June 10, 2024, at 1:00 PM

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The meeting was called to order at 1:02 PM; it being noted that Councillor H. McAlister was in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That Items 2.1 to 2.4 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

2.1   2nd Report of the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee

2024-05-23 ACAC Report

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the 2nd Report of the Accessibility Community Advisory Committee, from the meeting held on May 23, 2024, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.2   Renovictions: Renovation License and Relocation By-law Changes

2024-06-10 - Staff Report (2.2) - Renovictions Renovation License and Relocation Bylaw Changes

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development the proposed amendment to the Business Licensing by-law L.-131-16, as appended to the staff report dated June 10, 2024, for the purpose of requiring landlords to obtain a licence before requiring vacant possession to repair a under ss. 50(1)(c) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that a future public participation meeting will be held July 15, 2024, to receive comments regarding the proposed by-law;

it being further noted that a future by-law amendment will be brought forward to amend the Administrative Monetary Penalties By-law No. A-54 to introduce penalties and amounts to Schedule A-4 pertaining to the Business Licensing By-law L.-131-16 and this proposed new license category; and,

it being also noted that a future by-law amendment will be brought forward to amend the Fees and Charges By-law No. A-59 to introduce fees and charges associated with this proposed licence category. (2024-C01)

Motion Passed

2.3   Project Clean Slate – Grant Agreement with Youth Opportunities Unlimited

2024-06-10 - Staff Report (2.3) - Project Clean Slate – Grant Agreement with Youth Opportunities Unlimited

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the proposed by-law, as appended to the Added Agenda, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on June 25, 2024, to:

a)    approve the grant agreement between Youth Opportunities Unlimited and The Corporation of the City of London for the administration of Project Clean Slate (the “Agreement”); and,

b)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the above-noted Agreement. (2024-F11A)

Motion Passed

2.4   Housing Stability for All Plan 2023 Update 

2024-06-10 - Staff Report (2.4) - Housing Stability for All Plan 2023 Update - Full

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, and with the concurrence of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated June 10, 2024, related to the Housing Stability for All Plan 2023 Update:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to submit the Housing Stability for All Plan (HSAP) 2023 Update to the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing as the annual update to the local homeless prevention and housing plan, in accordance with the Housing Services Act, 2011 (HSA); and,

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to circulate this report to community and affected partners, agencies, and community groups including, but not limited to, Middlesex County, the London Homeless Coalition and on the City of London website. (2024-S11)

Motion Passed

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Councillor C. Rahman and Councillor D. Ferreira - CPKC Train Fire

2024-06-10 - Submission - CPKC train blaze - Councillor Rahman and Councillor Ferreira

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the following actions be taken with respect to the CPKC Train Fire:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee with key learning from the Sunday April 21, 2024 CPKC train fire including any updates to the Emergency Management notification protocol to address how the Members of Council and the public should be notified when a significant event takes place within the City; and,

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee meeting with respect to the invoices submitted for cost recovery (cost of trucks, staff time and fire suppression foam cost) related to the fire on Sunday April 21, 2024;

it being noted that CPKC has indicated to send the invoices for remittance;

it being further noted that the communication, dated June 2, 2024, from Councillors C. Rahman and D. Ferreira, with respect to this matter, was received. (2024-P16)

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by H. McAlister

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

6.1    Solicitor-Client Privilege / Land Acquisition/Disposition / Confidential Information Supplied by Canada/Province/Territory/Crown Agency of Same / Position, Plan, Procedure, Criteria or Instruction for Negotiation Purposes

A matter pertaining to advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege; including communications necessary for that purpose, and for the purpose of providing instructions and directions to officers and employees of the Corporation, a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality, information explicitly supplied in confidence to the municipality by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation pursuant to subsection 239(2)(h) of the Municipal Act, 2001 and is a position, plan, procedure, criteria, or instructions to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality pursuant to subsection 239(2)(k) of the Municipal Act.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

The Community and Protective Services Committee convened In Closed Session from 1:41 PM to 2:01 PM.

7.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 2:04 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.

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Okay, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the eighth meeting of the community of protective services committee. I will start with reading the land acknowledgement. So the city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishabak, the Haudenosaunee, the Lina Peiwak, and the Adawandran.

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 today. As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternative formats and communication supports for meetings upon request, to make a specific request to this meeting.

Please contact CPSC at London.ca or dial 519-661-2489, extension 2425. We have all committee members except for Councillor Trussell. We have two visiting members. Councillor Cuddy and Deputy Mayor Lewis, and we have Councillor Raman online as well.

So I’ll be looking for disclosures of any pecuniary interest. Denan, and I have the consent items and I have been requested to pull some items, but I would just ask the Councillors who have requested that to request again. No, no items to be pulled, looking to the side. No one’s pulling any consent items, so I’ll look for a mover for the consent.

Moved by Councillor Palosa, seconded by Councillor Privel. Okay, I’ll open that for discussion or any comments. So, Palosa. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and just for clarification, I am moving, all consent items, 2.1 through to 2.4, being the added revised staff recommendation, not the original one, just for clarification. Just a question through you to staff or really just an overview of this is the renovation, 2.2, the renovations, renovation, license and relocation by-law changes. Thank you for the report and realizing within this is there will be by-law changes that would require a public participation meeting, just as this one has had lots of information attention from the public of just a really brief overview of what we can expect or what the public can provide feedback on, and if we do this timelines, once the PPM’s done, of implementation. Thank you, Councillor.

