn’t just mean like noise bylaws and sound bylaws and things that are annoying. It means the images like this that are causing harm. And there’s lots of images that don’t cause harm. And, you know, we’re not getting into the business of regulating every piece of literature that’s communicated to everybody about anything.

But unfortunately, this kind of communication very specifically is causing a lot of damage in the community. And I think we need to say enough’s enough of that. So hopefully there’s a seconder for that. I hope the colleagues will support it at committee.

And I look forward to a good discussion at council. Thank you, councilor. Just to be clear, you are moving C and D. I think D is required for the penalties to come into force.

Thank you. And I will go to councilor Hamer. I will second your motion, councilor Hamer. Thank you, chair.

I too have been asked by my community, my neighborhood, to help protect them. The day it happened, I was at home, got phone calls, did this come to your home? And luckily it did. And luckily I got to the mailbox before my children did.

Because what was left was something that I would consider obscene and hopefully others would consider obscene because in the criminal code of Canada, obscene things are anything that I’m gonna read it out. It’s any publication, a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex or of sex in any one or more of the following subjects, namely crime, horror, cruelty and violence shall be deemed to be obscene. So having seen the images myself, I, they were pretty horrific. And I would not want a child to be subjected to those images.

I want to put this out there. If this was pornography, which is also considered obscene, if this was a pornography that was being handed out, would we be faced kind of with the same discussion? This probably has the same effect or amount of a psychological effect as someone who would see pornography. So I’m gonna support what Councilor Helmer has put down.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. I’ll go to Councilor Lewis. Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members.

And Councilor Helmer put it very eloquently. The reason for doing this, and I may not always agree, but tonight I would just put exactly what he said in quotation marks and say ditto to all of that. I think it’s really important to emphasize again that messages can be communicated in a respectful way. And I’ve shared this example a couple of times in discussion around this, both out in the community and even here at a previous committee meeting.

Hypothetically, Mad Canada could reinforce its message of being responsible and not drinking and driving by distributing flyers with horrific scenes from car accidents, but they don’t. They communicate their message very respectfully to the community, and it’s well received. But like Councilor Helmer and like Councilor Hamou, when ward two residents have received these, they’re not well received. They’re unwanted, they’re triggering.

And I think when it comes to our municipal powers in terms of our right to pass bylaws to protect our community from harm, we have substantial evidence from our public participation meetings of the harm it’s causing to Londoners, of the trauma and the triggering of trauma remembrances that it is causing people. And so I think that this is absolutely appropriate for us to move forward on. I certainly understand Councilor Helmer’s concern about maybe the language needs to be tightened up a little bit, and if there’s any suggestions that come forward on that, I’m certainly listening very attentively. If we can make this better, great.

I would actually, to be completely honest colleagues, I’d be supportive of passing both draft bylaws because I think junk mail in general has become a bit of a problem. And there are other forms of junk mail that are unwanted and nuisance deliveries as well. But the motion that committee’s entertaining is to look at the bylaw contained in Appendix C and D for the administrative monetary penalties, which I think are absolutely necessary. Penalties have to be in place.

A bylaw has to have some teeth to its enforcement. That was one of the reasons we didn’t go ahead with the draft that came to us last time. It didn’t have any teeth to it. It was all based on voluntary compliance.

And we know voluntary compliance doesn’t work. We’ve had examples submitted to us from residents who have received these graphic flyers despite having posted no junk mail notices and no trespass notices on their property. So I certainly don’t think we can count on the goodwill of organizations who want to distribute these to simply respect that because we’ve seen examples where that just simply hasn’t happened already. So very glad to see that this has a mover and a seconder, I hope committee will support it.

I’m sure we’ll have some more discussion at council, but I think that this is a reasonable step to take in relation to the harm that’s being done to members of our community in receiving these in their homes. And I come back to something I said, the last time this bylaw was before us. The freedom of expression or freedom of speech that people like to substitute for freedom of expression sometimes, that ends when you are forcibly jamming it into somebody’s private residence. You don’t have the right to inflict harm on them in their own residence.

And that this is the vehicle that’s being used to do that. If we can, through bylaw, provide some measure of protection to our constituents, then I think we should do that. Thank you, councilor. I’m going to go to the mayor.

Thanks very much, Chair. This is prepped what colleagues have said that this has been many, many months that we’ve been graphing with the issue. I look at this from the standpoint, our desire to eliminate these graphics flyers, these unsolicited graphics flyers from people’s homes. I think it’s normal, but it’s an enforcement.

That’s the question I keep coming back to. Will it be worth the cost relative to the result? You are ultimately in a position where it’s needed to be, that it’s beyond our bylaw capabilities. All of a sudden, I’m frankly not sure.

I’m going to support tonight because I think what it does is meet some time, additional time could be based on the information that we’ve heard to see if there are any other things that need to be considered. I don’t think there’s any one of us that wants this kind of garbage in people’s homes. That’s certainly the response I’ve had consistently as this issue first came in front of us. So to me, I’m prepared to look forward with this.

I’m glad we’re focusing only specifically on graphic flyers, not on the other issues. This isn’t up to the old as it is. And it’s a lot. But again, I’ll ask the question.

Well, I know it was impossible. Not sure, that’s something I’m going to take some time thinking about, but without my support. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I’ll go to you, Councillor Huffman. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. And first of all, I wanted to start off to thank the committee. I know this is a tough decision.

