February 7, 2023, at 4:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 4:02 PM; it being noted that the following were in remote attendance Councillors P. Van Meerbergen and S. Hillier; it being further noted that Councillors S. Franke and E. Peloza were in remote attendance after 10:00 PM.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

None.

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Delegation - Dr. Jackie Schleifer Taylor, President and CEO, London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC)

2023-02-07 Submission - Presentation - LHSC

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That it BE NOTED that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a delegation from Dr. Jackie Schleifer Taylor, President and CEO, London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) with respect to the future of health care.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   London’s Housing Pledge: A Path to 47,000 Units by 2031

2023-02-07 Staff Report - London

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the City of London Municipal Housing Target:

a)    the staff report BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    a pledge to accelerate the housing supply of 47,000 units in our community by 2031 BE ADOPTED in response to the Minister of Municipal Affairs letter dated October 25, 2022;

c)    the Mayor BE DIRECTED to complete a letter in response to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, by March 1, 2023, highlighting Council’s pledge and the strategies and actions that the City will take to accelerate the supply of new housing;

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to develop a Housing Supply Action Plan working with the Housing Supply Reference Group described in Appendix ‘B’ Housing Supply and Affordability Framework; it being noted that the Housing Supply Reference Group may expand to include additional members as may be appropriate, including but not limited to a member from the not-for-profit housing sector and a member involved in housing supply/housing research; and,

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to establish an Affordable Housing Reference Group described in Appendix ‘B’ Housing Supply and Affordability Framework to support the ongoing Roadmap to 3000 Affordable Units;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal update from M. Wallace, Executive Director, London Development Institute (LDI) with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Additional votes:

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the delegation request from Mr. M. Wallace, London Development Institute (LDI), BE APPROVED to be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Trosow

That part d) BE AMENDED to include the following:

“it being noted that the Housing Supply Reference Group may expand to include additional members as may be appropriate, including but not limited to a member from the not-for-profit housing sector and a member involved in housing supply/housing research.”

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.2   Developing the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan: Continuing to Set Key Elements of the Strategic Plan

2023-02-07 Staff Report - Developing the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan

That the following actions be taken with respect to developing the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan:

a)    the report, entitled “Developing the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan: Continuing to Set Key Elements of the Strategic Plan” BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    the following Draft Vision and Mission BE ACCEPTED for additional consultation with the public:

Vision

London is a sustainable city within a thriving region, committed to innovation and providing a safe, affordable, welcoming, and healthy future for today and for the next generation.

Mission

Our mission is to improve the quality of life and build a strong and vibrant community through bold, proactive, and accountable city services.

c)     all three Draft Value sets, attached, BE REFERRED to the Municipal Council meeting of February 14, for consideration;

d)     the attached, revised draft Strategic Areas of Focus, Outcomes and Expected Results BE SHARED with the community to continue to seek feedback;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the attached presentation from J. Rodger, Executive Director, Anova and J. Dunn, Executive Director, London Abused Women’s Centre, and a presentation from staff with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by C. Rahman

Delegation request from J. Rodger, Executive Director, Anova and J. Dunn, Executive Director, London Abused Women’s Centre BE APPROVED to be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Franke

That the SPPC recess at this time, for thirty minutes.

Motion Passed

The committee recesses at 6:27 PM and resumes at 7:04 PM.

Consideration of Vision Statement

Majority Winner: 1. London is a sustainable city within a thriving region, committed to innovation and overcoming challenges to provide a safe, affordable, welcoming, and healthy future for today and for the next generation.

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the Draft Vision Statement BE AMENDED to remove the words “and overcoming challenges” to read as follows:

London is a sustainable city within a thriving region, committed to innovation and providing a safe, affordable, welcoming, and healthy future for today and for the next generation.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Consideration of Mission Statement

Majority Winner: 1. The mission of the City of London is to improve quality of life through bold, proactive, responsive, and accountable public services and administration.

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the Draft Mission Statement BE AMENDED to add “and build a strong and vibrant community through” and replacing the word “public” with “city” to read as follows:

“Our mission is to improve the quality of life and build a strong and vibrant community through bold, proactive, and accountable city services.”

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Consideration of Draft Values

Majority Winner: No majority

Consideration of Draft Values

Majority Winner: 1. An affordable, prosperous, inclusive and healthy city for all Londoners. Sustainable and forward thinking through positive collaborations. Open and transparent decision making in the public interest to foster trust.

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That all three Draft Value sets BE REFERRED to the Municipal Council meeting of February 14, for consideration.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following Draft Vision and Mission BE ACCEPTED for additional consultation with the public:

Vision

London is a sustainable city within a thriving region, committed to innovation and providing a safe, affordable, welcoming, and healthy future for today and for the next generation.

Mission

Our mission is to improve the quality of life and build a strong and vibrant community through bold, proactive, and accountable city services.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the SPPC recess at this time

Motion Passed

The SPPC recesses at 9:43 PM and resumes at 10:03 PM.

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the attached, revised draft Strategic Areas of Focus, Outcomes and Expected Results BE SHARED with the community to continue to seek feedback.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the staff report and presentation BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

4.3   Developing Council’s 2023-2027 Strategic Plan: Community Engagement Update

2023-02-07 Staff Report - Community Engagement Update-Developing Council’s 2023-2027 Strategic Plan

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That, on the recommendation of the City Manager, the report with respect to the developing the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan: Community Engagement Update BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

4.4   Developing Council’s 2023-2027 Strategic Plan: Tabling Draft Strategies

2023-02-07 Staff Report - Tabling Draft Strategies-Developing Council’s 2023-2027 Strategic Plan

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the City Manager, the report with respect to developing the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan: Tabling Draft Strategies BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

4.5   Resignation from the London Police Services Board

2023-02-07 Submission - Letter of Resignation - S Toth

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the following actions be taken with respect to the London Police Services Board:

a)  the communication dated January 25, 2023 from S. Toth BE RECEIVED;

b)  the resignation of Susan Toth from the London Police Services Board BE ACCEPTED, effective January 31, 2023; and,

c)  the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to advertise in the usual manner to solicit applications for appointment to the Police Services Board, with applications to be brought forward to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee for consideration;

it being noted that the process promoting board, commission and committee applications has expanded to include circulations by People Services and the Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Unit, and will be done in alignment with the section 29 (1) of the Comprehensive Ontario Police Services Act, 2019.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Trosow

That pursuant to section 33.8 of the Council Procedure by-law, the Committee BE PERMITTED to proceed beyond 11:00 PM.

Motion Passed

4.6   Municipal Council resolution from its meeting held on January 24, 2023 with respect to the Ecological Community Advisory Committee

2023-02-07 Submission - Resolution - ECAC

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the following actions be taken with respect to the resolution letter related to the 4th and 1st Reports of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee (ECAC):

a)   the above noted resolution letter, BE RECEIVED; and,

b)   Dr. E. Dusenge BE APPOINTED to the Ecological Community Advisory Committee for the term ending February 2024.

Motion Passed (12 to 1)

4.7   Municipal Council resolution from its meeting held on January 24, 2023 with respect to the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee

2023-02-07 Submission - Resolution - ITCAC

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Municipal Council resolution from its meeting held on January 24, 2023 regarding the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee (ITCAC):

a)  the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to make necessary arrangements for hybrid meeting accommodations for all community advisory committees, allowing members to attend virtually or in-person as they individually choose, no later than the end of Q2 2023;

b)  the Civic Administration BE REQUESTED to develop a “standing delegation” at standing committee meetings, for each Community Advisory Committee; and,

c)  the Civic Administration BE REQUESTED to investigate and report back to the ITCAC with respect to a Zoom license for the ITCAC sub-committee use.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Adjournment

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 11:07 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 (7 hours, 17 minutes)

Okay, everyone, I’m gonna call the meeting to order. This is the ninth meeting of the strategic priorities and policy committee. I’m gonna start by doing a land acknowledgement. City of London is situated on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwock, and Adewandran.

We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. City of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people today. As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. I want to further add that the City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communications and supports for meetings upon request.

To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC at London.ca or 519-661-2489 Extension-2425. With that, I will turn to colleagues for any disclosures of pecuniary interest for tonight’s meeting. Okay, seeing none, we have no consent items. We have one scheduled item.

It is a delegation. This will be a delegation that is a little bit longer than the regular five minutes. And there will certainly be the opportunity to ask some questions. So I would like to invite the president and CEO of the London Health Sciences Center, Dr.

Jackie Schlefer Taylor to the microphone to give a bit of a presentation and then we’ll have some questions for you afterwards. So go ahead. Thank you very much. Does my microphone work?

It works perfect. Okay, super. Thank you so very much to you Mayor Morgan and Councillors for having us here tonight as part of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee agenda. I’m joined by the chair of the London Health Sciences Center Board of Directors, Phyllis Reddy and the chairs and CEOs of our Hospitals Foundations, the Children’s Health Foundation and the London Health Sciences Foundation.

Together we are the team that is advancing this very important work on behalf of Londoners. I just, I know you’re all proud Londoners, so you’re very familiar with LHSC. You yourselves or loved ones have no doubt accessed our services. But I just wanted to take a few minutes recognizing that in your packages, there was a detailed presentation.

I just wanted to take a few minutes and talk a little bit about LHSC in the context of this work we’re undertaking on our collective behalf. It is true that LHSC is London’s Community Hospital and 100% of the services that we provide there are for Londoners. And it’s sometimes not top of mind that this gem LHSC that is right here in our city also has a good portion of its services that are for regional communities throughout Southwestern Ontario, as well as the province. And we at LHSC do have this unique role within the system.

It is very true that we serve a catchment area that as far as north as Thunder Bay. And we offer some services here that are one or two spaces only in the entire province available. But first and foremost, we are LHSC’s London’s Community Hospital. Now, it’s no secret that we’re in a time of transformation in the health system.

And there are some confluence of factors that are really affecting us right now. And I can’t be before you and not mention the pandemic, which is something we are in our fourth calendar year in. And it’s changed everything about the way we deliver care at LHSC in fundamental ways. But we don’t have just the pandemic that’s top of mind as we go through this process of master planning.

We also have the health system transformation that is requiring us in a good way to be more integrated and coordinated and collaborative as an entire health system and meeting the needs of Ontarians. And then specific to London, the population changes and the volume projections, some of which have been contained in your briefing, really has London as a city in the top five across Canada, really with an accelerated population growth and which is coming with that diversity that we have to keep in mind as we move forward. So we have these immediate things that LHSC has done to address those facts. One, we have a new organizational structure that we’ve been working on over the last essentially 18 months.

And we also now are embarking on the end of a consultation around our strategic planning, which we’re very pleased to have had the city’s strategic plan to make sure there’s alignment. Those are the immediate actions. But master planning, this word that really means looking not just about healthcare delivery today, but far out into the next 10, 20 and 30 years for the needs of this community, that master planning that I keep saying LHSC’s master planning is really our master planning. It’s not for LHSC, it’s work we’re undertaking on behalf of the communities we serve.

So we have to get it right. And what the package materials wanted you to know is that as we look out into the future, it’s exciting work for sure, but it’s very daunting and it’s a large undertaking that we are committed to getting right. And part of that getting it right is doing considerable consultation and engagement out into the communities with you as counselors with the community and social services partners that are part of the continuum of care, all of the hospitals within our Southwest region. And really not just talking about it, but hearing loud and clear what’s important to Londoners to get right for the future healthcare delivery and making sure that that’s an alignment with not any of our personal wishes and hopes, but the voices of those people we’re here to serve.

So there’s been so far in the past year, quite a tremendous amount of public and partner engagement so far. And the purpose of coming here tonight is to actually have a second followup meeting with representatives of council that we were fortunate to have with the then mayor and deputy mayor in September, the end of September of last year, just to make sure that we stay very close in conversation with you about this work. When we did that extensive consultation, the things that we heard most from Londoners and our partners was that they really want to make sure we design a system that they’re the focus of. And that since system integration and communications really mean something, I think the health system of the past was as a healthcare provider myself, often provider focused, and we need to really make sure that we are thinking first and foremost about the patients and families we’re here to serve.

A second big theme was about accessibility and inclusivity and just meaning that not only do we care and plan for the people who find their ways to our doors, but the people who for reasons, many reasons, either don’t feel safe coming to our doors or can’t find the doors to access. We have to reduce the stigma of mental health challenges and I really applaud the city of London for your health and homelessness work and the giant step forward that this community as a collective has taken to that important matter. We have to reduce wait times and just think about really smart and new ways because we don’t have the care providers and the staff to do the good work going forward because our health system has lost a lot of human resources because of the pandemic. And the final thing that our partners and our partners have told us is that we really have to be proactive about future needs, like really, really, really get world class advice and bring it to London.

Don’t rely on the intelligence we have here in London which is vast and deep, but look outwards across the province and the country and the world and bring that here because Londoners deserve it. So if we’re building that world class system of care which is a tremendous, tremendous task, it’s because Londoners deserve it and we’re gonna have to just work together and keep close on this topic. So I just wanted to close with those highlights to say that we welcome ongoing collaboration with the city of London and we’re going to commit to providing you with further updates but more importantly, we’re going to commit to hearing from you what’s important in this designing and re-imagining the future of healthcare for London in the southwestern region. And I really thank you for the time here.

I know you gave us an extended time and I welcome any questions. Yeah, so first let me on behalf of council say thank you for coming. As you mentioned, you and I have had an opportunity to meet both during my time as deputy mayor and then subsequently as mayor. And one of the things we talked about was fostering a new and collaborative dialogue between our organizations.

And I think you coming here today and being present, not just to present, but answer questions from my colleagues on council is a really important step in that renewed relationship that we will have and will build together as partners in the community. So with that, I’m gonna turn it to members of council who may have some questions for the delegation today. Council Perble. Thank you very much for coming today doctor.

I have a question for you and I love when you said world class advice. And I asked quite a few people in your industry in your field about this. And I never, I so far have not received the answer. If I look at how much Ontario spends per capita per Ontario population, we are lower but there are many other countries that we spend the same or higher.

Did we ever do any benchmarking with other countries? Because some countries that spend, we spent about over 5,000 Canadian over 4,000 US per capita. And there are certain countries, for example, in Europe they spent the same or the less. And if you look at the services in terms of waiting time, family doctor, much less than us, did we ever look into it?

And I know there’s not your representing London, but I’m just curious in terms of the provincial level. Thank you. Thank you for that comment and question, Councillor Pribble. What I would say is you are very astute in that observation.

And there’s no question that there are opportunities that the Canadian health system and our provincial health system have other countries and jurisdictions to look for. I would throw this comment back to council for your consideration that one of the successes, particularly in Europe, of their health system and being very patient focused and having reduced wait times in all of those parameters you indicated, is because they generally operate in a health and all policy framework. So Europe was one of the first jurisdictions in the world to adopt that kind of framework. And what that means is whether they’re talking about education or housing or city planning for transit or social assistance, everything has an element and a lens of health and founding that health for the community.

And I would say again, a great example of that mindset comes from your health and homelessness initiative that we were very privileged at LHSC to be involved in and remain committed to. So it’s a great question and I thank you for that observation. Just a quick follow up. And I think that if you prepare in terms of the strategic plan that will include benchmarking and competitive study.

And if you do put pressure on municipal and provincial governments, I hope I believe we will get there. And as you said, Londoners deserve better and just Londoners Ontarians. And I hope we will get there. Thank you very much.

We count on it. Thank you. Thank you. I put myself on the speakers list next.

So I’m gonna hand it over to Councilor Palosa to chair. Thank you, recognizing Mayor Morgan. So I just wanted to make some comments not chairing the meeting, but outside of the chair. First and foremost, I would say I appreciate you coming here and the dialogue that we’ve been able to have so far.

One of the things that I appreciate about our organizations is our focus on our joint advocacy efforts on matters that impact us both. And that involves our partners in the land ambulance. And we had a presentation from them a few weeks back about some of the cost pressures that they’re facing due to offload delays, which involves the work that you’re doing with your master plan and investments from the province. And so we’re all certainly integrated and connected on these efforts.

I think one of the questions that I have about the master planning process is the idea of a community contribution to the financial component, which I know we’re not even close to there yet as you’re at the start of the process. But the question I would have is, is that envisioned as a community contribution directly from municipality, from other organizations in the community, and does it impact, say, just the city of London, or, like you said, you have a very large area that you serve, and so would it be anticipated that the province would expect that to be from a more regional base than specifically within the city of London? I don’t know if you can comment to that. I know it’s getting ahead of things a little bit, but I certainly think that that’s something that I know a lot of people are talking about in other communities and down the road, and I wouldn’t mind hearing your thoughts on that through the chair, of course.

Thank you for the complex question, Mayor Morgan. It just so happens that in our region, there are 19 of us hospitals, each with a small community facing the similar challenges. And the way planning for hospitals works is that on a staggered timeframe, every hospital gets support from the ministry, specifically to do this thing called master planning, visioning, and because it is staggered for obvious reasons, it gives opportunities for us to work with those partners to see where the gaps is to make sure there’s efficiencies. But because it is hospital-based, there is an expectation that those hospitals will be working with their municipalities to support that local community hospital.

And while our patients are shared across this vast region, we typically would have just a more focused municipality with City of London engagement around that. Having said that, the master planning process requires 10% of the funding for all hospitals in support of this redevelopment and reimagining ultimately to come from outside of Ministry of Health monies. And within that 10% local share, it’s called, municipalities do not ever bear the full amount of that. But it’s thought that having a stake in that is critical to keeping essentially our feet to the fire, to getting it right, our obligation, duty, and commitment to partner in this, and our assurance that to the City of London and to Londoners that everything possible is being done to make the best plan.

Our foundations, Children’s Health Foundation, London Health Sciences Foundation, and all hospital foundations become critical partners as fundraisers for the aspects of the development that will happen that isn’t covered by Ministry dollars. And I wanna be clear that the Ministry and government do not fully fund it, not because they don’t recognize or want to fully fund it. These aspects of community support and that commitment and the ability to hold us into account are just seen as critical aspects of the process. Mayor Morgan.

That’s all the questions I had, thank you. Thank you, returning the chair to you, recognizing Councillor Troso and Councillor Hopkins also have their hands up. I’ll go to Councillor Troso first. Thank you and through the chair, thank you for your presentation.

My question is very general. There’s been a lot of discussion in the press lately about the whole notion of the privatization of our healthcare system and the lack of necessary resources going to the private, to the public sector and the sort of like the suggestion that we could be allowing the private sector to be doing some of the things that our hospitals have done. I’m wondering is this something that you are in any position to comment on even generally or talk to us about what your strategy is? My question was hard.

So you know what, you were reading my mind. I was just about to say I came from, I was one of five hospital CEOs in the province invited to be in person just prior to coming here in Toronto where the Minister of Health was giving an address. And I did just share with my colleagues before Council started that I thought it was one of the most candid and inspiring conversations. As a hospital CEO, I am completely just here to serve and apolitical.

And what we do is try to be really sure we understand the government and the ministries and Ontario Health’s direction and how we can make that work within the communities we’re serving. What I had reaffirmed and what I know is true is that privatization already exists within our health system. And certainly LHSC currently has physicians who have private enterprises across the city. And when those independent business individuals as physicians are choose to make those decisions for themselves, our job at LHSC in our approach has always been how can we partner with them so that we’re actually making sure that whatever is being designed, we can have a link to.

Not because we want to control it and not because we don’t believe those physicians working outside of the system would not be doing the right things. It is simply because we want to ensure there are economies of scale. We want to make sure there’s efficiencies with the public purse and we want the good relationships. So did I get around that enough, Councillor?

Would you like— Councillor Trost, how are you satisfied? Well, I mean, do you think it poses particular challenges or impediments to what you’re trying to do given the development of your strategic plan, which is based on, yes, there are aspects of the system where practitioners are in private practice. But the general gist of our health care system in Canada is public. The minister today, which I don’t speak on behalf, of course, but we’ve all publicly heard our premier talk about independent health facilities being set up and paid for by your OHIP card, not your credit card.

What I believe is that we, LHSC, should be in support of anything with public funds that enables our Londoners to receive care sooner and more conveniently and closer to home. So I don’t know that the plan has been rolled out yet that would give us details and certainly not give me details to pause and have a concern at this point. I very much am working closely with our funders and government to ensure that LHSC can inform this development in our health system. And I have reasons to believe thus far that that approach will be helpful to us here in London.

That’s our Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship and Dr. Shilfer Taylor. It’s a pleasure to meet you and your team.

I think this is the first time you’ve been in our chambers and I’m really delighted that you are here. It’s a great opportunity for us as a council to get to understand the challenges that our community is facing. I really appreciate the comment that you made about decisions that we have to make today. It’s basically for the next generation.

And as our population grows, the challenges do become great. I really think that’s really important because I know as a council, a lot of the decisions that we make here are really for generations or down the road in the next 10, 20, 30 years. I do have a question for you, though. You did speak about engagement.

And I know residents reach out to us on many issues. And usually when I do get a health issue, I usually right away go, oh, it’s not immune as a conversation. It’s provincial. Let’s go to the MPP or I think we can do a better job engaging the community and getting information and understanding this sort of partnership that we are developing here.

And so my question is, how do you see where is the need or how can we do that engagement as Councillors? That engagement, I’m sorry. The last little bit I just didn’t hear. As Councillors, how do we engage with the community, sharing your concerns or passing information or facilitating, getting back to my go-to is it’s not a municipal matter.

It’s go to the provincial government with the concerns. But I really— you’ve got me thinking on that engagement part. Well, thank you, first of all, for the warm welcome of myself and our team here. I want to acknowledge that I would say about— up until about four years ago, our engagement approaches at LHSC and seeking out the public voice was very reactionary, in that we receive complaints and concerns on a regular ongoing basis.

And I welcome them. It’s the only way we will improve. And we answer and respond to each of those individually. About four years ago, maybe five, we started recognizing that not everyone has the courage or is angry enough to connect with us.

And we really have to go where people are. So we started sending teams out to malls. We first started sending teams out just around the city. But at that time had not really had the trust that we’d hoped to develop to hear from individuals.

And so I think where we are today is multi-pronged approach as an LHSC and outreach to our varied communities. And it will be a matter of rebuilding trust for some, introducing ourselves to some communities and just continuing on. I welcome the opportunity for there to be an intersection either through our master planning work or ongoing with City of London Council in addressing those health needs. Myself, I’m introducing a CEO community conversation very shortly where I will be with anyone who would like to come and ask questions and receive clarifications and demonstrate that accountability back to the community.

I’ll be starting that very soon. Later this month, or I think it’s the end of this month, or the beginning of March. And I just, I really believe in the health and all policy framework and the opportunity to blur those lines of who’s responsible for this and who’s responsible for that. And just partner in service for everyone.

I believe the board, our board of directors and our foundations as ambassadors hold that same belief. Thank you for that. I really do appreciate those comments and listening and learning as you speak. So thank you for that.

I just want to also thank you for recognizing the work that City’s doing with homelessness too and that partnership. And I know there’s lots of challenges. You mentioned the mental health, the human resources, the need for support for staff and those challenges. So I wish you the best of luck there and really thank you again for coming.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair. I have a few questions, I’m just gonna bundle.

So just bear with me. My first question in terms of the long-term strategy that’s going into this, I wonder if you could speak a bit more in terms of how you foresee overcoming staffing shortages. I know obviously that’s a product of the pandemic and obviously that’ll take some time to recover from that. And also second question, in terms of our aging population looking at growth in terms of geriatric care.

And thirdly, if you could speak a bit more in terms of allocating resources to mental health ‘cause we know that that’s a growing need and I’m sure that will continue into the foreseeable future. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor McAllister. I don’t have a pen but I’m gonna try my vest.

Our human resources challenges will require so many different things that I know I don’t individually know today exactly what we need to do but I know three things already. First and foremost, every opportunity that has afforded us by our funders to either have nursing students or physiotherapist students or medical clerks in the healthcare system and specifically the hospital through additional funding, we are taking advantage of every one of those opportunities. So whenever new ideas come out from our funders to increase and support our human resources complement, we are securing that. A second thing I can tell you is thankfully again through the partnerships we’ve been able to be supported in creating with through the Health and Homelessness Initiative, we’re looking at ideas about maybe some of the community and social services workforce who would say that there are gaps between transitions of care today between any patient or some patients discharged from our hospitals before they line up with care.

Maybe there’s a way of those partnerships extending to our human resources and how we actually support each other and not only actual jobs that are cross pollinating between sectors of the system but in educational opportunities for our human resources and recruitment opportunities and wellness opportunities. I really appreciate the comments about the pandemic are it’s been hard. So I welcome that and I think we’re just gonna have to do that differently. We’re gonna have to thirdly welcome new partners, new providers, new types of staff into the hospitals because it’s a very privileged place to work but we’ve kind of had traditional rules as a hospital system about whether or not you have physiotherapists working there, I’m a registered physical therapist or you can have rehabilitation assistance for example, we need to not be so duffy about that.

People at the end of the day don’t really care what the credentials are of the person helping them as long as that person is qualified to help them. And lastly on the human resources front that I know today is that we’re trying to be sure that we retain the staff we have and take care of their wellness. That’s a big, big, big, big, big thing right now. And then your other component related to what?

Sorry, my other two of the second one was to do with recognizing that we have an aging population and dedicating resources to geriatric care. And then the last part was just obviously the growth we’ve seen in terms of mental health resourcing and as that will expand into the foreseeable future. Thank you. Well, fortunate for London, we have experts in geriatric care in our sister institution, our partner institution, St.

Joseph’s Healthcare. And we have experts as well in the acute nature of gerontology at LHSC. And they are world class. And because we have that insight and because we know the largest population growth is geriatrics seniors as well as individuals with mental health challenges.

We’re really pooling that expertise and planning collaboratively. Our early feedback from Londoners is they’d like to see dedicated seniors services along the care continuum. And they’d like to see dedicated mental health services without stigma. And we are working with those both as key areas that we need to pay attention to.

Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you. Thank you so much for the presentation and the information included in the package. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, I can. Perfect. - Thank you. I want to touch on one follow up from Councillor McAllister’s questions, but also in some of the comments that you made today.

You touched on in your presentation highlighting the fact that we are the fastest growing community, which we continue to hear. And as we are growing, I guess one of the questions I have is how you foresee us leveraging that growth when the growth is coming from international populations. Right now, you know, our international population at Fanshawe and Western, we’ve seen considerable growth. Many of those that are coming here are coming here to work in healthcare.

So there’s, I know, and I know this is an area that you’re very familiar with and I’m pleased to see the province saying that we are going to do more to get those that are trained internationally to be licensed. Do you see anything that we as a city need to do more of in terms of advocacy as a healthcare city, as the fastest growing city to really get those folks able to work in our system quicker? Great question, Councillor, thank you for that. I would say that one of the strengths that London has demonstrated and there’s so many examples I could talk about and it would be emotional is the welcoming of newcomers and other families to London and Middlesex London and the surround.

Very, London is known for that kindness and generosity. And because of that, LHSC was actually the first hospital to accept the intake of internationally educated nurses. So when that project opportunity was launched by our funder last year, we were the first hospital afforded that opportunity. Now, was it smooth?

No, nothing first out the gate is smooth and it was definitely imperfect. If we thought about it, maybe we would have reached out more proactively to all of the great resources that you offer for newcomers and other individuals from outside of London, we didn’t do that. We do that now. We have all of the rich resources that the city of London offers as part of our process.

I don’t believe that there’s a reputational challenge here for London with respect to the environment. I believe strongly that all we have to do is continue to work together to just build it, enhance it. You’ve spoken for yourself in this regard. This council has done that loud and clear.

Thank you. And just to follow up, you said earlier that patients don’t care about the credentials. They care about the care, right? So again, going back to this conversation around IMGs and those that have the opportunity and are here and ready to work.

How do we as a community, within our strategic plan even, how do we help to put a focus on those that are looking to their job ready? They’re here, they’re ready to work. And also as a healthcare community, when you look at our employment statistics, I think it was UHN was first and were second. I mean, if nothing tells us more that we are a healthcare community, and I don’t wanna put you on the spot here, but is there more that we should be doing within our strategic plan to put the focus on healthcare?

Thanks. You are all likely aware that there are six currently, six in the future eight health services, universities in this province. And that means a lot of things technically. One of the things it means is that those are hot cities and the hospitals that are fully affiliated with them, meaning all of our physicians and in some areas are all of our leaders have appointments at those universities.

They are healthcare towns, they are healthcare cities and they are hubs of excellence in healthcare. That in of itself attracts individuals, but specific to your question, Western University, LHSC, and some of the other partners we are working with recognize the need to be very overt in inclusion and attracting individuals to London because not very far from here is Toronto, which has many opportunities that individuals might see as equally attractive. I think one of the things we have to do collectively is talk more about the fact that we are a healthcare hub. The excellence lives here and everybody is committed to that excellence.

Right now we’re working in partnership in response to Western University and what is called an affiliation agreement between the university and us as their research intensive acute tertiary co-turnary teaching hospital and we are strengthening that partnership and really melding our goals that you’re talking about because we know we have, there’s a lot of talent and we want that talent to be attracted to come to London. Other speakers, okay. Let me conclude then by saying again, thank you to you and your whole team for coming and sharing some thoughts and answering a lot of questions. Some may be easier than others, but that’s what you get when you come here.

We don’t hold back, we wanna talk about real issues and how we can work together and move forward. So thank you so much, I know this is the first of many engagements between our two organizations and as we continue to work together to provide the best possible service and care for monitors. So thank you so much for your time today, we really appreciate it. Thank you very much, very much, appreciate it.

Thank you. I’ll need a motion to receive the delegation today or basically accept what happened. Councilor Ferrara and Councilor Hopkins, any debate? Okay, that’ll be voted on on screen.

Vote yes, thank you. Mr. Mayor Bergen? I vote yes.

Seeing the vote, the motion’s passed 14 to zero. Okay, thank you colleagues. On to items for direction. Item 4.1, we’ll deal with next.

This is London’s housing pledge of path to 47,000 units by 2031. We’re gonna start this section with a presentation and overview from Mr. Mathers. So I’ll turn it over to you.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity to introduce this report. A lot of really great and hard work has gone into this and I’m hoping that we can provide some clarity to you through this just very brief presentation. So firstly, you’ll see from the recommendation, we are suggesting that Council endorse and adopt a pledge for 47,000 units by 2031.

To begin, we would really like to just highlight some having an issue, there we go. Why we are comfortable with that pledge. Firstly, we feel like London is very well positioned to achieve the targets. Firstly, we do have, even in the current designated area, the amount of property required to be able to facilitate 47,000 units.

So we know we have that working for us. As you are all aware as well, we’ve recently done a growth forecast, that’s actually been looking at 82,000 units by 2046. So we are starting that planning process to establish what the needs to provide for that new growth. We also have very well aligned in support of industry partners in London that we can work with to try to facilitate moving ahead to housing in London.

And then we actually have a very good head start in that we have over 18,000 units in approved, open subdivisions, site plans and condominiums. So highlighted in the report are three pillars that are very much crucial and required if we are to be able to achieve this very ambitious target. Firstly, it’s coming from the financial perspective, ensuring that the funding is available and to be able to construct the infrastructure required to move forward with this type of ambitious plan. So this is what I’m talking here is the pipes, the treatment plan upgrades, the roads, all that extra work that the city facilitates through our growth process to be able to ensure that we can have the capacity to be able to have growth occur in London.

The next pillar is really an enterprise-wide approach to making sure that we have the processes and the capacity to be able to move ahead with this type of an ambitious plan, not just the planning and development area, but really all of the areas of the city to have this infrastructure constructed that really puts a large toll on our environment infrastructure supports. And the legal finance, everyone’s involved, IT. All these folks are very much involved in trying to move ahead such an ambitious plan, such as this one. And the third pillar is my focus on shared accountability.

The city plays a huge role in facilitating development, but we’re not the ones that are actually constructing homes. We’re not the ones that can bring an application forward. So what we’re suggesting is that shared accountability ensure that we have metrics both for ourselves, but for all of the partners in trying to establish a plan. And with that, we’re suggesting the creation of housing supply action plans.

So this plan would be focused on delivering that 47,000 units target. It would be developed in consultation and working very closely with our industry partners. And we have a proposed framework that was part of the report. And I’ll go through that now.

So currently, we do have several groups that meet very regularly that are very much focused on facilitating housing within our community. But we’re looking at building on those existing groups and creating more of a cohesive framework around it. So each area has an internal team that supports them and then an external team that helps be able to provide a sounding board, advice, and really that the sense of what’s happening in the marketplace. So first, we’re suggesting a team be focused on the development of this housing supply action plan.

We would be building on existing team that’s focused on development charges. And really, that team would stay as it is right now, but have a very much joint effort and linkages to the other teams that are being created. We also have a current group and external group that looks at our processes, provides recommendations to us. So we’re looking at having very much more of a laser focus on that that group would be focused on the operational issues related to processes and stream islanding efforts.

And they’d be really much focused on trying to come up with those innovative approaches and help us through those processes. But then also creating another group that would be strictly focused on affordable housing and helping the city and our community achieving the 3,000 affordable unit plan roadmap. So of those two groups, the first group is titled the Housing Supply Reference Group. So these are the folks that are directly responsible and have that accountability to be able to provide housing in our community.

So that’s how this group was structured. And it would be very much focused on how we can get from where we are now to 47,000 units by 2031. The next group, it would be very much focused on the affordable housing piece. So we have reported back to council let you know where we’re at with the 3,000 unit plan.

This group would help us get to take what we’re doing now to the next level by engaging directly with some of our community partners but also getting some more feedback from those with lived experience and connecting with organizations that are really focused on affordable housing that we can be able to build on their experience and knowledge and help us to achieve our plan and framework. Also in the report, you’ll see it’s quite a hefty report. Part of the request from the province was to not just highlight a council’s pledge for the 47,000 units, but also highlight any strategy and actions that we’re currently working on. So that’s the bulk of this report.

A lot of different strategies, I won’t go through them all right now, but just want to highlight that this report isn’t the actual housing supply plan, but these strategies and actions will play a large part of that ultimate plan. In order to actually create a plan, it needs to be something that the entire industry and the cities can get behind and it’s something we can bring to council in the future. But you can see where we have a really great start as far as our strategies and actions and these are things we’ll be highlighting to the province as far as what we are currently doing to be able to ensure that we can move housing forward in the city of London. So with that, I want to thank you very much.

I also really want to thank our team. This was a lot of work. It came out of the December council meeting and we had a lot of work even over the Christmas break. And as I said, it’s an enterprise approach.

So we’ve touched on and worked with a lot of the folks across the city and also just want to thank council for your patience of having us on the added agenda as well. So thank you very much. Thank colleagues. Rather than the go into a bunch of questions for Mr.

Mathers, I thought perhaps we could deal with the delegation request as well, hear from the delegation. Mr. Mathers might have some further comments based on the delegation and then we can ask all the questions we want and make the motions and all the good stuff that we can do. So with that, I’d look to colleagues.

There’s a request for delegation status from Mike Wallace, the executive director of the London Development Institute. Anybody like to make a motion? Councillor Palosa, grant the delegation. Yes, move it.

And Councillor Hoppe in seconding. Okay, any discussion on granting the delegation? Councillor Trozab. I’m always happy to hear from delegations.

And I’m happy to hear from Mr. Wallace. My concern today though, is that this was brought to the table rather late. And I have to wonder how many other groups might have requested delegation status had they seen the report in time to enter a comment.

Now, we have a lot of different groups who share an interest in this matter. And I applaud you for being through the chair. I applaud the speaker for being here. But I just, I’m just wondering, are we going to have the opportunity on this report to have other attitudes or other delegations?

So there’s only one that’s in, I understand you’re concerned about that, but the matter before us is do we grant this delegation, if council would like to entertain more delegations, I think we would have to have perhaps a second meeting on this. But at this point, the matter before us is moving and seconding, whether or not we hear the delegations that have been submitted in a request or already. In which case, I find myself in a very strange and awkward position of not being able to support this request for delegation. I want to hear your delegation, but I would prefer to hear it with other ones.

So if we could defer this and maybe deal first with whether or not there is going to be another meeting where we get the opportunity to have this participation, I would feel more comfortable. Otherwise, in all likelihood, what’s going to happen? Well, I’ll leave it at that. But I can’t support this without a little bit more assurance that we’ll have another opportunity to hear delegations.

Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship and through you. While I appreciate that even for us as councilors, we received this as an added and had to spend time on Monday going through it, there is a provincial deadline for a submission on March the 1st. So we must move quickly.

I’m happy to hear the delegation, particularly given that at the end of the day, Mr. Wallace and his organization represent people who are going to build homes. So I think it’s very important that we hear from them. Moving forward, I mean, it’s always ideal if we have more time.

But the reality is we’ve been given a deadline by the province. So I’m happy to hear this delegation. Other individuals could have sought delegation status. They haven’t.

So I’m prepared to hear the one that we have and I hope we can just call the vote on that and hear from our delegate. I don’t see any of the speakers on the request for this delegation. So that will open in the system for voting. Councillor Cuddy.

Could you use your microphone? I vote yes. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 13 to one. Okay, Mr.

Wallace, five minutes for the delegation and you can go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and thank you, Councillors for hearing me this evening. And to the Councillors’ point, this report did just come out with the additional agenda over the weekend.

And I got it yesterday morning and read it and then sent it to my group that I represent. And by this morning, my mailbox was quite active. So we are very much in favor of the housing pledge that’s in this report as an initial step, which I think the deputy city manager indicated that this is a thick report, it’s a start. We are more than committed to being the third pillar in terms of shared responsibility.

We are also interested in helping all through every one of the four the recommendations for the four circles or whatever with groups to help in terms of developing the plan and implementation of the plan. Our industry is very much active on that. We also want to put on the table that like financial supports and so on. There are other partners that need to come to the table to help us, and that includes the province.

And we are more than willing to be a voice as an industry on some of the things that need to change or help us get to the 47,000. Not that this is a partnership with the city, with the industry, with other agencies that we deal with on the planning and development issues, whether it’s conservation authority, hydro, all those, the province, I would say the feds don’t have a whole lot to do with this, but there might be some money helping us out on the affordability side that helps us get to those units. So we are more than happy to be working with the city as a voice on those opportunities. We appreciate that we are included.

We are the ones who actually build the housing at all levels. We also want to thank the city manager for their reach to us as an industry during the recent summits. My executive have attended every one of the three summits. They are actively interested in helping with the health and homelessness issue here in town and in the city.

And so we, our vision for what we as an industry can do in terms of helping to get to the 47,000 units in 10 years is at all levels. And we are very encouraged that we’re included in all of those opportunities that are outlined here in the initial housing pledge. And so we just wanted to be on the record that we look forward to working through this. And we would, we support you setting a letter to the province saying that London will be in a position to be able to make that commitment and happy to answer any questions.

Well, we don’t usually ask delegations a lot of questions. So I’ll leave it at that for now, but I’ll see if colleagues, we’ll call you back up if we need anything from you. Mr. Mathers, I don’t know if you have anything to add based on the delegation.

Okay. So back to council, you’ve heard from Mr. Mathers. We’ve received a delegation.

I would look for either discussion or someone willing to make a motion or a direction, Councilor Frank. Thank you. And thank you to all the staff who worked on this as well. I did want to start off by applauding 18,000 and 47,000 that I did a little quick math.

38% of the way approved already. I wanted to say kudos. It sounds like supply is well in hand. One thing I did want to ask and I think it might be more of a discussion for council, but given that this is a public letter that has a deadline but also that it’s a pledge.

I was interested in having the discussion about adding maybe a preamble or preface or maybe a letter that says here’s what we’re going to do but here’s what we need you to do. And to Mr. Wallace’s point, especially with financial supports, we know being able to waive or the province changing some legislation where there’s going to be a waiving of development charges for affordable units. And a lot of that is going to be downloaded to the province.

I’m really interested in having the letter that goes with this pledge. Maybe again, it’s like a cover letter that says, if we’re going to achieve these targets, you need to help us with affordable units. You need to help us with funding. You need to help us with other affordable issues like rent control.

So I was just maybe putting that on the floor as a possible direction to staff to include a short letter that goes with this pledge. I don’t know if you want that to be a direction to me or you want the staff to write something supplementary but maybe if I can help with the council’s indulgence to make some comments, I don’t disagree with anything that’s been said. And I think that both staff and I would agree that that’s integral to our being able to meet the 47,000 commitment. And even in the way the minister contemplates us committing to the pledge, there is the identification of not only strategies but also barriers and challenges that we would potentially face in achieving that pledge, not just from the initial letter but in an ongoing dialogue.

And I will share with you that if council supports this, which I’m hoping you do and we approve this, I intend on working with staff and our GR folks, including Councilor Hopkins through AMO to ensure that that sort of information is heard and that we engage with the partners necessary. As Mr. Wallace said, it will require multiple partners all pulling in the same direction, including the provincial government contributing in the ways that they need to contribute. So I don’t know if a separate letter is maybe as valuable as perhaps including some of that in the letter the mayor writes and I don’t have any objection.

If council doesn’t too, to talking about some of those challenges and approaches and certainly I intend on engaging with the province on this regularly and vigorously should council support it. So I’ll go back to you, Councilor Frank, because I just don’t wanna add a second letter if you’re comfortable with me, including some of that language in my letter. Sure, and just for clarification, would your letter like accompany this pledge in an email or to, I just wanna confirm it’s gonna go with it? Yeah, if you look at the motion, part C is the mayor be directed to complete a letter in response to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, highlighting council’s pledge and the strategies and actions that the city would take to accelerate the supply of new housing.

So a letter and I would intend on including a copy of this report as well. And so that letter I can, you know, make it shorter as long as I think I’d like, but you can see the basis of what would be included there, but I don’t think Mr. Mathers or anybody else would advise me that there’s any objection to talking about, you know, some of the challenges that we’d have. And the idea of shared accountability is inherent within the report, and that includes the province.

So I don’t think anything you’ve said doesn’t fit into that shared accountability piece. Sure, I’d be okay with that. As long as I would love the wording to be very vigorous, so. Okay, I will work on the word, Councilor Hopkins, and I’ll start a speaker’s list, my apologies.

Yeah, I’ll just add, as a follow up, Mr. Mayor, just if we could get a copy of that, I know sometimes letters coming out of the Mayor’s office don’t go, come directly to us, but as it goes out, it would be really great to see the wording, if that’s possible, it’s just a question. There’s no problem me copying members of Council, assuming the clerk says that’s fine, yes, on a letter that it is going to be a public submission to the province. Go to Deputy Mayor Lewis and then Council Trossa.

Thank you, Your Worship, and through you. And just wanna pick up where Councilor Frank left off. I think it’s important to include some of those challenges we’re facing. I, however, would encourage you to be diplomatic in your language.

We will have to work with the province on this. We do require them to be a partner and punching them in the face in a letter is not going to help us get funding that we need for some of our needs. So I would encourage aggressive diplomacy, perhaps, if we can label it that way. I just don’t want us to, I do want us to keep in mind we need to work as a partner, not as a critic on this issue.

Before we get too far down the rabbit hole in this, no letter that is gonna be written on behalf of Council is going to be overly aggressive or, quote, a punch in the face. These will be respectfully written, but very accurate and factual about the situation that the city is facing and the actions we’re taking as are all the letters. So just to be clear, we don’t really have to get into that too much more. I have Councilor Trossal.

I’m going to hold my specific questions from Mr. Mathers until we finish this first round ‘cause I don’t want to go down that long thing now. I just want to point out to everybody that the letter from Stephen Clark is the minister. There’s an attachment to that letter that makes it very clear, very clear that this is a non-exhaustive list.

We’re given a set of bullet points about what we can address in the letter. And, you know, at least if there’s any saving grace about this, it is non-exhaustive. And I think somewhere in between not saying anything and a punch in the face is a very, very clear recitation of what some of our very serious and compelling concerns are about the situation that we find ourselves in with respect to our ability to help our residents have housing. And I have a lot of confidence that the mayor is going to be able to do that.

So I just wanted to start by saying you’re not constrained by your letter will include this and it will be limited to that because it’s expressly stated as not exhaustive. So I think there’s a lot that could be done here. I’m going to yield for now and maybe in a few moments I’ll get back to some specific questions. Councilor Ferreira.

Thank you and through you. Yeah, I first would like to thank staff for putting this together. Mr. Maitis and his area just kind of put everything that was here was pretty helpful on what’s been going on and just kind of our direction of what we’re going to do and just kind of piggybacking off of Councilor Frank here and just adding maybe some suggestions or some questions.

I don’t want to really get into the weeds but I do have one question and a suggestion from that question that I’d like to see if we get if the rest of Council would agree that we can maybe add onto your letter. And then going to Councilor Lewis’ point maybe be assertive rather than aggressive diplomacy that would be a good way to put it. But I did want to ask, I did notice that we didn’t really have anything about the vacant residences in the city. And I know this has been proposed before with that vacant residential property tax but I didn’t see anything like that.

And I thought that if we’re trying to prioritize the intensification goals that we’re doing, I thought that would probably be a pretty good way to move forward. So I just wanted to know if we could maybe perhaps add some type of language like that or maybe even explore the possibility or even see how many vacant residences are in the city just to kind of get our background if that were to be an option. So I thought I’d throw that out there. Thank you.

Yeah, that sounds more to me, Councilor, if I’m reading it right as more of a question on the content of the report and the strategies. So perhaps I could ask Ms. Barbong or Mr. Mathers, you can tag team on that piece for you to get some information.

Thank you through the chair. So that those are the residential tax is solely on units that are already vacant in the city. So they would not count towards the 47,000. There are staff that are currently doing some work on trying to identify the number of vacant homes to identify if there is a merit towards pursuing a strategy specifically on those.

That was something that the previous Council had directed us to review. So that is something that under my team, there’s a number of team staff that are working together to look at that and that’ll be the future of a future, the subject of a future report that will come to this Council. And thank you, Ms. Barbong.

Yeah, that’s, I think that’s a smart way to go about it. You just to see really what the number is like, but I figured just because we are kind of identifying that priority of our intensification and just building within the built area boundary, perhaps maybe that would be something that we consider. So if there is something coming up, I look forward to seeing that in the future, thanks. Thank you, Councilor Raman.

Thank you and through you. I agree with sending in the letter to honor the pledge. What I’m struggling with is one, you know, with this approach, the province has asked us for a pledge of which my response, and I’m only speaking for myself, would be similarly that I’d like a pledge. And those pledges, all of the multiple pledges actually, relate to many issues that I feel that Bill 23 is silent on or is divorced from the idea of what we do as a city and what the costs are.

And I think that, you know, I look at some other municipalities and cities and the approaches that they’re taking in response to Bill 23. And I’m thinking specifically around Mississauga. And, you know, one of the things I can say that I like is the amount of information that Mississauga has given the community around what are the implications. And I think that there’s an opportunity for us to maybe not within the letter, but to the community, discuss further these implications and to the extent, because there are a lot of myths out there that we need to debunk.

And I do think it’s important with the mayor of Mississauga holding the big city mayor’s caucus chair currently to show our support that the strength that they’ve showed in Mississauga to say that some of what is on the table is not in line with what we do here is really important. And I think it’s important also to know that by not saying enough, I agree with diplomacy, I agree there’s a way to do it, but at the same time, there are impacts here that do not have the intended result. And so I’m just concerned that we need to. I’ll just have anyone in the gallery just, if you’re talking, we can hear you.

So if you could just allow us to talk, there’s no speaking up in the gallery. Thank you and through you. I just think that, you know, there’s an opportunity for diplomacy, but I do think that it’s important to really highlight those issues that are challenging for the city to make it known that those challenges bear consequences, which we are going to have to bear, our taxpayers are going to have to bear. And at the end of the day, there isn’t an assurance that the savings that are being, that developers will experience will be passed on to consumers.

And that’s a really important, I think, distinction for the public to understand that this doesn’t mean that all of a sudden housing is going to be cheaper for them. And I think that that really needs to be something that is message to the community, whether it’s in the pledge letter, or if it’s in some other communication we put out, I think it’s important that those messages are shared. Thank you. I’ve added myself to the speaker’s list just to help perhaps this go along.

So I’m going to turn the chair over to Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you. I have the chair and I recognize Mayor Morgan. So let me make a couple of comments on the discussion so far.

So first, I want to highlight what Councilor Troso said. And the pledge is not meant to be the be-all and end-all end point of discussion with the province. We’ll be developing a housing supply action plan out of the direction that comes today. I anticipate we would want to clearly communicate that to the province to let them know what our plans are, the strategies we’re going to pursue, the types of things that we would need for the province to pursue that.

I’d also say in the minister’s letter, when it talks about the types of things that could be in the pledge, considerations, barriers, implementation risks, et cetera, I think that they’re looking for us to identify roadblocks and challenges through the process, including those that may have been caused by legislation of the province. Mr. Wallace and I have both talked to the province about some unintended consequences of the legislation that the province has caused. With what’s being said as well, I think the context of this is just one piece of larger puzzle.

The Ontario big city mayors have already crafted out a very clear position and so has AMO on the implications on municipalities on Bill 23 particularly. And the financial challenges that it will create that will hamper our ability to provide the infrastructure necessary to achieve things like housing pledges and targets. So these things all go hand in hand and together, and just because we may be making a pledge that talks about our approach to this as a council, does not mean we don’t vigorously lobby through our organizations. And I’ve been clear and meritorious, and I have said the same sort of words on this.

When the province says we’re going to make you whole for the impacts of Bill 23, that is not, we don’t see that as using assessment growth or housing accelerator dollars at the federal level. We see that as the province making us whole for the financial shortfalls that are caused by the legislation. And that is OBCM’s position. That is the position of a number of my colleagues as mayor including the mayor of Mississauga.

And we’re going to continue to vigorously advocate for that. That being said, I do think the idea, which is also in the Ontario Big City Mayor’s approach to this in the motion we passed, the idea of shared accountability is really important. You can see in this report that Mr. May, there’s in his team put together how important it is.

The province creates regulations and frameworks and legislation. We create processes, permissions and permitting. At the end of the day, neither one of us build housing, right? And so that shared accountability stretches across the framework.

And I want to thank Mr. Wallace for saying the industry is ready to be part of that shared accountability metric and digging into how we get the 18,500 approved or nearly approved through the process lots moving is really important part of this discussion. Because that stuff that fits within our plans is ready to go. When you talk about the London plan, it’s mainly focused on high density and medium density.

You know, we’ve got the opportunity to really take an aggressive head start on achieving this target. And if we can get that 18,000 moving, the remaining number doesn’t become as daunting as it looks when it’s 47,000 new permits starting from zero. So I think that what we have here is an opportunity for London to lead on this, to craft out a partnership of shared accountability across a number of partners to have a vigorous campaign and effort to make sure that we get everything we could possibly need to achieve these goals, including the items we need from the province. And also be part of a larger conversation because we know the solution to housing and housing affordability in this province does not just lie with the decisions that we make and the actions we take in our city.

It’s also dependent upon all of the decisions and all of the actions that all of our colleagues and all of the municipalities across the province take as well who are also facing both a housing supply issue and an affordability issue. So I’m hoping the council will support the step along the process. It will not be the only point. There will be lots of engagement through the working groups that are created as well as the housing supply action plan, which would be coming before this council for our consideration and many more points of decisions.

But at this point, I think we need to decide that we’ve got to decide whether we’re going to make the commitment and I think Mr. Mathers has outlined a good framework, although not the final vision on how we get there. And again, lots of discussion, lots of conversations, lots of things that can be added in over time, but I think this is the point where we make that commitment and move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. I will return the chair to you, your worship. I’m not aware if you had a speaker’s list following yourself, but Councilor Trussow has indicated you’d like to speak again. I’ll go to Councilor Trussow then.

Yes. So I have developed a number of questions at some point. I think maybe now would be the time to move into it. But I did hear something, one of the points that’s on my list, which I want to return to first.

And it’s in response to something that Councilor Ferrara said that I want to address. Again, keeping in mind the overlay here that what we put in this letter is exhaustive, not limited. We’re dealing with the minister’s letter. And I think that some of the definitions in the minister’s letter in terms of what we’re supposed to be looking at could have been more clear.

But I don’t think it would be useful at this point to identify a particular strategy that would add, and whether you want to call them new units or existing units that are being used new again, from the point of view of people that don’t have adequate housing, if there are vacant units that are being held off the market, vacant residential units that are being held off the market. From the user’s point of view, from the point of view of our residents, that’s a problem. And we need to figure out a strategy for getting them back into productive use. And the province has provided this municipality with a number of tools to do that.

Tonight is not the time for me to debate why I think we should move forward with the vacant unit program. I will do that at the appropriate point. But I would like it mentioned, and I’m going to come up later tonight with, I don’t think it’s time yet, but I will have a series of amendments that I’d like to add to this motion. But I do think that one of the items that could be included, that should be included, is the recognition that units being held vacant, where people could live in them, does detract from the housing stock.

And the other point I want to make, it’s somewhat of a technical point, but other cities have adopted this. And there is legislation that would allow us to adopt this, but it would require ministerial approval. And if I’m wrong about that, I will stand corrected. I think it would behoove us at this point to at least put a place marker in this letter that says this is one of many strategies that we would like to develop.

Because I think if we do that in a very upfront matter-of-fact way, it’s going to be a little harder later on when we start to go down the road to developing this legislation. For the province to say, we don’t want you to do this in an arbitrary way, when we’ve already sort of in good faith, in a very respectful way, have put this letter for it, and this was one of many strategies. So I wouldn’t be so quick to take this one off the table right now. And I think, especially given the exhaustive language, it can certainly go into a letter.

I’d ask the mayor, should I yield for other comments, or should I just start to get into some of my other points that I’d like to have staff? I think you should get into some of your other points. I don’t have anyone else on the list yet. Oh, you know what, I have two other people, so maybe I’ll go to them, I’ll come back to you.

I have Councillor Hopkins first, and then Councillor Frank. Yeah, thank you, your worship. And I just want to touch upon a couple of comments that you’ve made here, and your worship. I know with big city mayors and with AMO, they are pushing forward with the provincial government when it comes to the importance of the municipalities and each and every one of us, we need to be whole.

And therefore, we need money, and in particular for the infrastructure, if we’re going to go forward with all these units, it is so imperative that we can’t do it alone. And given the need and the desire from the provincial government to bring these units forward, I think that’s something that we can really push the provincial government to really make us whole again. And at one time, growth paid for growth. That’s not what we do now if we go forward.

Councillor Roman, I just want to emphasize, Councillor Roman’s comments around the community and that engagement piece and how this information is shared with the community. It is so, so, so important. I don’t know where it comes with this pledge, but really, it is something, ‘cause we’re on the front lines. We hear what the community is saying, and we need to facilitate that information somehow, and we need support with that as well.

I think it’s really fair to say that, you know, when I first read this, or when I first glanced at this, I thought we can’t do this. And then I started listening and reading a little bit more. And I’m really glad to hear that staff are confident in saying that we can do this. And I think that’s really, really important that I need to understand that.

I think it’s fair to say there’s a lot of work to be done here without a doubt, because I can have a list here of questions, and I don’t want to really delve into a lot of questions. But, you know, there’s a lot of work to be done, even the working groups and the composition of these working groups and how that is to be done. You know, there are a lot of more questions than anything as we deal with the strategies, looking at our secondary plan, CIPs, reviewing that tools for affordable housing. Where is that in that conversation and the need?

There’s, you know, getting back to that community part is really, really important how we share the information and what we are doing to get these units. We need to have a good understanding so we can share that with the community. Mr. Wallace, really glad to hear your comments about being a partner.

I’d love to see that letter that you will be providing the provincial government when it comes to the need for funding. Please feel free to share that with us. I think, you know, that’s all about that shared pillar, how we engage and how we all work together. And really I think that we need to do this more and hear and listen to one another.

I just want to sort of end it with really welcoming more comments and suggestions from my colleagues. But one of the things I’m really glad to hear and see in this pledge moving forward. We know we can do this without expanding the urban growth boundary. It’s a fact.

I think it’s there. The London plan, how it can strengthen and the need to update the London plan. We have kind of a lot of the innovation already in our plan to make this happen. And it’s really comforting to know that.

I just do think there’s a lot more work and probably more questions than answers at the moment. But I just wanted to start with those comments. Thank you. Thank you.

I have just, you know, if you’re on the speakers list, Councillor Frank, Pribble, Deputy Mayor Lewis. And at some point, I’m going to look back to Councillor Trosa once everybody’s had their chance to move in. And before we go to Councillor Trosa, I want to make some amendments. Someone can put the staff motion on the floor at any time if they’d like to.

But I’ll go to Councillor Frank first. Thank you. And through the chair, I’ve heard a couple of comments tonight that we don’t build housing. And I actually think I disagree.

We are building some housing. We are redeveloping a property through London Mill Sex Community Housing. And I think we should be doing more of that. So I do think that there are, although it’s small, the government does do some housing.

And also the nonprofit sector has seen step up huge in the last couple of years to build truly affordable housing in our community. So in that aim, I do want to make, I don’t know, maybe a suggestion to staff. I don’t know if it’s full amendment, but on the terms of reference for the 47,000 units housing supply action plan. I know it’s LDI non-London Development Institute Representatives and LHBA are listed as stakeholders plus density staff.

I do think it would behoove us to include maybe one or two nonprofits that build housing in our community. I do understand that the third circle group includes some nonprofit housing development members. But I do think the 47,000 units we are going to be having some of those built by nonprofits. And I do think there should be at least one stakeholder at that table representing some of those perspectives.

So I’m not sure if that’s an amendment or or just suggestion. Let me ask a question and see if that helps to Mr. Mathers. Are you going to take what we have here in the appendix and utilize that exclusively as the development of the components of the housing supply action plan, say team and membership?

Or do you intend on bringing forward a future report that might have an expanded membership? So just so I know whether we need to make some directions or changes here or whether there’ll be either another opportunity or some way where you can take our feedback in and include something that you could pitch back to us. Through your worship, it would be helpful for any groups that you would like to have a part of this that we haven’t listed to highlight those now. So we can get these going as soon as possible.

It’s the reason the rationale for that. One of the things we are anticipating doing if it’s helpful for people to know as well is actually having some joint meetings with some of these groups. So whenever there’s something that kind of crosses that those circles of the Venn diagram, having everybody in the room as well. So just so that we don’t have, which is a bit so that we’re very respectful for people’s time and they’re not getting into the fatigue of being on too many groups.

There’s some of the folks have a lot of time to do that. Some of them are very much focused on building that housing, right? So that’s just something that wanted you to know that we do have opportunities to have joint meetings when it’s something that is critical to several groups. And as well, it would be very helpful to know now who, if there’s groups or specific groups that you want to have included, ‘cause that will form the basis of our terms of reference moving forward.

Okay, so that answers your question now is better than later. And, but you can’t amend something until we get something on the floor. So we don’t have a motion on the floor to prevent anything yet. So would you like to put it on the floor?

Okay, well someone’s going to do it and then you can come back and you can make your amendments at that point. I have Councillor Pribble then Deputy Mayor Lewis. Through the chair to the staff, we are mentioning 47,000 units, but in terms of the split between single family, high density, are we basing it on some kind of a more recent or research of the people, families coming to London? So actually we do work on the supply and demand at the specific sector that we need to develop for the demand that’s required, Mr.

Maynard. Through your worship, those are some of the exact things that we will be looking at including in that housing supply action plan. So we’ll be relying on feedback from that we’ve seen through our growth allocations ‘cause they allocate what we think we will anticipate moving forward, but also what the actually industry members are seeing as far as the interest. As well on the affordable side of as well, we have a lot of great data from our affordable list for the folks looking for the housing to know how many individuals are looking to have to be able to house that will use that partly as the background for developing the plan and identifying those needs.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship. So through you, I think I’ll make this simple. First, I’ll move the staff recommendation and get that on the floor.

So we start to frame our discussion to see if there’s a seconder for that. Okay, a seconder, Councillor Ferra. Okay, the staff recommendation as constituted in the report is on the floor. I’ll let you continue with the discussion.

Great, thank you. So first through you, I have a question for our staff ‘cause I want to follow up on something that Councillor Hopkins asked or commented on ‘cause I read it differently. The report discusses a land needs assessment. So I don’t think that we’ve said that the urban growth boundary might not need to be expanded, might not need to be changed.

That might mean some land coming out as well as land coming in. I know that we are dealing, ‘cause I’ve dealt with this from some planning applications. We have situations where we have land designated for development and then upper Thames has come in with their new floodplain mapping and said it’s not usable for development. So through you to our staff, this report is not saying that we may not need to alter and I’m going to use the word alter because I don’t want to use the word expand.

Alter can, I think, covers both taking things out and putting things in. But this report is not saying we don’t need to alter the urban growth boundary. It is suggesting that based on the current numbers, we should have enough, but we have to do a land needs assessment. Is that accurate?

Yes, and Mr. Mathers, just so you can clarify too, the 10-year provincial pledge is not the same time horizon that the urban growth boundary review is based on. So if you could comment on that too, ‘cause I don’t want us to mix two different timeframes ‘cause they’re assessed on different timeframes. Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair, so through this report, we were highlighting for that 10-year period that there is the land within the current allocation to be able to support that work. There will be additional work to allow for the new growth allocation that we have, the growth projection. That is actually gonna be coming forward like with the next month to council with more information on where we’re at with that conference as a view.

But that, yeah, it’s two different numbers, 10-year period versus an extended period. Great, so that’s helpful. And I just don’t want those two things to get muddy. I wanted to be clear that they’re not tied together.

The second question through you to our staff. And I think I already heard Mr. Mathers say as soon as possible, but I am wondering on the sections D and E if we had an approximate timeline for the establishing of these groups in terms of moving forward, whether it’s Q2, Q3. I mean, I’m not asking for a specific date, but do we have a timeline as to when we expect to get these up and running?

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, once we have this recommendation endorsed by council, I’d be looking at moving it very quickly and extending invitations to folks based on the groups that are indicated here or council ads to the list. Great, so final comment question.

And this is going to sort of build on what Councilor Frank was suggesting about representation. I did not notice specifically in the report that there was an indication that the mayor or a member of council would be involved in these working groups. Do we envision, I know this is a particular matter that the mayor campaigned on, that the mayor or designate might be included in these at some point in their process. Through your worship, absolutely, there’s that opportunity.

My hope or the thought maybe that the mayor may want to come and basically speak to this group, set out that time, that expectation as far as what was outlined in this letter that we provided by council and then be speaking to the group as far as the needs and the importance of the work that’s being done. Thank you, and no, I did not give the mayor a heads up that I might be volunteering him for extra work, but I thought I would put that out there. As I know, this was a key issue during the campaign. So your worship, you may want to sign up for something in your calendar soon.

Yes, it’s not a good way to get back on the speakers list. I will go back to Councilor Trossa now, ‘cause I think I’ve kind of exhausted the hands up, and I know you wanted to potentially add some commentary and some amendments now that we have a natural motion on the floor, Councilor. Thank you very much. And I’m going to be suggesting some additional items that you look at for the report.

I understand that you have a very short amount of time to do this, and I don’t expect extensive staff reports on, I’m going to try to see if I could make eye contact through the chair, of course. I at least would like to see some of these things acknowledged, my view is that the non-exhaustive language is an invitation to us to at least include some bullet items for things that could be included along with some, if possible, very, very rough conservative estimates. Because I think the goal here in the short run, given this exercise, is getting to 47,000. So this exercise is about a path to 47,000.

I’m going to offer an amendment later that says a sustainable path to 47,000, but I think the goal here is getting to 47,000. So first, I was very happy to see that you actually talked about the conversion of vacant office buildings in the report. I think it was really outstanding that you could do that. We’ve come a long way, I think, in the last few weeks in terms of recognizing that that is a possible solution, and it also poses a lot of construction and other physical challenges.

This is, these are buildings that are already in the ground. By any possible definition, these would be new residences. We’re not laying any, well, we’re making renovations in buildings with respect to the conversion of vacant office buildings to residential units. Do you have any ability to provide a rough estimate, albeit a conservative estimate, given the magnitude of the vacant units as to how many might be added to help get us to 47,000?

Mr. Mathers, through your worship, there’s some extensive work going on currently through our core area of vacancy study that’s looking at that exact item. What we’re finding is that it is very specific to the style of the building, whether they can accommodate residential units, but we think that this is something that could be very much, be something that could help us moving forward as far as a new unit, because just as the councilor had mentioned, these would be new units. So in my mind, they would count towards this goal.

So through that work, we’re gonna be able to provide council more information on whether, what percentages or what we think the anticipated changes would be allowed to be able to move forward those types of units. There is actually, even with throughout the city, some as of right ability for people to make these conversions currently. So there’s not, in some areas of the city, people can move forward even at this point. So it’s just allowing people to know that that be knowledgeable of it, and that the city would be supporting those types of changes when it’s appropriate.

Excellent, thank you, my next question through the chair is we know that there are plans for enrollment growth as a matter of what’s on the public record from, we know that there are projections for enrollment growth at our colleges, universities, and affiliates. As a matter of fact, here on, there’s already something in the ground, and I think it would be a relatively easy matter to call up, for example, the institutional planning office and say, could you give us just a very, without a committing to anything, could you give us a very, very quick estimate of what kind of housing additions there might be during this relatively relative period? And you won’t get a precise answer, but I think you might get something that would help get us towards 47,000, and that would be very helpful. I’m just gonna go on unless you want.

Mr. May, I think Mr. May is just agreeing that that’s a great idea, so. Okay, now this one, this one goes back to what the definition of new units are, but we have an aging, and in some unfortunate circumstances, deteriorating housing stock, and we have a number of properties that are not just being held vacant, but are actively deteriorating.

And some of them may be commercial, some of them may be old single-family homes, larger ones. I think that there’s a promising area to talk about reconstruction, rehabilitation, and repurposing of existing structures. And I think this would certainly add to the number of units that help us get towards 47,000. Is that something that is feasible to mention?

Mr. May, it’s through your worship, absolutely. We actually also have our vacant building inventory that’s available through our by-law area as well, so that can be a starting place, but I think that’s a great addition. Thank you, thank you.

The next one is new units that are created as a matter of right because of changing land use regulations. We’ve already seen in the city of London that we now have the ability to construct second units in residential areas as a matter of right. Yet, I’m not familiar with any statistics that have been provided to this council, maybe it happened last term, and I missed it, but do you have some sense of how many building permits have been sought for this as a right for the second unit? Because now under the new bill, it’s going to be three units as a matter of right.

And I think this is a very, very likely area for housing stock growth. Could you address that? Mr. Mathers.

Through your worship, this is absolutely a great opportunity and something that we’d be including as part of our unit creation. So in the last year, we had 210 units that were created in this manner, so if we can continue to expand that, let people know that this is something that’s available to them. It’s a great possible income property for someone as well. There’s a lot of great benefits, so that would be very key to a plan moving forward, so that it’s also a great addition.

Thank you. Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead and not go back to the other thing. I think I’m going to just yield and give other colleagues the opportunity to throw in some other ideas, and I will come back with an amendment. Yes, and as you consider that, Councillor, I just want to have you think about how you want to make the amendment, because I think in the report, as we have constituted, we’ve got a number of strategies that staff have suggested.

You’ve made a number of other things that we should consider, and there might be, and either it being noted, that Council will also be investigating and considering these options. Like, there’s probably a couple of ways to do this. I don’t think amending and adding an additional list into the report of strategies might not be the best way, but there’s probably a way we can, in the motion, convert Mr. May, there’s nods, and that these are things that we could look into into something that makes sense to reflect that it would be considered in the development of the housing supply action plan, and that, obviously, some of these things would need more information back to Council before we could decide whether or not to proceed with them.

So, just consider that Council that that might be an option when I’ll come back to you, but I’ll go to Councillor McAllister and then Councillor Frank Efter. Thank you, and through your worship. I’ve got two comments on this. One of the things when I’m reading through this report that I just wanted to highlight was, I do want to ensure, as we push towards the 47,000, that the growth is dispersed across the city.

I know there’s a tendency, there’s very ideal places in the city, obviously, we want to grow, but I would like to see, we keep that in mind as we’re putting these plans in place, that the growth is dispersed. I know it’s not going to be entirely equal, but it would be nice to keep that in mind as we go through this process. I also had a question with the re-thing zoning, and I understand the diplomacy that goes into zoning. I know it’s a very contentious topic, but I do wonder why we still have such soft language in there, and I say that because we’re always afraid to have the gentle intensification, and I understand that this fires up a lot of neighborhoods, but we’re going with a very ambitious target.

We want to grow, and if we’re serious about that, I think we also have to acknowledge that we will have to tackle the zoning, and I realize that that is a battle that we have traditionally shied away from, but in terms of when this was developed, the language in this, and I know we had talked about this in terms of the mayor’s letter, but I think we have to take a more aggressive approach to the zoning, and I just want to get your thoughts, maybe Mr. Mathers, and why we’re still taking this tiptoeing approach to it, thank you. Go ahead. Through your worship.

Absolutely, when you look at the London plan and the implementation of it, it’s very broad, and it’s very specific about wanting to provide for intensification. So the rethink zoning process we’re moving towards is going to allow, have greater permissions, allow those things to happen. Council will have an opportunity to be able to provide feedback on it, as well as the public. So we’re really hopeful that that’s recognized as something that’s important to what this future bylaw would look like, so there’ll be a lot of opportunities.

We’re starting from a place that’s going to be more permissive, and that’s what you’re going to be seeing when we bring forward that new bylaw. Okay, Councilor Frank. Thank you, sorry. I’m eating these delicious apple chips while I’m on the list.

So going back to, through the chair, if I go back to the terms of reference, I was hoping then to add to the 47,000 unit housing supply action plan, a spot for maybe a community member who deals with nonprofit housing. Understand the strong focus on working with people that build the most housing, but I do think, again, we’d be missing the mark if we didn’t leave one spot for somebody who does nonprofit housing. And again, if no one signs up to it, no one signs up to it, and that’s fine. But I would like to leave the door open.

The other groups, I would think that might be a good fit, perhaps would be somebody from the academic world. I just know with some of the other stakeholder communities we’ve had, having a voice of somebody who’s doing a current research in the sector, providing analysis on what other cities are doing, has been a really great opportunity. So that is one other group, whether it’s from Fanshawe, Western, or one of the other organizations that might be nice if there is an academic that focuses on housing supplies, their research to include. So I would love to add those two spots to that one.

Again, if no one fills it, no one fills it. And I’m a-okay with that. So if we could, I don’t know, amend that terms of reference or add it to it, that would be lovely. We’re working on a little bit of language for you to consider.

And then I’ll look for a seconder once we’ve got that language, so the seconder knows what they’d be seconding. And of course, that you’d be okay with the languages. So just give me one second. Okay, let me read what we have, and then you can provide some suggestions.

So we would add to the end of the housing supply action committee part D, and it being noted, it says it being noted that the housing supply reference group may expand to include additional members as maybe appropriate, including but not limited to a member from the not-for-profit sector, and a member involved in housing supply/housing research. We weren’t sure how to word that, is that okay? So that would leave it kind of relatively open to capture what you’re suggesting, and also the flexibility of yes or no if they’re interested. So if you’re okay with that, I’d look for someone who’s willing to second that amendment.

I want to avoid multiple motions on top of each other that include similar components. How about you second it, and then you make your suggestion, and we’ll see if it’s friendly between the two of you. Well, I’ll second it and suggest also that the piece about having a member of council on these committees. Now that could be a designated person, or it could be open to Councillors wishing to participate.

I’m not sure how we would do that, but if we’re going to be doing an amendment about who’s on these committees, I’d like to have these thought with together so we don’t have to come back and amend the amendment. So that might be a separate discussion. I’m not sure if that’s friendly, and we want to deal with those separate or not, but Councillor Frank. Before maybe I agree to that, could I ask a question to staff regarding that?

Sure. If Councillors wanted to attend any of these four working groups on a regular basis or as a drop-in basis, would they be open to just attending? I guess I’m just wondering, I worry about adding four new committee seats to Councillors’ workload, but I hear Councillor Trossa’s perspective and would hope that staff maybe would welcome Councillors at these, but I would pass that along maybe to go to staff? Yes, and maybe also some context about, would these be groups that would report into staff or Councillor through a standing committee because I’m also conscious of having council members on a committee and then a standing committee as well?

So maybe Mr. Mather, if you could provide some context. Through you, Worship, just so a couple of pieces as far as the reporting, they will be reporting through the various committees. So as part of our reports moving forward, so the Housing Supply Report, we’d be including some text and some conversation in there from the groups as far as what their support or lack of support for an item similar to what we do in our development charges.

So that’s really a very much of how we are structuring this around ‘cause it has been very successful in the past. As far as attendance, we actually open up these meetings to allow whoever would like to attend. You would necessarily be a member at the meeting, but you could attend and be able to view and that’s actually open to even other developers or other people who are interested in attending these events. So there is the opportunity to be able to come and listen to what’s being said.

And so that’s another opportunity. Yes, and I might add that if it does report in through a standing committee, council’s ability to direct and make decisions, it also stems from that standing committee access too, so that’s something to be conscious of ‘cause we don’t wanna duplicate a bunch of decision-making at two levels that doesn’t reflect all of council as well. So I’ll go back to council Frank, you asked the question. Thank you, yeah, that satisfies my concern for, I guess, representation for staff.

So sorry, councilor Trossai, I don’t wanna add your amendment to my amendment. Okay. Do you still want to second it? Councilor Trossai, you’re the second.

I’ll second it and I’ll make another amendment. Okay, yes, we can deal with it. ‘Cause I think it’s a good amendment, but it’s not completely— Yes, that’s a quick way to make a decision on it. So you can amend an amendment.

So Councilor Trossai would like to amend the amendment that is on the floor to also include what a representation from a member of council? Well, I’m open to that and I’m wondering how has it been done in the past. As a member of this council, no, I don’t wanna add new subcommittees to my workload, but I would like to add the subcommittee on affordability to my workload, because I think in many ways it’s gonna reduce my workload because I’m not gonna be seeing reports at my desk right before the meeting starts and I would have had the opportunity to talk. So while I appreciate that these are public meetings and we as councilors would have the opportunity to attend and listen and mindful of the fact that there are a lot of other voices on these committees, I would like to have the opportunity as a council member to serve on one of these committees.

And I don’t think we’re gonna get like, I don’t think we’re gonna get 14 Councillors saying they wanna be on each committee. Yes, so Councilor just to clarify, Councilor Frank’s motion refers specifically to the committee related to the housing supply action plan development, you mentioned specifically the committee related to the affordable housing reference group. So I don’t know if you’re making an amendment to that one ‘cause if so, then we could deal with Councilor Frank’s amendment first and then we could deal with your second if that’s where you’re headed. Yeah, I’m not sure the customer and process improvement task force or the development charges study update, which is already very well populated by people who are working, working on it very well is where I’m going with this.

I’m thinking more about the roadmap to 3,000 affordable units. Maybe I should just hold that for a separate motion. Yeah, I think that would be then a separate amendment because Councilor Frank’s amendment doesn’t deal with that particular committee. So we’re back to Councilor Frank’s amendment as discussed.

I did have people stick up their hands, but I’m not sure if that was based on the discussion before or whether we’re okay on this, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, worship. I think perhaps this may help, at least for me, through you to our staff. I had mentioned earlier, a mayor or a designate.

And where my thought process was and that is occasionally there may be work of a political nature that one of these groups needs to undertake may be discussions with a provincial minister. It may be government relations with a federal MP. Well, I know we have staff in those areas. Sometimes it does help to have an elected representative long.

Would you require that to be language to the type of mayor or designate? Would you require that to be in a terms of reference if it was required or would that be something that you would simply where necessary reach out to the mayor? And if the mayor is not available, the mayor would indicate another member of Council would fill in in that role. I’m just looking for some clarity on how when that political voice needs to be activated, it might be activated on these groups.

Sure, I have the city manager. Through you, your worship, the purpose of these groups is to inform the staff recommendations bringing something forward to Council for consideration. If there is a, and there will always be, a government relations strategy that is integral to each of these areas, that would be part of the work. And we would engage our GR staff to help with the development of it.

If there was a timely activity that needed to happen, we would do one of several things, but what comes to mind is either bring an immediate request, if it required an all of Council direction, perhaps that the mayor undertake a specific action, we would bring that forward in as timely a way. If their time didn’t allow for that, then we would do what we often do, which is go through the avenues of our AMO representatives, our FCM representatives, and you yourself, Mr. Mayor, on OBCM. So there are many avenues that we can follow to address the government relations aspects of this, but the purpose of these groups is primarily to inform, for example, the housing supply action plan that staff would then table in front of Council for consideration and approval.

Go ahead, perfect. Thank you, that answers my questions. It also makes me less inclined to tinker any further with the terms of reference on any of these groups. I think it’s incumbent on us to let stakeholders do their work and then bring it before us through a report to the standing committees.

So that answer was very helpful, Ms. Livingston. Thank you for that, satisfied. Yeah, thanks.

And that sounds like the debate on the notion of adding a Councillor, which we’re gonna have in a moment when Councillor Trosto has an opportunity to do that. Right now, what we’re on is the, it being noted piece about adding to the housing supply, reference group, which the city manager described as informing staff’s work on the action plan to add someone from not-from-profit housing and someone doing housing supply housing research. So that’s what we have in the floor. We don’t have anything to do with adding a representative from Council on the floor at the moment.

Is everybody okay with the discussion on that piece on Councillor Frank’s amendment? Okay, let’s vote on that then. Opposing the vote, the motion’s passed 14 to zero. Okay, Councillor Trosto, now you have the opportunity to make your amendment if you wanted to add something to the affordable housing reference group.

I’m satisfied that there will be a good cross section of the community on there and should a Councillor show up and maybe not get chased out of the room. I’m pretty happy, I’m pretty happy with that. I do have like, very, very, I’m almost done, but I was wondering if I could get back to my questions for Mr. Matt.

Is that, I think I’m just gonna— Sure, yes, you’re on the speakers list, so thank you for being satisfied with the other piece and proceed with your other questions. This is actually the big one. Could you amplify table one because there’s a lot going on in table one. Through the chair, there’s a lot going on in table one and it’s a large number.

And table one takes us a good way towards our 47,000. And I just would like to know if you could break it down a little bit more. Yes, Mr. May, there’s you and I had a good conversation about what table one includes and doesn’t include and what it means.

I think that would probably be very valuable for members of Council to understand as the Councilor’s asking. So if you could go through that for us, that would be fantastic. Absolutely, so what’s shown in this table are the units that are currently available to be constructed where most of city council’s planning work has been done. So we’ve done all the really hard work as far as doing the draft plans for subdivisions, looked at the majority of the zoning issues and now it’s ready to be able to proceed and it is in the hands of the development community to be able to bring forward to us.

Still, the city plays a large role ‘cause we need to make sure that we have efficient processes to be able to get the building permits completed and site plans finalized. But this table represents an inventory of what’s out there that can move ahead and has that council endorsement for the most part. Thank you. Is there any way in sort of the next version of this report or something in the letter to expand on that a little bit because what I worry about is we look at that and say, oh, there’s so much red tape people don’t even want to proceed and it might be other reasons.

It might be an investment decision to sit on the property, which I’m not saying is what happens in every case, but can we get more clarity in what goes out from this council? Yes, Mr. Mathers and I know in your report it says a better understanding of the obstacles with the development of these lands will be included as an early focus with the housing supply action plan. So maybe you can describe the process as you envision it on digging into these numbers and how we kind of convert them from blocks into actual units of housing.

Absolutely. So as was suggested, that’s gonna be one of the first things we delve into. When I talk about that shared accountability, when I talk about developing metrics on both sides, this is gonna be a key point of this. It doesn’t behoove the city to take this value and increase it to 47,000 in a vacuum.

That’s not gonna help us because we need to make sure that we’re moving things along. That takes all the industry partners to be part of that, to be able to move those housing into units. So that will be very much that focus of the housing supply group in the early on stages. We also are looking at can the city take a more active approach of highlighting these things, working very closely with the developers and the builders and saying like, hey, here’s some, what can the city do to be able to move this across the finish line and just make sure that everyone’s aware that there are a lot of units that are already out there.

And can we get through some of those roadblocks, whether they’re financial or otherwise? Councilor. Great, that’s helpful. But I think it’s important to have more information in there.

And what I think is my final substantive question here is I think for Mr. Dickens. And that is if we were going to provide some type of micro housing unit to every person who we’ve been able to identify as homeless or sometimes homeless or sleeping rougher on the street or in and out of facilities, how many units would that be? And you can use a big number here if you can.

Mr. Dickens. Thank you, your worship and through you. They’re currently just shy of roughly 2,000 people on our by name list.

So those are individuals that are experiencing homelessness that are in shelter. So they’re spending their nights indoors but also people that are spending their nights outdoors. They may get captured in sort of three month cycles. So you’ll be able to identify people with 30, 60, 90 day activity or no activity.

But currently there’s roughly 2,000 people on our by name list. Thank you and it’s a bad number to hear but it’s good that you’ve thought about these numbers. Could we, I don’t know what the plans are going to be in terms of the disposition of funds. We’ll be getting, this council will be getting a report in a few weeks.

I presume that there will be some attempt to create additional very low cost housing, either maybe on a temporary basis. Could we add something to the discussion about the additional units, albeit a small units that would result from this work? Mr. Mayors.

Through you, worship. I just wanted to make sure that whether we’re talking about what I’m thinking about is what you’re exactly, you’re trying to express or not. So one of our big focuses is to get folks into permanent housing. So there also is what other cities have looked at as like some of these micro units, types of housing on a temporary basis.

So we also have that opportunity to look at permanent units within backyards and things like that, which our London plan does allow for right now, but just wanted to make sure, are we talking about the temporary units or like the full time permanent units? Thank you for the question. It could be either because we really are not in a position to know yet whether they’re temporary and people move out, will there be another people, will there be another group of just evicted people who are now going to be needing those shelters? In any event, I think whatever that number is, I think it would be fair to include that within our 47,000.

And in fact, I think it would be a good idea, I think, politically and in terms of social justice to have the housing, the homeless problem acknowledged in this report. So I’m hoping that’s something you could do. I think I’m done other than the, this is a very minor cosmetic amendment to be followed by another amendment. I’m not sure if you want to do that after the break, but could we change the title of this to a sustainable path, add the word sustainable?