I’ll go to Mr. Mathers, Chair. Through the Chair, I’ll have Ethan just go through some of those background details and provide its line for you. Through you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you for having us again. In April of 2024, civic administration was directed to report back with respect to a renovation, license and relocation by-law similar or not unlike to what the city of Hamilton had adopted earlier this year. This report and the attached draft by-law amendment are being submitted for review at this time. At the recommendation of committee and council, a public comment period will commence, and a public participation meeting is anticipated to be held July 15th of 2024 to receive that input regarding the attached draft by-law.

Staff have proposed amending in what you see before you, current business licensing by-law L13116 to introduce a new license category, rather than creating a new standalone by-law. Changes proposed herein would introduce a license for renovations to rental units that are so extensive that they require a tenant to move out, or what’s been called renovations. As intended upon council, or indicated, sorry, upon council decision and following the public comment period, staff anticipate that a by-law that takes into account both council and public input would be presented at the community and protective services committee meeting in September, and decided on by council later this year. Necessary amendments to the fees and charges by-law, and the administrative monetary penalties by-law would undoubtedly be necessary to implement a new license category, and would be presented at that future meeting as well.

Thank you. Thank you, council proposal. Thank you, just three to staff, one follow up on that, after the public participation meeting, and any changes in monetary policies and whatnot. Would that report also include if we need, and what it would be for any expansion of staff complement to be able to enforce, it should council pass it?

Thank you, councilor, to Mr. May this. Through the chair, absolutely, we went away out exactly what we thought we needed for the staff component, and then if there is a requirement there, we’ll be looking at through the multi-year budget update process, submitting a business case through that process. And then the one piece that we wanted to highlight as well, that if all of these different steps proceed as we anticipate, the hope would be that for the new year that we could bring forward that staffing component, and then bring forward the licensing program in the new year.

Back to council proposal. Thank you for that, realizing the budget update comes in October that these timelines are really tight, but we will make it. So thank you for staff, and your work on this, and engagement with the public, thank you. Thank you, councilor.

Looking to committee for anybody who wants to have any comments, and then I’ll go to visiting members. I see none, I have Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you, just a couple of questions for our staff.

I’m gonna start by saying I appreciate this is a tremendous amount of work, and that it is still a work in progress. And so I appreciate the time we’ve already put into it. I know you’ve had a lot of contact with other municipalities to talk about their best practices. I know you’ve engaged with community stakeholders as well.

So that’s all very much appreciated. I will say that I am a little concerned about the proposed staffing complement cost that’s laid out in the staff report of six individuals, and about a $600,000 price tag attached to that, and how that relates to where we are. And I know that you would be crystal balling a little bit, but the $400 licensing fee, and I know that it’s hard to track exactly how many of these are happening. And so I’m just using the numbers that Acorn shared with civic administration of 45 in one year, works out to about $18,000.

The city of Hamilton is charging almost double, I believe they’re at 750 for their licensing fee. So my first question through you, Mr. Chair, is what is the rationale that is supporting the $400 figure? You know, I, again, I don’t want it to be so high that it’s prohibitive of good landlords from making renovations that are needed, but I’m also concerned about the cost recovery portion, and knowing that we don’t have an AMPS fee yet in this report for recommendation in terms of a violation cost, I’m concerned that we’re not doing enough cost recovery on this, so I’m just wondering if staff could provide a little bit of comment on their rationale for these numbers so far.

Thank you, Councillor, to staff about the cost recovery and the cost. Through the chair, so we’ve really just completed a very preliminary calculation as far as what that cost could be. It really will depend on what the final bylaw looks like and the implementation and even preparing in the preparation and rest area for the multi-year budget business case to look at it. We’ve looked at it from the perspective of the recovery that we have from similar licensing programs.

We also want to ensure that it’s not too cost prohibitive, that we’re going to get people going underground and not wanting to submit. So we’re very mindful of that as well. Our bylaw is a little bit different than the Hamilton bylaw, which allows for actual full buildings to be able to be at one license, so they have a higher fee because you might, if you had a building and it had 40 units in it and you had 20 units that you were looking to be able to renovate, in Hamilton you could come in with one permit. This current proposal is in London would be for each unit, so it would be that recovery.

The Hamilton currently they’re planning on hiring 28 staff to implement this program, so they do have some higher costs associated with it. So ours is a little bit more defined at this point, but we are very willing to look at that value and that cost of the permit, just knowing we also don’t want it to put it out as step and to high and dry some of this work underground. Thank you, Mr. Mathers.

Going back to Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate that response and actually understanding that it’s a per unit fee rather than a whole building fee, which I’m much more supportive of, because then we can see a whole lot more renovations for cheap if they’re doing a whole building at once, so that’s helpful. And I know that the staff chart did indicate that two of these would be enforcement.

I think we can always use more bylaw enforcement officers, so whether they’re working on this or whether they’re working on other property standards or other measures that we’re asking them to do, I certainly don’t begrudge having a couple more bylaw officers on staff. I think there’s never a shortage of work for them. I do wonder, and I know that I’m sort of unfairly asking staff to crystal ball this a little bit, there’s two portions that I want to ask about in terms of what we have before us today. The first is around the amps and the fines for violations.

When we work through this public consultation period and then have a draft bylaw returning, do staff foresee the administrative monetary penalties amounts and the associated components to implement those coming forward at the same time? So when we vote as a council to implement this bylaw, will we know what the fees, the administrative monetary penalties are? Will that be aligned? Thank you, Councillor, Mr.

Matives. Through the chair, we would speak to those in the actual body of the report. There would be a subsequent actual establishing those fees in our bylaw, but we would want to be able to need to see all that entire picture at once. Thank you, Mr.

Matives. I’ll go back to the deputy mayor. You have 40 seconds left. