May 28, 2024, at 1:00 PM

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The meeting is called to order at 1:00 PM; it being noted that Councillors S. Stevenson, P. Van Meerbergen and S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That Consent items 2.1 to 2.3 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

2.1   Request for a Shareholder’s Meeting - Housing Development Corporation (HDC)

2024-05-28 Submission - Request for Shareholders Meeting-HDC

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder for the Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC):

a)      the 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder for the Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC) BE HELD at a meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on June 18, 2024, for the purpose of receiving the report from the Board of Directors of the Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC) in accordance with the Shareholder Declaration and the Business Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.16; and,

b)      the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to provide notice of the 2023 Annual Meeting to the Board of Directors for the Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC) and to invite the President and CEO and the Board/Chair to attend at the Annual Meeting and present the report of the Board in accordance with the Shareholder Declaration;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated April 22, 2024, from M. Feldberg, President and CEO, Housing Development Corporation, London, with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

2.2   2023-2027 Implementation Plan: 2024 Update

2024-05-28 Staff Report - 2023-2027 Implementation Plan Update

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That on the recommendation of the City Manager, the report, including the updated 2023-2027 Implementation Plan, BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

2.3   5th Report of the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee

2024-05-28 Submission - DIACAC Report

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 5th Report of the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee from it’s meeting held on May 9, 2024:

a)  the ability to have a formal introduction of potential candidates for the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee (DIACAC) BE REFERRED to the Governance Working Group for inclusion with the review of the DIACAC Terms of Reference; and

b) clauses 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 6.1 and 7.1 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Not to be heard before 1:05 PM - London Hydro Inc. - 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions

2024-05-28 Staff Report - AGM - London Hydro

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Lehman

That the following actions be taken with respect to London Hydro Inc.:

a)  the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated May 28, 2024 as Appendix “A” entitled “A by-law to ratify and confirm the Annual Resolutions of the Shareholder of London Hydro Inc.” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held June 4, 2024;

b)  the presentation by V. Sharma, CEO and C. Graham, Board Chair, London Hydro Inc., BE RECEIVED;

c)  the 2023 Annual Report on Finance BE RECEIVED; and

d)  the communication from London Hydro Inc. regarding the Election of Directors BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by J. Morgan

That pursuant to section 36.3 of the Council Procedure By-law, London Hydro Inc. BE PERMITTED to speak an additional 5 minutes with respect to the London Hydro Inc. presentation and 2023 Annual Report.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by J. Pribil

That pursuant to section 31.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, Councillor S. Stevenson BE PERMITTED to speak an additional 5 minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Failed (6 to 9)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the following actions be taken with respect to London Hydro Inc. 2023 General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions:

a)       the proposed by-law BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee for consideration; and

b)       Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to retain a forensic accountant to confirm London Hydro Inc.’s statement that there has been no change in how London Hydro discloses the fair value of the debt as of December 31, 2022 and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee.

it being noted the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal report from V. Sharma, CEO London Hydro and Connie Graham, Chair London Hydro Inc.’s Board of Directors.

Motion Failed (3 to 12)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That pursuant to section 35.10 of the Council Procedure By-law, the Committee decision with respect to London Hydro Inc. BE RECONSIDERED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the following actions be taken with respect to London Hydro Inc. 2023 General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions:

a)       the proposed by-law BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee for consideration; and

b)       Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to retain a forensic accountant to confirm London Hydro Inc.’s statement that there has been no change in how London Hydro discloses the fair value of the debt as of December 31, 2022 and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee.

it being noted the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal report from V. Sharma, CEO London Hydro and Connie Graham, Chair London Hydro Inc.’s Board of Directors.

Motion Failed (2 to 13)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Request for Delegation Status - Kendra Frye, Associate, Trinity Centres Foundation - Creative Sector Incubation Hub Business Plan

2024-05-28 Submission - Creative Sector Incubation Hub

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by J. Morgan

That the following actions be taken with respect to the presentation dated May 28, 2024, Creative Sector Incubation Hub - Trinity Centres Foundation Business Plan:

a)    the presentation from the Trinity Centres Foundation on behalf of St. Paul Cathedral, Creative Sector Incubation Hub Business Plan BE RECIEVED;

b)    Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to appoint a municipal lead to support the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) grant application, it being noted that no financial contribution will be made by the City toward the FCM grant application;

it being noted that when feasible, expediting the permitting and re-zoning processes for housing, outdoor activations, and the creative hub may be considered by Civic Administration;

it being further noted the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal delegation from K. Frye, Associate, Trinty Centres Foundation - Creative Sector Incubation Hub Business Plan.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by P. Cuddy

The delegation request from K. Frye, Associate, Trinity Centres Foundation be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by J. Morgan

That the following actions be taken with respect to the presentation dated May 28, 2024, Creative Sector Incubation Hub - Trinity Centres Foundation Business Plan:

a)    the presentation from the Trinity Centres Foundation on behalf of St. Paul Cathedral, Creative Sector Incubation Hub Business Plan BE RECIEVED;

b)    Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to appoint a municipal lead to support the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) grant application, it being noted that no financial contribution will be made by the City toward the FCM grant application;

it being noted that when feasible, expediting the permitting and re-zoning processes for housing, outdoor activations, and the creative hub may be considered by Civic Administration;

it being further noted the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal delegation from K. Frye, Associate, Trinty Centres Foundation - Creative Sector Incubation Hub Business Plan.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.2   Future Planning and Growing Hydro Requirements for the Homebuilding Industry

2024-05-28 Submission - LHBA-J. Zaifman

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the communication from J. Zaifman, CEO, London Home Builders’ Association with respect to Future Planning and Growing Hydro Requirements for the Homebuilding Industry BE RECEIVED; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication date May 22, 2024 from J. Vanderbaan, Vice President, Operations & Planning, London Hydro Inc. with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.3   10th Report of the Governance Working Group

2024-05-28 Submission - GWG Report

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 10th Report of the Governance Working Group from its meeting held on May 13, 2024:

a)   the following actions be taken with respect to the report dated May 13, 2024, Council Policy: Remuneration of Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members:

i)    the office space, technology, and ward expense allowances BE REMOVED from the scope of this review of Council Compensation;

ii)    a Councillor Job Description Subcommittee BE FORMED and tasked with creating a draft job description for consideration at the June 24, 2024 meeting of the Governance Working Group; and

iii)   that Councillors J. Pribil, A. Hopkins, and Councillor C. Rahman BE APPOINTED to the sub-committee; it being noted that Councillor C. Rahman will serve as Chair of the subcommittee;

b)   the following actions be taken with respect to the Deferred Matters List dated May 13, 2024:

i)   the Deferred Matters List BE RECEIVED; 

ii)   the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to include in the updated General Policy for Community Advisory Committees that all community advisory committee appointments beginning or mid-term be considered by the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee; and

iii)   the delegation request from Bill Brock BE REFERRED to the June 24, 2024 meeting of the Governance Working Group for consideration;

c)   clause 1.1 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.4   Resignation from the Committee of Revision/Court of Revision

2024-05-28 Submission - Resignation from Committee Revision House-D. Millar

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Committee of Revision/Court of Revision:

a)  the communication dated May 7, 2024 from D. Millar BE RECEIVED;

b)  the resignation from D. Millar from the Committee of Revision/Court of Revision BE ACCEPTED; and

c)  the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to advertise in the usual manner to solicit applications for appointment to the Committee of Revision/Court of Revision, with applications to be brought forward to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee for consideration.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.5   Eldon House

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Eldon House Board of Directors:

a)  the communication dated May 7, 2024 from D. Millar BE RECEIVED;

b)  the resignation of Don Millar and Doug Fleming from Eldon House Board of Directors BE ACCEPTED;

c)  the communication dated May 17, 2024 from J. O’Neil, Interim Chair, Board Treasurer and M. Halliday, Board Secretary, Eldon House BE RECEIVED; and

d)  the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to delay the advertisement to the Eldon House Board until September 2024; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated May 17, 2024 from J. O’Neil, Interim Chair, Board Treasurer and M. Halliday, Board Secretary, Eldon House with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.6   London & Middlesex Community Housing

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the London & Middlesex Community Housing:

a) the resignation of John Corboy from the London & Middlesex Community Housing Board of Directors BE ACCEPTED;

b) Sara Pineros BE APPOINTED as First Class Member to the London & Middlesex Community Housing Board of Directors for the term ending December 31, 2026; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication date May 16, 2024 from P. Squire, Board Chair, Board of Directors, London & Middlesex Community Housing with respect to this matter; and

c) the application from S. Pineros BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

4.7   Resignation of Councillor D. Ferreira from RBC Place London Board of Directors

2024-05-28 Submission - Resignation from RBC Place London-D Ferreira

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to appointments to the RBC Place London Board:

a) the resignation of Councillor D. Ferreira, from RBC Place London Board BE ACCEPTED; and

b) the selection of a Councillor Member to fill the current vacancy on RBC Place London Board BE REFERRED to the next meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated May 16, 2024 from Councillor D. Ferreira with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.8   Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group Selection (Requires 5 Council Members)

2024-05-28 Submission - SORWG Selection

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the following Council Members BE APPOINTED to the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group Selection for the term ending November 14, 2026:

Deputy Mayor S. Lewis

Councillor P. Cuddy

Councillor S. Stevenson

Councillor C. Rahman

Councillor S. Lehman

it being noted that Councillor E. Peloza was appointed as Chair and Councillor J. Pribil was appointed as Vice Chair by Mayoral Decision 2024-006.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.9   Consideration of Appointments to the London Community Advisory Committees

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Community Advisory Committees:

a) the following individuals BE APPOINTED as Voting Members to the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025:

  • Linda Armstrong

  • Ann Hayes

  • Miriam Love

b) the following individuals BE APPOINTED as Voting Members to the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025:

  • Stephen D Amelio

  • Devinder Luthra

  • Leah Thomas Gray

  • Chantal Kamgne Tagatzi

c) the following individuals BE APPOINTED as Voting Members to the Ecological Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025:

  • Nicholas Allen

  • Lela Burt

  • Susan Howard

  • Manuel Spiller

d) the following individuals BE APPOINTED as Voting Members to the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025;

  • Andrea Butnari

  • Nicole Karsch

  • Lauralee Bushan Jazey

e) the following individual BE APPOINTED as a Voting Member to the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025:

  • Leah Thomas Gray

ADDTIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following individuals BE APPOINTED as Voting Members to the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025:

Linda Armstrong

Ann Hayes

Miriam Love

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Consideration of appointments to the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee (1).

Majority Winner: Stephen D Amelio; Devinder Luthra; Leah Thomas Gray; Chantal Kamgne Tagatzi

Consideration of appointments to the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee (2).

Majority Winner: Devinder Luthra; Stephen D Amelio; Leah Thomas Gray; Chantal Kamgne Tagatzi

Consideration of appointments to the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee (3).

Majority Winner: Devinder Luthra; Stephen D Amelio; Leah Thomas Gray; Chantal Kamgne Tagatzi

Consideration of appointments to the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee (4).

Majority Winner: Devinder Luthra; Stephen D Amelio; Chantal Kamgne Tagatzi; Leah Thomas Gray

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following individuals BE APPOINTED as Voting Members to the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025:

Stephen D Amelio    

Devinder Luthra        

Leah Thomas Gray    

Chantal Kamgne Tagatzi

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the following individuals BE APPOINTED as Voting Members to the Ecological Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025:

Nicholas Allen

Lela Burt

Susan Howard

Manuel Spiller

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Consideration of appointments to the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee (1).

Majority Winner: Nicole Karsch; Andrea Butnari; Lauralee Bushan Jazey

Consideration of appointments to the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee (2).

Majority Winner: Andrea Butnari; Lauralee Bushan Jazey; Nicole Karsch

Consideration of appointments to the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee (3).

Majority Winner: Nicole Karsch; Andrea Butnari; Lauralee Bushan Jazey

Consideration of appointments to the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee (4).

Majority Winner: Andrea Butnari; Nicole Karsch; Lauralee Bushan Jazey

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the following individuals BE APPOINTED as Voting Members to the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025;

Andrea Butnari   

Nicole Karsch    

Lauralee Bushan Jazey

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Consideration of appointment to the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee.

Majority Winner: Leah Thomas Gray

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Lewis

Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee

That the following individual BE APPOINTED as a Voting Member to the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee for the term ending March 31, 2025:

Leah Thomas Gray

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   (ADDED) RBC Place London General Manager and CEO Appointment

2024-05-28 Submission - RBC Place

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Lehman

That Darrin Pollard BE APPOINTED as the General Manager and CEO to the London Convention Centre Corporation, operating as RBC Place London as of July 1, 2024; it being noted that Strategic Priorities Policy Committee received a communication dated May 16, 2024 from S. Judd, Chair, RBC Place London Board of Directors with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

6.   Confidential

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by P. Cuddy

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes in Closed Session to consider the following:

6.1   Solicitor-Client Privilege

A matter pertaining to advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose with respect to the motion to refer the London Hydro Inc. 2023 General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions to a future meeting of Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee and direction to retain a forensic accountant to confirm London Hydro Inc.’s financial statement related to fair value of debt as of December 31, 2022.

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

The Committee convenes In Closed Session, from 2:48 PM to 3:19 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 5:13 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 (3 hours, 56 minutes)

Good afternoon, everyone. It is 1 p.m., and I’m gonna call the 10th meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to Order. City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, the Haudenosaunee, the Lene Peiwak, and Adawanderin, and we honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. The City of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, and as representatives of the people of the City of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory.

The City of London is also committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. And to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC at London.ca or phone 519-661-2489, extension 2425. Colleagues, I am going to begin by looking for any disclosures of pecuniary interest on today’s agenda. Seeing none, then we will move right along to the consent agenda.

I’m gonna look to see if colleagues wish anything dealt with separately. Seeing none, then I’m gonna look for a mover and a seconder for the consent agenda, moved by Councillor Cuddy and seconded by Councillor Palosa. We will now look for any questions or comments on the consent agenda items. Councillor Preble.

Thank you, Chair, and so to chair to the staff. I do have some questions regarding 2.2, which is the implementation plan. And thank you, by the way, there was quite a bit of work done on it, certainly since last time when we had the preliminary report, but I wanted to ask you, how will this be implemented into our daily weekly life in terms of the management and staff? Because currently we do have the matrix and we do have the actions.

And I just want to, if I look at some of the actions we have, they are tied to the matrix. So we do have certain goals, targets per year. But then we have certain actions that are not tied to the matrix and it says very often, annual ongoing. And I just want to see now the question is what I started with, how will it be implemented to our daily lives within our departments?

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I’m going to go to Ms. Dater’s beer and I recognize that that was a fairly lengthy question.

And I’m wondering if you and Mr. Fowler might want to actually take this opportunity to give us a sort of a high level overview as you respond to that. Certainly through you, Chair. Thank you for the question and thank you for the opportunity to talk a little bit about Council’s strat plan and the work that we will do as civic administration and partnership with you to implement this.

And I think this report in front of you speaks to the implementation plan, a plan that was updated to reflect the commitments that you made as part of your MIB process. So in terms of your question as it relates to how will we do the things that are both ongoing and annualized versus the ones that are more specific and with timelines associated with it? This is the strat plan that you’ve set. These are the directions you’ve given us as staff to move forward on your behalf to do the work that you expect us to do for this city.

Our job will be to ensure that we reframe or frame our work so that we do implement these activities. So whether it’s something that we do already and it’s ongoing, we will continue to do that. If it’s a new initiative or something different that you’ve identified for us or we’ve identified together, we will work those into our work plans as well. So ultimately, we’re being held accountable for the work that’s identified here and the implementation plan reflects how we’ll do that.

And did we have anything from Mr. Fowler that you wanted to add to that? And through the like chair, the only thing that I would add to Mr. Bier’s comments is that in the progress report that Council will be receiving this November, we will be reporting on all action items.

So both action items and the various metrics. Thank you, Mr. Fowler and Councilor Pribble. I will go back to you to see if there’s a follow-up.

I do want to let colleagues know now I can confirm through the clerks that Councilor Stevenson, Hillier and Van Merberg are joining us remotely. And we’ll go to you Councilor Pribble. Thank you chair. And I do have follow-up.

The ones that we have ongoing annual, how will it be, because I think the implementation plan is important corporate initiative and it keeps us on track. It keeps us on track with the deadlines, with the accountability and the ones that are annual. That’s the part overall, as I said, very positive right direction. But I’m missing the deadlines and specific ones.

Because I do believe that each individual based on these strategic plans, every manager, every senior leadership team member should have their goals tied to these strategies. And again, we are doing annual, there’s a four-year strategic plan, but on the other hand, as far as I know, everyone has annual goals, annual targets. And this is the part that I don’t want to miss out on, that we are kind of, I would like to see these ones develop more into the details, into the quarters, into the month. Is this going to be reflected into the work plans?

And that’s the only one I have concerns with this, to first to stay on track and to be able to evaluate heavy accomplished to our goals, heavy accomplished to our targets. And with ongoing annual, that will not help us much. Thank you. This data is here.

Thank you, through you, Chair. I appreciate the question and the complexities of a strat plan identifying both those priorities that Council wants to implement, but also the ongoing work that’s required to run an organization to provide the services to citizens and this community. There are many activities, you’re right, that you will see that identifies annual ongoing. I use, as an example, I’ll use one from 3.2, review implement qualifications and update job descriptions using the equity tool.

That is something that we will do ongoing as part of our work. That would be in somebody’s work plan within this organization. It would be responsible ability of that person to do it, be the responsibility of their manager, to ensure that’s being done, responsibility of their director and their DCM, to ensure that those activities are met. I can assure you that in the work that we do as public servants and the work that we’re held accountable to, including by me as a city manager, that that work is done.

And it is part of the operational plans that we develop and also the personal performance plans that each are that are developed for our staff. Council Purple? Thank you, and last question right, I think it’s the last one. How will we determine then on the annual ongoing and that if they are not attached to the matrix, how are we going to determine if we are on track and if we accomplished it?

Ms. Dator-Spier. Thank you, through you, Chair. Our job as Mr.

Fowler has indicated will be to come back to you twice a year to provide you with update. If there are areas where we are not achieving the requirements that we indicated we would do that, we will let you know in advance. If that includes also areas of our, what I would call our routine or regular work, that there are any challenges, or if there anything that would keep us from doing that, we’ll advise you of that as well. We want to respect, though, your role as governance in this reality and our role as administrators in doing the work that’s required of us.

Council Purple? I will have no more questions. I will make a comment. I do hope that what was mentioned before, that in terms of the work plans, and then they will be more into the details, reflected with the deadlines for each department.

And actually, I do have a question. The work plans, is it my right understanding that they will go kind of into the more detail, one more step beyond the implementation plan and actions, is that my understanding, correct? Ms. Dater-Spier?

Through you, Mr. Chair. I believe the answer to your question, if I understood it correctly, Councillor is yes. So with the senior leadership team or the DCMs and other members of SLT, the requirements of this draft plan are tied to our performance plans within our performance system.

So at least at our level, they’re tied to it. From that, I think your question was whether or not we’ll report back on that. I think I did answer that earlier by saying we would, and maybe I’ve missed your question a little further. You can explain again.

Councillor? No, thank you. It wasn’t actually report back. There was that your colleague made a comment about the work plans, about the specific work plans.

So I just want to make sure, if they are kind of going into more detail, beyond the actions and matrix of the implementation plan. Okay, looking for any further questions or comments. Seeing none, that I’m gonna ask the clerks to open the vote on this. Councillor Stevenson.

No, yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Moving along, our next item is a scheduled item, and it is the annual shareholders presentation to council from London Hydro.

So Councillor Ramen. Thank you. Would this be the correct time to look for a time extension for London Hydro’s presentation of an additional five minutes? It absolutely would be the appropriate time.

They would give their shareholders five minutes, but if an additional five is needed in noting that you’re our representative on the board, if that’s required, now is the time. Thank you, I’d like to move that. Okay, and that’s seconded by Mayor Morgan. Any discussion?

Seeing none, then we’ll just give the clerk a moment to get that into the e-scribe, and we will open the vote on a time extension for an additional five minutes. Vote on that? Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues.

And Councillor Ramen is just getting our delegation from London Hydro to come into the chambers, and then we’ll receive their presentation. All right, welcome, Ms. Graham and Mr. Sharma, and I see we brought our whole board along with us today.

I understand today is a regular board meeting for you, and so you’re taking the opportunity to join us here. So welcome to the board of London Hydro. We have had a pre-emptive motion from Councillor Ramen to extend your time, so you have 10 minutes rather than five, ‘cause we understand you might need a little more than five. So, Ms.

Graham, if you and/or Mr. Sharma want to begin, the floor is now yours. Sorry, Ms. Graham, can we just get you to turn on your microphone?

Pleasure. (laughs) There, now we can hear you much better and so can people watching online. Very good, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for entertaining us this afternoon.

We’re happy to present the 2023 results, and as you can see from the slides, we’ll be opening a little bit of a window on our electrified future, and we’ll to request approval of the shareholder resolution. Now, like last year, I’m not gonna track every single slide in your pack, so I’ll just draw attention to particular ones that we think might have, particularly the public’s best interests in mind, and we certainly want to allow time for your questions. As a first declaration, I want to acknowledge that the city of London, and by extension London, hydro resides on the traditional territories of many indigenous nations. We particularly want to recognize the indigenous community’s resident near London today, the Chippewaas of the Thames First Nation, Muncie Delaware Nation, and the United Nation of the Thames.

And slide three, I’d like to begin by recognizing we now have not only the board, but we have our senior executive team with us today, and thank you all for coming, and being with us here today. If any questions are directed to them, they’re more than happy to answer them. Slide four, to provide some initial context, London Hydro is a local distribution company, licensed by our regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, for electricity distribution and ancillary services only, and you see that reflected in our corporate purpose. And as our vision statement makes clear, we set annual goals and measures, and measure our progress against three primary objectives, and those are operational excellence, customer focus, and a culture of innovation.

And for simplicity and clarity, that’s how I’ve chosen to organize the presentation today. On slide six and seven, I’d like to quickly review our financial performance for the year, and these have been audited by our city appointed auditor, KPMG. London Hydro grew to serve 167,000 customers, making it the sixth largest utility in Ontario. At year on 23, your corporation is valued at almost $600 million, $225 million, and which is shareholder equity.

We earned 12 million on distribution revenue of $80 million, giving us a 5.9% return on shareholder equity. Of note, our annual capital investment rose in 2023 to $51 million, of which $40 million was directed to grid maintenance, new developer works, and technology investments. As slide eight points out, these capital investments supported faster network recovery, cost efficient operation, and increased online customer tools. All of these ultimately focus on the work of improving the customer experience.

Also on slide eight, just a short note on a topic that I haven’t spoken to about before, but we all consider quite important, and that is cybersecurity. We’re all aware that attacks against infrastructure worldwide are increasing at breakneck pace. Our systems at London Hydro document thousands of such infiltration every year, and I want to assure you that London Hydro exceeds every Ontario Energy Board Cybersecurity Development benchmark, and has invested multiple cloud backup systems to protect our data. We have developed robust policy and procedure documentation and regularly run tabletop exercises to ensure the adequacy of our systems and our procedures.

Slide nine, I promised you last year that I’d update you on the status of our ESG and DEI programs, and we’re in the process now of having finalized our policy development, and we are developing specific KPIs throughout the organization. As always, our ESG and DEI initiatives are informed by the company’s strategic plan, purpose, vision, and values. The ESG-related risks are evaluated and incorporated into the ERN framework as directed by management and overseen by the Board of Directors. Councillor Layman, this is your favorite slide, slide 10.

Councillor, your question last year, spurred a vigorous discussion regarding our dividend performance to date, and our ability to increase the dividend moving forward. This debate arises out of the cash flow needs of the company. As fiduciaries of the company, our primary responsibility is to maintain sufficient financial capacity to provide a reliable modern electricity system now in incoming years. And within our governing shareholder agreement, we are required to remit 40% of our net income in the form of dividends.

As you can see from the top graph on page 10, since 2015, we’ve delivered over 52% of net income. A small fact, since our founding in 2000, London Hydros contributed a cumulative $160 million in dividends to the city’s reserve funds. Having said that, we did debate at the Board our future cash flow needs, and realized we would be needing significant investment in the grid in the future as we looked to decarbonize by 2050. Nevertheless, I’m pleased to announce today that our Board has approved an additional special dividend to $500,000 this year, in addition to the $5 million already committed, and has increased the annual dividend to $5.5 million in both 25 and 26.

In the future, we will continuously assess the dividend payout potential for opportunities to increase. Now, slide 12, this may be familiar to you because I included it in your material last year. It has a graph, for those not seeing it, of our continually increasing network availability while continuing to decrease cost. And it’s a reminder of because when we adopted a digital strategy way back in 2010, we were able to increase the efficiency of our operation and decrease costs.

And this is a unique economic development advantage for London because the cost of power is becoming a greater and greater consideration as industries choose where to locate. I’d like now to skip to London Hydros culture of innovation beginning on slide 15. In recent years, you’ll remember that London Hydro was the first in North America to operationalize innovative electricity, water, and natural gas usage monitoring and control tools called green button. As Ontario’s minister of energy mandated all Ontario LDCs adopt green button, by special authority, London Hydro was able to sell our technology and services to other Ontario LDCs.

As of 2023, this little business has turned profitable and contributes about $500,000 a year to our bottom line. On slide 16 and 17, this is something many of you’ll recognize. London Hydro’s 2023 Ontario first is the introduction of the Net Zero Eve Park neighborhood of West five. Many of you have toured that subdivision, that community as developed by SIFT and properties.

And as had the CNN reporter who featured this development in the CNN highlights reel. For background, our engineering and IT teams spent five years in design and build. Meanwhile, the executive team worked tirelessly with the policy team at the Ontario Ministry of Energy to create the enabling policy framework necessary. So I submit, as London strives to rebrand itself as a community open to innovation and transformation, may I suggest you already have such an innovation leader in London Hydro.

Slide 20, anticipating customer requirements into the future. I believe in your materials today is not only a memo from Mr. Jared Safeman, the CEO of the London Home Builders Association, but also a response from our vice president of operations and planning, Jack Vonderbaum. Our recent dialogue is emblematic of concerns in every jurisdiction that is trying to decarbonize.

And I want to take this moment to assure Londoners and the industries we host, we are ready. Let me explain. We perform capacity planning out 25 years and more. And in rolling four year cycles, our energy demand projections and associated capital budgets are scrutinized and approved by the Ontario Energy Board.

To put your mind at ease, our current grid capacity is 200 megawatts greater than demand, sufficient to power about 40,000 new fully electrified homes. We have planned for sufficient grid capacity expansion to power the city of London until 2050. So although the demands and costs of electrician, pardon me, electrification or massive, you can see that London Hydro is prudently planning demand, pardon me, planning capacity well ahead of demand. To conclude with the short clips into the future, please look at slide 21.

The pace of technological revolution in the electricity and power engineering space is ever increasing to support electrification. Today’s utilities have to adopt new functions, such as becoming an aggregator and integrator of customer-owned generation modalities like wind, solar and battery. West 5 is a really great example of the kind of that new technology. There’ll be new services and equipment required by customers such as charging stations, batteries, heat pumps, community net metering, in-suite metering from apartments and that kind of thing.

30 seconds, Ms. Graham. Many of the technologies have not been developed yet and the future is exciting. However, as an OEB regulated distribution utility, London Hydro has no authority to commercially participate in these expanding markets.

And with that, I’ll conclude my formal remarks. And so through to you, your worship, Dr. Sharma and I would be happy to take any questions or comments any of you would have. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Graham. And I’ll say I’m just the deputy worship, either worship there. I’m just the chair of the committee.

Oh, you’re the dean of the committee. (laughing) Thank you. Before we go to other colleagues for questions, I am going to go to his worship because I know that he wanted to share some special thoughts today with this report. All right, perfect.

So I’ll just make a comment first. I’ll get into questions later. I did want to, before we get into colleagues’ questions and answer, I wanted to recognize the retirement of your CEO of an A Sharma who has worked for London Hydro for 26 years. I think 15 years as the chief executive officer and I think he represents 33 years of experience in the electrical industry.

I know you’ve got some time left, Mr. Sharma. I think your retirement date is August 30th of this year. But that means this will be your last shareholder’s meeting.

So the last time that you’ll come before us in the capacity as the CEO of the shares, the company that we’re the shareholder of. And so I wanted to take a moment before we get into all the question and answers and before we get into it, to recognize your contributions and on behalf of all learners who are served by the utility today and those even beyond the London borders who are served by it and all those who have been served in the past under your leadership. We thank you for both the stewardship of the organization but also the innovation that you’ve brought to the corporation over the years. I often talk to others when I travel to AMO FCM in the utility industry.

Your name comes up very often as someone who is an innovator, who inspires others. And for that, we can be very proud to have had some time with you here in London help leading our local utility of which the city of London employee, our residents are the shareholders of. So with that, if the chairman induls me, I’d like to just present you with a small certificate of thanks and maybe hopefully everybody could join me in thanking Vinay for his service and congratulating him on his upcoming retirement as this is the last shareholder meeting. So now everybody can grill him, right?

So one last time. I do have some questions but I’m gonna let other colleagues go first, I just wanted to make that comment and I appreciate the indulgence. Okay, so I am going to go to colleagues for questions and comments on the presentation first. I’m not looking for any motions just yet.

I’m just looking for questions and comments for our guests before we let them exit the chambers and then if they wanna watch from the gallery or wherever the rest of the meeting, of course we’d welcome them to do so but at the same time we recognize you’ve put your own board meeting on pause to come and be with us. So if you have to go back to that business, of course we understand as well. So just questions and comments on the presentation. Councillor Frank.

Thank you, a quick comment. Thank you for the extra dividend money. That’s very exciting and a quick question or I guess more of a comment question but of course I’m very excited to see some of the highlights that you’ve provided about the energy transition and efforts to decarbonize. And I’m just wondering, I know in the past provincially there used to be funding for conservation work and I know that that has been stripped away and I’m just wondering, moving forward, it’s a weird dynamic to be in where some of the best things to be doing is conserving energy although you get revenue from people using energy.

I’m just wondering if the conservation efforts will be discussed and maybe reignited moving forward when either if there is more funding available or when it’s more suitable. Ms. Graham. Thank you, that excellent question and I’ll ask Dr.

Sharma to elaborate but indeed that was stripped away from us about three years ago to the IESO. Their efforts to conserve have failed. So there is a lot of discussion on how to re-implement this and Vene would, you have a little bit more detail than I do and I know Councillor Ploza heard a little bit of it today. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair and the Councillors, I’ve been called, will you worship, that’s okay. It’s a good question and we have been also strongly debating and discussing to bring that back. The CDM, as we call it, conservation and demand management never really went away. It just got transferred from local utilities to centralize authority in Toronto and delivery of that became a little difficult because we were not, we are local to customer.

I mean, we’re close to it, so we understand. But under that new spectrum of services, we did win few things for our industry. So we kept a small department which brought some program to our local industry, especially general dynamics which took advantage of it. And as such, that program won them a provincial award for achievement.

So having said that, we want greater participation in this because we can really make it very effective locally. And to that point, there’s a finally a agreement blessed by the Minister of Energy. The IESO, the central organization, will include now LDCs to create local programs and market their program to customers. That agreement on that will start in 2025.

And we are hoping that we will again be back and achieve the results that we achieved in the previous mandate. One of the reasons we succeeded so well is we had a terrific partnership with our customers. And we were in their spaces and helping them out on an individual basis, which is what won us the award in achievement for conservation demand management. Thank you.

Councillor Frank, you’re good. Thank you for any other questions of our guests. Councillor Pribble. Mr.

Chair, thank you for your presentation. But I know compared the last year and this year annual average cost per customer last year or actually it’s one year behind, right? But last year’s presentation for previous year, it was we were just over $400 on average. And we are now over $600.

Last year we were totally the lowest. Now we are kind of the third lowest. So we certainly are still on the same side. But my question is when I compare to the other ones that we are competing comparing ourselves to their average increase wasn’t as high as ours.

Can you just please tell me the reasons behind from 400 plus to 600 plus compared to the other comparisons? Thank you, Ms. Graham. Again, I’ll turn it over to Vinay, but in general terms within distribution system plans, different LDCs invest in things.

So one time we’ll invest a little bit more somewhere in the next year’s another industry or another LDC will invest more. So we kind of do this. So in any one given year, it’s more of the trend I’d like you to look at, but I can be allowed Dr. Sharma to be specific about the things that were included in this year’s cost of service.

Thank you, through the chair. It’s a good question and there’s a very simple explanation behind it. I think chair, our board chair referred to it a little bit. So cycle of rate making is different for different utilities.

We had our rate making done in 2022. The two utilities that are below us will go through incoming years. So when we go through rate hearing, the five years of cost get average out and get uplifted because we last was 2017 and one before and last was 2022. So you will see that in two, three years, everybody will again fall back in the same position once everybody’s gone through the recent rate cycle.

So it’s really a matter of timing of the going through the rate cycle. Councilor Preble. Okay, thank you for that answer. And I have one more this year in 23 highlights.

You mentioned $200,000 support for low income customers. And when I look at last year, so maybe I missed it, but I didn’t find any figure for this area. Can you tell me kind of how was it previously and kind of overall qualifications to apply to be eligible for these discounted rates? Ms.

Graham or Mr. Sharma, whichever one of you wants to feel that one? I believe we’ve been doing this. This is our fourth year now, but we work through the Salvation Army, which works with low income clients.

And so our donations go to the Salvation Army and they do the evaluation of need. There’s something else that you’d like to add? I don’t often correct my chair, but I’ll correct this time. We have been doing this since 2010, somewhere than four years.

And so back in 2010, OEB created a program to encourage utilities to donate funding for low income users toward utility bail payment. And we began immediately, even before the OEB finalized the regulation. And we set a high benchmark. It was $50,000 before 2010, but then we changed it to 200,000 because need was larger in our community.

And it has been run by various agencies that we work with City of London on that. So City of London uses the agency to do their stabilized bank program and use the same service to run our low income bill payment assistant program. And Salvation Army has been the agency for the last few years. I can’t recall, I think it’s more than five years now.

And there are criteria which is applied for the utility bill payment. Criteria, number of family members, the income level, Salvation Army determines that criteria. And earlier, until this year, you could get one help once every two years, I believe. Now it is no more limit every year you can get help.

And also furthermore, there may be more money this year by us because regulators ask us to contribute for all customers that walk into Salvation Army, even if there are not of money, we have to spare more money to work that program. So this year, we have already done $250,000 in May, and it may be more incoming months. Thank you for that. Thank you, one last quick question.

So we always capped it. Last year was up to 200 and now 250. But there is a cap. There is no cap in through chair.

There is no cap at this time, but we have to manage it carefully. In case of a need, we have to give more. So thank you very much for more questions. Thank you.

  • Thank you. And again, we’re just on questions for our delegation right now. I’ve got Councillor Layman and then Councillor Stevenson on my speaker’s list. Thank you, chair.

A stable well-run utility is a bedrock of successful cities. I believe London Hydro has been that bedrock. Not only have you provided Londoners with the ability to keep the lights on, but you’ve also provided our commercial and industrial base with a consistent energy supply that I think has been a keystone of us being successful and attracting that business and investment and jobs to London and I think it bears out when you look at the recent reports of our job growth and has been over the last number of years. One of the highest and not only in the province, but of Canada.

And so I just wanna echo a bit Dr. Sharma on the mayor’s comments and council and staff’s appreciation on your work in this. I remember five years ago as a rookie counselor, being invited into your office and you were gracious to give me a tour and met with some of your executives as well to give someone who’s not familiar with the complexities of the electric business kind of a primer in that and to see what you’re accomplishing and not in your vision, which has helped me in my role as a counselor over the years. So I just wanna say thank you for your stewardship of this important utility to London.

And as a shareholder, thank you for delivering the returns, the financial returns over the years. Much appreciate it. Which brings me to Ms. Graham.

And as you remarked, it’s been a bit of my bugaboo to keep after the board to consider increasing your dividends. To your shareholder, you’re gonna see by their graph on page 120 there as you referenced. We’ve been in a relatively flat period. So I wanna thank you and the board for my request to consider increasing those dividends.

Not only this year, but the next couple years and then after the review kind of going on from there. As you know, our taxpayers are, they’re under a considerable crunch right now. And so as a counselor, this revenue is important for us and it helps us do what we can to mitigate the tax burden on our property taxpayers. So I just wanted to, I don’t have no questions.

I’ll wait till further on if I do, but I just wanted to use this opportunity to thank both of you for my opinion, job well done. Thank you, Councillor Layman. I have a growing speakers list. I’ve Councillor Stevenson, Councillor Hopkins and the mayor has indicated earlier that he had some questions too.

So I’ve got him still on the list. Councillor Stevenson, you’re next. Okay, thank you. And thank you for the presentation.

I wanted to follow up on the concerns that were expressed regarding the financial statements. So last year, there was a quality candidate for the board that had an expertise in financials who had expressed some comments, I guess, to say that there could be better reporting of the financials. And it set off a bit of a cascade. And I guess for me, I’ve been waiting to talk about this because what could have been whether that candidate was the right person for the board or not, it could always be an opportunity for continuous improvement and to learn something and to make things better.

For whatever reason that appeared to be seen as a threat and there seemed to be a challenge to his credibility. So Council do in their due diligence, we asked for a report back, which we got back in February, which to no surprise said that there was no material. This statement wouldn’t change the auditor’s report, which I think none of us were concerned at that level. And so that was good to see.

So then I was looking forward to seeing the 2023 statements. And of course, the letter from that candidate wasn’t added to this agenda, but it did make it into the news. And I guess what I wanted to ask was, the response was 200 million is 200 million will always be 200 million, which I think doesn’t address the complexity of the financials or the importance of the notes. There’s a reason why on the bottom of every page of the financial statements, it states that the notes are an integral part of the financial statement.

And so my specific question is, there’s been very much, and I just wanna be clear on it, what I have heard is there were no changes. Nothing has changed in the 2022 reporting. And so I just wanted to take this opportunity to just be very specific and say, in the note disclosure, the fair market value of the longterm debt at December 31st, 2022 was reported as 168 million in the 2022 financial statements. And in the 2023, the note disclosure just says, the carrying value of longterm debt and interest rate swap approximates fair value because of the nature of the instruments.

So it doesn’t actually say an amount, but is it fair to say that if the statement were to look the same as last year, where it says the fair value of the longterm debt, not the swap, but the longterm debt at December 31st, 2022 is 168 million. If that statement were to be written into the 2023 note disclosure, that it would say is 200 million rather than 168 million, can anyone confirm that for me? Mr. Sharma, Mr.

Chair, through you. Yes, actually, if you look at a balance sheet, our longterm swap arrangement is $200 million, but we do change longterm debt year to year. This year, the total longterm loan is $220 million. I think we gave you one spreadsheet to show you the picture picture of that.

So 200 last year, 220 this year. So $167 million, $168 million last year, the fair market value, or as we call it, if we were to end the contract with the bank for $200 million on December 31st, 2022, bank, we will not pay $200 million back, we will only pay $168 million, $167 million, it’s a rounding difference. This year, this gets re-evaluated. So today, we have total loan, longterm, of $220 million, 200 same loan that we had in 20 additional.

And today, this year, in 2023, when evaluated the swap arrangement of $200 million, the gain on that is not 33, but $25.4 million. So total, therefore, if we were to go and close the longterm loan, 220, take away, the gain will be $194 million. Below the statement that you just read for 23 financial statement that issued in 24, if you read one next line, it’ll show you that if you were to close the loan today, we will pay $194 million. So $167 million is to be compared to 194 today.

And that hasn’t changed. These are unrealized statements. The loan is 200, 2022, 220, 2023. So there is no difference in stating those amounts.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Councillor Stevenson. Yes, thank you. I do understand in the complexity of it, right?

We’ve got the fair market value of the longterm debt. We have the fair market value of the swap. We’ve got the net amount is the repayment amount. We’ve got the carrying value.

But again, we’ve got a situation where it went into the public with some serious comments that were made. And so I just think that it would be helpful if there were some serious responses back in terms of the specifics of it. So the fair market value of the debt at December 31st, 2022 is 168 million. So that’s what it said in the 2022.

And in the 2023, it says that the carrying value of the longterm debt approximates fair market value or fair value. So if you were to put amounts there, is it correct to say that the carrying value of the longterm debt would equal the fair value, which would not be 168 million. It would be the carrying value of 200 million. I just wanna be clear on that because in the 2023 write up, it does not have that same statement where it’s saying 168 million.

So if it were to state that, the longterm debt, not including the swap, what would it say the fair market value of the longterm debt at December 31st, 2022 is? I’ll go back to Mr. Sharma and just before I get his answer, Councillor Stevenson, that is five minutes of your time. So I will go on to the next speakers on the speakers list after that.

Mr. Sharma. Thank you, Chair. The statement that you’re reading for the fair market value on page 64 of 2023, financial statements, note 23.

If you read next line, it says here, I’ll read this for you. At December 21st, 2023, the company would be required to pay $194 million. In bracket, corresponding value in 2022 is $168 million. If it decided to pay out its longterm debt obligation on that day.

It’s the same number, the notes English may change by some accountant and auditors, but the number is same. 168 corresponds to 194 in 23. But those are non-cash reporting. The loan for us, $200 million in 2022, $220 million in 2023, we pay interest on it and that’s how much we owe the bank.

Thank you. I still didn’t get an answer to the question though. I just want the amount, the amount of the fair market value of the longterm debt at December 31st. Councillor, first of all, please wait until you’re recognized before interjecting into the meeting.

And that goes for all Councillors actually. Wait until you’re recognized before jumping back into debate, please. And Councillor, I believe that Mr. Sharma has answered your question twice.

So I’m not gonna entertain it again. I’m gonna move to the next speaker on the speaker’s list, which is Councillor Hopkins. Can I make a point of order? Councillor Trustall, on a point of order.

I just would like to hear this unraveling. Can I make a motion to give her another five minutes to speak? ‘Cause I really wanna, I wanna hear this resolved. I don’t wanna just keep coming back to hearing this every shareholders meeting.

Let her get her questions on the floor, please. So I move that she’d be given another five minutes. You’ll need a seconder for that, Councillor Pribble. So we will ask the clerk to put a motion into the E-Scribe for a five minute extension.

And then we’ll call the vote, open the vote on that. Like to announce David Arnold, Chief Financial Officer, Vice President of Finance, who has worked through this issue. Please, Ms. Graham, just wait until I come to you and then we’ll- Sorry, losing the vote, motion fails six to nine.

Thank you, colleagues. So, Ms. Graham, I do appreciate that you have your Chief Financial Officer available. Keep him handy, please.

Should we have other questions that he may wish to answer, but I do have other Councillors on the speaker’s list, and Councillor Hopkins is next. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Sharma, and Ms.

Graham for being here. It’s really important, and I know sometimes the questions can be difficult, but really appreciate you being here with us this afternoon. My question is around the innovation part that you spoke to in your presentation, as well as your comments in the presentation around planning to ensure that we are equipped to meet the evolving needs of the future. And I represent Ward 9, West 5 is there, we’ve parked, we’re doing great things in our city.

How do we, or how do we support London Hydro when it comes to the future, the next generation, the need for more electricity. We heard from the London Home Builders Association letter as well. The demands are going to be greater. The opportunities for innovation will almost revolve around electricity.

So as a municipality, how do we, how can we support London Hydro in your innovation to support sustainability in our community and continue the great work that’s already going on? I know, Mr. Sharma, I’m going to miss you being here with us and I just want to sort of touch upon your expertise in that area ‘cause I know you’ve been quite an advocate in that area. Mr.

Sharma. Thank you, Chair. Good question, thank you very much. And whenever you do first new thing, it takes time.

So West 5, my first discussion with Richard Sifton began in 2011, so it took us time. And we started going to the government to change the policy on electricity in 2000 and I believe 16 was the first meeting. And then finally in 2022, October, Minister came down here and announced the regulation, new regulation. So it takes time, however, that time is not wasted because we have gained a lot of knowledge and we learn how to do things.

So I was sharing with the board this morning as a matter of fact that in this project, we have gained so much of knowledge. And when I say we, it’s not me, it’s the engineers, the protection and control technicians, the control room operators, because they are the one who really took the mantle and designed the system. And then you have customer services because this is the first and only community net meeting project in Ontario at this time. So we have billing and customer people as well that they’re learning how to do these things.

And this is the fourth month that we have been billing them on the new program. This knowledge is with Len Hydro and that young engineers, dynamic engineers, they’re ready to take the next step. And we are going to work with the developer community in town. That is our Bailey week, this breath is city.

And we’re going to look at how we can help them build net zero communities like this. S2E, partially is a little bit far more innovative than many other developers. But every step that we can take toward achieving and building that net zero community of our engineers will be there with them. So we have constant dialogue.

We just met our industry and commercial and developer community on 25th of May, 24th of 25th, I’m forgetting the data. But I was there to welcome them where we presented this West 5 and community net metering aspect. So we are sharing this knowledge. Knowledge is with young engineers.

My retirement is not going to impact in Iota of it because, by the way, board has asked me to put everything on a piece of paper and I have done that. So that’s going to stay with Len Hydro. And I think Len Hydro is well positioned in the future to work with the developer community to encourage such development and achieve net zero targets and help our climate emergency action plan goals. And I think we will do great.

We will achieve those. It will be a slow progress initially to take around to that because it’s a very time— I first required to encourage developers to come to decide and look at this model. But we are hoping that with our expertise and knowledge that we have gained, we will be able to convince them and support them throughout their journey to achieve net zero development in London. I’d like to add to that just shortly.

Thank you for your question. Within the context of my very last comment, as an OEP regulated entity, we can do these development projects. But we’re not allowed to sell them outside of London with the exception of the special authority we have from the OEP to sell the green button in Ontario. So we have the technology— as I said this morning— a building of incredibly brilliant people that are able to create and innovate but can’t be liberated commercially without the holdco kind of structure.

And that holdco structure is the key to monetizing a lot of the things that we do. I am spending time getting questions answered around City Hall in terms of making sure we have our ducks in line. But I think leading off into the future of all the things that are going to happen and all the things that are going to be needed by not only our customers, but our knowledge liberated across Ontario and North America, a holdco structure is essential for doing that. You could always choose not to do that, but that is the vehicle approved by the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Finance in order to allow those things to happen.

So we will at some point, once I finished the dialogue with administration, we’ll be happy to bring you that information for your knowledge and decision. But for now, we’re a regulated endeavor, and so we will continue to do the great things we’re doing in London for our customers and the institutions that we host here. Thank you, Mr. Sharma and Ms.

Graham for that, Councillor Hopkins. Yes, and through you, I just really appreciate your comments and really look forward to how we go forward and work together in the future. And thank you, Mr. Sharma, for allowing us to keep your knowledge intact at Hydro.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins, Mayor Morgan. Thank you, I have one question and then a comment. In the presentation, it was mentioned that the organization had the capacity to supply power to London through 2050.

And I assume that’s based on population projections, but as you know, even the city of London has underestimated its population projections in its previous strategic plan and even since then with the pace of growth that’s coming into this community and recent reports and statistics show that we will continue to be a destination of choice, a driver of GDP. So I wonder about the stress test of that particular number and those population projections, and if there’s any information you can share about the confidence level in them. I know it’s a long-term estimate, but when you think about investing in hydro-related infrastructure, 2050 probably isn’t that far away really. So not that I don’t have confidence in what you’re doing, but I know that even the best estimates a few years ago were off with the pace of growth that we’ve seen in this region.

So I’d like to know your comments on that. Ms. Graham. Thank you, Your Worship.

Indeed, things are constantly changing. In fact, as London’s population has increased faster than we thought, the adaptation, for example, of EVs is lesser than we thought. So things are always changing. So to your point, those capacity planning estimates, as well as the financial capacity to fund increased capacity on the grid have to be constantly updated.

And we do that annually. We do an annual planning report under the auspices of Jack Von Der Bon. And we also, every four years, as I mentioned, in front of the OEB, we run our capacity plan and our financing plan through for their scrutiny and their approval. As well, we have resources well outside of London Hydro, where members of the Electricity Distributors Association, which in aggregate around Ontario, runs a lot of these estimates for us.

And so many of the most, I would say, of the LDCs in Ontario, belong to that and contribute to the data collection. So we have both local that we are able to collect, and we even know which areas of the city are adapting to EVs quicker. We can get to that level of detail. The capacity that we’re planning in, what we’re doing in new subdivisions is capable of handling batteries, solar EV generation.

So we’re well ahead, and we are annually updating those plans every four years getting them approved by the OEB. And the pressure on our dividend is, in fact, part of our planning to maintain sufficient financial capacity, borrowing capacity, in order to fund those developments. There’s lots of discussion in Ontario that there may need to be federal provincial government assistance, as all Ontario LDCs have to come up to a new level of service, and very, very quickly, in the next 25 years, if we’re going to look at 2050 decarbonization. So there’s a lot of things to put, but rest assured, London Hydro is doing our planning regularly and in consultation with others, and with the approval of our regulator.

Mayor Morgan. Yes, thank you, and on the letters that we received from both Mr. Zafin, as well as representatives from London Hydro, I certainly understand the desire and importance of the conversation that’s happening around capacity. It’s fine that letters are written to Council.

I don’t have any problem with that. Now, my obviously strong preference is that there’s collaboration and not to say that there’s not happening, but my ask as a shareholder and as one of the shareholders, Council’s a shareholder, but as a member of Council, I would say it would be my desire for London Hydro to continue to work closely with the industry so that questions can be answered quickly. Capacity can be known, issues can be flagged. Housing and housing development is a shared responsibility of all of us.

That includes all levels of government, it includes financial institutions, it obviously includes utilities in the building community. So the more that we can find a way to address those conversations together and in collaboration, not that I’m saying it didn’t, but having two letters on a committee agenda to answer a question is not always the best place to have those questions asked and those answered, so that would be my desire in the future. Finally, I wanna say, one last thing, I didn’t support Council Troso’s extension of Councilor Stevenson’s time. The chair had indicated there was a long speakers list.

I don’t have a problem with Councilor Stevenson asking more questions if she has more, so if she requires a motion to get added back to the list, I’m happy to make that at the appropriate time, but I wasn’t gonna occupy 10 minutes of continuous time given the number of Councillors who wanted to speak, so I’ll just put that out there for colleagues. So you, Councillor Cuddy, is you, Councillor Cuddy, you gave your hand? Just getting in the queue, I apologize. Yes, so you’re next, and then we will take Councillor, sorry, we will take Mayor Morgan’s comment on her advisement, give the clerk a moment to check procedurally on that, and after Councillor Cuddy will come to Councilor Troso.

Councillor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair, and through you, Vignee, I think I’ve known you longer than anyone in the room. I think your entire tenure at Len Hydro and, you know, our lockers used to be side by side at the YMCA many years ago, and I wanna just take a few minutes, just actually less than that. I wanna thank you for your governorship, your stewardship, as Mayor Morgan said, to this company.

You have been, you’ve been excellent, and you’ve been a good friend. More than that, you’ve been a good leader, and a good community citizen, and for all of my colleagues here, I wanna thank you, personally. And that would lead me to my question, to the Chair, Connie Graham. Chair, I know you have a succession plan in place.

I’m not sure that it was in your portfolio, that I might’ve missed it. I’m just wondering when the start date is for that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, for your question.

The Board struck a committee to start reviewing the job description and salary ranges last year, and we selected Boyden as the Search Consultant, and we have already executed a countrywide, North America-wide search. We have shortlisted, and we have done our first round of shortlist interviews. We are getting down later this week, actually, to final interviews for the CEO candidate. So we’re very close to selecting Vene’s successor.

Having said that, Vene is not leaving us officially until August 30th. So depending on the convenience for the new CEO elect, we’ll determine when he’ll come on board and overlap with Dr. Sharma, and so that we can get into a good rhythm and a good working relationship, and certainly getting to know all of you will be part of that. Yeah, we want to make sure the CEO is introduced well to the city and all of your questions, all of your concerns, and you know who he is and where he came from.

So consequently, we are very close. I would expect within the next six weeks, we’ll have an announcement for you, Councillor. So that kind of gives you a bit of a timeline. Councillor Cuddy, you’re good.

Councillor Truss out, you’re next. Thank you, through the chair. I’d like to ask some questions about your capacity. Is it the case that your capacity is unlimited, and if you’re stressed, you can just buy some electricity from someplace else.

So no matter how many new units we put on the ground, you’ll be able to service them, or is it more complicated than that? Ms. Graham. Thank you, thank you, Councillor.

This is more an engineering question, so I’ll answer at high level, and then more detail than they will work with you. Certainly, it’s not just asking for more power. Transformer stations are the gatekeepers to power coming into London. And the size of the transformer controls the amount of electricity that can move through it.

And we have transformers scattered all over the city. Some are older devices, a couple of them are brand new. So what we’re looking at when we’re capacity planning, Councillor, is the capacity of those transformers to bring power from the general transfer, transfer from IESO, who delivers our power to us, and then into our system. So to answer more specifically your question, we have two transformer upgrades that we’re planning for the next five years on existing transformers.

And we have a new transformer that we’re looking at after 2030, a brand new build. So these are extremely expensive pieces of infrastructure, but we are doing it well ahead of demand. And a very good question. So no, it’s not a spigot we can turn on and off.

We do have to definitely plan in advance and have the financial capacity to be able to fund them. Councillor Trozal. Thank you and to continue through the chair. Given that, how does council know when we’re adjudicating planning applications, whether we’re getting to a point of saturation in a particular section of the city?

Mr. Chair, sorry if it can take you back a little bit. The electricity has three capacity to a point, if you will, one, the generation side of it, for which the province is responsible. And as you have seen, the province is already announcing many new generations.

Second is the transmission coming into town that brings the bulk power and third is our distribution system. So the transmission that is coming into London is very strong. It’s a strongest among the all Southwest community. So there’s enough capacity that transmission system brings to the city.

Our system is quite capable. We peak around in the summer at 690 megawatt. We have local generation of 112 megawatt. And we have, when we do planning scenario in engineering, we look at all best situation, worst condition, worst forecast, sorry, best forecast, worst forecast and more likely forecast.

And when we look at the worst situation that we have looked at, that’s the letter that we wrote, so saying in case of like everything comes all of a sudden, we still have 200 megawatt of capacity. Capacity is not unlimited. Capacity gets built up as we invest into the infrastructure. Chair referred to some of the investment in upgrading and new transportation.

They are all in the plan and will be done as the need is realized well in advance because we have to have time allowed for the construction of it. In terms of working with the city, there are many places that we collaboratively work with the city at the utility coordination committee is the construction of the utilities that we work with them. Then we have a collaboration with the environmental group. We talk about what renewable generation is coming into the city so that we can talk about where will it be built and how the construction will take place.

And then we do some engineering collaboration as well. So on the top of it, we do our forecast. And there are reports that we can share with the Council of Council, so wishes to know the nitty-gritty details of our load forecast. Last layer of oversight on this is our regulator.

Our chair referred to a four-year five-year cycle of filing with them our capital plans and the infrastructure. Now, of course, five-year is a long-term things change, but we file and then we every year share with them the variants from the plan so they know how we are investing and how we’ve been building the grid. Reliability of the grid is a performance criteria for the regulator. If we fall below that performance KPI, we will be fined.

And so we meet and we have never failed in my life of 26 years here at RYTO. We have never failed that requirement because we make good investment. And I think we have to connect the two, dividend becomes an issue as a cash flow analysis when we are looking for greater money from the board for investing the grid. I’ll give you an example.

So in this presentation, you saw we invested $40 million in the infrastructure alone. Last year, that is jumping to $63 million in 2024. That shows you how we’re building capacity and we’re upgrading the system. So I want to certainly through this, send a message to all customers of ours that you wanna build something we will be there with you.

And there is no at this time capacity issue. I’m not saying it’ll not be in 2050 when we decarbonize everything, but by the time we would have invested more money into the grid. I’m sorry, the last person I have on the speakers list for Q and A is Councillor Palosa. I just wanna remind colleagues that we’re in a Q and A on the presentation.

After the last speaker on the Q and A, we will then need a motion. That will then allow colleagues to ask questions specific to the motion, which includes, if we are following the staff recommendation, a piece where the finance, the annual report on finance and can be received. So additional questions can be asked by Councillors once a motion is on the floor, and it would be a new speakers list. So, Mayor Morgan, to your earlier comment about a motion for Councillor Stevenson to speak again, she can speak again when we get a motion on the floor around the receipt of this report from London Hydro.

In consultation with the clerk, that’s how I’m ruling on that. So, Councillor Palosa, you’re currently my next and last speaker on the speakers list, go ahead. Thank you. I’ll try and finish on a high note then before we move into actually receiving official reports.

Thank you for your presentation, and thank you over the years you’ve had me at London Hydro through a walkthrough of your labs and what you were working on. And this morning you hosted me at your board meeting. So thank you for everyone for being so welcoming in that space. As you mentioned about the dividends, which I appreciate as budget chair and as a shareholder, I appreciate it.

And we discussed a little bit that, we look at the infrastructure of London Hydro and it’s a growing city, but we have old areas in the city. And as we look through the lens of climate resiliency and change, in addition to how many people are coming into contact with hydro poles through vehicles and speeding and enforcement, which is a different issue that London police are working on. As we have more high wind events and the frequency and severity is increasing, how is the infrastructure? Is there gaps in what we need to do?

And is there adequate financial monetaries there to cover anything that we need? Is Graham or Mr. Sharma? Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Good questions. And you heard a little bit of that from our guest speaker as well on the infrastructure side. But in terms of the infrastructure locally, you know, we have certain right of ways within which we operate, that’s a fact of life.

And we monitor the investment and also where we place infrastructure. We have to be a little bit ahead of the road whenever road is widening because we have to move it, get out of the way before the road construction happens. So we work with the city how best to locate. There are some infrastructure, especially when the road curves there are prone to accident a lot more than others.

And with the engineering department, we work how we can relocate that so that we can make it better. Now, I have to say one comment about the road infrastructure and vehicle accidents. I do not know what has happened. It’s going city, but since pandemic, we have had the situation worse than before pandemic.

If you look at the stat before pandemic and post-pandemic, our vehicle accidents have increased much more significantly in terms of our reliability. So they impact us the most. We have to strike a balance because some old infrastructure, especially if it’s a very complex double circuit on a pole to relocate that double circuit, which will have more than like 12 wires or maybe 15 wires, it is not an easy task is a costly affair. So we work with the engineering department of the city as much as possible to make the infrastructure safer and away from the prone accident prone areas.

Things are not perfect, I grant you that. There are some locations that I know on the riverside, I know I drive there to the one infrastructure that I want to move that a little bit away from the road so that accidents don’t happen. But we are working on those on an incremental basis, striking a balance with expenditure and how old that infrastructure is. Our preference always is if it is a very old infrastructure, why don’t we wait when you’re going to replace the whole line and we move the line.

Whenever we replace the whole line, we always look for moving it back from the road so that very collections are reduced. So we are working very closely on that aspect with the city. Did you not say Dr. Sharma this morning that the majority of our network downtime last year was due to people hitting holes?

Councilor Palosa. Thank you. And definitely a larger issue as you said that it used to be. My second question has to do with HR, realizing we’re already, I don’t wanna say losing Dr.

Sharma, he’s done his part and deserves to move on and enjoy what’s coming next. As we’ve talked about where we’re going by 2050 within this report and we’ve talked about the changing field of service delivery, do you foresee any HR challenges within the current service delivery model or what’s coming in like you said the next five to 10 years, either with recruitment, retention of the talent not being available or being able to attract it. I know we’ve seen it in some other fields that the city is dealing with. Do we foresee any issues in the near term here?

Ms. Graham. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Palosa.

Yes indeed. The people that we have in our building are extremely high technology. There’s competition for these people worldwide. And one of the strategies that London Hydro adopted a number of years ago was this digital grid and to become a very high technology company in addition to becoming an LDC.

Why did we do that? To be able to attract the kind of people we need to keep a highly reliable grid and to design the kinds of things that we’ve done for the digital grid requires very interesting work. And we have successfully, mind you, attracted an incredible team of IT, power and electrical engineering professionals to London Hydro, not to say they don’t get poached because they do, but we also have successful poaching techniques in the other direction. It’s always a challenge, Councillor, and it will continue to be a challenge.

In fact, it will build because the people needed in this field, ramping up to 2050, is enormous. So I know our vice president of HR and strategy, Elizabeth. There you are. She has kept up very strongly on techniques for attracting people, even from other industries, outside of LDCs, to try to make sure that we bring them in early, we train them well, and then we make them our own.

On the way over here, we were also hearing that out of a compliment of, I believe it was, 30 line engineers who have lost seven in the last year. And a lot of these are to retirement. So keeping the talent pool up in every area of our organization is always going to be a challenge. But as long as we provide people, beautiful, interesting, innovative work, time and space to do their work, great colleagues, will have a great chance of keeping who we need.

And thank you for the question. Councillor Palosa. Thank you, just a final follow-up coming on that. As we’ve seen that, those challenges with physician recruitment to London, that I know you have an excellent board member as appointed by Councillor Raman.

But if there’s anything we could do as a council, should there be an opportunity of letters to support while you recruit, or attend attraction packages with tourism London, LEDC, of like what a great place we are to live, always happy to be partners in that, as it’s our shareholder utility and essential. Please let us know. Thank you, Councillor. So Ms.

Graham, we’re gonna ask you to stay nearby. We’ve exhausted the speakers list on the Q&A, but of course we still have your item on the agenda, that we have a motion that we will need a motion and we’ll have to dispense with that accordingly. And I know that Councillor Raman had flagged me right at the beginning of the meeting to say that she’d like to move a motion. So I’m gonna go to her first as our board representative from Council on London Hydro.

Thank you and through you. And Vinay, I won’t go on about you today because I’ll have lots of opportunity to do that, but what an honor and a pleasure it’s been to get to know you in this time and to see your leadership in action and just absolutely tremendous. And I feel like I’ve been given a gift to be able to sit on the London Hydro board because there’s just such strong leadership around the table and that also around the executive table and thanks to you. I’d like to move the motion that’s been provided and it’s, I’m sure you scribe for everyone as well.

And that’s, again, the receipt of the presentation that we introduced the annual resolution, the shareholder agreement, the 2023 annual report on finance be received, indeed a communication from London Hydro Inc regarding the election of directors be received. That’s been moved and Councillor Layman has indicated he wanted to second that. So that’s been moved and seconded and now we can enter a debate on the motion as moved from the staff report. I see none.

So sorry, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. I just want to start out by saying that I’m not questioning the quality of the financial statements that are before us but I do maybe think people don’t understand that for a professional accountant to publicly sign their name to a letter with the concerns that were expressed in the media last week is not to be taken lightly. You can’t just do that as a professional and not put yourself into, it’s not without ramifications.

It’s also a requirement in the Code of Ethics to report if you are aware of anything. So this isn’t like to just brush this off as Council being the sole shareholder of this corporation. It just boggles my mind honestly. We’re not just to rubber stamp things here.

We have a fiduciary responsibility to at least explore the concerns that we’re mentioning and yet we’re not, we’re just going to brush it off. And like I don’t even know, am I allowed to ask questions now or is that opportunity gone? The motion on the floor has a clause that includes the 2023 annual report on finance be received. So it’s certainly within, it’s in order for you to use this time to ask questions around the financial report, yes.

Okay, thank you. So there’s a lot of gray in the county, okay? What is not gray, what is black and white is? Did the reporting change, you know?

So we’ve got one who’s saying the reporting changed and then we’ve got the company saying the reporting did not change. So that, the clarity there just needs to be there. There were 15 extra paragraphs added that had not been there in the previous seven years. So all of a sudden now there’s 15 paragraphs.

So my question is to London Hydro, when the auditors reported this year, what was said about the concerns raised by Mr. Gomes and what any outline changes attributed to his concerns? Thank you, Councillor. And Ms.

Graham, if you did want to have your CFO, join you at the podium to respond to those. That is up to you, you’re the chair of the board, but now would be appropriate if a member of your staff team needs to expand further on their role in reporting this. But I’ll go to you first and that’s in your hands as the board chair to determine. Thank you, sir.

I think just at a very high level, certainly the concerns were not bypassed last year, even Councillor. The complaint had been made to City Council. And so on their request, we did months worth of work, months worth of work and forwarded on to the City-appointed auditor, KPMG, who reviewed the work and issued an opinion back that the City Council received. So it was a very costly endeavor.

We took the complaint very seriously and we reported back to City Council the results. So at that point, I’ll leave it to Dr. Sharma. We have run through the report with City Administration, with Ms.

Barbin. She has taken a look at both the letter and our financial statements this year. You may have had her opinion included in your package. And we have a compliment of two CPAs, in fact that you elected this year onto our board of directors.

We have a compliment of seven CPAs that are in the auditing department at London Hydro, as well as a big accounting firm, KPMG. So from the board of directors, let me make this statement. The board of directors is fully supportive and agrees with the financial statements as prepared by management, as audited by KPMG. Our agreement with those financial statements is emblematic by the authority given to me by the board to sign off on the financial statements for 2023.

We are fully confident in what we’re reporting. So I’ll let Dr. Sharma answer any more in depth, Councilor, that you may have. Mr.

Sharma, did you have anything you wanted to add before I go back to Councilor Stevenson? Yes, Mr. Chair, if I may, just to briefly, a couple of things said, notes to the financial. Well, if you look, you said seven years.

If you look at 22 and 23, number of notes, 24, 24, same number of notes, language change, English change, people do write differently. You go back to 2010 when if this was not in existence, our notes were only 12 points long or 14 points long. So this number of notes change year to year, see what’s happening, what’s happening situation. So I’ll say this for the final time and then David can explain more.

We have a nominal debt that we take, long-term debt. Part of the long-term debt is a swap arrangement, $200 million only, which changes in real-term, not nominal in real-term because the interest rates change. Bank that has this debt does the calculation of gain and loss. We take that long-term debt, gain and loss that reflects as the graph shows in 2022, we reported the fair market value or the money that we will pay bank to close that on that day of 168 to 167 million.

So $200 million alone that you have, you can completely write it off by giving 167. So you have a 33 or $32 million gain. And that’s how it was reported even though those transactions never took place. They were just accounting norms.

The real value is 200, which will come due in 2032 and we’ll pay that. This year, the change value change, the relative value of the gain and loss change. This year, the value of the gain is only 25.6 because on the year we lost 7.4. This gain and loss starts and then it changes at the end of the term, it becomes zero.

So today we have a reduction in that gain, it’s 25.6. You take $200 million, we added 220 to it. 220 take away, 25.6 is 194. And on the statement, if you read, it says clearly, 194, 2023, 168, 2022.

No number has changed. They are same except reporting an updated number for 193, 2023. Our long term debt has not changed, will never change. If it changes, you will hear it right away.

However, on the topic of professional, when you are CPA, you can look at the numbers and you can read the English. But there is also a detailed data that goes behind it. And by the way, bank uses that data. Bank does this calculation.

And I think in our reply last year, we wrote that bank has confirmed this again, that this is the gain on the loan. So those are calculation doesn’t done by the bank, approved or reviewed by the auditor, which was appointed by the shareholder. So how much more shall we do? We have nothing wrong in the statement.

Statements as they were presented earlier. And I explained to you, what is that 168 and what is the corresponding number for 2023 of 194? And that is what we have stated. We can highlight on the page that I like.

I think I referred to earlier on page 64. And it’s a no 23. It’s a heading line, it’s fair, mark value, mark disclosure. I do not know, simple calculation is not even complex.

However, David, you wanna say anything more? Sorry, Mr. Chair, if I may. I did indicate that if you needed a member of your team to comment that that was perfectly fine.

So please go ahead. To be honest, I’m not sure what else I could add to what has been said. The history associated with the swap is that we entered into two agreements at the same time. They were signed with the same party, TD Bank.

They were signed for the same amount. They have the same maturity date. And if you were to cancel the loan agreement, you are required to cancel the swap. So as Dr.

Sharma has mentioned repeatedly, if we were to cancel our debt agreement, the amount of cash that we would pay would be X. I do not know a better way to express the fair value calculation to the number that would be required to be paid in cash. And that number is the number that is provided to us by the bank, which is the lender of the facility, as to here is the cash amount that would be paid. That is the clearest amount for fair value that I can determine.

And that’s what the financial statements indicate. As has been read on multiple occasions, that line as to if London Hider was determining the agreement as of a specific date and time, which is the financial statement dates, here are the amounts that would need to be paid. Thank you. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. My apologies, my question mustn’t have been clear. There are 15 additional paragraphs in the note disclosures for long-term debt. And I was wondering when the auditor made the presentation, what was there any references to why or any reference to Mr.

Gomes concerns in terms of the new disclosure reporting? And we will go to our guests, our CFO. And I’m sorry, can I just get your name, sir? David Arnold.

Okay, Mr. Arnold, please go ahead. First of all, I don’t know how it’s possible to have 15 new lines because the long-term debt section only has e paragraphs. It is quite common through financial statements to have wording adjustments.

I had a conversation recently and was told that every single year there will be wording changes, new paragraphs added, new paragraphs deleted. This year, one of the changes to the accounting standards was to modify what type of disclosure was required. And so there were some new disclosures that were included, some disclosures that were taken away. As Dr.

Sharma indicated, yes, the number of notes are still the same, but there are notes that were completely removed, other notes that were added. I’m sure if you were to ask the city treasurer, she would also have an opinion whether or not the financial statements remain the same year over year for all wording. But yes, it is very common. This is not a response specifically to the letter.

Every single year, as I prepare the financial statements, I’m looking for ways to make things more transparent and easier to understand as far as the language for the users of the financial statements. Thank you, Mr. Arnold, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you.

So is that a no then that the auditor when they presented did not discuss the long-term note disclosure changes, is what I’m hearing then a no? Mr. Arnold. I do not remember any specific dialog specifically relating to long-term debt.

There would have been some discussion associated with it. I do not remember what was said. There was discussion on a number of financial statement topics, anything that is a large value, anything that is a estimate associated with it, there would have been discussion on, but I do not remember anything specifically that would have been said. But I can tell you that there was no audit differences identified or discussed associated with any of the numbers or disclosures associated with long-term debt.

Thank you, Mr. Arnold, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, just one other question then. So the fair market value of the long-term debt at December 31st, 2022, not the interest swap, just the debt would be how much?

Mr. Arnold, the amount that would be paid in order to cancel the agreement as of 2022 would be $168 million. Thank you, I’m not interested in the repayment amount. The fair market value of the long-term debt, not including the swaps.

You cannot have just one with it. Sorry, I’m just gonna ask you both, please wait until you’re recognized before speaking. Mr. Arnold, go ahead.

You cannot have one with it, the other, the two agreements are intertwined. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson. I don’t wanna get into debate about this, but that doesn’t make any sense to me considering they’re listed completely separately on the balance sheet. So we have 200 million on the balance sheet or at December 31st, 2022.

That’s what’s there. I’m asking for the fair market value rather than the carrying value, what that amount would be. Councillor Frank. This has been asked and answered by the people who are standing at the podium, multiple times, and if the Councillor does not understand it, I’d encourage her to have a conversation with them.

Thank you, Councillor Frank. On the point of order, I’m gonna concur that I’m not sure how else our representatives from London Hydro can answer the question. It has been, in my view, answered more than once. Mr.

Sharma was about to respond, so I’m going to go to him for that response in order to be fair to both Councillor Stevenson and to Dr. Sharma. But I do concur that this question has been asked multiple times, and so I won’t be entertaining asking our guests from London Hydro to answer it another time. Mr.

Sharma. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m sorry if I’ve become little of a teacher here, but not that I’m a financial expert.

Fair market value does not exist as a number in any financial statement that does not have a variable swap attached. So you cannot exclude swap without fair market value. You go back to days of financial statement when we did not have swap, there was no disclosure fair market value. Swap is the one that gives rise to fair market value, and the fair market value is what we are indicating, is the payment that you will make at a time to close that loan if you wanted to.

It’s a swap that does it, and nothing else. Our loan is $220 million in 23. It is the nominal value, that’s all. The fair market value, that is what we will pay.

We will to end it all on one day is 194. And it changes from a year to year, simple as that. Thank you, Dr. Sharma.

Councillor Stevenson, any other questions? You’ve got, you’ve used three minutes, so you’ve got a couple minutes left if you want to use that now, or we can come back to you. I’m done for now, thank you. Looking to see if there are other speakers to the motion that’s on the floor.

I’m seeing no other speakers. I apologize, I do have one thing. Councillor Stevenson. Yeah, thank you.

I understand that this is dry as all can be for many people, and that it’s a lot of accounting lingo, okay? I asked the question repeatedly, because I wasn’t getting the answer, I was getting a different answer. So the thing is, we had a letter come from a professional accountant saying, “There’s some serious concerns.” I feel like as the only shareholder, and on behalf of all Londoners, it’s incumbent upon us to just get clarity on this. Like, did the number change, did the number change, did the number not change?

Because if it didn’t change, this is, you know, we just move on, and then we’ve got clarity, and we move on, and we don’t have to talk about this again. If the numbers did change, then there’s some things that we get to deal with as a council. So I circulated a motion to refer this, and to, and so I’d like to move that referral at this time. Okay, bear with me for one moment.

Sir, do you have the language for that referral? I do. Oh, sorry, I found, I did, sorry, you sent that just before the meeting started. So, and I think the clerks have it in E-Scribe now, so bear with me again for just one moment.

Okay, colleagues, so I’ll just read out what’s in E-Scribe here. This is Councillor Stevenson’s referral, that the following actions be taken with respect to London and Hydro’s 2023, general meeting share holder annual resolutions, A, that proposed by-law be referred to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee for consideration, B, that civic administration, B, directed to retain a forensic accountant to confirm London and Hydro inks statements. There has been no change in how London and Hydro discloses the fair value of debts as of December 31, 2022, and report back to a future meeting of the SPPC and it being noted that the SPPC heard a verbal report from Dr. Sharma and Board Chair Graham.

So that’s the motion, that’s the referral motion with some additional direction. So we’ll look to see if there’s a seconder for that. Councillor Trussow, you’re willing to second. Okay, so that’s been moved and seconded.

So now we’ll see if there’s debate on this. May I say why I wanna do this? Yep, you can use your time to provide your rationale now if you’d like to do that. Thank you, so what I’m looking for here, and although it does say retain a forensic accountant, I’m asking for someone to review the financial statements as published and give us an opinion.

So we’re not asking for a forensic accounting to be done. So I just wanna be clear about that. It would just be a professional opinion. So that we have done our due diligence as council in response to the concerns that have been made public.

This would just allow us to get clarity on that and move forward cleanly where we’re not discussing this again. I think it’s incumbent upon us. Otherwise it’s going to leave us open to why we just brushed aside the concerns of a professional when you’re— So Councillor, I’m gonna stop you right there. You’ve multiple times referred to council brushing things off.

And I don’t think that any member of council has brushed off concerns. They may not agree with your concerns, but I don’t think any of them have dismissed it. So I’m gonna ask you to please refrain from referring to alleging that council is brushing things off. I’m also going to point out that your motion, as you submitted it, says civic administration be directed to retain a forensic accountant to confirm London hydro inks statements.

Now that’s not what you just said you wanted. If you want something different than a forensic accountant, you need to change the motion that you’ve submitted. Respectfully, I disagree. It just says retain a forensic accountant to confirm that London hydro statement that there has been no change in how it encloses the fair value.

So that’s all I’m asking for is for the forensic accountant to confirm that there’s been no change. Because that is the area of discrepancy. Point of order. I would like to go into confidential session ‘cause I believe we need a legal opinion on this motion.

Okay, that’s not actually a point of order, Councillor. That would be something you would raise in debate on this as a motion to move us in camera for legal advice. I appreciate where you’re going. That’s just not a point of order.

That’s something that you can do by getting on the speakers list and moving it, okay? So I’m going to go now back to Councillor Stevenson who does have time left on her rationale to continue speaking, but again, Councillor, I’m encouraging you to not allege that council is brushing off concerns. Councillors may deal with those concerns in different approaches. That does not mean they are necessarily brushing them off.

Thank you. Well, there was a public letter issued expressing concerns and I’m not aware of any other way to address that than to address it. And so that’s what I’m recommending here is that a forensic accountant confirmed that there’s been no changes in the disclosure. So it’s not about confirming the amounts.

Nothing deep, it’s getting clarity on that. Is there a change in the disclosure for 2022? So I don’t see the harm in this. As far as I know, there’s no concerns in delaying another month and just having that that we can put into the package to say that we did what do diligence on that and be complete.

Thank you. Now I will go to Councillor McAllister who I believe wanted to speak, not on a point of order, but on a procedural motion. Ah, yes, and I wasn’t trying to cut them off but I felt like already know the rationale behind this. So I would just like to get to a confidential session because I do believe we need legal opinion on this.

I’m happy to move to go into confidential. So Councillor McAllister is moving to go into confidential session for client solicitor privileged advice. And I’m looking to see if there’s a seconder for that. Councillor Cuddy, a second.

We will ask the clerks to get a vote into E-Scribe and then we will call the vote on that. Opposing the vote, motion carries nine to six. So we have approved a closed session matter for further discussion on this. So sorry for keeping everybody waiting.

We will ask the gallery and our guests to leave council chambers, civic administration, Ms. Dater’s Bureau and Ms. Pollot will need you to remain. Ms.

Barbone, I believe you’ll need to remain as well. Recording in progress. We’re gonna call the meeting back to order, please. If everyone can take their seats.

Sorry, just to report out from closed session, the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee went into closed session to receive legal advice from our client, from our city solicitor. No votes were taken in closed session other than the vote to exit closed session and return to public session. And the reason that we were in closed session was to receive a client solicitor privileged advice. We are now resuming on the matter that was before us the referral and we will resume now with our speakers list on the referral.

And I will admit that my notes got a little grabbled while we were in closed session. I think I had councilor Palosa next on the speakers list, but I could be wrong. She’s waving me off. So I’m looking for other speakers to this referral.

Mayor Morgan. Yes, I’ll be speaking against the referral. I know that there’s been some comments made about how the concern has been addressed. I know the chair, you’ve asked some of them to be corrected, but terms like rush this off, rubber stamp things, due diligence, I just want to be clear, my opinion.

From my understanding of what occurred here is there was a letter of concern written previously. The board at London Hydro took that very seriously, had KPMG conduct an analysis at some level of cost and expense. That produced result. Further to that KPMG went on and did the subsequent years audited financial statements and determined them to be in order.

And so for my opinion, I do not need another opinion on this. I feel like the work of KPMG is thorough and has addressed any concerns that I would have personally had. And I’m ready to proceed with approving the matters before the shareholder, as well as the audited financial statements today. So I don’t need the referral, so I won’t be supporting it.

Thank you. Councillor Stevenson, I do see your hand, but you did speak first on the rationale. So I’m just looking for other speakers before I come back to you. Councillor McAllister and then Councillor Pribble.

Yes, and thank you and through the chair. I would just like to say thank you to the board for your presentation today. I think you’ve done a thorough job. I think you’ve responded to concerns that have been raised.

And I just think the due diligence has been there. To the mayor’s point, I take issue with the language that’s being used today. I think it incorrectly accuses our public utility provider of doing things that an individual in the public might not agree with, but I think you’ve proven through your financial reporting that you’ve done your due diligence. I’m satisfied in terms of what’s been presented with us.

I think the board has taken a lot of heat on this. I think that was unfair. I think you’ve answered questions fairly. And I just want to thank you again for the work you’ve done with this report, for answering our questions today.

And I’m satisfied with the answers I’ve been provided. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McAllister, Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Chair, answer the chair too.

I have a same question for our staff as well as for London Hydro. If you look at the referral right now in which is part 2B, has the hired auditing auditor KPMG addressed this point to be exactly the way it stated? If I can first staff and hydro, both of them please. Thank you, Ms.

Barbone. Thank you to the Chair. So I think the simple answer, I think is what you’re looking for is that the financial statements have an opinion expressed by the external auditor KPMG. It is attached to the financial statements.

That opinion is based on the financial statements are not materially misstated. The external auditors that are engaged by the city of London are hired on behalf of the city to ensure that the boards and commissions are audited and that the opinion is expressed. So KPMG has done the work to express their opinion. That includes, and it’s been a number of years since I’ve been in public accounting, but they have to perform procedures to validate that opinion that was expressed.

So they have provided that opinion, which is attached to the financial statements. They are currently working on the city of London’s financial statements and are doing the exact same process. So from that lens, they have expressed an opinion. So that work has been completed.

KPMG was aware of the issues. They have a quality assurance process that they follow to ensure that whatever opinion they express has been properly validated. So certainly, we know that there are a number of processes that they do in order to express their opinion. They have validated that in their opinion, these financial statements do not contain material misstatements.

So that is probably the simplest way I can answer your question. Thank you, and Councilor, with all due respect, I’m not going to ask our London Hydro representatives to repeat what Ms. Graham repeated before. They have seven CPAs who have reviewed these in addition to their CFO and two on the board who have also reviewed them before Ms.

Graham signed off on them. And she has stated multiple times through this meeting that she stands by the validity of the reports. I am not going to entertain any more questions from any Councilors asking London Hydro to repeat an answer they’ve already given. Looking for further speakers who have not spoken, Councilor Trussow.

I just want to ask through the chair, the maker of the motion, would you be willing to remove the word forensic from the motion? Motion is on the floor. So it now belongs to committee, not just to the mover. So there would need to be unanimous consent for that.

If the mover and seconder wish to remove the word forensic. So first, Councilor Stevenson, are you willing to remove the word forensic if committee grants consent? From the conversation that I’ve heard, I don’t know that it’s going to make a difference. And forensic does not mean, excuse me, does not mean anything defamatory by choosing a forensic account and there’s no defamatory intention.

So I didn’t hear a yes. And so I’m not going to seek consent. Council chooses yes. Okay, so the mover and this seconder are willing to slightly alter their language to remove the term forensic and just have it retain an accountant to confirm one in hydro ink statements.

Is there any objection from committee? Objection from Councilor Palosa? So there would have to be a formal motion. Then to do that, it’s not granted by consent.

King for other speakers, or I’m going to call the vote. Councilor Stevenson, I do see your hand. Sorry, I’m just conversing with the clerk for a moment. Councilor Stevenson.

Thank you. I just wanted to quickly reiterate that there’s no defamatory intention with this. There were public, there were concerns raised publicly. And I do feel that it’s incumbent on me, at least I can speak for myself, to just address that.

And there should be no concern or no stigma associated with being willing to address those concerns publicly to clear the record. So that is my intention here, is to get clarity and respond to those concerns. And I’m hoping to have council support on that. I don’t think that it’s asking too much to get that clarity around this situation that’s, like I said, has been addressed publicly to have a public response to it, I think is appropriate.

Thank you. I have no other speakers on the referral. Councilor Pribble. Thank you, I just make a comment.

I would support this if there was no, if this was submitted to us by the corporation and if it wasn’t under the external company, it was by KPMG and that certainly satisfactory for me. And the question that I asked the answer I received was that this was fulfilled. So I’m satisfied with it and I will not be supporting this referral, thank you. Thank you.

I’m gonna ask the clerks to open the vote. I have no other speakers on the list. Councilor Van Meerbergen. Closing the vote, motion fails three to 12.

Now we are back to the main motion moved by Councilor Raman and Councilor Layman to receive presentation, to receive the 2023 annual reports and to receive the communication regarding the election of directors. Any further speakers on this? Seeing none, then I will ask the clerks to open the vote. Chair.

Councilor Van Meerbergen, the vote’s open. So if it, go ahead, let me know what you’re. Yeah, okay. So I was having unfortunately some technical issue here on my end.

I voted the wrong way on the previous vote. I’m asking for reconsideration. So Councilor, I’m just gonna check with you because it won’t materially change the outcome. And you can simply— No, but yeah, I’d like my vote to count the right way.

Okay, bear with me for a moment because the clerk has opened the vote on this, but I do understand that you want your vote reflected accordingly. We’re gonna have the clerk cancel the vote that’s open ‘cause it has not been closed. Councilor Van Meerbergen is asking for reconsideration so that he can correct his vote. I will need a mover and a seconder moved by Mayor Morgan, seconded by Councilor Cuddy.

I will ask the clerk to open the vote on reconsideration. We’re voting on reconsideration. The clerk is just getting that into E-Scribe. Bear with us for just a moment.

Okay, that vote is now open in E-Scribe. This is to allow reconsideration. Councilor Pribble, Councilor Van Meerbergen. Yeah, that vote, yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Now I will ask the clerk to reopen the previous vote, which is the vote on the referral from Councilor Stevenson and seconded by Councilor Trussa. That vote is now open.

No vote, no. Councilor Stevenson, closing the vote, the motion fails two to 13. Thank you, colleagues. Now we will move to reopen the vote on the original motion from Councilor Raman and Councilor Layman to approve the updated by-law to receive the presentation from Ms.

Graham and Mr. Sharma, the annual report and the communication. Councillor Stroud, Mayor Bergen. Oh, yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to one. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you to our London Hydro visitors for your patience today as we work through this. That concludes the receipt of the 2023 annual general meeting annual resolutions.

I know we do have a communication later on the agenda that will be dealt with separately. But certainly I know that your board has been very patient with us, we thank you for your time. And that concludes that item on the agenda, Ms. Graham.

As a team, we wanna thank you for your support. Each and every one of you, it’s an honor to serve citizens of London and this body as representatives and shareholders of London Hydro. I know Dr. Sharma would like to say a word.

I just immensely honored today and I wanna thank you. This is a little bittersweet moment for me, but Mayor Morgan, I really appreciate all the members of the Council and the wonderful staff of the city hall from the home, yeah, I had the pleasure of working. I thank each and every one of you. And I know I’m really choking here, but that’s okay.

Thank you so much to each and every one of you. Thank you, Dr. Sharma, and while we wish you all the best in your coming retirement, we know that Ms. Graham will keep you nice and busy until August.

Colleagues, moving along, we are now into section four of our agenda, this is items for direction. The first item, 4.1, is a request for delegation status from Ms. Fry, Associate of the Trinity Centers Foundation. This is the Creative Sector Hub Incubation Business Plan presentation.

So to receive a delegation, we will need a mover and a seconder moved by Councillor Ferrer and seconded by Councillor Cuddy. And we will open the vote to receive the delegation. Is that for five minutes? So are Stevenson, Preble, Mayor, closing the vote.

The motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you colleagues, Ms. Fry. Welcome to Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee.

We’ll have the technician get you all set up there and then you’ll have five minutes to do your presentation. One moment, we’ll get it freed up for you. Here we are, now for something completely different. Good afternoon everyone, hi, I’m Kendra Fry and I’m here with the Trinity Centers Foundation.

The Trinity Centers Foundation works with faith communities across Canada to help them re-energize and reinvigorate their mission. And we’ve been invited by St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Anglican Diocese of London to work on their site. I’m gonna take you through the plan that we’ve been working on.

We were already started. If you look at the site here in the picture, you can see that this is the lens that is owned by St. Paul’s. The cathedral plus the two office buildings on either side, parking lots in the green space surrounding.

So a significant amount of space right in your downtown core of London. We as it happens were already working on a plan to reinvigorate it as an arts hub because that’s often a great use for the typologies of churches. The point where you put forth an RFP seeking for someone to be the host of a creative sector incubation hub in your downtown core. And so we responded to that RFP.

You have this so I’ll let you look through our vision ourselves and take you into some of the details, online you can have a look at after as well. Following the RFP, we went into a consultation process that took us two days at the cathedral. And we consulted with a wide variety of people including the Grand Theatre, the London Arts Council, a series of architects, individual musicians, artists and creators, London Symphonia and the Katie and Urban Institute in Windsor School of Cities graced us with their thoughts as well on this process. That consultation process led us to bring forth a number of spaces in buildings as part of this plan.

You can have a deeper look at this but this is the 3D plan done by Larkin Architects of the whole site. Essentially within the cathedral itself there’s a 700 person sanctuary, a 300 person hall, two full industrial kitchens, two rooms with a capacity of 80 to 180 people that are perfectly designed for rehearsal and small scale performance spaces, several meeting rooms that hold 50 to five people, a fully accessible main floor. Unfortunately the state of religion is such in our country that this space is being used about 5% of the time. So we’re bringing you the other 95% because that’s good stewardship and a way to build a city.

We also have opportunities at 200 Queens Avenue, the parking lot and plentiful green space that surrounds this. Greater HUD can be structured through a new not-for-profit corporation. Once we get in motion, Trinity Centres has done this several times. Good visit St.

Jackson, Montreal. I encourage you to do that. I’m heading up tomorrow, it’s a delightful site. St.

Matthews in Kitchener, Trinity St. Paul’s Center for Justice and the Arts in Toronto. All of these are designed in this way so this is not the first time. Essentially what we’re proposing is to do this as a three-phased approach, an emergent experiment in which we start bringing in artists and working with creatives and help them to design the type of spaces that they need.

I should say my background is in theater and music in Toronto, so I have a pretty good idea where we’re headed already. Essentially in phase one, we do paint and temporary occupation of the space. We figure out who wants to do what, who wants what spaces. We already have a quite good idea coming out of the stakeholders work.

In phase two, the pews come out of the main sanctuary, the lighting goes in there and the lighting and sound goes into Cronin Hall, and then in phase three, we move to permanent site upgrades, which looks like an installation of an elevator, which we’ve already got a plan for, additional bathrooms and enhanced dressing rooms. At the same time, we’ll be looking at exterior upgrades and we’re in that process already having applied for a My Main Street grant and having a donor who’s interested in doing that with us. We’ll show you pictures of those later on in this, but the purpose of that is to signal to the community that they should come back downtown, that this is a great space for them and that this is their place. Quick look at this.

We’ll show you here that the pink represents the spaces that are multi-use space. The green is the space to be dedicated to the creative hub, while the orange represents the space that will represent the church, and there’s more detailed drawings of that for you as you go through. Here’s the year one, two, and three financials. I’m happy to answer questions on that, but they’re in relation to the financials of sites that we’ve done before.

Propose space allocations, 9,000 for the Music Incubation Hub, 15,000 in shared space. Drawings, drawings, drawings, more drawings, some lovely renderings to show you what these look like so you can get a sense of what we’re proposing. And about 30 seconds. The grants that we can apply for, that we’ve been successful for on our past sites, so we have every expectation we should be able to be successful here.

Housing, we’re already doing that one 95 different, and there’s the playgrounds that we’re working on. And that’s it. What is required from you? Co-application for grants, so supporting us on grants.

Sign off, hopefully, on an FCM grant, continue the feasibility on the whole site, and one possible explanation on permitting and rezoning. And that’s it. Thank you, Ms. Fry.

Yeah. Excellent use of your time. We stayed within your five minutes. We appreciate that, and we’re gonna open the floor to some questions and comments from colleagues.

However, before I go to counselors, I know that a number of meetings have occurred with city staff, and I did have a communication from Mr. Mathers, that in addition to receiving this staff, although it’s not in the report, have an additional recommendation for direction for us today. So Mr. Mathers, I’m wondering if you can just share with us what, from your perspective, as deputy city manager for economic development, you’re comfortable recommending to us today.

Absolutely, through the chair, I provided some draft language for your consideration. Very much supports what Trinity Foundation is looking for from my council today. So it’s what that resolution includes is appointment of a lead to support from the staff perspective, the FCM application. So it provides some language around that.

Also, it provides a note that we will be doing wherever we can to be able to expedite zoning and permitting requirements that there was another part of the request that you see before you today. So we are very comfortable with that, but we forwarded that to the chair for consideration. Thank you, Mr. Mathers, for sharing that.

Councilor Trussa? Yes, thank you very much. I can’t begin to say how excited I am about this project, and I’ve already spoken to you about that. And I mean, I’ve been to that facility, but I wanna go back and look at it again.

You’ve done an amazing job in terms of pre-concitation with a lot of the important stakeholders. I’m really glad to see that you’ve been in consultation with the Grand Theatre and the Arts Council, but I’m also really glad to see that you’ve been in consultation with the Metropolitan Church, because they have undergone, as someone who goes to a lot of concerts there, they’ve gone through such a wonderful refurbishment in terms of putting in different sounds that I think you’ll probably be able to get some good tips from them. But what I wanna say is you’re not asking the city for much. You’ve been out there pounding the pavement with other supporters here.

This is exactly the type of thing that the downtown needs. And it’s just so refreshing to have a nonprofit group affiliated with the church come to us without much of an ask, telling us what they’re gonna do for the downtown. And I feel a little bad that you should be asking this for more because I’d be prepared to argue that we should give you more. But I think that’s the beauty of this proposal.

The other thing is, when you look at the land that you’ve already assembled, it would be very difficult to imagine trying to do this kind of land assembly from scratch if there wasn’t already this big entity that owned it. So just to be clear, there is a motion on the table. And I know I would encourage you to maybe start inviting some of us counselors in small groups, of course, because we can only do two or three at a time to come over and see it. And again, thank you, thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilor, in your commentary there, I think I heard you say you’re moving the motion. ‘Cause Mr. Mater’s can’t move it himself. He needs, okay, and Mayor Morgan, you’re prepared to second that.

‘Cause I do have you next on the speakers list. So now that we have a motion moved and seconded on the floor, Mayor Morgan. Yes, Councilor Trossa will lead me to it, but I’m very happy to support this. And I know that this is work that has been going on for some time and it’s nice to see where it’s kind of come through and how it’s come to fruition.

I really like the idea of the creative sector hub and the co-location of different creative elements. What we’ve seen is as industries come together, particularly in the creative sector, they learn and they can support each other. But also for those who want to move through to commercialization of some of the work that they’re doing, whether that’s music or artists and actually turn this into something that can be a career and an economic generator, the co-location of these creative sector industries in one location actually provides a lot of opportunity to do that in a really effective way. And so this isn’t just about tourism or drawing people to downtown or supporting really talented creative sector individuals in our city.

It’s also creating the potential for commercialization and economic development through individuals being able to actually bring their talents into a functional and growing businesses within our city. And things can emerge and grow around that too, which can be quite a catalyst for economic development. And so although I don’t disagree with Councilor Trossow that you could have asked us for more, I think your asks are actually quite appropriate at this time because given where this can go, there are certainly many other funding opportunities through a tourism, the province economic development that are all kind of out there and surrounding this as it develops that can actually enhance and grow it over time as we’ve seen with these sorts of setups in other communities. And so to Councilor Trossow through me, I know you moved the motion, but I think one step at a time, you get them going, we’ll be there as a partner to help support with all of those other avenues and capacities for funding and growing it need not all fall in the municipality because there are many, there’s much work that can be done in this sector.

And so I just wanna commend you and all the teams involved for the work that you’ve done to bring to fruition and the excellent presentation you made today. And I think it’s appropriate for us to support you in the next step. So happy to second the motion. Thank you, Mayor Morgan.

Councillor Ferrera, you are next, sir. Thank you, Chair. So the good comments have been taken, but I do, I totally echo everything that was there. And I would also say the enthusiasm that you bring when you brought this, when you presented this to me specifically, and I’m sure when you presented to other Councillors too, it was very clear and very evident.

So we’re very appreciative of that. Obviously with the creative sector, there’s lots of people in the city who are looking for avenues to be creative, to show what they have to offer. So creating this and just having it as a location for people to come and be able to express themselves, whatever that may be, that is an excellent thing. Obviously I am gonna speak on the downtown aspect.

I am very happy that we are reusing a space that is underutilized and we’re bringing it back to the 100% capacity, what it can be used. So that’s a very appreciative of that, just bringing more people downtown. I know it’s not all about bringing people downtown, but I do look at that aspect as well. So that is something that I see as at is vital to the revitalization of downtown.

100% supportive of this and I’m very happy to see it. And as on the city perspective, we’re here with you all the way. So I will be supporting this motion as it is. And I look forward to future work and to see what the creative hub sector or the creative incubation hub will have to bring.

Thank you, Councillor Ferrer, Councillor Pribble. For a brief comment, CCI culture and creative industries worldwide right now are experiencing amazing growth and positive. It’s really has become a very strong economic pillar for many countries worldwide. And I’m very happy to hear this.

And again, whatever was just said, strongly behind it. And thank you very much for bringing this forward. Any other speakers? Seeing none, if colleagues will just indulge me from a quick comment from the chair, I’m very supportive of this motion.

I know that Mr. Mather says his team will do their best to expedite. When that’s coming from the top, that encourages me that there’s some capacity to do that. So that’s great to hear.

We’ll be keeping his team very busy on expediting a number of things over the next year, I’m sure. Just the one comment that I wanted to share. And I don’t know whether the logo was just missed in the groups that were consulted. And I recognize that Mr.

Crossman is up in the gallery. And so perhaps they were, and it was just not referenced fully in the documentation. But tourism was referenced a number of times, but I didn’t see tourism London specifically listed as a group that was consulted. Whether that happened or not, going moving forward, I would just encourage us to make sure that tourism is a part of that discussion.

But again, as I said, it may have just been the logo didn’t appear in the slide, but it doesn’t mean that they weren’t there. And with Mr. Crossman up in the gallery. And I know his passion in the UNESCO City of Music work.

And of course, I see him at every tourism board meeting. So I’m sure tomorrow at the board meeting, he’ll be happy to take a minute to update me on the discussions he’s had offline. So I’ll just leave it at that and say I can support this motion today. Certainly, if you’d like to provide a little more information, I’d be happy to hear that.

My apologies, Corey. And Corey and Kathy actually are so supportive that I probably didn’t list them because they were collaborators all the way through to help us to imagine what this might be like and how it might be a gift to your city. I appreciate everyone’s support. Councillor Trelso, as it happens, I was the lead on the project at Metropolitan United for which we won two heritage awards.

So I’m all well and familiar with it and will be inspired by it. And when the district is finished, Metropolitan United will be a part of that district. So the whole district is the Cathedral District. And the housing at 195 Dufferin, you will have seen, has already been announced.

And that’s a retrofit that will open in September 2025. So I’m very excited about it too as an entire new neighborhood for your downtown core. Thanks. Thank you, Ms.

Frye. If we have no other speakers, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Using the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues.

Moving on, thank you, Ms. Frye. The next item on our agenda is the future planning and growing hydro requirements for the home building industry. This is a communication.

The recommendation in the report is to receive this, of course, Mr. Zafeman has been patiently sitting in the gallery listening to our discussion throughout the day. There was not a request to seek delegation status. So we don’t have to open a delegation today, but I am looking for somebody to move receipt of the communication and then we can have some discussion on that and Councillor Hopkins and Councillor Ferrera are happy to move.

So that has been moved and seconded and now we can have some discussion on that if colleagues wish. Councillor Hopkins, as you moved, I’ll go to you first. Yeah, thank you. I just want to acknowledge Mr.

Zafeman and encourage the London Home Builders Association to do more of these letters in support of how we go forward in particular when it comes to supporting development. And I see this as a great opportunity to work together with the Home Builders Association. So thank you for your comments. Councillor Robin.

Thank you and through you, just briefly, I want to say thank you to the Home Builders Association for reaching out to have a constructive conversation on Friday about the contents of the letter with members of London Hydro. I know that dialogue is continuing next week and look forward to continued partnership and continuing to work together on some of the concerns that have been outlined. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Any further discussion on this? And I will note that this is to receive both the communication for Mr. Zafeman as well as the communication from Mr. Vanderbahn from London Hydro as well.

So seeing no other speakers, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Housing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on, 4.3 is the 10th report of the governance working group.

This is where Councillor Frank is happy that this comes to SPPC and not council, so she doesn’t have to stand and present it as the vice chair. This is the items with respect to this report are in e-scribe for you to see. Of course, everyone has had a chance to read this. There was a preliminary discussion around council policy with remuneration of elected officials and appointed citizen members, some discussion around our office space technology and some direction to staff around how that is formed.

But most importantly, there was the motion to create a subcommittee formed with the task of creating a draft job description for consideration at a future governance working group meeting. Councillor ramen was encouraged and volunteered to take on the role of chairing that subcommittee and we had Councillor Pribble and Hopkins also offer to serve on that because it would be a subcommittee officially created under the direction of SPPC, the clerk did ask me to emphasize that as a subcommittee, it would still need to have a formal meeting with a clerk present and as with a public agenda because it is a formal subcommittee and Councillor ramen, that would be at your call. So if assuming council approves or SPPC and council approves, the direction from the governance working group. So I just wanted to underline that it would be a formal meeting with a clerk present and be open to members of the public and other members of council to attend if they so chose.

So that is the report from the governance working group and I’m going to look to the vice chair of the working group to see if she’s willing to put that on the floor and I’m seeing nods from Councillor Frank and do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Cuddy, any discussion? Councillor Palosa. Thank you.

As you mentioned that this new working group would have city clerk staff assigned to it, making sure that we have the clerk’s office is able to do that within the confines of the current staff compliment that they have. And we’ll go to the city clerk for that. We will endeavor to have a clerk present. Councillor Palosa, you’re good.

Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, then I’m going to move to open the vote. Opposing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero, noting that marking Mayor Morgan absent. Thank you, colleagues, moving along.

Item 4.4 is the resignation from the Committee of Revision, a court of revision, a communication received from Mr. Miller that he is no longer able to fulfill the duties of being on the Committee of Revision due to family matters. The recommended motion is that we receive that the resignation be accepted and that the clerk be directed to advertise in the usual manner to recruit candidates for appointment to that vacancy to be brought forward at a future strategic priorities and policy committee meeting. Do we have a mover for that?

Councillor Ferrera, seconded by Councillor Raman. Any discussion? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Opposing the vote, the motion carries 14 to zero.

Thank you, colleagues. Moving along, item 4.5 is with regard to resignation from the Eldenhouse Board of Directors. We also have a request from Eldenhouse to delay recruitment. I also want to draw to colleagues’ attention that it was not in time to make the public agenda, but we actually have two resignations from the Board of Eldenhouse.

Mr. Miller, who was also on the Court of Revision, as I mentioned earlier, and Mr. Fleming has also tendered his resignation. We also have the communication from the Board requesting the delay in their recruitment.

So I’m looking to see if we have a mover and a seconder to accept the resignations and to look to see if there might be some direction on the Board’s request to delay. Councillor Layman, did you want to put something forward? I’ll move that, and I’ll move that we accept that request to delay recruitment. Okay, we’ll give the clerk just a moment to get that into E-Scribe.

Do we have a seconder, Councillor Hopkins? And then I’ll come to speakers now, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, I just want to make sure that the delay as stated is until September. I just want to make sure that there is a specific delay time that we’re aware of.

Yes, and that— - I’m just going to go past that. Yeah, and that is, in fact, what Eldenhouse asked for. So that’s what the clerk is incorporating into the motion. Okay, do we have any?

Councillor Raman. Thank you, and through I just had a question. The information that the clerk provides to Eldenhouse is that provided back to either to governance working committee or to council or anywhere so that we understand any structural advice that’s been received by Eldenhouse. So we know how to move forward.

And we’ll go to the city clerk for that. Thank you, through the chair. The city clerk’s office doesn’t provide direct structural or governance type advice to Eldenhouse. So any request made to the city clerk’s office would be answered by way of providing some procedure that such a request could come to council for consideration, for example, an amendment to a by-law or some such change.

But it wouldn’t be direct support regarding the governance structure provided by the city clerk’s office. Councillor Raman, you’re good with that? Or you can follow up? Thank you, and through you, I’m just not familiar at this point being with what they’re expressing on the letter if they’re providing enough concern over their governance structure that we should be concerned.

I mean, sorry. I think that that’s direction that the clerk can take without having to have a formal motion to just have discussion with them. Just gonna, the clerk indicates he’s also happy to meet with the offline if that’s okay. Okay, any further discussion on this?

Seeing none, then I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on to item 4.6.

This is with respect to London and Middlesex community housing. There is both a resignation to be received and a request from the board for an appointment. Also in your package was included the application from Sarah Paneros, Mr. Chisholm, our CEO is in the gallery.

Should there be any specific questions that we need to direct to him? But Councillor McAllister, I know that you asked me to go to you on this one, so I will go to you. Thank you and through the chair. I just wanna, you know, thank John Corboy, a past board member for CH for his service on the board.

I’m happy to move our recommendation that Sarah Paneros will be appointed in his stead. So thank you. Okay, so that’s been moved by Councillor McAllister, seconded by Councillor Ferreira, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you.

I do have a quick question regarding the appointment. I know when the, there was a resignation, maybe a couple months ago at the board, we had a list of people wanting to sit on the board. And now I don’t see that list. I just see a name as an appointment.

I just wanna know what has changed in our process. Councillor McAllister, do you wanna respond? I can provide some context as well, but I’ll go to you. Yeah, so it was a very close selection last time.

So Greg Thomas obviously was with the one we did recommend last time. Sarah Paneros was very close second. So in looking at our candidates, we had previously determined she would be a very good candidate with the skillsets we were looking for. So we put her name forward because she would have been our candidate last time if Greg had not accepted that position.

And I’m gonna see if Mr. Chisholm wants to comment. I believe the interviews had only happened about four weeks prior, but Mr. Chisholm, can you approximate the timeline for us on the last round of interviews?

Yes, and through the chair, the interviews took place at the end of January of 2024. So the process had really just wound down. So this, she was an applicant at the last round of the application. So, and she was deemed qualified for the role.

We just had multiple candidates that fit our criteria at that time. Thank you, Mr. Chisholm. Councilor Hopkins, does that answer your question?

Any others? Councilor Trostav? I wanna start by saying through the chair how incredibly impressed I am with this candidate. I mean, I am just totally speechless at just the absolute qualifications of international status that this candidate brings to the board, and I need to start by saying that.

Having said that, and this is nothing new, I’m gonna support the candidate this time because her credentials are just so incredible. But I am still very happy, very unhappy with having this agency hand pick its board members. And I think maybe this is something we’re just gonna need to look at in terms of changing the roles. But I just, you’ve done a, whoever the selection committee is, you’ve done a great job on this.

And I’ll say the same thing about Mr. Thompson. Well, I think at the last meeting I indicate I knew, but I’m very unhappy, very unhappy with not getting to see a pool of applicants to make the decision. We need independent council oversight of this agency.

And I just wanna make it clear, I wanna make it clear that by supporting this excellent candidate, I am in no way going back on the long history of concerns that I have raised about this agency. But with that, I’m going to support this candidate because I think she really deserves it. And I really hope she can bring a better perspective, a new perspective to this agency. And I wish her well, and I’ll just leave it at that.

Any other speakers? Seeing none, then I’m going to ask Clerk to open the vote. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, colleagues.

Moving on to our next item. There is a theme to today. The next item is a resignation. This is Councilor Ferra submitting his resignation from the RBC Place Board of Directors.

So Councilor Ferra, since it is your communication, I’m gonna go to you to see if you want to move the acceptance of your resignation and suggest that we look for another councilor to appoint. So I’m gonna go to you to speak to this. Thank you, Chair. And yes, I guess I will move that.

And this was a hard decision. Can I speak to it actually? Yeah, this was a hard decision for me. It was just basically all started when the Mayor asked me to be the Chair of CAPS, which I’m very honored to take that position.

But just looking at the different boards and committees that I sit on, I didn’t want to not give all the effort that I can for chairing CAPS. So that’s why you see me putting this resignation forward. The reason I picked RBC Place is ‘cause I see it as a very high functioning board. So I figured that it would be, I would have the least impact of leaving this board just because of the way it’s run, it’s run very well.

So this is why I put it forward. So I am looking for a seconder to second this motion and hopefully get approval. And hopefully another councilor will step forward and take that role. So thank you.

Thank you. So we’ve got, and sorry, I’m going to apologize now because my procedure was incorrect here. We also have to replace Councilor Ferreira. We can do that by people putting their name forward today or we can defer that to a future meeting of SPPC.

So first of all, I’m going to look to see if any Councilors wish to put forward their name for consideration for RBC Place. Don’t everybody put your hand up at once? Could I just get a clarification of when the board meets? Certainly.

You know what? I’m going to go to our current board member because we haven’t accepted his resignation yet. Councilor Ferreira, can you inform your colleagues when the RBC Place Board meets? I can do that once a month for the board itself.

There are some committees as well, but that is at 7.30 AM in the morning and it would be at location at RBC Place is also an online component too. And sorry through the chair, what day of the week of that? It usually falls on a Thursday, Wednesday, Friday. Friday’s, sorry, I have committee as well, so I believe those committees fall on maybe the Thursday Wednesday, I can’t remember exactly, but it’s a Friday for the board.

Thank you, everyone. Councilor Ferreira clearly needs to resign from something because he can’t remember which day his meetings are on which committee. So we’ve given him more work than he can keep in his schedule. So.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Perhaps as the meeting has already been long, we just deal with the disposal of Councilor Ferre from the board and allow ample time for everyone to check their schedules and the next meeting dates can be populated as sometimes they change over the summer to give people adequate consideration. Thank you.

So Councilor Stevenson also has our hands up, so I’m going to go to Councilor Stevenson next. I just wanted to confirm it’s Friday mornings, the last Friday of the month. Thank you, Councilor. So Councilor Palosa, I think I heard you suggest a deferral for one committee cycle.

That we would accept Councilor Ferreira’s resignation now and then circulate the board opening to be dealt with the next SPPC meeting. Okay. So Councilor Palosa, you’re willing to move that and Councilor Ferreira, you’re willing to second that? Okay.

So we have a motion to accept Councilor Ferreira’s referral and to defer the appointment of a new Councilor until the next cycle of SPPC, we’re going to give the clerk just a moment to get that into E-Scribe. The clerk is super fast, it’s ready. So we’re going to see if there’s any further discussion on this before we open the vote. Seeing none, then we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on this.

Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, everyone. So we’re going to continue to move along here. I’m going to just take a moment to advise colleagues that there is some dinner coming for us and ‘cause I anticipated that this meeting might go a little bit longer than usual.

However, we did not spend as much time on the strategic plan implementation plan as I thought we might. So I’m hoping that we can continue to move forward and then perhaps at the end we can eat if everybody’s amenable to that because we’ve just got a few votes to fill some committee spaces and the deferred matters with regard to the appointment of a new CEO for RBC Place. So unless I see any objections, my sense is that we could get finished in reasonably good time if we continue to move along. So I’m going to move to the next item, which is the strategic opportunities review working group selection.

I really wish the mayor had found a way to put working group first so we could call it wharf and have a Star Trek reference in there. But the acronym is what it is. We have Councillor Palosa chairing this committee in her role as a budget chair. Councillor Pribble has been appointed at her recommendation as the vice chair.

We need five members of council to populate the rest of the committee and we have had indications from Councillor Stevenson, Councillor Raman and myself that we are willing to serve. Before we move along to voting, we still have two vacancies and I’m looking for Councillors who want to put their names forward. Councillor Cuddy, Councillor Layman, anyone else online? I don’t see video right now.

So Councillor Hillyer or Councillor Van Mirbergen or either of you interested. Councillor Van Mirbergen, you’re muted so I cannot hear what you’re saying. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify, is there still an opening?

There are, is there now, is there now full? Council, the SPPC will actually vote on it Councillor. So individual Councillors can put their names forward. There are five vacancies on the committee.

So we would have a vote. No, I mean, I was going to say if there was a space still open without the need of a vote, then I would put my name forward. I’m not interested in putting it forward for a vote. So thank you, Chair.

Well, Councillor Van Mirbergen, I’ll remind you that there’s breakfast at RBC Place if you want to put your name forward at the next committee to fill that role then. And I see Councillor Hillyer was shaking his head, you know that he doesn’t want to put his name forward as well. So we have five names so far, Councillor Palosa. Thank you.

I’d be happy to move all five of those names onto the committee and recognizing as always, it’s a working group. Everyone’s always welcome to submit ideas in a tent and vote and be part of the discussion. And do we have a seconder for that Councillor Hopkins? Are you seconding or do you want to call it?

You’re seconding, okay. So we have a mover and a seconder, any discussion? Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, just a question.

I know this is a working group, anyone’s invited. Will we be given the dates and times of this working group? The schedule is at the call of the chair. I’ll go to Councillor Palosa.

Yeah, thank you. I need to get this, the committee populated and then council to prove it at which point there are some dates that look likely in our calendars that are on my list, as well as any communications can then start coming in about ideas people want to bring forward to it. And my idea would be to have more meetings sooner than later as anything this working group needs to do needs potentially staff time reports to come back and time to inform the mayor’s budget update. So a strict timeline, but yes, as soon as this goes through council, dates will be circulated immediately to everyone.

Any other discussion? Seeing none, then I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Could I need everybody to resubmit their vote there? Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

Thank you colleagues. Moving on, the next item on the agenda is 4.9. This is consideration of appointments to the London Community Advisory Committees. The first committee that we’ll be dealing with is the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee.

It requires up to eight new members. There are three applicants. We can move forward with a motion to a point to all three, or we can have a vote to see if we only want one or two. That’s, I’m in council’s hands.

Councilor trust out, you put up your hand. So I’ll go to you, sir. My worry with advisory committees in general is the quorum issue. So at this point, if we have three new, fresh, enthusiastic, can’t wait to start serving on the committee members who are going to be coming to meetings.

By all means, let’s acclaim these three and try to find some more. Having said that, the clerk is aware of the requirements of not missing too much meetings, not applies to everybody. So I’m very excited to see three new members on this committee. So I would move that they’d be acclaimed.

Okay, so we have a motion from Councilor Trussau and that’s seconded by Councilor Ferreira. Any discussion? Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote on this. Supposing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

Thank you, colleagues. Moving on to 4.9B. This is appointments to the diversity inclusion, anti-oppression community advisory committee. It requires up to four new members.

We have 26 applicants. So what we will do is our normal voting procedure where each Councilor will have four votes to fill their, to make their choices for those candidates that they wish to bring forward to fill those four positions. Before we move into voting on our choices, it is optional, but there is an opportunity if Councilors want to put forward any names in particular that they want to recommend Councilor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair, and through you, I’d like to put forward the name Devinder Luther.

Devinder is a constituent in my ward. I met him during the election. He is an active community member in the Fanshawe Ridge area. He’s well respected by constituents.

I might also add, Chair, that Devinder is a current member of the Elton House Board. And he’s been to see me a number of times in the office and we’ve discussed issues in his area. And a great community citizen. I think he’d be a great contribution to this committee.

Thank you. Thank you. You do colleagues, Councilor Trossal. Thank you.

I’d like to put forward Stephen D’Amello. And the reason for that is we had the opportunity, we had the opportunity to speak. I’m trying to think back in my mind what was the closed session and what was an open session. So stop me here.

I think it would be fair to say we had the opportunity to interview him as a candidate for the Police Services Board. Thank you. And I’ll leave it at that. I would very much like to keep him involved in some committee.

Councilor Palosa. Thank you. Looking to two questions. One through you to the clerks of how we’ll voting be done on this.

Is it like run off or we each pick up to four, just for clarity before we get too far into everything as we’ve done other things in the past? Certainly, we’re going to ask Clerk Gorman to explain the voting procedure again. Yes, the voting procedure will follow the selection process for appointing members to committee civic boards and commissions. In this instance, you will be selecting four candidates to fill the four positions.

And we will run it through the selection process. And then following that, once we have narrowed it down to four candidates, you will be voting to appoint them to the community advisory committee. Yes, and to just add to that. So any candidate who gets no votes in the first round will drop off as will the lowest vote getting candidate.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m hoping that colleagues don’t view this negatively, but I would move all the candidates and ask that we may just, we have a list in our minds that we just get into voting versus everyone picking potentially for people that are different or in the end. I appreciate everyone in the public putting their names forward and don’t want to show any disrespect to anyone who does it.

So perhaps just the best way forward is putting all the cans on the floor and just get right into voting and do it from there. And that is absolutely intent. It’s all the names are on the ballot. Councillors just have an opportunity to speak to any candidate that they want to recommend, but all 26 names will be there.

And we will each select our four choices. Councillor Frank. Thank you. Not speaking to a specific advisory committee applicant, but noticing how there’s I think 26 or 27 applications, I’m just wondering the communications that is to the people that don’t get picked, is that do we encourage them then to like apply again another time or maybe come to some of the advisory committee meetings in the future?

‘Cause I know some of them have working groups and they pick up like members of the community on those. So I guess it’s more of a question through you to the clerks just wondering when we send out notifications for unsuccessful candidates so they get kind of like a good job. Thanks for your application. You can try again or come to some of our public meetings.

Let’s ask the clerk. They are notified if they are unsuccessful and it’s, but there’s not that extension of an invitation. However, I will note if there is a vacancy that comes up within a short amount of time, we do follow up with them directly to let them know that there is a vacancy available. Councillor Frank.

Thank you, I appreciate that background. I don’t want to make a motion, but I am just wondering through you to the clerks if there could just maybe be one sentence that says, you’re welcome to apply again as well. All these advisory committee meetings are open to the public. So if you want to attend and see what they’re like, just to make it appreciative of their engagement of the opportunity.

And the clerk is making a note of that and is keeping the thumbs up that they can take that direction forward for the editing, the response that goes out to the unsuccessful candidates. Councillor Pribble. Just to add, I do think it’s a great idea and then if they are not successful to state that they are more than welcome to attend the meetings and participate, they are just not being the voting member, but I do think that’s a really positive initiative. Thank you, Councillor Pribble.

I’m going to just ask Councillor Layman to take the chair briefly. I’ll take the chair and I’ll go to the deputy mayor. Thank you, Mr. Presiding Officer.

I’m going to take this opportunity and I’m going to preface this by saying, I’m also going to say the same thing in the integrated transportation committee. So I have great things to say about Lee Thomas Gray. I have an opportunity to work with her through the Argyle BIA and would see her as a great candidate for either of these committees. I also believe in diversifying our candidate pool on the different advisory committees.

So I offer that as, you know, take that for what you will, but I think that they would be a great addition to either of these committees. Although I’m definitely going to encourage the inclusion for the integrated transportation committee, I believe they’d also be a good fit here. Thank you, I’ll return the chair to Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Layman, any other speakers?

Seeing none, then we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. Each Councillor again has four votes for your top four candidates. Councillor Stevenson, just noting that Councillor Stevenson has left the Zoom and I will record her as absent for closing the vote. And there will be removing the candidates with zero votes or the least amount of votes receiving only one.

And those individuals are Naveen Droom during Darien Forney, Jaswint Gill, John Higgins, Rish Kumar Jegsen, Rebecca May, Edviek Ramik, Olivia Yebo. I apologize for the pronunciations. Secury, Aheel Bose, Samran Anad DeGoon, Naveen. Abby Dugill, John Gaines, Arushi Gosh, Dino Jose, Durg Murra, Cinto Polly, Chambar Skiri.

Dan Dan DeG Singh, Da Herline, Naran Shi, Mo Raman Dan. Okay colleagues, the second round of voting is ready to open. So we will now open the next round. Sorry technical difficulty, give the clerk one moment.

Now it is open. Sorry, we didn’t want to restrict your options to three when you’re actually at four. Colleagues, we’re getting closer to additional candidates. We’ll drop off, the clerk will just get the remaining names loaded in the list.

And we will move on to our third round of voting in just a moment. And we will open the next round of voting with the remaining candidates. We’re almost there colleagues. After the results of this round, we have one more round and then we will arrive at four.

And we will now open the final round of voting. Now we have a slate that is ready to be voted on for appointment to the Diversity Community Advisory Committee. Stephen Demelio, Devinder Luthra, Leah Thomas Gray, and Chantel, Heavenly Tagazzi. So for that slate, we do need a mover and a seconder.

We’ve by Councillor Hopkins and seconded by Councillor Ferrera. And while we can’t have to be done this, I’m not seeing any speakers. We will ask the clerk as soon as it’s ready to open the vote. That is now open for voting.

Opposing the vote motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you colleagues. Moving on, the next part of 4.9 is subsection C, Ecological Community Advisory Committee. It requires up to five new members.

There are four applicants. So again, we can choose to fill a limited number of spots or we can have somebody move the slate of all four. Councillor Pribble, seconded by Councillor ramen to move all four names for appointment to the Ecological Advisory Committee. We will open the vote for that.

Opposing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you colleagues. Moving on, 4.9 section D, Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee. This committee requires up to three new members.

We don’t quite have 26 for this one. We have 11 applications for three positions. So we would follow the same process as we did for the diversity inclusion and anti-oppression community advisory committee, which is to put the entire slate forward. Colleagues will have three votes and we will have run-offs until we have reached three nominees to fill those positions.

Again, it is possible for colleagues to speak to one or more candidates if they wish to do so. Now is the time to do that. Sir Van Meerbergen. Thank you, Chair.

We’d like to speak in support of Laura Lee pushing late, Jay-Z, that’s Jay-Z, not lazy. She has been involved in a number of community groups throughout the city, not the least of which being habitat for humanity where she physically built homes, a re-forest London, she’s been involved in a myriad of groups as a real care for the city. So I wholeheartedly would endorse her for a place in this committee. So that’s Laura Lee pushing Jay-Z and she is part B of this motion.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Would anyone else like to speak in favor of a candidate or more than one candidate? Being none, I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote.

All the candidates will be available for your consideration this round. Everyone gets three votes and we will begin narrowing the field until we reach the three positions to be filled. Okay, colleagues, after the first round of voting, we have narrowed the field from 11 to seven. The clerk will add all those names into the second round of voting.

Okay, colleagues, that vote is now ready and so we will be able to open that. And again, you have three votes from the selection list available in front of you. After that round of voting, colleagues, we’ve narrowed the field to five. So we will proceed with the next round of voting as soon as the clerk has it ready.

And that vote is now ready, colleagues. Colleagues, we are down to four. So this will be the last round. There will be a winner or winners, I guess, in a colloquial sense.

After this round of voting, we will get to three candidates. Clerk will open the vote now for us and we can proceed. We’ll sing the vote and we have a winner with Andrea. We have a winner to put forward for selection to the Community Advisory Committee.

Andrea Bootenary, Nicole Karsz, and Laura Lee Bushin, Jay-Z. I look for a mover and a seconder to approve that slate. Moved by Councillor Cuddy. Seconded by Councillor Pribble.

Any discussion? Seeing none, we will get the clerk to open the vote. I vote yes. Opposing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero.

Thank you, colleagues. And moving on now to our next section 4.9E. This is the Integrated Transportation and Community Advisory Committee. This requires one new member.

We have eight applicants. So again, same process. All of the names will go on the first ballot and we will begin a runoff selection process. Now is the opportunity for anybody to speak to a candidate that they would like to recommend.

Councillor Pribble. I don’t know any of them in person, when I was reading through the applications, one of them really kind of stuck in my head and that’s Brendan Kaus and I’m just gonna quickly read three lines. I have had a long term fascination with transportation in its many modes and I continue to develop my understanding of various forms of transportation and their pros and cons. I have done this professionally as a structural engineer who works on public infrastructure projects.

I do recommend him based on what I write about the other candidates. All of them really strong would be valid but this one put it over the top for me. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Hopkins. I’d like to recommend Leah Thomas-Quay. I know you spoke to it. Mr.

Chair, just with her work in the community as well as her advocacy around accessibility to I think she’d be a good candidate for the advisory group. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes. I’d like to recommend Steve Sajimon.

I had not actually met him before but a couple months ago he shadowed me for the day and he’s a very interesting individual, very engaged. He works at WOWU and he works with a lot of clients who are regularly using our bus service, bike lanes and walking. And so I think he’d bring a fresh perspective of people who perhaps actually use the various active modes of transportation. And I think that would add an elevate to the conversation.

So I’d like to recommend Steve. Thank you, Councillor Frank. Councillor ramen, can I ask you to take the chair for me for a moment, please? Sure, recognizing Deputy Maris.

Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. And through you, I am going to echo my previous support for Lee Thomas Gray and Councillor Hopkins already outlined a number of the reasons why. Not only is she a very active member in our community, accessibility issues including creating a sensory, I’m gonna get the terminology wrong. A zone during the Santa Claus Parade where folks with sensory challenges can still enjoy the parade.

The enabling of people with mobility issues to attend the parade by arranging for accessible transportation rides transit to and from work every day, quite regularly, a transit user as well. But for me, this is a really key component on this committee. The entire committee makeup currently is male. Out of our eight candidates today, seven are male.

Lee is the only candidate who can bring a female perspective to this committee. I know, as I said, her work through the ARGAIA of BIA, she is determined, she is tough, she gets things done, and I think she would be a wonderful addition to this committee, so I’m asking colleagues to support her. Returning the speakers list to you with Councillor Palosa and Councillor Frank on the list. Thank you, thank you for chairing that for me and I’ll go to Councillor Palosa next.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was just trying to scroll back through prior votes. Can we confirm through the clerks if Leah Thomas Gray was one of the appointed people to be, which is the diversity inclusion and anti-oppression community advisory committee?

Yes, that, yes. Thank you, just want, I don’t know about a workload that someone’s willing to take on, but thank you. And Councillor Frank. Thank you, mine is a similar question.

It’s actually quite likely for this committee, but now that she’s already on another, I’m just wondering through you to the clerks, if Leah finds the commitments, maybe they conflict or if they’re too much workload, is she able to, or are they able to rescind an offer for one and choose the one that they prefer? I just, I’m wondering, based on workload, having two of these might be a bit heavy. So, if Leah was appointed to both and found she couldn’t do it, she would have to indicate through a resignation that she’s not interested, and then Council would reappoint somebody else. Councillor Palosa.

Thank you, just from comments that we’re hearing and making sure that we vote as we will. Is it possible that should Leah be picked for two, that civic administration or the clerks reach out? Between now and Council, just to check, so we could actually even fix that beforehand. Yes, they can do that.

So there’s time before Council for that communication to reach. Thank you for doing that. That takes Mayor Morgan off the list, ‘cause you asked his question for him. Any other speakers to this?

Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. With 12 votes, Leah’s Thomas Gray will be considered for appointment. We will need a mover and a seconder for the appointment, moved by Councillor Hopkins, and I’m happy to second that on that. Decating Councillor Trostall votes yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. That concludes section four of our agenda, items for direction, moving on to item five, which is deferred matters and additional business. We have one matter of an additional business.

This is with respect to the appointment of a new CEO for RBC Place, the London General Manager and coming from the recommendation. This is Mr. Pollard, who has previously been a member of the executive. So looking to see if there’s a mover for this, Mr.

Ferreira, seconded by Councillor Layman, and looking for any discussion, I see none. So the motion to appoint Mr. Pollard will be opened by the clerk now for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero.

Thank you, colleagues, item six, confidential. We have no items to be considered in confidential session, which takes us to item seven, adjournment, looking for a motion to adjourn. Councillor McAllister and Councillor Hopkins, we can do this one by hand, all those in favor. Motion carries.

Thank you, colleagues. There is dinner for you in the Councillor’s lounge.