Because I think what I’m hearing is there are a lot of, there are a lot of possibilities for housing construction or expansion, whatever you want to call it, that’s in the inner city that will not require, which is not to say that we can never have a development on the green field. Again, I’m not proposing that right now, but I think could we use the word sustainable in the title? Would that be something people could agree to? I think we’re heading towards that.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had a request to change the title of the staff report, so I think I have to go to the authors of the report to see about that, Mr. Mathers. Through your worship, I think you’ve really touched on that this report, once being suggested, we can’t do this all in one type of housing unit. So if we can do that through conversions, if we can do that through the gentle intensification or more strategic intensification is part of our ring through rethink process.

And for me, that is one of the main principles behind being sustainals, be able to use what you have in an efficient way. Happy to do whatever what council would want to suggest. My opinion is that this is something we’re looking at doing in a sustainable manner. If it’s something that the mayor wants to address in his letter, it could be something separate as well, but I’m in council’s hands with regard to that word.

With respect to the councilor, I don’t think the report is the report as it’s been submitted. I think we can certainly reference sustainability in multiple ways, both in the housing supply action plan and other components, because I think it’s inherent in the plan that Mr. Mathers has developed. But I think it would be very odd to change the title of a submitted staff report.

And I’m not sure it really, I’m not sure it changes anything from the content of the report’s perspective. So perhaps just recognizing the note about the importance of sustainability as we move forward and the language that we use when we describe that the housing we’re going to build, I don’t know if you’re satisfied with that or not, Councilor. Well, I’m satisfied with it. I don’t want to micromanage the letter that you’re going to write, because I have a lot of confidence in the fact that you’re all listening to what’s being said here on the floor.

I guess my question then to the chair and to staff, should I, how about if I yield to if anybody else is on the speaker’s list before I continue? Councillor Hopkins and then Councillor Frank. Yeah, through you Your Worship, I do have a question. Just looking at the report as it relates to the priorities of development when we see downtown, the trans village, the transit corridors, really glad to see those areas having that focus.

The question I have is it’s got me thinking around how we do extensions and continue these extensions, be it not only through, say, subdivisions, but even through parking lots or prime agricultural land and having those extensions. So as we look at the strategies, will we be looking at these strategies? Just want to clarification there. Through Your Worship, yeah, very important issue that we deal with on a day to day basis.

One is how can we get folks or what can the city do to facilitate folks from getting to not having to have an extension of seeing a draft plan? So how can we try to help be able to facilitate that plan that has been established into actual units being constructed? So in doing that, we really need to understand and be able to work with the industry to see like how can we get that across the finish line? That will be our primary concern.

And then there will be some consideration whether what we’re doing now is appropriate and whether that’s actually providing incentive or a disincentive to development moving forward. So that will be part of that housing supply discussion. Councillor Frank. Thank you, two quick questions.

I was wondering, I remember last year I believe there was a report about doing a housing advisory committee and I just was wondering how that fits into these four committees and if one is going to replace it or if there’s also still going to be a housing advisory committee? Yes, my understanding and I’ll let staff answer is that based on that council direction, the committee related to the housing affordability reference group is essentially from the way I read the composition, almost exactly the composition that council directed to be created. So that sounds like it’s checking off that council direction. Mr.

Mayor, there’s so much comment on that. Through you, worship, yes. We’re taking the direction from the governance working group that requested that a group be created to be able to support the 3000 unit plan. This is our suggestion for the group that would be able to do that.

So that is the new committee. Beautiful, thank you. Appreciate that and I’m excited to see it. And then the only other question I had was, I know that there’s an external development charge stakeholder group that meets and I know some of the changes on timelines with that.

I’m just wondering if this development charge group is that kind of like a continuation of that group and I think that might go to Ms. Barbone. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you through the chair.

Yes, these are the same committees that currently exist today that help inform the recommendations that we bring forward with respect to the development charges background study to the council as we’ve been working through. So these are a little bit more of a refinement to help deal with some of the bill 23 implications but continuation of those groups that are just refining them of what already exists. Thank you, no further questions. Thank you.

I have no further speakers on my list. Councilor Trossop. Yeah, so this is where this is all going and I’m curious whether through the chair other councilors think we could add, we had a great discussion here tonight. And what I heard was a lot of very positive response from the staff, could we add a little bit of language to the motion without totally disrupting it?

Councilor, as I discussed before, if you’re going back to your list of considerations that I would describe as things we’re also open to looking into and considering, then yes, I think there is in it being noted clause we could craft that says it being noted that council, in addition to the strategies described in the report, council will also consider university residences and a couple of the things that you mentioned there. Knowing that we might have to get more information for council if they’d ultimately commit to that. Thank you. And I think doing it as a, it being noted clause does not take away from the body of the work that you’ve done or your motion, but does reflect the very fulsome discussion that we’ve had here now.

So I’m wondering if the mayor and the clerk could take that mess and make some sense of it. Councilor, so what I see here is beyond the strategies that have been identified by our staff is a number of other things that we could consider. Some of them I think you’ve got answers to that are already included in the strategy, but the ones that I see is perhaps, you need to be added in is consideration of the post-secondary, I don’t know if it’s just post-secondary, but student housing units, rehabilitation of existing structures. I think the as of right thing is already actually included in the report because it’s both the current as of rights as well as the new as of rights coming in.

So perhaps that’s not necessary. Well I’m just wondering, I’m less concerned about what’s in today’s staff report and I’m more concerned about what’s gonna go in the letter without writing the letter, that’s the dilemma. So I wanna tread light here, but I would like to see those points included if possible. Councilor, and with Mr.

Mayor and staff are gonna help me draft the letter. I’m gonna put you on the spot because we wanted to have a lot of the content in there. If we’re not, I’m not sure this needs to be an actual motion then amending the staff report because I don’t think that there’s a challenge with the letter the way it’s gonna be constituted with me articulating the strategies that are outlined in the staff report as well as other options that we would consider when you look at the minister’s letter and the scope of things that we can include. I may not word them exactly as perhaps you worded them in your letter, but I think a number of these things that we’ve had that general agreement with as a counselor I can include as a secondary list of things that council will also be considering knowing that we’re going to update the province on a regular basis.

So if you’re comfortable with that, I can just take that at our advisement as I develop the letter that I’m directed to write rather than trying to craft a complicated of being noted motion if you’re comfortable with that counselor. Yeah, yes, Mayor, I am comfortable with that. And I have every confidence that you’ll be consulting with us as individuals of issues come up. Yeah, ‘cause my thought in a council indulge me is, like there’s a lot of options that we’re going to put on the table.

Mr. May, there’s just put some strategies that he feels are some immediate strategies, but we’re gonna add more strategies. We’re gonna look at more things. We’re gonna overturn all the rocks we can to try to achieve the housing units that we need to achieve in the city.

So I don’t have a problem letting the minister know in the initial letter, the other things we’re considering knowing that we’re going to update that particularly because we will have at some point a housing supply action plan that will more clearly articulate what we land on. So if you’re comfortable with that, that’s the approach that I can take with the letter. And then, ‘cause we don’t have to add an amendment here. So we don’t need an additional if being noted costs just understood?

No, no, ‘cause it’s directing the letter and I’ve heard the discussion as our staff will work through some of the language that you’ve done there. Fair enough. Okay, Councilor McAllister. I don’t guys take up too much time with this comment.

I just wanna remind Council that we do have a delegation that’s been patiently waiting going on over two hours now. So I would like to give them the opportunity to speak as well. So if we could just move it along, please. I would like to put this vote if I could.

Thank you. Okay, unfortunately at committee, there’s no putting the question. That is a thing at council. And only if you haven’t spoke to the matter.

It’s in the procedure by-law. However, I don’t have any other speakers and I actually think that we’ve exhausted this. And I will tell you, Councilor, it is my intent to deal with this matter, start the next one, receive the delegation and then take a break so that they don’t have to wait through the break. So that’s the approach that I’m gonna take.

The delegation is for the next matter on the agenda. So if that, with that being said, we have a moved and seconded motion that has the amendment that we pass through Councilor Frank and lots of discussion and input that can flow into the correspondence with the province. I don’t have anybody else in the speakers list, so I think we can put this matter to a vote now. So I’m gonna open this for voting.

Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 14 to zero. Okay, thank you colleagues. The next item is 4.2, which is developing the strategic plan and kind of our next phase in the process. So let me just outline, I’ve just corresponded with our staff.

The staff presentation will be second and we’ll do that after the break. What we would like to do now is consider the request for delegation status on this matter. And so I have Councilor Palosa willing to move it seconded by Councilor Raman. We’ll do that in the system for approving the delegation.

Councillor Carrera. Oh, yes. Closing the vote, that motion’s carried 14 to zero. Okay, the delegation is from Jesse Roger, Executive Director Anova, Jennifer Dunn, Executive Director of the London Abuse Women’s Center.

We’ll give you five minutes for delegation. Oh, Councillor Palosa. Thank you, recognizing there’s two of them. If I move an extension, it should they need more than five minutes?

No, I know. - If they need it. I don’t know if they do, but sorry. Nope, they’re good.

They’re gonna be so concise. - No, I know. Perfect, thank you. Thank you very much.

  • They plan ahead. Go ahead with your delegation. Thank you, and thank you for the offer of extra time. I am Jennifer Dunn, Executive Director of the London Abuse Women’s Center, and this is Jesse Roger, Executive Director of Anova.

In 2019, Anova, the London Abuse Women’s Center, came together with the London Coordinating Committee to end women abuse, to recommend ways the city of London could create a safe London for women and girls. As a result of this, and thanks to some incredible champion, oh my goodness, my words, championing from the city council at the time, London, Ontario was the first municipality in all of Canada to create a standalone strategic area of focus around creating a safe London for women and girls in the strategic plan. The city of London needs to continue to recognize and understand the severity of violence against women and gender-based violence. Women and girls and gender diverse people deserve to live free from violence.

To do this, we believe the city of London needs to continue to work collaboratively alongside community-based organizations, leaders, and women and gender diverse people with lived experience to continue to design a community approach to address, prevent and raise awareness of violence against women and gender-based violence. We would encourage council to consider the change in our community over the last four years. When the last strategic plan was created by council, we had never heard of COVID-19. After living through a global pandemic, we have research and evidence that demonstrates that women, girls, and gender diverse people have disproportionately been impacted.

We will continue to feel and see those impacts for years to come. Making these investments in the strategic plan is not only about reinforcing community care, but responding to evidence to ensure economic and social prosperity. Now, as you discuss and make decisions for the next strategic plan, it is imperative that the voices of those with lived experience are included in this process. Over the last few weeks at the London Abused Women Center, my team has been able to speak with women that are part of our survivor advisory committee.

We asked these women what their thoughts were around creating a safe London for women and girls through the city of London’s strategic plan. This is what we heard. Violence against women seems to be too big to address, but there are ways to address barriers that women face every day. Women should not have to choose between leaving their abusive partner or feeding their children.

There is a need for more safe places for women increases in shelter beds, for example. The bottom line is, to all of you, creating a safe London for women and girls needs to remain a priority in London, Ontario. In the current strategic plan, there is a strategy to recognize London as a sex trafficking hub and to take action to collaborate and work towards solutions. In the past four years, this has happened.

London has been formally identified as a hub for sex trafficking. The city of London has been working collaboratively towards solutions, but what’s been done is not enough. The truth is, women and girls are being trafficked every single day, and there needs to be continued capacity to recognize, address, and prevent sexual exploitation and trafficking. Including and supporting the strategic pillar isn’t just about achieving goals outlined in this part of the city’s strategic plan.

Continuing to include women, girls, and gender diverse people in your work also ensures that other priorities and pillars in the city is focused, sorry, and pillars the city is focusing are succeeding. Women and girls with lived experience have told us more work needs to be done with housing services, landlords, developers, to end discrimination in biases and bias against abused, assaulted, exploited, and trafficked women and girls when they attempt to access affordable housing. The focus and priority that council is giving to housing and homelessness is welcomed and needed. However, if you do not include women girls, women girls and gender diverse folks in your conversation, you will not achieve the success that our community requires.

We encourage council to see the connections between this innovative pillar and the rest of your plan. They are interconnected in a way that is unique and works to ensure that no one is being left out, and your vision for a safe, inclusive, and prosperous city is achieved. Thank you. Thank you very much for the delegation we appreciate it, and thank you for sitting through our very stimulating discussion.

So thank you for presenting today. Thank you. Okay, so that’s a delegation as we’ve had before into our strategic plan content, which we will be discussing tonight, and we can do that after we take a break when we will start after the break with the staff presentation and then outline how we will work through some of the discussion tonight. So I will look to take a 30 minute break.

I see lots of nods on that. Could be a little ways afterward, so let’s take a robust break. So 30 minutes from now moved by Councillor Hopkins, seconded by Councillor Frank, all those in favor of a 30 minute break by hand. That motion’s carried.

Okay, see you back here at five to seven. And everybody in the letter, I sent the Finance Minister a vote. Read it, make sure you’re okay with it, but I am 30 minutes and during the budget for 50 votes. Turn the microphones off.

Okay, we’re gonna get started. So I’ll call the meeting back to order. Before we go to staff, I’m gonna go to Councillor Plaza for just a quick comment on the delegation. Thank you, Your Worship.

And just as a heads up to colleagues, the last delegation as they left, just speaking about the safe city for London for women and girls, they had their speech was pre-written and they’re gonna send the speech in digital format for inclusion in our minutes for anyone can refer to any of the points at their leisure following the meeting. Thank you for that. Now we’ll go back to 4.2 part A, which is the staff presentation on this phase of our strategic plan discussions. I’ll turn it over to the city manager.

Yes, thank you, Your Worship. I’ll try and tee up the purpose of this evening. I’ll quickly touch on where we’re at and where we’re at in the process of Council’s development of the strategic plan. And also my colleague, Ms.

Wilcox, will provide you with an overview of the community engagement feedback that we received up until and including Friday. Council’s focus this evening is really number three and number four. And the hope is that the results of the community engagement. Well, this is Council in selecting or setting the vision, mission and values, moving then to any additional direction to staff with respect to the strategic areas of focus, outcomes and expected results.

The strategies have been tabled so that you have them available to you, but they are not for debate this evening. The intention is to have those debated on the 28th. You will have a lot of opportunity over the next number of weeks to be engaging with your constituents, as well as hearing just prior to that meeting the feedback that we’ve collected to date. So at that meeting on the 28th will be when Council engages in the debate of the strategies.

So just to do a quick reminder, I don’t need to repeat the importance of the strategic plan and its direct connection to the allocation of resources through the multi-year budget and the technology investment strategy. This is the overall timeline that you’ve seen a number of times looking to ideally finalize the strategic plan in early April so that the multi-year budgeting process can begin in very early May. In fact, there will be a report to Council that sets the stage for that at the end of April. And then we continue through to returning with a detailed implementation plan in November.

So in terms of the timeline, again, we’re focused on February 7th. So to reiterate, Council will hear the feedback to date from the community on vision, mission and values and an effort to assist you in setting direction for those three components and then moving to any additional direction you wish to provide to staff on what should be the strategic areas of focus and any revisions to the outcomes and expected results. And again, moving to the 28th, that is when discussion of the strategies, debate of the strategies would happen at that meeting. We’ll also be providing the order of magnitude costing for the strategies, which is a piece of information meant to try and insist you in your discussion of the strategies and moving towards March 8th, where we’ll hear from the public.

Also on the 28th, you’ll be hearing any of the feedback that’s been collected through the ward meetings and get involved. And again, additional feedback on March 8th, looking for final direction and a final draft plan by the end of March and Council’s sign off at early April. This is the engagement timeline. So we’re in this kicking off to the next phase based on tonight’s direction.

We will update the get involved site around whatever direction Council provides this evening. Stakeholder meetings will begin. Conversation in the Box is being sent out to all organizations that we work with to seek additional feedback. There are a number of ward meetings that Councilors have established to get feedback.

So you’ll have those pieces, as well as everything that we collect through Get Involved. And again, we will provide a report to you just prior to February 28th. So you’ll have whatever we can collect right up to that meeting, and then leading to the March 8th PPM. You’ve seen this many times, a structure of the plan, and you’ve also seen this in terms of the interrelationship of each of the components.

So I’ll turn it to my colleague Ms. Wilcox, who can provide you with an overview of the community engagement update, the feedback that’s been received up until last Friday. Thank you and through the chair. So as is indicated in your package, gathering input from the city’s agencies, boards and commissions, and our organizational community partners has continued throughout the process.

And as we have done throughout the entirety of the process, we continue to promote across various channels. So Get Involved, billboards or radio ads, socials, et cetera. And when we walked through the results, we had 152 Londoners share their thoughts on the draft versions of the vision, mission, and values that were developed by council coming out of the January 11th meeting. So those have been posted between and open for feedback from January 13th to February 3rd.

And then 86 Londoners shared their thoughts on the areas of focus, outcomes and expected results that were developed out of the last SPPC meeting, and the timeframe is noted there of what we’ve collected. So in terms of the vision statement, Londoners were asked to tell us which vision statement of the three that were developed by council most resonated with them and to rank them in order of one to three. So of the three that were developed, these are showing the ranking. So with number one being the vision statement that was most frequently ranked number one.

We also asked as part of that question in the survey, were there any words or ideas that were missing? And gathering the feedback, we heard words that are missing, but we also heard feedback on what required emphasis. So we’ve rolled those together. So the themes are here or the words.

So safe or safety, sustainable, inclusive, innovative, culture accessible, affordable, and reconciliation. So again, some of these words may have been in the vision statements. They’re just denoting what may be missing or what is requiring emphasis. In terms of the mission statement, similar question, Londoners were asked to rank in order of one to three.

And these are the rankings before you. So number one being the mission statement of those that were posted that was most frequently ranked number one. In terms of words or ideas that were missing or required emphasis. So these were proactive, accountable, safety, equity and inclusion, collaborative, responsive, and bold.

We also asked about the draft value statements that were developed by council. There were three sets that were posted. Again, asking for a ranking of one to three. And these are shown in order of those that had the most votes.

So number one being the most preferred and ranked number one. As part of that too, we did ask in there in, because we had two different versions of how, a bulleted list and also a statement format. So we asked Londoners to weigh in on whether the values were better expressed as a list of values, a bulleted list, which is on the left, or a values as values statements. So 82 of those who completed this portion of the survey, 82 preferred the bulleted list and 66 preferred the statement format.

And I should note too that when we look across the feedback on the vision mission values, we’ve given you the ranking of how those were ranked, but they were very close across all three aspects. So the value statements in terms of what was missing or required emphasis, again, safe and safety, that was a theme throughout climate action and sustainability, reconciliation, equity and inclusion, innovation, accessible, compassion and teamwork and collaboration. So following the January 23rd meeting, we also looked for feedback on the strategic areas of focus. So the first question asked whether these were the eight that council should focus their efforts on over the next four years.

And so the results are here, I believe it was 66, yes, and 20 of those who completed it indicated no. We also asked them to rank them in order of importance. So of those eight and these were the rankings with number one being the area of focus that was indicated to be the most important, the most times. And so we’ll also go through one by one.

This is in your package. And when we look at each of the areas of focus, Londoners had the opportunity to tell us what was missing or required emphasis and not looking at the whole of the area of focus and the associated outcomes and expected results. So with regards to reconciliation, equity and inclusion, the key themes were cultural visibility and appreciation, indigenous led action, representative workforce, structural change and education and training. Housing and homelessness, there are a number of things that were either missing or required emphasis, some common themes here as well.

I won’t go through the entire list. While being in safety, again, pedestrian infrastructure was noted here and we heard common themes around sidewalks and street lighting, crime prevention, affordability, active transportation. For safe London and women and girls, gender diverse and trans people, what we heard was, could it be inclusive of other populations, accountability and reporting with respect to this area of focus, sex trafficking and also applying an equity and inclusion lens. Economic growth, culture and prosperity, so common themes or items requiring emphasis for intensification, affordability, support for small business, arts and culture and crime prevention and safety.

Mobility, lots of discussion on sidewalks, safety and repair, also traffic safety and bus system improvements, active transportation, intercity transportation and accessibility. Climate action and sustainable growth, there were three prominent themes here, waste reduction in diversion, protecting the natural areas in green space and sustainable development. And lastly, well-run city, when asked what was missing or required emphasis, the common themes were council conduct, accountability, financial accountability and also talent attraction and retention. So I’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have about the engagement results.

Questions on the new engagement results, Councilor Trossa. There are a reason why we don’t get the numbers, just sort of this was first, this was second, this is third. Through your worship. Just to, I’m sure and I understand the question correctly.

You have rankings, one, two, three. Can you tell us which one got the most, which one got the second? Why are you not telling us the numbers? We can certainly provide that and I’d be happy to do that.

We’d have to just pull that information together. Sure, yeah, we’ll get that through this discussion. Well, yeah, and I just think that— Through this, I think through the chair. Through the chair, I just, I mean, I work with a lot of people who professionally designed surveys and I don’t claim to be a sort of survey designers, but was there an opportunity in this survey for people to not just respond to a ranking, but also make comments?

‘Cause I don’t see comments in here, but— Thank you and through the chair, yes, absolutely. So with each of the questions around the vision, mission values, Londoners had the opportunity to provide their rankings. They were asked of these vision and value statements. Tell us which one you would rank first, second, and third.

Additionally, there was an opportunity to tell us what was missing or required emphasis. Does it resonate with you and what is missing? So the theming we’ve provided in terms of those words that were thought to be missing or required emphasis is a reflection of those comments that we analyzed and themed them up for you. Thank you, I appreciate that through the chair.

Was there a space for additional comments, open-ended questions? Yes, and through the chair, yes. So with each of these sections, it was open-ended. There was no limits on in terms of the comments you could provide, and throughout there is a section where you can provide other feedback to us.

So this encompasses anything we heard as part of the surveys that were open during this time. And this is reflected, I mean, we just got this recently, so I’m trying to make sure I didn’t miss something. Which page are these additional comments on? Actually, I think I apologize, I missed a slide too.

So we also, so the summation of where there were spaces where we could provide a ranking, where you could provide a ranking, we’ve provided that to you, whether it’s through the vision, mission values, or the specific questions about ranking the strategic area of focus, or a yes, no question. Along with that, there were open-ended questions along each sort of gate with the survey where you could provide feedback in open-ended comments. So it could be around anything in relation to the strategic plan. So we took all of that feedback and themed it up in relation to vision, mission values, and any other comments we heard.

And apologies, I did miss this slide, so I’ll just pull it up there and note it there. What are you looking for? I’m looking for the open-ended comments that were received. And I’m sorry if I’m missing it.

Are the open-ended comments listed? My understanding is you said they were themed up into the pieces, so maybe you can explain that. Yes, and thank you through the chair. So I’ll just go back a little bit, so I’ll start with vision.

So these are the ranks, this would be the rank, question on slide 13. Slide 14 reflects in the open-ended, is there anything missing or anything you’d like to tell us about the vision statement, words that are important. This is the theming from that open-ended question. And so we did that for each of the elements that are provided in this presentation.

Okay, that’s, any other questions for this section? No, we’re gonna go back to the city manager for that. Yeah, I wanna go back to the city manager. Yes, well the presentation’s not done, which is questions on the community engagement piece.

So I think we’re continuing with the next steps. Rosanna, Ms. Wilcox is asking me to just draw to your attention the one slide that she didn’t get a chance to cover, which was of the overall general comments of feedback that were received through the survey results. What you see in front are some of the themes around too many areas of focus needs to be more specific and that there is a need for direct and plain language.

So those were the kind of overall general themes around additional feedback that were provided. Okay, go ahead. So what we’re suggesting that the approach for this evening would be for council to have deliberations to set the vision, mission and values and that would happen through a full group discussion. At the moment, there are three to consider in each of those areas.

So we are in council’s hands on how you wish to proceed with that. Once council has concluded that set of deliberations, we would then suggest moving on to strategic areas of focus, whether there needs to be any change to the current list that came out of the January 23rd meeting and then once that’s considered moving to each area to address whether there are any changes to the outcomes and expected results. And again, looking for a full committee deliberation, the final item would be just a reminder that the draft strategies have been tabled. And again, the debate for those would occur at the February 28th meeting.

Okay, thank you. I’ll go for any general questions before we move into the vision mission values section. Councilor Perbal. I don’t know, I actually have a question, but I comment when the city manager mentioned the other general comments, besides the first one, all the other parts, I believe they will be answered to the public in the next steps.

So besides too many areas of focus, all the other things will be clear in the other steps. Through you, your worship, yes, thank you for that, Councillor, and when you have an opportunity to review the draft strategies, we heard council very clearly in the last discussion that it’s very important that plain language be used. We make them action oriented and try and make them crisp and clear. So when you do get an opportunity review and discuss with the public, hopefully that comes through.

We also use those to try and reflect the updated areas of focus outcomes and expected results. But I would agree that I think as we move through this, the language gets tighter. Any Deputy Mayor Lewis? Thank you, worship.

I’m just gonna be really brief here. I think it’s really important for colleagues to consider that in a city of 420,000 people, we had 152 responses. I would not discount the responses we got, but I would be cautious about placing too much weight on them. And to the question that, or to the comment that Councilor Pribble just shared, I would ask all of us to think about before we arrived here, how many times did we engage in the development of a strategic plan?

So even of the 152 respondents that we did have, when I see comments like needs to be more specific, frankly, to me, that’s perhaps a lack of understanding of what a vision, mission, value statements are, because a lot of the specificity comes in the strategic priorities that we’ll be tabling tonight. So just a little food for thought as we move forward. And I thought your worship might take this opportunity to suggest that as we move through these three things that we are approving tonight to start this discussion going, I think that using our preferential ranking system would be a good way for us to weigh in on what our choices are or what we think. Obviously, there needs to be some deliberation about whether things people want to add or subtract things.

But I would suggest that if we use our preferential balloting system, that might get us to a consensus result faster than any other option. I was actually thinking along those lines as well, but I’m going to deal with just a few questions first. Councillor Troso. The deputy mayor through the chair raises some excellent points that really resonate with some of my concerns.

This is a low number. I mean, if we were going to sort of subject this to any type of statistical scrutiny, I think I don’t know what end we would like to have here. But I guess my specific question is, when you get comments like needs more specificity, do they, do any of the comments speak to which one or what they’re talking about? We’ll get that answer for you just one second.

Thank you and through the chair. The feedback was really mixed when we looked across that. So more specificity was a common theme across all strategic areas of focus when residents had the opportunity to provide feedback on those and the outcomes and expected results. In some cases, it was combined certain things together to make it more specific.

In some cases, it’s just a, this isn’t clear, please be more specific. So we tried to highlight the theme, but there are, there were many, many comments and so just rolling up for consideration what we heard as part of that. Thank you through the chair. But more specifically, when you get these comments, this needs to be more specific.

Was, were any of those comments directed to anything? I think Ms. Wilcox through the chair, I think Ms. Wilcox is trying to say that response showed up in a couple of places like this outcome needs to be more specific.

So that’s, it showed up either very directly or generally, we need to be more specific in the language. So it was a general comment, I think is what Ms. Wilcox is trying to describe. It was a theme that came across throughout worthy of flagging, there was a lack for it, or there was an ask for additional specificity.

I have Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you. Your worshiping through you to staff. Thanks for getting all this together.

It’s really helpful to us as we move forward now. So I do appreciate the work that was put into this. And as we deal with our first statement, which is the vision statement, are we looking at the three statements that are proposed and are there any other statements that we would like to add? Or just going forward, I like the ranking idea, but just to sort of start the conversation moving along.

Yes, so I can answer that question. So we have the three vision statements that we crafted together through the process we had. We put that out for some public feedback. I know some Councillors have had some meetings, some haven’t yet, some have engaged in different ways.

So we can deal with these three. If someone came today, and ideally they came today with it, some brilliant combination of these that you want considered, we could certainly rank four of them, or five, but I certainly wouldn’t want to get into wordsmithing or a whole bunch of things right now. Because anything we decide to date, even if we solidify on one vision, everything will be kind of still up for change all the way through the process. So although we may lock down mission vision values today and say we’ve got one of each, we’re proceeding with the other engagement, we can certainly come back and tweak those later if we need to near the end of the process.

So I hope that answers your question. Yeah, looking forward to getting started. Councillor Trozab. Are we telling the public at the public participation meeting that we’ve already set the vision, mission and value statements?

No, we will decide on narrowing down the mission, vision and value statements because we’ve done some consultation on that and had time to reflect on it. But if the public comes back in the public participation meeting and says we think you got that wrong, certainly Council could consider that at that time and make an adjustment. But the purpose tonight is to try to start to continue to narrow these down as we’ve had time to debate them, fashion them, sit with them and move forward with that piece of the process. But as I said, everything can be changed up until Council approves the final result.

Okay, and I’m gonna make a general statement and it’s gonna come up a few times. So I’ll just try to lay it out now. I’m very, very unhappy, not with the work you’ve done, not with the work that this Council has done, but I’m very unhappy with the results from this survey. And I’m happy with the low number.

I’m unhappy with the granularity of reporting that we’ve received. I’m unhappy with the fact that I have a sense that people are not paying attention to this ‘cause they think we’re gonna do what we’re gonna do anyway. And that is a very real perception out there. And it’s nobody’s fault.

Please do not take this as a criticism of the work you, the mayor or the other Councillors have done. But it’s something that is real. And I fear that every time we dig a little deeper into using the word proof, vote on, we get a little further away from the ability to get this back. And I really would like to, I know that we’re gonna have a public participation meeting in March and have already lost that vote to try to have an earlier public participation meeting.

I’m not gonna re-raise that. But I would like to suggest that we stay away from words like approve voting on and try to be, try to think of some other way of doing it because I’m telling you, there’s a perception out there and it’s qualitative, it’s subjective. I don’t have numbers, but there is a sense out there that we’re just doing a trajectory. And there’s very little point.

And it’s cynicism and we have to go out of our way. If we want stronger public participation, I think this is a good time in the process. For us to press the reset button and recalibrate and say, what can we do to improve our public engagement? Because I don’t think it’s because the public is not interested in these issues.

I think it’s because they just think this is not a meaningful process and they don’t have much to say because by the time we get to a public participation meeting, we’ll have already had another vote. So I really wanna urge us to sort of reframe what we’re doing here in terms of not talking about selections and votes. And I’m not gonna put that in the form of emotion, but I just, I really feel that we need to be doing better in terms of reaching the public. I’m sorry, in terms of getting feedback from the public.

Okay, thank you for your comments, Councillor. And the only comment I will add to what you’ve said is this is Council’s process. So we have agreed to the process we’ll follow. This is what we’ve decided.

We have put forward our vision statements. We have pretty much changed everything so far that has come before us from staff’s recommendations. And it still is an incumbent on us to decide how we want to proceed forward. So certainly, I believe there are probably some members of Council, as has been said, that would like to narrow this down tonight.

Other members of Council have expressed their opinion. So I’m happy to proceed however you’d like. But ultimately, this is our process. So we define what it is and how many steps we wanna take.

And when we wanna make what sort of decisions to narrow things down and when we wanna have more public consultation. So I just wanted to add that that we were able to do whatever we’d like to city manager has a comment as well. Yes, your worship. I would just share the following.

That through the last two strategic plans, the period of time where a more robust community or response occurs is generally where you are now. When Councillors go out and hold individual award meetings, there’s generally our experience in the past, has been we see an uptick in the kinds of responses that we get through Geb involved. We are also through Council’s direction, going to every single community advisory committee this month and because not every Councillor is holding award meeting, we are hosting a open house in February as well to provide yet another opportunity for the public to participate. So there are many, many avenues this month.

So just to share that information as well. Thank you. So I’m looking for some direction from Council. Are you looking to narrow down the mission, vision and values or are you looking to essentially engage on more open public consultation?

Because I’m not going to start a process that everybody doesn’t want to do. So I want to get some quick feedback from Council and then I’m going to proceed with what the will of the majority is on this. I have Councillor Raman and then Councillor Pribble and then Councillor Stevenson. And we’ll make these quick comments because we don’t want to spend all night debating how we’re going to proceed.

We’d like to get into proceeding if that’s the will of everyone. Yes, thank you through the chair. I’d like to proceed. Councillor Pribble.

I just want to mention the three areas of the vision, mission and values. We have three for each. They are all three very similar. They are all three very positive except the values where we have one in statements, one in words.

To be honest with you, I do feel that we did quite a bit in terms of promoting these outside through the social media through City of London website. I personally and I know my colleagues as well. Be reminded people to get involved. I really believe that the feedback and more involvement I’m hoping to get in the next steps because those are the actual steps that will include matrix accountability, deadlines, et cetera.

And I would imagine that public will get more involved in that area. I really would like us to rank it and to select because all three, if you look at them, it’s not like they are opposite poles. They are very similar, they are just some words. And I think we were elected by the public to lead our municipality.

And I think now with the feedback we received and everything, it’s in our power now to select these three tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson. I would like to proceed with voting on these.

Councillor Ferrell. And thank you and through you. Like speaking to, I think it was 152 people responded, even though that is a very low, low number. And it’s not necessarily significant for a good sample size.

However, those 152 respondents did approve the draft vision and the draft mission speaking to those specifically. I did see a higher rate of agreement of what we put forward and as council, as all being elected, as all kind of very engaged with what’s going on, we did put that forward. So I do, even though like I said, like the sample size is low, but the ranking that I see here is the exact ranking, how I would rank it myself, when I rank this stuff myself. So I do agree with the ranking going on.

And I would like to see if it’s possible, like we can decide on which vision and which mission we can go through and kind of just narrow it down from there and move forward. So I’d like to move forward with the two. Okay, it sounds like I see nods and thumbs, Councillor McAllister, go ahead. Sorry, just a quick comment.

I also do want to move on. One of the things just for future input, which I think would be interesting is not that people need to put their address, but I do think it would be interesting just to see the ward breakdown in terms of the feedback we receive, just to get a better understanding in terms of which ward is providing the feedback. That would be helpful metric to have, thank you. Okay, thank you for that.

So what I’m going to do based on the comments that are made is I’m going to proceed with us narrowing down the mission, vision and values statements. So what we have before us on the vision is probably easy if you have your copy of the agenda to refer to appendix. Oh, we have a, even better than that, we can put them up on the screen. So we have statement one, statement two and statement three, which I think align with the exact way that they were ranked in the report.

It looks like that, yes. So those are the three that we had out. Those are the three that we crafted together. Before we proceed with a process to essentially see which one we support.

Is there anybody with some sort of brilliant addition to what we have? I don’t want to exclude that someone did some work on making something else. No? Okay, so we have three to work from.

Okay, we’re just going to load those into the preferential system. And then we’ll be able to put that up. Councilor Closie, you look like you want to talk. Go ahead.

That’s what happens when you make eye contact, it’s true. So I agree, absolutely proceeding and doing the ranking. I don’t know if you want comments at the now time. Like I haven’t redrafted anything, but I do share some of the public’s feedback that got including from Mr.

Wallace. I’ve just in the statement, number one, that overcoming and challenges isn’t on the positive. And just that wording, if it was removed, I don’t know how council feels about it. If we could rank it first, then go with one and just make sure we’re happy.

You can do it after ranking. If one happens to be the highest ranking. And then we’ll go from there. For sure, you could try to adjust that after or you could do it before we rank them.

We can rank it first and then it’ll narrow it down. Okay. Seems more efficient. All right, so colleagues will pick one, the one they like best.

They’re not gonna rank them one, two, three. You’re gonna pick one. That’s how the system will work, okay? It’s not quite ready yet, but that’s the easiest way.

And if for some reason, one of them does not get an absolute majority of council, we can drop the other one off and only have two left to vote on. So we’ll do it that way. Now is a great time when we’re waiting to make sure your technology is working properly. So they’re loaded in, it’s gonna be one, two, three, the same way it’s ordered in the report, same way it shows up as statement one, two, three on the screen.

But of course, the full statements are in there so you can read them. So we will open that for a selection process. Remember, this is an election, this is narrowing it down so we see what lands at the top. We can certainly move from there after that process is over.

Councillor Hopkins, what are you— And just to be clear, we only pick one. You’re only gonna get the option to pick one. So you can try to pick more than one, but it’s not gonna let you. Should be open now.

So the selection process has been closed and you should be able to see the results. Option number one, London is a sustainable city within a thriving region committed to innovation and overcoming challenges to provide a safe, affordable, welcoming and healthy future for today and for the next generation received eight votes and is the majority. Yes, and number two received five votes and number three received one vote. So we have number one to work with that was the one that had the majority of council, that was also the one that ranked highest in the public process.

Councillor Pelosi, you had some comments on number one though, go ahead. I did, thank you. As we’ve now ranked it, I’d be interested in a discussion and/or moving that we strike out in overcoming challenges, provide a safe and replace it with committed to innovation and providing a safe, affordable, welcoming and healthy future for today and for the next generation. So it was really just removing the overcoming challenges to put it more into the positive.

Why don’t we just make that a motion and then we can debate it and vote on it or reject it. So I see someone willing to second it. So Councillor Palose is willing to move, Councillor Deputy Mayor Lewis is willing to second it. So this would change the wording to remove and overcoming challenges and add essentially change the sense to committed to innovation and providing a safe and it continues on.

So we’ll just have that on the screen in a sec. Actually, we’ll have to debate on that amendment of course. Councillor Troso. Yeah, I’m opposed to that change for a couple of reasons.

We do have these challenges and I don’t think we should be sugarcoating the situation. I mean, let’s be frank here, let’s be honest here. We have a crowdsing crisis of immense proportionality. Someone to call it an emergency.

We haven’t had that debate yet. This is not about passing out happy meals. We’ve already declared an environmental emergency that even though we’re making some progress in terms of dealing with, we have a long way to go. So I think taking out that very mild, very mild language in order to portray a positive sort of the image to this is it’s the worst form of branding.

And I really hope we vote this down because we have challenges. Other debate on this? Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and through the chair.

I’ll just say I’m a tend to be a realist and there’s no doubt that we get to overcome challenges, but this is a vision statement. And so holding a vision for what I see for the city, I’m not gonna call in challenges. So I’ll be supporting. Okay, any other discussion as we get that loaded and Councillor Frank?

Thank you, and I’ll support the changes as well ‘cause I agree with Councillor Stevenson. And I also like that we’re including the next generation ‘cause it sounds very Star Trekky. And I think that is very exciting. I hope you’re watching Picard.

It should be a good season three. It’s very geeky of me too. Okay, so we should have that almost loaded in. Are you ready?

Okay, so that’s an amendment moved and seconded to make that change. I don’t see anybody else who wants to make comments on that. So we’ll open that amendment and change to this for voting. That should be open for voting.

You can use your chevron just to check the language and for you to vote. Everybody has any flags, just do it quickly ‘cause the voting’s open. Opposing the vote, the motion’s passed 13 to one. Councillor ramen.

Thank you and through you. Are there some grammar police that can police this force? I did see an Oxford comma, I’m okay with it, I’m okay, but I just wanted to say that it’s there and so. Okay, I asked the clerk, the clerks are not the grammar police.

So this is up to us. There are a lot of police on it, a lot of things, but not grammar. So we’re looking to change something like we can change it. So we know what you want to change.

And if everybody agrees, we can do that relatively simply. We’re okay. Your worship? Yes.

Point of privilege, if there’s an opportunity to do better and sound more polished and well refined, as we go out to market with this for four years, I’d prefer if there’s whatever these things are that we’re speaking of, be brought forward. Maybe I’m playing language, there could be some people watching who don’t know what an Oxford comma is. So perhaps describe what the challenge is, ‘cause I’m sure we all want to get it as right as possible. Thank you through you, it’s not just that.

There’s something, I can’t fix it, that’s the problem. I’d have to actually spend some time thinking about what the fix is and I just, that’s always if somebody else might be able to do that. The Oxford comma is the minimal thing there. Okay, so here’s the great news, is that the public can give us feedback on this and we can tweak it if we’ve got the relative structure good, like there’s a small chance to adjust it, like I said later in the process.

This is not the final, final version, it’s the draft vision statement, Council Trossa. So when this goes out to the public, there’ll be, will there be an indication that the challenges language was taken out, maybe in brackets, or will it just disappear and they won’t know about it? Because I think at the very least, even though I was the only person that’s bothered, I think at the very least, the public should be aware that we had that discussion. Where’s it going?

Well, this is a public meeting and we’re doing everything in public, so it will go out in the way that it is now and Councilors can raise whatever suggestions or comments they want in public, but everything we’re doing right now is at a public meeting as well, whether people are watching or not and it’s recorded and people can view it anytime. So in other words, when this goes to the public on the Get Involved website, there would not be any parenthetical reference to the challenge language being removed. They would have to find this meeting, figure out when it happened at the meeting and watch the tape, is that right? Yes, they also would have to go back and see every iteration of the discussion we had to form these statements in the first place.

So I think it’s gonna go out in the form that Council decides on today and that’s how we’re gonna proceed. So that’s Division Statement 1. Is there any more adjustments or comments on this? Okay, I got a question for our strategic planning team.

Do you want us to prove draft amended version or have we basically amended it? It’s still a draft and is it okay to go out now? Or would you like us at the end just to confirm everything we’ve done with one motion? Whatever is most expeditious for you, your worship.

If going through it and then doing it as one motion, that is fine with us. If you would also like to ask staff to undertake the work to try and smooth some things out so that individual Councillors aren’t doing that work, we’re happy to do it and come back with some suggestions. I’m also happy to leave it in the hands of Council. One motion works for us that wraps everything up.

Okay, we’re just gonna do it at the end. So we’ve got this draft done. No one else has any changes to it. We’re moving on to mission.

So if you could put the mission statements up. Okay, so does anybody have additions, changes, modifications, essentially I’m just asking for an addition. If you have like a fourth statement that you wanna put up or can we proceed with the same sort of process we went through for the mission statements? No one has an additional one.

Okay, we’re gonna do the same thing we just did. Again, after we narrow one down, we can make some adjustments to it if we need to and we’ll have that as our draft mission statement. So it’ll just be a second to load those in the system. Okay, so we’re gonna open this for voting, but I want colleagues to take note.

The way that it is listed on the screen as statement one, two and three, and the way that it is listed in the rankings that the public did is slightly different. So the way it is loaded into the system is the same way the public ranked it. So number one, if you read it, was the highest ranked one, number two was the second and number three. It is not the way it is on the screen up here.

No, I think people would prefer it. So this is the way it’s ranked in your report in Appendix A based on the public feedback. Is everybody okay with that? Okay.

And it’s also in there so you can read it too to make sure you’re voting on the right statement. Okay, you can open that for voting. Councilor Pribble, selection process has been closed. And number one, the mission of the city of London is to improve quality of life through bold, proactive, responsive and accountable public service and administration received eight votes and the majority.

And local collaborative government one received four and the proactive public service one received two. So we’re working from the mission of the city of London is to improve quality of life item. Councilor Ferrer. And thank you, your worship and through you.

I wanted to put some amendments on this mission that we just voted on. Just a little bit of extra wording that we thought would make it more concise and add to the second, add some words that we saw in the second draft mission statement that we thought would be appropriate. So I could, I could read it out if you guys wanna hear. Yes, please.

All right, so what I got after what we have here is our mission is to improve quality of life and build a strong and vibrant community through bold, proactive and accountable public services and administration. There you go. Actually, let’s scrap the and administration so we can stop it before that. I want you to read that again slowly so that those transcribing it on the screen can make sure they get it exactly as you’re suggesting.

Yeah, I can do that. And thank you and through you again, our mission is to improve quality of life and build a strong and vibrant community through bold, proactive and accountable public services. I’m sure that if you flip to the other screen that it’s as being typed on the screen by our staff, which is also what’s up on this other screen that you can’t probably can’t see, but if you flip your screen, you’ll be able to see it. Go ahead.

And after you, that looks good. That’s exactly what we were thinking there. Thanks. I think the easiest way to deal with this is as an actual amendment so that it can be voted on.

If someone else likes part of it, but we’ll just propose another amendment later. So was there a seconder for making the change that Councilor Ferrer is suggesting? Councilor Lewis is willing to go that way. We’ll have discussion then on that amendment, Councilor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you very supportive of this. I think the change has improved the statement. Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, worship and through you, not that I want to trigger Councilor Raman’s commas, concerns at all, but should it be a strong comma vibrant community or is the end appropriate there?

I worked for an English teacher. I am not one myself. I only play one on TV. So I’ll look to see if colleagues think that’s a comma or an end.

Your worship, I might suggest at the end, we could just make a blanket statement that staff can wordsmith all these with proper grammar, and as long as they don’t change the intention of this, and both can go back to staff who have expertise and words and stuff. I think hopefully everybody’s fine with someone else deciding whether it’s a comma or an end there. Okay, moved and seconded. You can see the change on this screen, or if you switch your screens from your voting screen to the other one.

We’re just getting it loaded in the system, other comments on this amendment. I’m going to give people time to read it to Mary Lewis. I don’t need to see this change at all. I’m comfortable with it as it is.

I will only offer us a comment that when we say accountable public services, my personal preference would be accountable. Municipal services, being aware that we are not the only provider of public services. There are two other levels of government. So I’m seeing some nods and some okay.

So I’m going to propose that we change public to municipal. In this one, the mover, there’s a whole bunch of people nodding and including the mover and you’re the seconder. So we’re just going to change it because it’s the two of your motion. So that’s not an amendment.

That’s the two mover and seconder changing it. Councillor ramen. Thank you through. And just to make it planar, could we just say city?

So instead of municipal, you’re suggesting city services. Deputy Mayor Lewis. I think for the sake of plain language as we’ve heard from the public that I would be comfortable with city. So I’m okay with that.

To the movers, Councillor Ferra. Yeah, I’d be okay with city as well, through you, sorry. This is not feeling like an auction almost. So okay, so you’re the mover and seconder.

So like the language is yours to change. So you’re good with it now. I don’t know if anybody else has comments for them to consider. Councillor Hopkins.

No, I just echo support that change. I know when we use public services, the public usually does not understand that when we use municipal, they understand what we are as a government. So thanks. Any other comments or debate on this one?

Okay, we’re voting on the amendment. So the change from how it read as statement three to the change that Councillor Ferra and Deputy Mayor Lewis have suggested as you can see on your screen. We’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote and the motion is passed 13 to zero.

That’s some good consensus, thank you. So that is now the draft mission statement. Are there any other comments on the draft mission statement? Or can I move on to the values?

Okay, moving on to the values. So the values is a little bit different where we have a couple of different formats, but still three options. The ranking is on page 106 of the report, which is just a little bit different from the way it is on the screen. In the report, it would be value set two, would be ranked one, value set one was ranked two and three is still in its proper spot.

So maybe for, can you just flip those, Mr. Steinberg? That way it’s consistent with what’s in the report. I think easier for everybody.

Okay, does anybody have like a fourth option that they worked on all week? No, okay. So we have these three to consider. We can go through the same process and then we can obviously make adjustments again.

Everybody’s okay with that? Okay, I see lots of nods. So it’ll take us a moment to load that into the system. So colleagues, I’ll just explain, when this comes up for voting, it’s gonna look a little bit awkward because it doesn’t handle bullets very well.

So although we’re voting on it this way, the final version that we draft approved will be formatted correctly. So these will be formatted as one giant long line of each one. So sorry about that, but you’ll be able to see which one is which by the first few words of the sentence. So I apologize for that.

It’s just the system can’t handle making bulleted lists for multi-vote items. Okay, I think we’re ready. So again, you’ll see just the first line of each of those sentences that’ll be a little bit messy, but they’re in the order that they were ranked and we’ll open that for voting now. No.

So the selection process has closed and there is not a clear majority. So we will conduct a runoff between values set one and value set two who each received four votes and six votes respectively, three votes for the third choice. Does anybody have any questions? Are you okay?

All right. So we’re just gonna have, we’re gonna have a second vote dropping the one that got the least with just the other two. Or should we just make committee aware of what counselors are absent at this time? Can’t actually see them on my screen.

Councilor Hillier is with us virtually and that is the only other counselor with us virtually. Okay, so just for clarification it appears we’re missing Councilor Vamer, we’re gonna have Councilor Layman for tonight, just. Correct. Option number one has been selected with seven votes.

Option number two, head six. Okay colleagues, so we have value set one to work with if you’d like to make changes to that. I would say everything’s still also on the table. If you thought that was a close vote and colleagues weren’t here, we could carry forward two value sets.

It’d be great to narrow it down like we expected, but also Troso, go ahead. Yeah, I supported this statement ‘cause I thought it was the best of the three, but I do think that if you’re gonna start the first bullet with N, the second and the third bullet could be using the same format for consistency. Unfortunately, that would disrupt the sentence structure more than we might want to. I think the best way of dealing with that is to turn that into a coherent paragraph, but I know that people don’t want full paragraphs.

So maybe we should just leave it the way it is, but I do think that if we were going to be precise in terms of good writing, we would be using the same sentence in each bullet point. Maybe I’m fussing about that too much. That was the other one. You don’t get to speak.

No, don’t make me kick you out. You’re not allowed to talk. Comments from colleagues. Again, we can work on this later.

If colleagues are okay forward in this, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Yeah, I just, and again, I said it myself and I know Councilor Trussa agreed with it to the sample size is very small. However, we’ve gone now with statement values rather than bullets as the public preference indicated was for bullets. So I don’t know how we want to proceed from there.

I am personally still not comfortable with the statement values. And I don’t think that there has clear to the public as the bullet points are. So I’m in colleagues hands, but I would actually be inclined to leave both of those sets open for further public input, given that we had two Councilors who weren’t present voting tonight. I know that they would be able to vote at this when it comes to Council for ratification next week.

But I’m open to what colleagues think. I just think that we now have two sets that don’t necessarily reflect what we heard from the public in the survey. But they’re both, the language is good in both. I just think that we, if we’re going with one, we have to come up with a way to turn it into bullet points.

Councillor Ferrera and then Councillor Hopkins and then Councillor Trussa. Thank you, through you. I was thinking that too. From the words that Deputy Mayor Lewis just said, I’m not sure if like wordsmithing it now would be something that we should do, but I feel like this could possibly be converted into a bullet point in some form.

So that’s just an idea that I think that probably some other Councillors are thinking too. So in the future or after it goes through maybe like the public looks at it and kind of gives it their feedback, it’s something that I would definitely be open to considering. Thank you. The last two I have, I think I have Councillor Hopkins first and then Councillor Trussa.

Yeah, thank you, Deputy Mayor, for those comments. I wonder through you, your ship to staff, is it possible? I know we’ve had a vote. I know we’re missing some colleagues.

I know this is gonna council, is it possible? Just bringing forward the one and two. I know we’ve voted on them, but given this conversation, I’m not comfortable with sort of the results. And if we are gonna move forward with one, then we definitely should look at bullet, putting the bullets in for it.

Councillor Rossell. These are in bullet points. That’s what you said, my apologies. These are in bullet points.

It’s bullets, it’s just sentences, yes. I think I understand what colleagues are saying, Deputy Mayor Lewis. So perhaps to give us an opportunity to give this further thought, perhaps committee may forward both of these to council next week, giving colleagues an opportunity to consider converting value set one into a bulleted list, or we can revisit value set two at that point in time. Hopefully our other colleagues will join us at that point in time, but I would suggest that, so I’m gonna move the committee forward both draft recommendations to council on the 14th for further deliberation.

Okay, seconded by Councillor Hopkins. Discussion, Councillor Palosa. Thank you. Seeing as I voted for the third one, and I think that the third, I’m just saying I think the third one only was like one had four votes, one had three votes, and another one had other votes, like they were all really close.

So if we’re saying, I don’t know if that may have looked, but I think one had four votes, one had three votes, and if we’re saying two colleagues weren’t here, just putting all them then. The original votes were six, four, three. Six, four, three. Yeah, so one had four, one had three.

So, important. Sorry, it was four, six, three. We’re following. We’re picking up what you’re putting down.

But like the third option had three votes, and the first one had four votes, like they were pretty comparable in realizing we’re missing two colleagues. Just putting that up for consideration and putting them all perhaps forward for full council vote instead of just the two. I think, okay, thank you for your comment, Councilor Troso. I guess I’m a little bothered by a result that would leave in teamwork, which is fine, and take out reconciliation and inclusion.

But I guess the bigger point is, this goes back to what I was saying before about voting, because we’re getting down to some pretty narrow votes that we’re voting on things, and we’re gonna put them out, and maybe we should just leave all three of them, or maybe something could be done to reconcile them. But I don’t see why we would say committed and driven, and not say sustainability and affordability. Okay, I’m in your hands, colleagues. There’s a motion to forward two of them.

Councilor Plaza has suggested just dropping three of them to council where ideally we would have everybody here, but that’s not the motion on the floor. So I need to see if colleagues are willing to do that, or Councilor Plaza, you could move an amendment if they’re not willing to take your consideration. I would just ask the mover to seconder, if they find that to be friendly or not to save time. For you, your worship, although we did have a vote to narrow it down, I do take the point that it was one vote.

We are missing two councilors from these proceedings. So in the interest of time, I’m willing to forward all three to council. That gives everybody an opportunity to consider any word smithing formatting they may want to do between now and next Tuesday. So if my seconder is comfortable with that, I’m amenable to that as well.

We’ll just have this go to council without any narrowing down of the value sets for decision. I’ll note you’ll be presenting that report. So best of luck with that discussion. Is there any discussion on that?

So what we’ve done is we will have narrowed down mission, sorry, vision mission, but we’re going to take a run at values at council with hopefully all colleagues here. So right now, the motion is to refer all three value sets to council for a final decision next week. Okay, sorry for, yeah, it’s not a final decision. It’s as the final version of the draft values, which can be changed later.

Yeah, I think it’s important to— Yeah, don’t worry, the final vote of what we’re saying will reference everything as being a draft. Okay, so that referral is moved and seconded. It now includes all three draft values. Draft value sets, is anybody have any other discussion on that?

Okay, I’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 13 to zero. So the next motion we’ll make is disappeared. That the following draft, vision, and mission be accepted for additional public consultation, and then a listing of the vision and the mission that we’ve agreed to.

Knowing that we can add the values that municipal council wants to spend its decision to that motion. Is there a mover for that? Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Cuddy. Any discussion on having the work we did on the draft, vision, and mission be accepted for additional public consultation?

Okay, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 13 to zero. I’ll go back to the city manager to recap where we are now. Yes, your worship, thank you for that.

And we would suggest moving now to the strategic areas of focus and whether there is any further direction in terms of any changes that council may wish to this list of areas of focus. So let me preface this for colleagues that this section has only been out for public consultation for a shorter period of time than the section we just worked on. So our expectation is we’re not, we don’t need to make substantive changes tonight, but if you feel like you’ve been considering this or doing some engagement, you wanna make some modifications to it to continue on with the public consultation we could. You could also share a couple of your thoughts tonight on directions you’re going and we can leave it as is knowing that that’s what’s coming down the road for our consideration.