It’s something that I can see and hear in each, in every one of you how difficult it has been to get where we are. And I want to thank you for bringing this motion forward. It really is something that we need to do. I’m not sure if the committee would be amenable.

I go back to the public participation, a meeting where we heard loud and clear from Londoners, is that there is harm that these images present to people when they see them. It’s not an abortion issue to you or don’t you support abortion? I remember speaking to staff at the beginning when this was brought forward from the community with their concerns and speaking with Councillor Lewis and going, this is not an abortion issue. It’s the damage that these images do harm.

And if we are going to be doing some tweaking before this comes back to Council, I do agree that maybe we do need to tighten up the word graphic, what does that mean? It’s funny if you quickly Google that, you don’t get what I’m looking for in how we define the harm that these images of these fetuses, the assault that the community gets. And one of the things that we heard at the public participation meeting was that we couldn’t even show the images at our public participation meeting because that is not allowed. Our chair had to make that acknowledgement before we even started the conversation about the sensitivity around this, but yet somehow we allow it to go into public, into private homes, that to me just does not make sense.

I think it’s something that we can look at as another whereas cause adding that we did receive substantial evidence from Londoners that such unsolicited applies caused demonstratable harm to London residents. I think that’s a cause that maybe we can put in there that refers to what we heard as a Council as we undertake the bylaw. I know this is going to be another conversation at Council, but I just want to thank the committee and staff for the thorough look at what we are going to do and how we can support the community with their concerns. So thanks again to everyone.

Mr. Mayor, is that a new hand up or is that the old one? I’m assuming it’s the old one or are you? Okay, thank you.

I thought you were taking your time unmuting because you did want to speak after all. Okay, Councilor Vanholst recognize you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And this is a tricky one.

I’m concerned a little bit about the idea of pushing the limits of our authority. I think there’s been a lot of government overreach that’s happened in the last, that’s the last couple years and there’s always a reaction to it. I believe we’re dealing with the one symptom of a larger problem that transcends municipal councils. I don’t think we can separate the images from the debate that’s going on.

There’s really conflicting worldviews about when life begins that underlies this issue. But I think the problem is that our dysfunctional society is not able to resolve those differences. There seems to be no movement on this. We can’t draw boundaries and say, okay, how far we can go to come to some agreement.

And that resolution is what’s needed. I think what would move us in the opposite direction is for a council to leave off impartiality and pick one side and censor the other, which is essentially what’s happening here. And I know I’m pretty certain it’s going to be challenged and I don’t think that that will win. I don’t think the plan will work.

Ironically, that’s what was said last time when we were talking about this. I’d said that there is a remedy and it’s the Trust Pass to Property Act. And I know that the group said they do respect that which makes a lot of sense to me because if there was a group that allowed their volunteers to go to a house and to get arrested and get a $10,000 fine, that would pretty much eliminate their volunteer base. So this is something that any organization should take extremely seriously.

And I think that’s something that we can do too. And I believe that’s the approach that other cities have taken, other councillors have taken and some of us have taken as well to tell people that this is a solution to it. But that debate really needs to move ahead in some other venue than ours. And I don’t think us passing a bylaw and potentially going to court and fighting it out there is the thing that a council should do.

And I realize this group is looked at very unframably by council members ‘cause the strategy they use. And I don’t know that this, I don’t think it’s the best approach either. But I expect, I have to respect that then everybody thinks life is precious wherever it starts. I know that I do want all of my father last night to cancer so that issue of and people’s passion for it can be very strong, whatever extent they take that.

But I think I am glad that we’re not going down route of just regular regulating all flyers. I think that’s really a first world problem. And we don’t need to do with that. So the fact that we’re taking this on directly may be good, but I do think that there is an approach.

And if we as counselors can get that message across, I think people will find that it does work. And it’s a matter of getting that message out there. And I think that in the future, these things wouldn’t be necessary if we were able to resolve some things. Just simply want to get too much into the debate, but you know, inform consent.

So people knew better that they might be triggered. This might turn out to be an emotional thing for them in the future. And as I have friends that saw these and were very disturbed by them. And but they’re, you know, they feel terrible.

Sometimes when they just see the hospital where that happens. So it’s a very personal thing. And I think we can leave that to individuals to take on. If we let them know that they have rights and they have a way to protect those rights, it’s already there that may be better than thinking that a municipal council has to be involved in everything.

We’re not the solution to everything and we shouldn’t be. And I think to believe that and to keep pushing the limits of authority is always going to have reactions that don’t work out and may turn out to be counterproductive in the end. So those are my comments and Chair, thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Are there any other comments on the motion that is on the floor? Then I will call the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Councillor Vanholst, thank you for sharing your news tonight about your father.

I don’t know if you remember this, but your father tried to teach me how to curl early in our first term. And he’s a very good curler, but maybe I’m not a very good student because I was covered in bruises and I sure didn’t help the team much. I think the tradition in curling is that the losing team gets free beer, at least one. And so we did get a free beer that day, thanks to me.

So I am very, very sorry for your loss. Your father was a kind and gentle man and my sincere condolences to you and your family. Madam Chair, thank you very much. So that is it for our agenda tonight.

I look for a motion to adjourn. Right, Councillor Homue, seconded by Councillor Hillier. I’ll do a hand vote, all those in favor. Motion carries.

We are adjourned, thanks everybody.