That way we got a little bit of a heads up and can start thinking about it ourselves. And so we have two approaches here. Or we could hammer right into this and work through it, which sure anybody’s jumping at. But I do think it might be valuable for those who are considering some adjustments, maybe to share the areas they’re thinking about adjusting so that we have a heads up, even if we’re not making those changes tonight.

So I have a couple of speakers, Deputy Mayor Lewis, and I’ll go to Councillor Stevenson, Pribble, Trossau and Hopkins for our. Well, thank you, Your Worship. Much like the tabling of the budget in December, to me this is a move receipt of the staff draft so that the public can consult on it. This has been a very, very limited amount of time that the public has seen this.

I know you were entertaining comments, but I’m prepared to move receipt of the draft strategies so that they can go up to the public in a broader way to get that feedback. So we’re actually on the strategic areas of focus, not the strategies yet? Oh, sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself.

I think you’re on the wrong tab, you’re went ahead. So strategic areas of focus are where we have the ones on the screen, but I’ll look to you later for that motion for the items being tabled. And I’ll just proceed through the list that I’ve developed at Councillor Stevenson. Oh, no, you’re good.

Okay, Councillor Pribble. I just said once we passed this, I did have some suggestions for the expected results and the outcomes. And it will be under the economic growth, culture and prosperity. I think where we are right now is, we may not make the changes now, but let us know what your suggestions are so that we were aware of them.

And then we can decide as a group, whether we’re gonna dig in and make some changes. If there’s only two or three Councillors with some small changes, we might make them right now, put that out for public consultation. If there sounds like there’s substantive changes, we could, we’d have them on the floor, so we all know where everybody’s thinking. And then we would continue with public consultation.

And then the next time we have a go at this section, we could address all of those things that you’re thinking and considering. So Councillor Pribble, I would suggest, maybe if you can share a short summary of the changes you’re potentially looking to make. So the only thing is we are not there yet. If you are still doing the focus of area, so I don’t know if anyone is talking to those yet.

The next one is the outcome and results. So we’re just strategic areas of focus. I thought we were doing all of the ones, sorry, that’s my miscommunication with, go ahead. Your worship, if there was any initial direction on this list of eight, we would hear that or any comments.

And then the idea was to go through section by section to hear any additional comments, so. Okay, that was my misread. So everybody’s on the speakers list. Does anybody want to make any comments on the general list?

We’ll go through section by section. People can make comments on each section. Councillor Trozell. I thought that’s what we’re doing.

And I agree consistent with what I’ve been saying. I think that this hasn’t been up as long and I would like to not make substantial changes here unless it’s specifically for clarity. And I would like to change the strategic area of focus from mobility to mobility and transportation. Because when you look through it, it’s talking about transportation and just as an organizing entity that word at the top is much clearer to people if we say mobility and transportation.

Okay, is there anybody who objects to that adjustment? Okay, I say we just change that then. So that’s what we’ll call it from no one. Councillor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you, and just moving on. I would like to speak to the strategic area of focus regarding the economic growth, cultural and prosperity. And if I could just add, just following up on the previous conversation that we had around the revitalization of downtown. And I know we talked about— Councillor, I’m just gonna stop you for one sec.

We just wanted to talk about the general topics now. We’re gonna go through each and every one of them very quickly to see if people want to make comments on what they might want to change. So we’ll get to the economic growth and cultural and prosperity one specifically in a few moments and then I can go to you on that. Okay.

I think right now we’re looking for the types of changes that Councillor Trosto just suggested that’s, are we good with these titles as they are articulated still? So it’s just on the titles. Just the titles right now. Thank you.

Anyone else? So we made a small adjustment to the strategic areas of focus, just mobility and transportation. Now your expectations as we proceed through each and every one of these. Yes, your worship.

So we’ll move next to reconciliation, equity and inclusion looking for any changes to the outcomes or expected results. Comments or changes at this point knowing we could do some later or are you thinking about some changes that you want to share with colleagues even if we don’t make any now? Councillor Preble. So if you don’t mind, I would like to focus economic growth, culture and prosperity.

Councillor, we’re not there yet. We’re on reconciliation, equity and inclusion. Everybody wants to get to that one though, it seems like. So anyone else comments on this?

Okay, I think we’re good with leaving reconciliation, equity and inclusion as is for the continued public consultation, housing and homelessness. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and through the chair. I would really love to add one under outcome three, a well-planned and growing community.

So this is the strategic focus of housing and homelessness. And this is coming from number 69 of the core area action plan. And I’d like it to say develop a plan for location of social services and mitigating the impact on surrounding business areas. Okay, so we’re just going to leave that up there for thought.

I have some speakers. I don’t know if it’s on this particular suggestion. Okay, Councillor Ramen. Thank you and through you.

I’m just wondering if the mover of that recommendation can provide further clarity on what is meant by that. Go ahead. And through the chair, in the last core area action plan, the last point number 69 addressed the concerns that there may be an over-saturation of social services in the core area. So it recommended actions like taking a full inventory of the social services, looking at whether they’re needed to be in the core area or not, and to also address the potential impact that it’s having on the business area, and how we can, if they need to be there, and in that quantity that we find, we look at solutions and ways of that working in a way that supports the efforts that we’re making in the business districts as well.

‘Cause it seems like right now we have some competing commitments going on that we are looking to develop our business area, core area district. We also really want to help this vulnerable population. And can we do it in a way where we’re moving both forward rather than working against each other? Councillor ramen.

Thank you and through you. I’m just wondering if staff would be prepared to comment on that at all. So this was a component of the core area action plan. I don’t know if staff can comment on, make sure we understand exactly what it is to the city manager.

Your worship, there are a number of factors that go into the location of any kind of service, a business, a social service, a health service. And some of the areas where council and civic administration have space to move in that is the zoning, whether we’re a funder, those elements. Generally, organizations have the independence to locate if they meet the zoning. And often we don’t know.

And so I just table that for consideration. When we are asked, we might provide some advice or comment about whether, you know, have you looked at all options? Is that the best location for meeting needs? Are there conflicting or competing interests that need to be considered?

But in a number of instances, there are many social services that we don’t fund directly. Might meet the zoning and are perfectly within the current bylaws zoning requirements and rights to be located wherever they wish, just as businesses would do so in meeting the same kinds of obligations. I’m going to go back to Councilor Raman. Thank you and through you just to follow up.

I just have some concerns around the language around mitigating the impact on surrounding business areas. I just feel like the tone isn’t as supportive of perhaps, I would just, I just find it that the language is a bit challenging in terms of, and I understand that’s the core area action plan, but this is Council’s document. And I just worry about how that might be misconstrued things. Councilor Plaza.

Thank you and thank you to Councilor Raman for those comments. I share some of the same concerns realizing our vision statement with the same thing of trying to keep it positive and absolutely have community issues. So not denying that in the least. And I appreciate that sentiment of surrounding business areas, but downtown the core, we also have secondary schools, residential areas, parks, and we’ve seen throughout areas of the city while services or people have moved to the areas that they need to be in, that staff have been really responsive in doing extra cleanups, extra help, extra garbage pickup, extra bins in the community, and going on site and trying to connect one on one without reach, trying to connect them.

So staff is doing a lot. So maybe just find a way to work on wordsmithing that maybe it’s the deployment of services through community partnership. When we are made aware, and as the city manager said, sometimes they just go where they will and we’re reactive versus proactive, which also creates some issues too for staffing and the community being aware of what’s happening. So just general comments.

Councilor Troso. This is under an outcome, just so I’m making the right argument. Yeah, I think what we’re talking about here is too precise and operational for an outcome. I would not support that change.

Yes, these are outcomes and right now, and so that’s where we are. So the council is suggesting we add this as a 3.3 outcome. No. Oh, what are you suggesting then?

I’ll go back to it. Go ahead, Councilor, and we need your microphone. Councilor Stevenson, go ahead. My apologies.

I wanted this to be a strategy under 3.1, not a new outcome. Yeah, so this for me would be an E under 3.1, and I do appreciate the feedback there. Okay, so tonight what we’re gonna do is table the strategies for public input. We’ll have a go at them.

So that’s a possible addition that you could bring at that point, much like Deputy Mayor Lewis said. When we get to that point, which is not now, but we’ll be the next thing we deal with, we’re just putting the draft strategies out there. It’ll be the first time anybody’s seen them, including the public, we’ll get some feedback, and then we’ll have a go at adjusting them, and then having some more public feedback based on them. So there’ll be an opportunity not tonight, but at the next time we talk about it for you to adjust, add, change the strategies and support the expected outcomes.

Okay, so just to be clear, no strategy changes or additions tonight? Not tonight, we’re just gonna table them. No one’s seen them yet, yeah. Given that I just did this quickly, and I didn’t spend a lot of time in the wording, and I tried to take it right from the core area action plan, but given the feedback, can we just change that too?

And collaborating with surrounding business areas, just so that we’re putting it up on the screen, but I actually think, let’s leave it with you, you have time to take it back. We don’t even need to add it in right now, ‘cause we’re not dealing with strategies, and when we have table the strategies come back for the debate of the strategies, bring whatever language you wanna bring at that time, rather than putting it up here and then saying you’re not comfortable with it, you’ll have time to work on it. Okay, perfect, thank you. Your worship, if I may, if it’s of assistance to the counselor, we’d be happy to assist in the development of the strategy to meet the intention that you’re trying to achieve.

So we’re in, can you just go down so I can see the title of the section? No, not quite down. Housing and homelessness. So any other comments on this?

Councillor Troso. Yes, and I’m gonna keep this at the very general level of outcomes. I’m very happy that the strategic area of focus is called housing and homelessness. I think that’s what it should be called.

I know people don’t like to talk about homelessness and it’s sometimes not pleasant, but I’m glad it’s there. I’m looking at the outcomes and I think they do need some words, Smithing. I think that we cover the supply range of affordability well in the first one. And I think that anything, I mean, I’m looking at this from the point of view.

If a proposal for a program comes up later on or an amendment to a bylaw, is it supported in this language? So I think outcome one covers the prong of housing affordability. I think it does that. And I think that outcome number two and that outcome number two does cover that for homelessness and stability services.

What’s missing, and I would like to add another outcome ‘cause I think it’s important, is that we also have an existing housing stock, mostly rental, but also owner occupancy housing stock that needs to be protected and preserved. And I think I’m gonna be very careful how I frame this ‘cause I don’t wanna open up a whole debate here about enforcement activities or whether we need some kind of new program. But there needs to be something addressing the enforcement of health and safety codes. In this strategic area of focus, and I would like to see that as an explicit outcome number four.

And there were a variety of different ways that could be worded. Okay, so like I said tonight, if you maybe don’t have the wording, it’s great for us to know that that’s potentially coming, but I don’t think we might not need to land it in if you don’t have the wording tonight in there. Because if we don’t have the wording, it’s hard for us to actually move forward with the culture. London has a strong system of enforcement to protect the health and safety of residents there.

Okay, so the council are suggesting a new outcome and there aren’t any components below it yet. Those can come. I’m not gonna try to draft those here, but I just think there’s something missing from this. And in terms of outcome one, outcome two, you have very, very specific policies here.

Outcome three becomes a well-planned and growing community, which is more along the lines of what I would expect further up in the mission goals and objectives. But I’m not gonna argue against outcome three because it can support some good things. But I do think we need a, especially if we’re gonna say we support faster streamlined approvals. Should that be under the development part?

But I’m not gonna quibble with that tonight. I would like to see an outcome four that opens up code enforcement and health and safety. Okay, Mayor Lewis. So I look at outcome two and health housing stability, procedures and bylaws are already in there.

Now, I hear what the council are saying about people who may be housed, not because it does think want to say or of experiencing homelessness. So I’m wondering if rather than a fourth outcome, what we just need to do in outcome number two and families at risk of or experiencing homelessness, comma, or precarious housing situations, which may cover some of the concerns around response to tenant complaints about rental upkeeps and things like that if we talk about precarious housing situations. You should make a phone, please. Yeah, that would be fine.

It’s just the way that this is written. It doesn’t, I’m talking about the run-of-the-mill tenant who is not necessarily precarious or not precarious yet, or not in risk of homelessness or not in risk of homelessness yet, just a run-of-the-mill tenant who has a code enforcement complaint. I want to make sure they’re covered. And I’d like to, I’m happy to do that if you think we could tweak the language and outcome two, but we’re putting so much in outcome two.

I would spread it out to another area, but fine, we could put it in outcome two, but I do want to flag that because that area of code enforcement and housing safety needs to be addressed at least as high as an outcome in this plan because, well, I’ll leave it there. Okay, I want to go back to Deputy Mayor Lewis. So your suggestion to the Councillors to add that language and outcome two, are you suggesting that the new outcome four becomes like a 2.4 and outcome two, or are we just dropping that or just adding that line of outcome two? Well, I would be amenable to the outcome four to become 2.4, and I think that that speaks, it meshes well alongside 2.2.

And I say this both as a Councillor and with my housing, London Housing Board Member had on, one of the points there is improved quality and safety and social housing in 2.2. And I think that is speaking in part to that as well. Certainly, there are some responsive issues that we need to tackle in that area as well. So I don’t think it should be a separate outcome.

I would be amenable to seeing it as 2.4 under two. And then we can wordsmith that language in the general outcome with precarious housing or— General, I’m really glad that you’re talking about social housing here in more detail. But I also think that we have some very serious problems in what is it called? Non-social housing, what’s the right term?

The rental housing market that’s not part of our social housing system needs to be addressed. I think we’re both saying the same thing. So I apologize, I’m not sure I understand what we’re doing. Am I leaving this, or are we, thank you, Deputy Mayor?

Just for clarity’s sake, through you, your worship, that outcome four, get deleted as an outcome and become 2.4 under outcome two. And that would, I think, meet the intent. Is there any issue, Councillor Ferrer? And thank you and through you.

So just reading that statement, it does seem like a little bit out of form with the housing and homelessness. Is there any way we could change the wording just a little bit so we don’t have a strong system? Like if I were to just read this as a strong system of enforcement to protect the health and safety of residents, that enforcement word leaves a lot for me to kind of guess, and it just kind of is a little too vague. I was just hoping that maybe we could be a little more specific if we’re gonna keep that.

Councillor Palosa. Thank you, as a follow-up to those comments, it would be a question of like strong and system of enforcement to protect the health and safety of residents. To me, it reads that we are doing lots of police and by-law enforcement to protect residents who are housed versus those who are unhoused and that they almost, to me, it’s like they’re being targeted through enforcement. That’s just how I’m reading it through my lens.

Can I just make like a suggestion? I see what you’re saying there. Can this fit under one in some way? Like the system of enforcement to protect health and safety of residents, quality, affordable and supportive, maybe not, tempting regardless.

I respectfully suggest that because this is going out to the public and this will be a new addition, that before we read too much into the interpretation of how we’re seeing it, we see how the public sees it and listen to their feedback on the language. ‘Cause again, if we get into complicated language around, you know, if we start talking about, say, property standards enforcement, we start getting, we start moving away from the plain language that we’ve heard from residents they wanna see in this. I understand where the concern is coming from. Maybe the, maybe 2.4, maybe just needs to say instead of the health and safety of residents, it could say the health and safety of tenants.

If that addresses some of the concern, because certainly I think my intent and I don’t wanna put words in Councilor Trussow’s mouth, but I think his intent as well is that we’re talking about tenants who struggle with landlords maintaining their properties. And there’s no other way to say it other than enforcement of, and then I go back to the top of outcome two, policies, procedures, and bylaws. So I think we need to remember that two is the umbrella under which these bullet points fall, so that enforcement to me implies procedures and bylaws, but if tenants is a better word than residents, I would be very, very open to that. Councillor Boulosa.

Thank you, tenants is much clearer. Okay, is everybody generally okay with that? Councillor Frank. Thank you, and through you, I would love to just ask staff, given that staff have kind of done most of these, like how they would interpret that, and if that’s something that’s within the scope of their ability, and if they would support it, I’d just love to have any comments from staff.

Through you, your worship, we would go away. That is the expected result. So how I interpret that is that we have a clear system of enforcement that’s focused on health and safety of tenants. So we would then go away and try and talk about what actions would we need to take to be able to do that.

So I’m not the expert in that particular area, but that’s what we would try and do between now and the next report coming to use. When you talk about the strategies, you could see how we would actually try and deliver on that expected result. So that’s how we would tackle it. There’s clearly an enforcement, but it may mean a new bylaws, it may mean a number of things.

So we’d have to look at it to see what strategies would need to be in place to have that. And I’m assuming it means stronger than what we have today. So we’d have to take a look at what we’d have to be able to do. Sorry.

Go ahead. Thank you, yeah. And I’m not like super comfortable to language as it is now, but I think if I could see strategies and metrics that came out of it, I might feel more comfortable with it. But as it is now, I don’t love it, but I hear a deputy mayor, Lewis’s point, that maybe we’ll hear what the community has to say as well.

Okay, so is everybody generally okay with this addition as it’s been? And 2.4, in fact, you can see it if you flip your screen to the staff display or turn around and look up. 2.4, London has a strong system of enforcement to protect the health and safety of tenants. And then there’s gonna be a small adjustment to the outcome to add, and I’m not sure exactly how to be finally worried, but addressing not just families at risk of experiencing homelessness, but also or in precarious or at risk housing situations, whatever the language will be.

So it covers a wider group. I think that’s the understanding. I think we’re making a change to that, yes. Could you please repeat what the change is?

I want the person who suggested it to repeat what the change is. So I think our staff already have it up there or in precarious housing situations following the words experiencing homelessness. I would also just like to clarify, ‘cause I don’t wanna mislead what I would anticipate. So this will get posted as is, and people will comment.

We won’t have developed strategies to inform that comment until we table the next report with you. So I just want to be clear about that. Can you maybe add that if this goes out for public consultation in brackets, strategies to be developed so that the public will see, oh, okay, there’s no strategy for this one yet, but they’re gonna be developed. That might provide some clarity on the things that we’ve added that don’t have that piece to go with it yet.

Sometimes I solve the problem, sometimes I create them. So are we generally good with this part? Housing and homelessness, are we okay with now? Again, this is out for public consultation still with some adjustments.

Okay, next section then. Well being in safety, any adjustments here? Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and through you.

I just had two things. One, I just wanted to give the heads up that when we start talking strategies, I would love to explore expanding the library to seven days a week, given the huge role that it plays in our communities in so many ways. And I have a request that staff send us some information on the pilot wayfinding because it’s referred to twice in 1.8 A and B. And I’m not familiar with that.

So just so that when I’m speaking to people, I know what we’re referring to. Through you, your worship, I understand that that is a strategy. So if Councillor Stevenson is asking for information about it, then we can certainly follow up with the service area and get information provided. Okay, so that was more of a flag for us and some changes you’ll look to make later and some requests for information.

So okay, any other comments in this? Councillor Trozal. Sorry, actually Councillor Trozal, I had Councillor Raman next and then I’ll go to you after. Thank you and through you.

I just wanted to comment that I was, I’m not sure if it came out or how it got converted, but under well-being and safety, I was looking for more language around health and health outcomes, whether it’s health equity, whether it’s how we as a city support health in a way that’s more connected. Maybe it’s because of the presentation we had today from London Health Sciences, but around that shared goal. So I’m just wondering how we can incorporate health and health equity into the plan. Your worship, I believe that we might be able to add an expected result under outcome one when we talk about healthy neighborhoods and kind of we can even make an expected result, improved health equity across neighborhoods.

There’s what you were, pardon me, that kind of language if that’s what you’re looking for. I believe the emergency services response time is not just about safety, but also about health in terms of some of the strategies that you’ve learned about through the land ambulance presentation. So I think that might, but we can also go back to the health unit in terms of other things we could add in. Thank you, yes.

I think it would be great to have it as a separate focus area in that part of well-being and safety. And also incorporating more around mental health. And I think the shared goal of reducing stigma both in our workplaces and in the community, I think that was something that we’re hearing is just part of those emerging themes from LHSC as well. And I feel like it’s resonating in the community quite, quite privately as well, that we’re all recognizing that we need to pay more attention to mental health and helping to reduce those stigmas.

Go ahead. Your worship, I absolutely no argument for me about needing to reduce the stigma of mental health. Our strategies that we might table for your consideration will focus on what the city’s role in that is. We are not a deliverer of services.

We are not a funder of services in that space, but certainly we collaborate. We do lots of things. I just want to be transparent about, like all of these areas, we come from the perspective of what is the city of London’s role. ‘Cause I don’t want to set up expectations that we’re delivering on something.

We have no levers to deliver on. Go ahead. Thank you, and through you, I was thinking more in terms of workplace goals. So I’m thinking about, as an employer, what are how we fulfill that duty around mental health and the stigma?

Thank you. Your worship, thank you for that clarification. In the well-run city, there’s a section on our employment and we can look to add. I’m very familiar with our mental health wellness strategy.

So we can look to address that in the expected results there. Good. So excuse me, your worship. I would just like to confirm that the counselor would like to see the expected result about improved health equity across neighborhoods, and then we’ll address the mental health components in the employment section.

Thank you. Yes, and if you could just add that line since we added a new piece that strategies to be developed, the same thing we said before, just so the public can see that. Councilor Trossa. I would like to add something, and I think it might be under outcome 1.3, safe access to public spaces.

I’d like to add including access to clean water. And I would also like to add access to public washrooms. And I’m wondering if that’s the right place to put it. Your worship, we’re just checking to see if we address clean drinking water in the environment section of strategic area of focus.

And I think we’ve captured the other here. Specifically referring to clean drinking water in public spaces where there have been issues in the past. I know that we’re working on clean drinking water coming through people’s pipes and homes and buildings and everything. But I’m specifically talking about the situation where not to get into too much detail, but situations where we bring out our public water.

What are those things called? There’s mobile. Yes, oh, there’s mobile. Yeah, I think we have those.

I just, Londoners have safe access to public spaces. To me that includes access to clean water. And it also includes access to public washrooms. Your worship, we can certainly put that as an expected result or both of those things could be strategies that deliver on 1.3.

Okay, we’ll treat it as a strategy ‘cause they’re quite specific. Yeah, I think those, to me I was gonna say that those sound like strategies that would help deliver on 1.3 and perhaps you could work on that as you develop the other strategies for the other items. Okay, so are we good with well-being and safety then? Councillor McAllister.

Thank you, and through the chair, with outcome two, for 2.3, I was wondering if it would be possible. Londoners have equitable access to key services, community supports, and recreational options to enhance their well-being and resilience. Traditional opportunities, options, I’m indifferent, but something to that effect. Thank you.

Anybody object to that language being adjusted? So, that will answer ramen. Thank you, and through you, I don’t object, but I’m just wondering what would be the metrics to assess equitable access? Do you mean geography, or do you mean like people per area that visit or close to, let’s say, a community center?

Yeah, just in terms of reason I bring that to equitable, just that they have some options. Geographically, population-wise, I don’t wanna base just solely on growth. I want it to be that if you live in an area that you still have access to something, because I think we’re moving more towards regional hubs, and I think we need to still look at the neighborhood and learn to get out. I would foresee this as an incorporation of adjustments in the Parks and Rec Master Plan, and the balance of district parks with neighborhood facilities, the distribution of types of services around the city, that sort of thing.

It may already be partially covered in the Parks and Rec Master Plan, but it seems like it, you know, I understand why you’d want to add it to the strategy to be clear about it. Your worship, we do use a per capita metric in the Parks and Rec Master Plan, so I think that gets to be Councillors’ point and the question. Okay, great. Anything else in well-being and safety?

Councillor Ferreira. And sorry, and through you, this is gonna be really quick. It’s just the very last one. I do see two enhance their well-being and resilience.

I’m kind of adverse to using the word there, and I would just like to suggest maybe our, ‘cause we are all Londoners, so that’s just a small point that I wanted to make. Thanks. The only challenge with that is their shows up increased their well-being and quality of life. It shows up in a couple of sections in the same way, so maybe that could be taken, maybe not as an adjustment here, but just as a thought on how we consistently word the document, whether that’s the most appropriate way or whether there’s another way.

‘Cause I think if you make that change here, your comment’s gonna apply to, I see at least one other section even on this page, that’s the same thing. And thanks for pointing that out. Yeah, that means I just missed it, but that would be an idea that I would put out for all anything with that type of wording with there, but I see your comments, and I’m okay with that. Councilor Trossa.

Under 1.5, it says advance the installation of proactive traffic calming in school zones, which I fully agree with, but I just hope that that qualifier in school zones doesn’t negate it for non-school zones. So if it could say calming period, particularly in school zones, that would add some clarity. I think that’s getting into the strategy piece, and right now we’re kind of one level up at just the listing piece, ‘cause the strategies are just being tabled today, and that’s a comment that you can bring back at the strategy piece. Okay, so well-being and safety good.

Okay, next section. Safe line up for women girls and gender diverse, gender diverse and trans people. Any adjustments or comments here? I should just say adjustments, comments, we have lots of time for those other times.

Okay, this section’s good. Okay, next section. Oh, economic growth, culture and prosperity. I know a few people wanted to make some comments here.

I’ll go to Councillor Hopkins first. Yeah, thank you, and I just want to, so we’re on the focus, the area of focus on the strategies then just want to make sure. No strategies, just the overall titles to the areas of focus. So if you’re looking on the screen, it’s basically what you see on the screen.

If you’re looking in the document and you’re in the pages, you’re not dealing with the A, B, C, D parts yet, just the 1.2, 1.3 pieces. Right, I’m just going to switch over to that, and I just may be one for clarification, ‘cause I know in the past, last time we met, we had a conversation around the revitalization of downtown, and I particularly think it’s really appropriate for the next four years that we revisit and take a look at how to regenerate the downtown, and maybe it’s in outcome number four, looking at that. I know we kind of put it together, adding up with community, and then we took it out, but I do think it should be specific to maybe outcome number four, 4.6. I know we talk about the core area, but in terms of vibrant neighborhood and destination of choice, that the revitalization of downtown should be looked at.

Deputy Mayor Lewis, thank you, worship, and through you. I’m just wondering if I can ask the council for some clarification, because I look at the first five, and if we are increasing economic activity, we’re increasing residential occupancy, we’re increasing commercial occupancy, we’re having more cultural activities and events, we’re increasing safety. I’m not sure what else there is with all due respect to revitalize. To me, all five of those first points are the components of revitalization, so I’m just wondering what else would we be talking about by revitalization?

Well, I think as we come out of a pandemic, and as we go through recovery, we’re looking at these other areas in the core area, but as a whole, looking at the downtown and what else needs to be done, the downtown area can also include neighborhoods. It’s sort of like revisiting the downtown and having that conversation as we come out of recovery, ‘cause we know it’s a fact the way we work, the way we play, the way we, how do we get people in the downtown core? There’s aspects to it, but how do we revisit that whole conversation with the downtown core? I do think it’s now’s the time to do that.

I don’t know if regeneration or revitalization, I’m just trying to find the right word. I sometimes want to revisit, use that word revisit, but I do think it is an opportunity for this council to take a look and how do we, again, revitalize the downtown? Sure, we have specifics there, but as a whole. Deputy Mayor Lewis, thank you, your worship and through you.

So just as I did in the housing and homelessness, I go back to the umbrella of outcome four, is London’s core area is a vibrant neighborhood and destination of choice. So when I read that sentence to me, that is a revitalized downtown and here are the five ways that we’re going to get there. I don’t know if perhaps the councilor might want the word revitalization actually in the top of outcome four as part of the umbrella. So perhaps London’s core area is a rejuvenated, vibrant neighborhood and destination of choice, something to that effect.

I just don’t see in 4.6 a specific outcome that we can measure. I think the umbrella statement at the top of four, if, you know, is a vibrant regenerated neighborhood or something to that effect, I would be okay, but I just don’t see how revitalization stands on its own as an outcome. I appreciate that. I’m just trying to get it in there just so the public can understand that the focus of that.

And maybe that’s where it should be. So London’s core area or London’s revitalization. Councilor. I want to be specific to the downtown.

So is the part you’re looking for is you want the word, like the downtown mentioned separate from the core or is it about the revitalization piece? It is about the revitalization piece. Because I think Councilor Ferrara was interested in like the downtown being mentioned specifically as well. So I know that there might be a further conversation here beyond what you’re making that might maybe help clarify and maybe you’ll be satisfied, but we can come back if you’re not.

Yeah, I’d like to hear from the downtown councilor for sure. I have Councilor Pribble first and then I’ll go to Councilor Ferrara. So if you’re already, I do have points for outcomes, one, two, three, but if you’re already on four, I might as well start with some suggestions. As the outcome, London core era is a vibrant neighborhood and an attractive destination instead of just the destination of choice.

4.1 increased and diversified economic activity in our core. So not just increased by diversified as well. For 4.4 more multicultural activities, events and recreational sports activities, then if we can please go to start at one, please. 4.1, sorry, London, sorry, outcome one.

London encourages equitable economic growth and diversification. Number 1.4 update. London is a regional center that is proactive in developing, attracting and retaining talent, business and investment. I’d like to add a couple more.

It’s going to be one, so it’s just another you’re attracting talent. 1.5, please. London actively supports the inclusive economy to ensure that the benefits of thriving economy reach all residents of the community. London actively supports the inclusive economy to ensure that the benefits of a thriving economy reach all residents of the community.

1.6, London maintains its place as one of the fastest growing cities in Canada through strategic partnerships and strategic economic development as one of the fastest growing cities in Canada through strategic partnerships and strategic economic development. 1.7, a legislative and regulatory framework for business exists in which businesses of all sizes and types can thrive prosper and grow. If you look at the outcome 2.2, it says continues growth, growth of London’s film industry. I think it should be up because we already have their growth in, I would move up the entire film to the outcome one, because we have the growth there.

In outcome 2, London is a creative and cultural destination of choice for working, living, learning, and recreation. London is a creative and cultural destination of choice for working, living, learning, and recreation. 2.1, London is an attractive domestic and international centre for creativity, culture, innovation, and sports. London is an attractive domestic and international centre for creativity, culture, innovation, and sports.

2.1, London is recognized as a premier tourism destination domestically and internationally. 2.1, London is recognized as a premier tourism destination domestically and internationally. 3.1, London attracts an increased number of professionals and skilled workers who view the city as a preferred location to live, work, learn, play, and raise family. 4.1, London is driving towards UNESCO’s sustainable development goals.

3.1, London ensures culture and creativity are essential components of urban development by fully integrating culture and creativity into local development strategies and plans. 3.1, enhanced and increased creation, production, distribution, and dissemination of cultural activities, goods and services, by involving the public and private sectors and civil society and with particular focus on film, music, and art. 3.2, improved access to and participation in cultural life, as well as the enjoyment of cultural goods and services, including marginalized vulnerable groups and individuals, involving the increased use of municipal and cultural spaces to develop local talent. We got it.

3.3, London has developed hubs of creativity. Last one, London is an active member of UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Some of the points are just, in large, what we put before. They’re not just my ideas.

There were certain ones from the community, as well. I do think that there are a little bit more of them, but, again, for $1 billion corporation, if this is the only focus of area that’s revenue driven, I don’t think it’s enlarged or it’s too much. Councillor Frank and then Deputy Mayor Lewis, Councillor McAllister, did I have you on the list to miss you or are you out of your hand? You were.

Okay, so are you okay with that order? Like, I can go to your next if you want. Okay, Councillor Frank. Oh, sorry, Councillor Ferreira.

Wait, hold on. I have Ferreira McAllister, Frank Lewis, my fault for ignoring my own list. Go ahead. And thank you, 3.2, so you did mention on it, but I did want to maybe have some definition of what core means ‘cause I know that we have the core referenced here a lot and from what I’m understanding and just kind of what I’m kind of getting from other Councillors who’s been adding to it, they are speaking about the downtown area, that’s from what I’m, how I’m taking it.

All bias aside is the downtown Councillor, like downtown, you know, has, is 25% of the office vacancy. So I do feel that it is prudent to have some type of strategy specifically focused on the downtown area. So when I do see the word core, you know, I’m thinking of like downtown, old East Village, midtown, I’m not necessarily thinking about downtown itself. So I was hoping that we could maybe get a little more clarification on what we mean by core or maybe remove the word core and put in downtown if that’s what was intended.

So that’s what I really was hoping to clarify here. So I’m gonna make a comment on that because there could be a little bit of a rabbit hole to go down. I think there are two different areas that maybe talked about when you say they’re downtown or core. And I don’t think changing into downtown might involve anybody who represents the core area to be upset about these strategies being lost there.

So, so perhaps if we refer to outcome four as London’s downtown and greater core area is a vibrant neighborhood and destination of choice, it would recognize that downtown is part of the core area and then any specific strategies for downtown might, you know, be part of downtown or overlap with some parts of the core area, but it would recognize both of those areas and perhaps get the word downtown in there, but not lose the fact that there’s, you know, there may not be perfectly defined by borders, but we’re talking about, you know, a general core area with a downtown at its hub. So that might be as you were, ‘cause we talked earlier today, I had that thought and I wanted to share that with you because I didn’t want to then adjust this whole section to be downtown and then us going through while we were now working during the core or the greater core area. So perhaps if we do that, then we can allow some of the strategies that might be specific to downtown to fall out that would support these areas. Some of them might say core that includes the downtown, some of them might be specific to downtown, but I don’t know if that would capture what you’re going for recognition of downtown and the document or not, but that was, I thought I had, I would leave it to you for your consideration and of course, colleagues have to agree with that as well too.

And I see what you’re saying. Like I don’t want to leave out Old East Village or any other community that is considered as the core. I just do feel that the intention for a lot of these points that were put out by the other counselors with core, they were speaking about downtown. So I just wanted to make sure that just because downtown is such a vital area of London, it’s literally the heart of the city and it’s the center of everything and it does need a lot of work and assistance.

And having a strategy that kind of focuses towards that, I thought would be appropriate. So I just wanted to be sure that we can capture all of the ideas, the outcomes and results. That was intended for the core by the other counselors and just somehow, or it’s not the course here, I’m even saying it myself. I have downtown by the other counselors and just ensure that we do have some type of specific strategy or focus for downtown.

I don’t want to leave out the core, but I do, I would like to see something that does capture what we have here and then just kind of put it within under the downtown framework. So that’s really what I’m trying to point out. So I don’t know my suggestion captures that, but I made that suggestion ‘cause I didn’t want to lose the core. There’s obviously overlap with these strategies and I thought if you said downtown’s core and London’s downtown and the greater core area is a vibrant neighborhood.

Again, when you get into strategies, although I’m not looking to change the strategies, you might have some of those traditional downtown strategies that might be, again, it might include downtown and the core. I don’t know what that’ll look like, but maybe I could go to staff to see if we can properly capture what the counselor’s striving for without losing what we’ve already got there. Your worship, my suggestion would be that we name both downtown and the core. The core is understood to include downtown mid-term town in Old East Village and last council wishes to only focus on the downtown, but that was not my understanding of the previous conversation.

There’s a desire to highlight in particular downtown, I think the way it’s listed on the screen now tries to do that and we can make that reflected in each of the expected results that are listed below there. We’ll then go and check that we’ve got strategies that address all components. Does that help with you, Councillor Farron and Councillor Hopkins, that you were going for? So maybe we can drop the 4.6 because now it’s kind of mentioned everywhere, yes?

Okay, so I do like that suggestion. So we’re just going to add in just to clarify downtown with core on everything that we have there. And then because I don’t want to lose, I don’t want to push away. If you flip to your screen, you can see what staff have written.

It’s now formatted in a different way. Okay, okay, I do see that. And I’m not saying I want to cut out like Old East Village focus on mid-town or anything. I just want to do point out just the importance of downtown.

So I’m okay with the way that goes. I think that’s a great suggestion. All right, thanks. Councillor Stevenson.

You better not want to cut out the Old East Village. I too want to be very clear with the council that we are talking the core area and not just downtown. To me, we’re all in as one. We get to do it together.

It goes right. It’s very, very important to me. So this bothers me a little bit in changing it to downtown and core area when our definition of core area has been defined. So it seems redundant to me to say downtown and core when the downtown is in the core area.

So I don’t know if we need to capitalize core area or if we need to spend time discussing that. I don’t know that has to be tonight, but for me it absolutely has to be the core area and not just downtown. Councillor McAllister. Thank you through the chair.

I just wanted to weigh in on this debate because I feel like we’re kind of getting, like this is like the city hall talk. Like we know what we’re talking about, but my issue with this is that when you say downtown and core area is very subjective to Londoners. And what I find interesting with this debate is if I say core area, so people might use the demarcation point as adlates on people might use hybrid. So I think if we’re trying to obviously make this clear to the public that we have geographical boundaries because it is actually very confusing for the public when we say it because it’s a subjective term.

So when we’re doing this, I don’t know if we can have a hyperlink or something that just shows like a map. So people are like, oh, okay, that’s what they’re talking about. It’s everyone has a different definition these days of what they mean, thanks. Your worship, we do have a map that clearly shows the boundaries of the core area.

I’m certain we can figure out how to make that available. Perhaps you put core, we have a link. People can see what it is. Okay, let me proceed on the speakers as I have Councillor Frank and then Deputy Mayor.

Okay, sorry, Councillor Stevenson only ‘cause we were, the only reason I let you jump in is ‘cause I didn’t want to leave the core downtown argument, so go ahead. Yeah, but my point was to say downtown and core area isn’t gonna make sense when we go to a map that says core area. So I think it would be better to say core area with a capitalized or something. Or just refer to the map.

But to say downtown and core area when the downtown is in the core area, doesn’t really make sense. The other way to address it, your worship is we say core area, brackets, downtown, midtown, old East Village. Covers the three major neighborhoods and then we can put a little map and everybody is happy hopefully. Councillor Ferris, I could for you.

Thank you, I’m not just gonna say yes. Can you say yes? No, all I’m trying to point out is that I’m pretty sure per unit area, it’s like eight times the property tax that we bring in throughout the entire city on average is downtown. And there’s 25% of the total commercial vacancy is also downtown.

So we have an amplified, we have issues in London, but I see it as amplified downtown. And I feel like, you know, if we want to challenge or take these hurdles and overcome them as we move along through, you know, in our future or near future, which we’re trying to do right now, we need to have a focus on the downtown. So that’s why I was very happy when we first crafted this. And I saw other Councillors really kind of putting in very good input into this part of the strategy.

But I just kind of after speaking with some other people and thinking it through and speaking with you earlier today, I do believe that we should have a little bit more focus on the downtown part. I’m not saying take out the core area, maybe split them up, but just because there’s such an important aspect of the downtown itself, I just was hoping that we could have maybe something that’s specific to the downtown area. So I do like the recommendation that Ms. Livingston said with downtown and core, I’m okay with that.

But, you know, like with the other comments, you know, if it’s possible, I would like to keep, you know, there is a specific aspect to the downtown that we need to be focusing on. So that is really what I’m trying to just kind of bring to your awareness. So here’s what I’m gonna suggest. We’re gonna do it the way the city manager suggested core area with brackets and list the components.

If you’re looking for a specific strategy on downtown that would support that, because again, this is the outcomes and the expected outcomes downtown is part of all of these areas. Do you think there’s a specific thing that the downtown needs in the strategies piece? I would address that when we get to the strategies piece. And that should be based on what is the need, what are you looking for, what is specific to that geographic area within the core, just so we can get moving along.

That way it’s listed, it’s not taking away, it defines what the core is for people, it’s a little more transparent, and you can bring up the strategies and when we get to that point. So everybody, are you comfortable with that? I’m okay with that, that sounds good to me. Councillor Stevenson, are you okay with what I just suggested?

Okay, that seems like a path to move forward. Councillor Frank. Thank you, I was just gonna add a couple little words. I won’t go as much as Councillor Preble did.

But I was hoping on the first section of this area under the first outcome, where it’s a small and growing businesses. And then I’d like to do businesses comma entrepreneurs and non-profits, because there are many non-profits in our area that provide great economic value. And I used to work for one, so I’d like to plug that in. I also under the, sorry, the fourth outcome, was hoping to include a item, I think you’d go under, I’m just looking, maybe 4.6.

All right, is there a second page to that? No, it’s just there. Yeah, essentially more people who don’t live downtown are coming downtown. And that’s really plain language.

I don’t know if there’s always spruce it up, but I think that’s kind of what I’d like to see. And I think it’s measurable. And then I also would love increased creative placemaking through effective investment in public art is another strategy. Oh, sorry, sorry, out, kind of expected result.

Oh, sorry, increased creative placemaking through effective investment in public art. And that’s it. Thank you, Mayor Lewis. Thank you, worship.

I was just close to calling a point of order on you earlier for not following a speaker’s list. So I’m glad we’re back to following a speaker’s list, ‘cause I think everybody has a vested interest in the core area and the downtown. I respect that you are trying to get the councilors most directly impacted and opportunity to go back and forth. But I think it’s really important to emphasize Councilor McAllister’s comment.

What is the downtown? What is the core to Londoners is a subjective interpretation. And we can put maps up all over the place. It is still going to be a subjective interpretation to them.

There are folks who see the Soho neighborhood in the old South Street Hospital as part of the core or as part of downtown. There are people who see downtown as Dundas Place and that’s it for them. So I think we are getting into a lot of inside baseball in this section that when we go out to the public and I come back to the plain language piece that we heard is not going to make a whole lot of sense to them, particularly when even our BIAs define their boundaries differently than our planning district maps. And I’ve seen this on planning committee too when we go to approve a building.

Well, it’s two blocks outside the downtown planning district, but it’s still in the core area. So there’s a lot of different interpretations as to what downtown and the core area are. I think it’s really important that we don’t spend too much time getting hung up on that. I also have to underline for colleagues.

And I’m not trying to pick on Councilor Pribble, but we’ve now made a very substantive amount of changes to this document. And none of this was circulated in advance, which would have been possible had it been sent through the clerk for colleagues to give some consideration to. If I can ask staff to just scroll up to section two. So we had two expected outcomes in here for UNESCO City of Music and the film industry.

The film industry is now being suggested to move to 1.8, which I absolutely will object to. If that’s where colleagues want to go tonight, fine. I will not be supporting it. I see a lot of, honestly, some flowery language repetition of the theme of work live play.

I don’t think we need that in every expected outcome. Again, it’s coming back to that simple plain language, an easy to read sentence for people. So right now, I’m not actually willing to support any of this section because we’ve made so many changes. I’ve not had time to give it a lot of consideration.

I appreciate the work that’s gone into it, but I’ve had no opportunity to even consider what’s been put up here now. I’m not actually sure how outcome number two, London is a creative and cultural destination of choice for working, living, learning and recreation, is any different than the expected outcome of 2.1. I really don’t know how it’s been differentiated. And so we seem to be putting a lot in here where we don’t have strategies or metrics to measure them.

We just have expected outcomes. So without that work having happened, I’m very uncomfortable with where we are going here. Even, and so I’ll, so that I’m not just piling on Councilor Pribbles change. Even the suggestion that Councilor Frank added about the public art is that a strategy or an expected outcome.

And I think we’re really getting into the weeds, trying to throw everything into the expected outcomes rather than focus on the strategies that will get us to the higher level expected outcomes at the end of the day. So if I sound a little frustrated with colleagues right now, it’s because I am. Because I think we’ve spent a lot of time completely altering this section without a lot of advanced knowledge and now with a lot of duplication of language in there. So take that for what you will.

I will not be supporting this outcome, this section of draft outcomes going forward to the public. Because I think we’ve actually thrown everything into the pot like scrambled eggs. And now there’s so much overlap that they don’t really make sense to me as an expected outcome. We’ve got a couple of more sections to go through and then we’ve got the tabling of the strategies and we’ve got some other items on here.

So I wanna draw folks attention back to expected outcomes. We’re not dealing with individual strategies tonight and I think that’s what we’re getting into is we’re getting into the weeds of strategies rather than the outcomes. Councilor Hopkins and then Councilor Pribbles. Yeah, thank you.

And without getting into the strategies, I do want to address the changes to the core area. I know it’s outcome number four. And I do think, I appreciate the fact that it’s been divided in three. I’d like to see a capital D and a capital M but throughout.

But I do think it is important to give as much information to the public if we’re asking for comments that they understand exactly what it is. I know most people will understand that most cities have a downtown area and we give them more specific areas when we speak to the core area. So we are giving them more information and they may all have different comments to all these different parts of the core area. I’m not going to go into the strategies, the investments and the differences of each of the core areas now.

That’s for another discussion. But I just think this is a, I think it gives good information to the public. Councilor Pribbles, Councilor Palosa. Thank you and to you as the chair of this meeting, just looking at the hour and how long we’ve been sitting almost three hours straight.

Are you looking to just finish this item and take a break or just keep going through? And are you extending it past 11? I’m just looking to see what your expectations are for us for this evening as we’re in your hands or we’re revolting. I’m not sure.

It’s tired and I know I would benefit from CAF being. I think it would be appropriate to take a break. I think we can decide as a group. I have you, Councilor Pribbles and myself on the speakers list.

Let me complete those and then we’ll take a break. So Councilor Pribble, only because there were significant comments made. I want to let Councilor Pribble respond and then I’d like to take a break. So just to add it, I really thought that this, what we are going through tonight, it still be still circulated through the public.

I really didn’t think it was kind of a final and if we cannot go back to the public, there is some of the stuff that’s actually input from the, from our partners who are dealing with this, not all of it, some of it on everyday basis. There are some, there are certain things that are duplicated right now because it’s stayed there. But one thing is, with this extension actually, the strategies and the additional steps will be actually easier to determine, including the metrics and an implementation plan. So the only thing is, this was proposed for us to go through it or this.

We say, this is this partially duplicated, totally duplicated we want to, but I really expected this to go back to the public. I didn’t expect that this is the final. I really thought that this is, we are working on a four year plan and we want to kind of make it as best as possible. So we want it as much input.

So again, this wasn’t final that we are done. I would expect it goes back to the public, absolutely. And we just narrowed it down, what we think is strong, what we don’t, that was my, that was my plan. Okay, I’m going to, I have myself in the speakers, so I’m going to speak from the chair because we’re going to take a break.

So we started off the section and I think, some minor changes were made, makes a lot of sense. Honestly, and with the utmost respect, I agree with the comments that the deputy mayor made about this section expanding way too much without the ability to have a lot of thought or discussion on it. And I do understand that the council put a lot of work into it. I will be frank, I don’t know what large chunks of this mean or how to interpret it, on how it would be interpreted into strategies.

And so during the break, I certainly don’t want us to have created something that we’re not comfortable then going out with the public with, so we’re going to go through and we’re going to decide whether or not we’re including these or not. And I’m going to have a quick decision mechanism on this just so that we can move forward with something that goes back out to the public. And an option might be, well, I’m going to figure out the options of the break, but I’m uncomfortable leaving this the way that we’ve kind of developed it because it is a substantial change. So, so I’m going to leave it at that.

We’re going to take a break so people can gather their thoughts. And I will come back with a strategy for us and respond to Councilor Palosa’s question. 10 minutes or, yeah, 10 minutes. Moved by Councilor Palosa, 15.

Okay, 15. Moved by Councilor Palosa, 15 minutes. Seconded by Councilor Ferrera. All those in favor of a 15 minute break.

That motion’s carried. Just a quick question, we’re getting involved. Could I just confirm that the Councillors who’ve moved to online or are online are there and available? I see Councilor Frank good, Councilor Hillier, great.

I’ll warn you, you may need to use your cameras for the next piece because I’m going to deploy a bit of a decision making mechanism that will be a little bit faster. So I’ll describe that in a second. So we’re back to order. I want to say, I did have a good conversation with Councilor Pribble who, as he put a bunch of this information in, was doing it in part for brainstorming and allowing some options.

And so it was on his intent that we would, we would just throw all of this in and then keep it. I know we’ve recorded it at all, which is great and very effective. But what I would like to do in the economic growth and cultural and prosperity section is get some consensus on what we want to keep and what we want to not keep. I would prefer not to debate each and every one of these.

So what I was hoping we could do is, is a series of just up and down hand votes about, and only because we can do that because we don’t have anything on the floor. So we don’t have to do motions and amendments. The motion will be at the end of the day, we’re forwarding this whole thing. So we’re really just refining the document as we’ve been doing all the way along.

So some hand votes to just say, for example, London encourages equitable economic growth and diversification. So on the one side, you can see what was changed. On the other side, you can see what was there. Do you want to keep that change or not?

And so if people want to keep it, put up your hand. If you don’t put up your hand, we’re going back to the original and moving on. And we’ll do that for all the stuff in the economic section that we’ve gone through, not just council approval suggestions, but all of them. And I think that that will be a quick way for us to hopefully gain some consensus on this and get it back out to the public and focus it back down.

Does anybody object to that process? I don’t object to it, but I just want to say that like, I wouldn’t be against any one of these. It’s just a mess of them together. Yes, and so what I want to do is consolidate this down on what we want to keep now for that piece of public engagement that we’ll go out to and staff have to do the work to develop metrics or strategies on.

Remember, anything we’ve added in here, there’s an amount of staff work to improve and add the strategies as we did in the other sections. That doesn’t mean we can’t add stuff later again, but this is about what are we putting out back out for public consultation and the adjustments we’ve made. So even if we take something out now, doesn’t mean it can’t be added back in later. And the public consultation to be genuine means they might say we missed some stuff.

They might have been watching this meeting and say, you shouldn’t have taken that part out. But at least we move forward with something that we have some consensus on going back out to the public ‘cause I hear a number of councillors wanting to potentially not vote for this section, which means we would revert everything back if that failed to the how it was and we would lose any of the progress we’ve made. So I think this is the quickest way for us to capture the progress we’ve made. Get some consensus knowing that we can adjust it later.

So, Councillor ramen. Sorry, I’m through you. So if we say one, this is where I’m getting confused. Okay, so if we say outcome one, London encourages equitable and we add equitable.

If you look at 1.5, to me, I don’t see what’s the difference between adding equitable and having 1.5. I think that’s an astute observation on why we need to consolidate this. So what are you suggesting, Councillor? Thank you, through you.

I guess I’m suggesting that if we vote yes on adding equitable, we remove 1.5. Thank you. Great, so I’m gonna deal with these in order. I think that’s a great comment.

And so people can take that and do account. So just by hand, all those who wanna keep equitable in this section for the top of outcome one, just raise your hand if you wanna keep it. Okay, that is a yes, that stays then. That’s a privilege.

I was just gonna add to what Councillor Romans said, because I agreed that if you keep in one, then 1.5 is that duplicate. Okay, everybody for removing 1.5. Okay, 1.5 is gone. But who’s in favor of keeping the and not for profits piece that was added in?

If you’re okay with keeping the and not for profits piece, seven. So that stays. 1.4, you can see the original wording on the one side and the adjusted wording on the other. London is a regional center that is proactive in developing, attracting, retaining talent, business and investment.

The original was London is a regional center that proactively tracks talent, business and investment. So there’s a small wording change there. Everybody who’s okay with 1.4, the way that it’s been changed and highlighted up your hand if you’re in favor of keeping it that way. 1.4, you’re changed to 1.4.

If you want to keep the change that has been suggested, you would raise your hand. Okay, that change is not staying. So we’ll revert back to the original 1.4. 1.6, which is an addition.

London maintains its place as one of the fastest growing cities in Canada through strategic partnerships and strategic economic development. Raise your hand if you’d like to keep that addition. Okay, we’re gonna remove that addition. Okay, outcome two has two different ways of describing it.

So the original was London is a destination of choice. The change is London is a creative and cultural destination of choice. Raise your hand if you’d like to keep the creative and cultural destination of choice wording. It’s only six so that does not stay.

So it reverts the original language. 2.2, I just wanna clarify, there’s a number of 2.2s. The original’s on the one side. I think that the other 2.2, the UNESCO piece is new as well.

So if you wanna highlight that just so people can see the difference. I just want the things that were new to be highlighted. Mr. Steinberg, what I want you to do is 2.1 UNESCO City Music is recognized as a center for arts, sports and culture, just make that yellow because that was an addition, different from the original.

No, right there, that one, yes. So we have some original wording and then we have some new wording and some additions. Mr. Mayor, we’re with great respect, disagreeing with what you’re doing there.

Oh really? Was that? So that was how it was originally? We just chopped off the front end, so the highlighted 2.1 is the same as the old 2.1.

I think what’s new is the 2x, 2x that are highlighted. My mistake, I see you just removed a couple words which made me think it was different because, okay, so the addition of the first 2.x, which is London attracts and increases the number of professionals and skilled workers who view the city as a preferred location to live, work, learn, play and raise a family. If you’d like to keep that, raise your hand. Okay, that’s only four, so we’ll remove that piece.

London is an attractive, domestic and international center for creativity, culture, innovation and sport. Raise your hand if you’d like to keep that change. Okay, we’ll remove that change as well. Okay, on to outcome three.

Sometimes that happens. Outcome three has a re-wording of the title to change it to London ensures culture and creativity are essential components of urban developments by fully integrating culture and creativity into local development strategies and plans. Would you like to keep that new wording? If you do, please raise your hand.

Okay, that one goes as well, so it refers to the original language. Okay, so 3.1 changed from maybe it didn’t change. It didn’t change, 3.1 is the same. 3.2 is an addition, enhanced and increased, so there’s some wording there.

Enhanced and increased, enhanced and increased creation, production, distribution and dissemination of culture activities, goods and services, notably by involving the public and private sectors in the civil society with particular focus on film, music and arts. If you’d like to keep that addition, raise your hand. Okay, we’ll remove that addition. 3.3, improved access and participation in cultural life as well as the employment of cultural goods and services, including marginalized or vulnerable groups and individuals, notably involving the increased use of municipal and cultural spaces to develop local talent.

If you’d like to keep that piece, raise your hand. Get that piece goes as well. And 3.4, Lenin has developed hubs of creativity and innovation and broadened opportunities for creators and professionals in the cultural sector, notably including cultural exchanges with other communities domestically and internationally. Please raise your hand if you’d like to keep that strategy and that one will be removed as well.

Those are the same but need to be renumbered. Okay, so this is our adjustments to some of the language. I’m gonna deal with the one piece first and that is describing London’s core area with the bracketed downtown Midtown and East Village change. So if you’re okay with us describing it as core area, with that in brackets, raise your hand.

Okay, that one stays. So everywhere that occurred, it can stay. In the description, it also adds a line and attractive destination at the end of it, vibrant neighborhood and attractive destination. So if you’d like to keep that piece, please raise your hand.

Okay, that piece stays. Sorry, you have a question, Councillor. Go ahead, Councillor London. Thank you, just under outcome four, everyone in the bullets that then has downtown Midtown and Old East Village, is that necessary to continue that after we’ve defined it in the outcome up at the top?

I want to have the city manager and the team describe that because it may be important to the way that the strategies are developed. I think we understand that it carries through. What I was contemplating is I heard in the discussion and need to have perhaps some specific downtown strategy. So we’ll have a look, but we understand that it would carry through.

If it’s cleaner to not say it every time, that’s fine. We’ll just take on the review to make sure we’ve got the right kind of strategies for Council to consider. There’s some disagreement to this. So I think we’ll just decide.

So we haven’t added at the top in the outcome description. So if you’d like to have it everywhere, the core area is defined, so that means keep it in each and every section. Raise your hand if you’d like to keep it in each and every section. It’s not gonna stay in every section.

It is going to be in the title, but as the city manager mentioned, it’s expected that the metrics would be developed with that in mind. 4.1 adds the words and diversified, reflecting the economic activity from the core area. If you’d like to keep the words and diversified, raise your hand. Okay, that stays.

4.4, more multicultural activities, events and recreational sports activities. If you’d like to keep that, raise your hand. That one stays. The addition of 4.6, more people who don’t live downtown, come downtown.

If you’d like to keep that, raise your hand. That one goes. Although I will note, it says in the outcome, is a vibrant neighborhood and an attractive destination. So I think it’s hardly contained within the top, but that one goes.

4.7 is an addition. Increased creative placemaking through effective investment in public art. If you’d like to keep that, raise your hand. Okay, that one does not stay.

Now we’ve changed the this section. Is there any further changes to this section before I move on? Okay, let’s move to the next area. Mobility.

So we have this section on mobility, which is now called mobility and transportation, as we decided earlier. Any additions to this section are changes. Just looking online to make sure everybody has a chance there. Can you just scroll forward to make sure there’s nothing else after that?

Okay, so it’s just that 1.1 through 1.7. Sounds like you’re fine. Okay, so if everybody’s good with mobility and transportation, I’m gonna move to the next section. I’m just checking online to make sure, okay, no one’s seeing.

Climate action and sustainable growth. Nick, can you just scroll forward so we can see if there’s more than just one. Okay, so it’s just the three outcomes there. One page changes our additions to this section.

Okay, nobody has changes or additions to climate action and sustainable growth as it’s currently described. Oh, Councilor Palosa, go ahead. Thank you. In three, you staff could always clarify this one.

It’s outcome two, number 2.1. Lund is on track to her 2027 emission target, like emission reduction targets. I think the staff targets that we’ve set through Council already are just 20, 30, just looking for clarification to make sure that our numbers are aligned and we can deliver what we’ve already promised. Go to staff for that, go ahead.

Thank you through the chair. So that’s correct. So we don’t have an emission target for 2027 specifically. The climate emergency action plan did approve a community milestone target for 2030.

So we would suggest, so along the lines, we are on track to achieve a mission reduction progress by 2027 on the path to the community milestone target 2030. So you would suggest that we adjust that language to match that or are you just describing what you’re actually gonna do? That would be the most accurate language in terms of what matches the approved climate emergency action plan. Of course, completely at your discretion.

Yes, so I think the concept here, Councilor Palosa was, if I recall, it was added because that was at the end of our next multi-year budget cycle. And so we were looking to see if we were on track at that point, although we would be tracking towards the 2030 goals. So I don’t, I can go back to you, Councilor Palosa, with the staff exclamation and why I recall correctly why it was added in this 2027. Yeah, realizing I don’t believe our report necessarily says 2027 targets, and if the public goes looking for it, they’re gonna find 2030.

So just looking to change that wording to align with it. Okay, so did you want the wording of just changing it to 2030? Did you want the wording as was suggested by our staff? I’ll say you would be on target for 2027 reductions with our 2030 target to be hit.

What Ms. Ramalu has said is, it’s fine. It’s the same thing, just one’s more in depth. Okay, we’ll word that up and make sure that that’s okay.

But I think we understand the suggestion. Does anybody have any objections? Like we’ll see the final wording, but with what’s being discussed here. 2-1 or 2-1, just 2-1, just that change.

If you’re remote and you want to see that language, it says, London is on track to achieve a mission reduction progress by 2027 on the path to the community milestone target of 2030 and to be a net zero community by 2050. So it aligns with what is in our climate emergency action plan as targets in progress. Is everybody okay with that change? I see nods all around.

Okay, so we’re gonna change the language in 2.1 to that. Thank you. The other comments on climate action and sustainable growth. Councillor Trostahl.

Gee, is your microphone? I want to make sure that this captures already ongoing efforts at waste reduction. And that’s number one. Number two, talking about plain language, I’m not sure a circular economy in 1.1 or the infrastructure gap in 3.1 is well understood by people.

I just get a chuckle when I see infrastructure gap and think about the quote from the movie, we can’t afford an infrastructure gap. And I’m not sure people understand what it means. So maybe a footnote or some explanation? Okay, I think we could take that as a suggestion when the final document of the strategic plan is developed that there might be some definitions that are needed or some footnotes to describe what something actually is.

Any other comments on climate action and sustainable growth? Nobody online, okay, let’s move to the next area. Boy, you start doing handboats and we’ve served with a long, quick, well-run city. This strategic area focus, I’m looking for suggestions or additions.

Nobody, we’re good with the way well-run city is written, going continuing to be out for public consultation. Okay, what’s your name? - No. Oh, no, no, okay, Councillor Palosa.

Yeah. Thank you. I’m just thinking under outcome one, item 1.1, learners have trust and confidence in their local government. Just what did we call ourselves earlier?

We suggested municipal, and then we went with city government. It could be considered wording if we want. Like local government is still like local, we have like our local MPs, MPPs and us. So just like after our point on earlier, they’re being responsible for, we’re responsible for like their municipal government versus all the local officials at different levels of government.

So you’re looking for some, So could we just pay their municipal government? Blenders have trust and confidence in their municipal government. We’re comfortable with municipal for that one, and that the next 1.2 as well has the same language. So we’ll change it from local to municipal.

I see everybody nodding with you, Councillor Palosa. So we’ll make that change. Any other comments on well-run city? Councillor Troso.

Just that 3.3 might be a little bit redundant with the previous discussion about infrastructure. Could we comment on how that might be different from the other area on infrastructure, from strategies and planning perspective? Your worship, this was added at the last meeting by council. My understanding of it was to try and draw attention to that we take care of our facilities and manage that.

I really can’t speak to it, we didn’t. Okay, so I asked you the question, but it was our addition, that was probably my mistake. So Councillor, if you wanna suggest that it’s redundant, we take it out, I could do a hand vote on that, if that’s what you wanna suggest. Okay, so Councillor’s fine with leaving it in for the public consultation, but maybe make a note that we might tighten that up later when we have another go with this.

Any other comments on this section? Councillor Palosa. Thank you, 3.2, looking for council’s consideration of the City of London is a safe, respectful, diverse and healthy workplace, that’s it. Does anybody have any objections or concerns with the addition of the word diverse in that section?

So we’ll keep that in your language. Anything else for a well-run city? Is that the last one? Okay, strategic areas of focus.

I think I will take a general motion to put, yes. There were two things that I wanted to mention, actually there were three things I wanted to mention, two of which I’ve mentioned, one was animal welfare, which I think needs to be in here somewhere, not sure where, we’ve discussed that. And the other one was food security, which I think would go under a healthy city. And I just wanna make sure that those two points are in here someplace.

Okay, so I know you had a discussion with our staff at the break, so could we deal with food security perhaps first and get some thoughts on where you think that might go as an expected outcome or whether you feel it’s more of a strategy that supports one of these areas, Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you. In 1.9, where we talk about health equity across neighborhoods, I think that that food security could be part of the strategy since we fund foods, well, we fund food through different programs, so. Okay, so if the council is comfortable, that sounds like it could be a strategy under health equity across neighborhoods.

That’s good. You could just say that on your mic and move. That’s good. So staff will take a note of that as they, that’s an area that needs the strategies developed, so we’ll be able to see that later.

The other one, and I’m again not sure where it goes, maybe under well-being and safety, but I do want to acknowledge that we’ve had an ongoing animal welfare program that’s been very successful over the years, and animal welfare includes promoting animal welfare for our companion pets and for natural animals in the wild. And that’s a very general statement. I’m not trying to open up a debate over anything here tonight, but I think we’ve had a lot of, we’ve had the catishack over the years, we’ve had a feral catch and release program over the years, we’re now going to be funding a wonderful new entity, and there are a lot of other things that are happening. So I just think that we have an animal welfare advisory committee that is spending money on protecting birds, I mean, we’re just doing all sorts of things.

So did you have a chance to talk with our staff about where that might be appropriate to fit in with what we’ve already got? ‘Cause it looks like they’re brainstorming, so I’m gonna give them just a second. Your worship, I think what, from a staff perspective, we would suggest as an outcome that stands on its own, London continues its efforts to promote animal welfare, including companion pets and wild animals, and then we would have an expected result, improve animal welfare by encouraging more animal adoption. It’s kind of a strategy, but we need to.

We would need to work on the expected result a bit, I think, but the outcome would stand on its own, so we’ll try and get that up here so you can at least see the outcome. Okay, we can have some general thought and discussion on that as we develop kind of that language if you’re okay. Yeah, that’s just a nice placeholder for now. This next one, I’m sorry I didn’t raise this.

Before we go to that, I just wanna make sure, as we develop that, I don’t know if other people have comments on the addition of the animal welfare piece. Sure, yeah, we can vote on that addition, for sure. We’ll wait till the wording’s up and then I’ll do a vote on that. I prefer to finish this before we move to the next part, just so we don’t, because you might make a suggestion that I need our staff for.

The outcome is up, now you’re worshiped. Okay, so the outcome is, London continues to sever support animal welfare, including companion pets and wild animals. The expected outcome needs to be worked on. Any discussion on this piece, or do you just want to have a vote on it?

Okay, so if you’d like to add this as an expected outcome, I would ask you to raise your hand in support of this particular item. Yeah, that carries, that will be an expected outcome. So what’s the next item that you add? Municipalities have the ability to provide broadband services, and this has not come up.

But in the recent, in the recent few days, there’s been a lot of concern raised about what happens when we have a well-liked, local cooperative company like Star, and they get picked up by Telus. This is similar to some of the concerns that were raised over the summer regarding the, was it Bell, or was it Telus, or Rogers outage? I would like to have something in here that talks about, as part of infrastructure, we want to think about information and communications infrastructure. And it might be that we want the library to take a lead on that.

It might be we went to downtown. Anyway, I just think it’s, I’m not sure how to phrase it, or where to put it except under infrastructure, but I would like to leave a placeholder for it, because I have a feeling that over the next four years, this is going to come up as an issue that we could deal with. So Councilor, there’s two suggestions. If you’re not really sure where to put it yet, we could leave it out knowing we’re still in public consultation and you could bring it back in at the next go with the strategic areas of focus.

I think with what you’re describing, there’s a few models out there that other cities have pursued like Stratford and others with a provision of either internet or broadband service, either through their utility or a spin off of their utility. That, I wouldn’t want to necessarily wing that as an expected outcome given that would be a substantive change. So I think you’ve raised the point. I just wonder if you want to try to shoehorn it in now, or do you want to think more about that and come back with a suggestion when we go at the strategic areas of focus again?

Turn it on. I’ll take guidance from the staff here in terms of where it best fits, but I just think I made a placeholder tonight and I want to come back and discuss this more, but I’d love to have a poem for it. Go ahead. Your worship in the strategy document, we have something related to technology with respect to outcome three, expected result 3.2 under climate action and sustainable growth.

So 3.2 says infrastructure is built, maintained and secured to support future growth and protect the environment. The strategies we have written are largely from a municipal perspective versus a technology company in our community perspective. So I just want to understand, so I would suggest that’s where a strategy would go and just want to understand the focus of it. Go ahead, Councillor.

I’ll undertake to write up a few paragraphs and send to you in terms of why I think this is a proper municipal issue and is going to be something we need to deal with regarding digital divide issues. Certainly, your worship, I didn’t mean to imply I didn’t think it was a municipal issue. I was just trying to say what we’d already written in terms of a strategy and I’m just trying to get the perspective. So I’m hearing that it needs to be a digital connectivity infrastructure for the community issue.

Okay, I think we’ve got it. If I could add some context. The Councillor doesn’t need to do any homework. Oh, perfect, yes.

And if I, I’m just going to put myself on the speakers list given there’s no one else. So I think also if you think about the actions we’ve taken as a community from a technology standpoint, when the SWIFT network and the build out of the broadband network across the province, we identified ourselves as a hub for that network in a backbone for the infrastructure. And yet we still have challenges and I know Councillor Ramen would agree with me and there are parts even in our city that have no access to reliable internet without, because they’re simply live in a part of the city that is remote and mainstream providers aren’t looking to do that. So our engagement as a municipality with those partners and those investments to build out the broadband network to rural communities.

There’s a piece here about the parts of our urban center that are under serviced by broadband that I think is critical. So I think the Councillor’s making a stew point about the industry and the way it’s evolving, but we also know we have challenges in the city and we’ve also aligned ourselves. So I would add that piece and that context as well that might fit into the development of a strategy. I’ll go to Councillor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you, your worship for mentioning that, especially specifically to Londoners. I know in my ward, and for those who are familiar with Ward 9, we have gaps of the infrastructure there. We still have dial up service in the community and as we rely on technology, the importance of making sure this infrastructure is available, not only in our city, but in our rural community as well. So really pleased this is coming forward.

Okay, so we’re gonna kind of leave that for development, but that is a good flag for everybody that will probably be having a discussion about that addition in a future iteration of our go at the strategic areas of focus. Is everybody good for the strategic areas of focus? Then I don’t know if the clerk has drafted up a motion to, so there is a motion drafted. So the motion that I’m gonna look for us to move is that the attached revised, which is the digital copy, draft strategic areas of focus, outcomes, and expected results be shared with the community to continue to seek feedback.

So we’ve made some adjustments. We’re gonna continue to seek feedback. That’s the motion to have a mover. Oh, sorry, before I get that mover, Councillor ramen.

Okay, I’m willing to move it. I’m just wondering if I could also friendly amend to include some editing. So do we need to have, you just wanted our staff to take a go through for editing of the document in general? Through you.

I just worry that it’s a bit bigger than just a setting, just from some of the things that we have in there that I just worry that we need some more cleaning up before we send it out, that’s all. Sorry, were you looking to me? I’m looking to you now. Yes.

Certainly we can undertake that. Our intention had been to try and post by Thursday. I don’t know whether we’d be able to get it clean up. We’ll do our best to get it to A place.

Can I say that? We’ll get it to A place so that we can still post by Thursday so the public can comment. And then we can kind of quietly work behind the scenes at it. They’re comfortable with that.

Okay, so we’ll leave the motion as is then knowing that there’ll be a slight cleanup of some of the language, especially since we’ve made some adjustments on the fly. I know there’s a more substantial cleanup that will come eventually before this is put in final document. We will have it go through. Given we’re doing public feedback, I think it could be a little bit rougher around the edges, but we’ll do a tidy up.

So who’s willing to move that motion as I described it, Councilor Raman, seconded by Councilor Cuddy. Any discussion on that? Okay, that’s gonna open for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 13 to zero.

Okay, just a little cleanup. We need a motion to receive the staff report that we got tonight on the strategic plan report and presentation moved by Councilor Hopkins, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis. Any discussion on that? That’ll open as soon as it’s finished being drafted in the system.

Councilor Pribble. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 13 to zero. Okay, the next motion I need is on 4.3, which is that on the recommendation of the city manager, the report with respect to developing the 2023 to 2027 strategic plan community engagement update be received for information. Moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councilor Hopkins.

Any discussion on that? Okay, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 13 to zero. The next area is developing Council’s strategic plan.

The tabling of the draft strategies, as was mentioned before, this is meant to be a tabling. This is the first time we’ve seen it. We’re not expected to debate it or necessarily change it. Tabling means we can now have it out for public consultation and feedback.

And we’ll have a certainly a chance to go at this. So I would look for a motion that reads that on the recommendation of the city manager, the report with respect to developing the 2023 to 2027 strategic plan tabling draft strategies be received for information. Moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councilor Ferreira. Any discussion on that piece?

Seeing none, we will open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 13 to zero. 4.5 is a resignation from the London Police Services Board. Oh, sorry, I’m not done yet.

I apologize, Mr. Mayor. I would just like to conclude with what are next steps so everyone can have a very clear understanding of those and expectations are shared. So just to be very clear, we are going to kick off the third phase of the engagement, which will include all of the work that Council did this evening, as well as the strategies that have been tabled.

We will do our best to post that Thursday. Cleanup takes a bit longer Friday. So that’s when we will begin. Also, this is the period of time where many of you have your ward or town hall meetings.

I put out the offer, if there are any Councillors that wish to do one and haven’t scheduled one and would like our assistance, please just let us know. We will meet with all of the community advisory committees. We will be sending out conversation toolkit to all of the organizations we have relationships with to encourage people to respond. And we have added an open house for the middle of February if people wish to participate.

So that’s the engagement piece. For February 28th, on the regular agenda, you will receive the work you did this evening, the strategies, the new strategies that had to be developed based on the direction tonight, you will see that as well, along with the order of magnitude costing to give you a sense of help you in your decision making with respect to those strategies, what the kind of dollar sign price tag might be for those, as well as an initial review of the draft metrics. So a lot of material for Council to consider and debate that evening. And then just a reminder.

So I would suggest that if you think this evening was heavy, the February 28th will be a heavy discussion, a lot of material to go through that evening and then based on your direction, any further changes heading towards the March 8th, public participation meeting and heading towards a finalized plan, hopefully by the end of March, early April. This is just reiterating the engagement and a very sincere thank you for the work this evening and also maybe just a little applause for my friend next Steinberg here who has done, I think, a pretty good job of keeping up with all the changes this evening. Yes, and let me add on behalf of Council, our thanks to not just Nick but the entire team for supporting our efforts today, we really appreciate it. Now onto 4.5, which is a resignation from the London Police Services Board.

I’d look for a mover of the following motion that the following action is to be taken with respect to the London Police Services Board. A, the communication date of January 25th, 2023 from S Toth be received. B, the resignation of Susan Toth from the London Police Services Board be accepted, effective January 31st, 2023 and the city be directed to. Okay, so we need to fill in that part.

So there’s two pieces of the information and I’m looking for some direction. Councilor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you. Happy to approve and accept Susan Toth’s resignation.

I know we’ve all received her very thoughtful letter. I would like to add a direction following her letter. We know the police service board is an important board. It’s a functioning board at the moment and we need to do these appointments slowly and carefully.

And I would like to give direction to staff to reach out to the Black and Indigenous community organizations including our anti-racism and anti-oppression offices that we have at the city and other areas to accept applications to be brought back and to be added to the applications that we already have. I know the clerk has some wording there but I’m hoping that we can, I can get support from council. Well, I know you spoke to the clerk earlier. I wanna read the wording to make sure you’re okay with it ‘cause it’s a little bit just slightly different than the way you articulated it.

The C would be that the city clerk be directed to advertise in the usual manner to solicit applications for the appointment to the police services board with applications to be brought forward to a future meeting of the strategic priorities and policy committee for consideration. It being noted that the process promoting board commission and committee applications has expanded to include circulations by people services and the anti-racism and anti-oppression unit. So just it being noted about, we do have an expanded circulation process that we’ve discussed as a council and noting what it is as part of that particular motion. So you’re willing to move all of those.

Yes, that is our process. Thank you. Okay, seconded by, oh, Councilor Raman. So moved to seconded discussion, Councilor Trossa.

Yes, and I appreciate the motion and I fully support it. I think we need to add to it a little bit because I want the public to understand. I want this council to understand that this is not a typical board and commission appointment where yes, we try to broadly circulate the announcement to many different groups that we work with. Yes, yes, and we’ll send it to this committee and that committee.

There is specific implications to this appointment. There are new statements coming in in the Comprehensive Ontario Police Services Act 2019. We have to approve a diversity plan to ensure that members of the municipal board appointed by the municipality are representative of the diversity. So this isn’t just something that we, you know, send the memo and check the box.

This is a very serious matter and I think that there are enforceable human rights obligations here. So I’d also like to maybe add a little bit of additional language to it being noted regarding the language that she has very, very thoughtfully bolded in 28 subdivision one and section 29 subdivision one because I think it needs to be understood that this is not a regular type of appointment anymore. This has very grave circumstances, very grave implications if we don’t do this correctly. And I’ll just refer to the footnotes in her letter which I think can be very productably just be incorporated into it being noted closes.

I want the public to know that this new legislation is there. So we’re already receiving her communication but you want to add another it being noted with something, so all of the clauses that are there? Like I’m just wondering what you’re trying to accomplish. So there’s two pieces here, Councilor, there’s the recruitment and solicitation of the applications which will come back to us and then we’ll make the appointment which I think the resolutions that Ms.

Toth as indicated at the end of her letter refer to the way the Council would think or consider its appointment. So I guess I wonder what you want to include in Council’s direction to do the circulation piece. I think we have to go beyond our normal methods of circulation here and not wait for the application to come back. Do you feel that’s already included in your motion?

The new circulation does include circulations by both people services at the corporation as well as the anti-racism and anti-oppression unit. And we can have our staff describe what that actually entails if that would be helpful. I’m just, I’m happy to consider an addition. I just, you know, the wording, you know, we need the wording for that.

Well, the language in section 29, subdivision one, says including racialized groups in First Nation into it and mentee communities. It’s right there in the statute. The clerk can describe how we use the ARA unit to reach out to the specific groups that you’re mentioning in that clause. Thank you through the chair.

Through our Human Resources People Services division here and also the anti-racism and anti-oppression unit, they are able to circulate far more broadly than the city clerk’s offices. They have connections within community groups and with organizations and are able to circulate the information more broadly on our behalf. So that’s the approach that we take with all of our applications as we open them up now. If there’s specific organizations, those would need to be identified for us.

I want to flag that if the application pool comes back and it’s not diverse, we’re under an obligation to continue with a search. We can’t say nobody of that group applying. And I think that’s the point that she’s making. I have Councillor Ramen on the speaker’s list.

Thank you and through you. I’m not sure if Councillor Hawkins would consider, but I’d take a friendly amendment on aligning with the Comprehensive Ontario Police Service Act 2019. Just want to make sure that we can do that with, because we’re giving direction for the circulation. I’m happy to add that in, but not sure if it’s needed.

So we can add that in. I note in Ms. Toss’ letter that she identifies that the legislative requirements of the Act aren’t enforced yet and we’re circulating to those groups. So I mean, the way that it’s been drafted is and in alignment with the Comprehensive Ontario Police Services Act 2019, which given where our anti-racism and anti-oppression unit already circulates to, they’re including those, but I just want to make sure we word this the way that you want.

So I’ll go back to Councillor Ramen. Thank you through you. I think it addresses the reasonable steps taken because that’s what we’re trying to address, right? Is that the municipality shall take reasonable steps to promote the availability of the appointment to members of.

So it may seem redundant in a sense, but if, for instance, there was an analysis of the process. Did we go out and do that? We did it in alignment with. I think that’s what I’m trying to address, thank you.

Okay, I think that, so perhaps we use that language then to take the reasonable steps to promote the availability of the appointment to historically underrepresented groups, which is language identified in the Act. Is that what you want as an, if being noted or the Act referenced? Thank you and through you. I’m comfortable summing it up through representation of the legislation in the Act.

I understand where we are with the Act, but I’m just saying because we are trying to align to something, so I think it shows that we’re aligning to somewhere. Your worship just a point of order. We have three minutes before we need a motion to extend past 11 p.m. We have two other items and, you know, I appreciate what the Councillors are trying to communicate.

But again, I think we want to be careful about trying to wordsmith on the fly, particularly when it’s in the communication dated from the outgoing chair. So I’m going to move a motion right now that we extend past our 11 p.m. time because we need to finish the two items that are still on our agenda after this. So moved to extend beyond 11 p.m.

Seconded by Councillor Troso. There’s a motion in the system, so I’m going to do this one by hand. So all those in favor of extending. Motion’s passed.

Back to you, Councillor ramen, ‘cause that was kind of a point of the order. And in the middle of what you were saying. I’m satisfied, go ahead with whatever the vote is. Okay, Councillor, what we’re going to do is note section 29-1, just as a note, because that’s the section that refers to the circulation part of the appointment, right?

Which is the part we’re doing now. And that’s the piece that says, the municipality shall take reasonable steps to promote the availability of the appointment to members of demographic groups that have been historically underrepresented and complete services boards, including racialized groups and First Nations in you and Métis communities. So that is, so if you refresh your screen, I think we’ve got that specific reference in the motion now, as in it being noted at the end. Any other comments on the motion as it’s crafted?

We’re going to open that for voting then. Mine is frozen, I’m voting yes. Thank you, closing the vote. The motion’s passed, 13 to zero.

Okay, 4.6 is a resolution from the Ecological Community Advisory Committee from its January 24th meeting. I’m going to let the clerk explain this particular item is about. Thank you through the chair. This item is before you with respect to part subsection two where the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee be requested to appoint Dr.

Eric Dusenge, a previous member of the Environmental and Ecological Planning Advisory Committee to fill the vacancy with a term ending concurrent with other members of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee. So with that subsection there, that’s before you for consideration. So that’s in your regular agenda. It would have been page 43, which is a letter from the clerk referencing the delegation from the chair of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee.

So we need a motion if council wants to consider that or if you want to do something different, we could also consider that as well. Clerk might add some additional context. Thank you through the chair. You may recall that the Planning and Environment Committee received a delegation from the chair of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee.

And in that presentation it was noted that there was the resignation of a member and that’s noted in part A and that the chair had requested of the committee that Dr. Dusenj be appointed. That’s the context for you. Moved by, so the appointment moved by, oh, I’ll let you speak.

I saw your hand first, but then you pointed to Councillor Hopkins. Councillor Hopkins, go ahead. I saw the deputy mayor’s hand go up there, so I will refer to him. Deputy Mayor Lewis, sorry, I’m just prepared to move the motion.

So I wasn’t sure whether Councillor Hopkins was offering a second or to speak to it, but I’m prepared to move the motion. I will second, I know it’s getting my hand. The motion is moved and seconded. It’s loaded in the system.

It has two parts to it because I believe we’re also accepting the resolution letter and then appointing the individual to the committee for a term ending February 2024. Any discussion? We can open that for voting. Closing the vote, that motion’s passed 12 to one.

Okay, we are on 4.7 municipal council resolution from its meeting held January 24th with respect to the integrated transportation advisory committee. There’s an added letter from Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councillor Raman. Perhaps I will go to one of the two of you, Deputy Mayor. Well, I think the letter’s pretty self-explanatory.

I’m prepared to move the motion that we included in the letter. I’m sure that Councillor Raman is happy to back me up on that one. This comes back to one advisory committee cannot recommend for all, but this motion will address the concerns that have been raised by multiple advisory committees about their hybrid meeting opportunities. Yes, so the motion is contained moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Raman.

It says that the following actions be taken with respect to the resolution from its meeting held January 24th, 2023 with respect to the integrated transportation community advisory committee. A civic administration be directed to make the necessary arrangements for hybrid meeting accommodations for all community advisory committees, allowing members to attend virtually or in person as they individually choose no later than the end of Q2, 2023. B civic administration be requested to develop a standing delegation at standing committee meetings for each community advisory committee and C the civic administration be requested to investigate and report back to the ITCAC with respect to a Zoom license for the ITCAC subcommittee use. Any discussion or questions?

Okay, duly moved and seconded. We’ll open that for voting. Opposing the vote, the motion’s passed 13 to zero. Okay, that brings us to the end of the items for direction deferred matters in additional business.

I don’t see any. I’ll look for a motion to adjourn by Councillor Hopkins, seconded by Councillor Ferrera. We will do that by hand. All those in favor of adjournment?

That motion’s carried. Okay, we’re adjourned. Thank you for your time today.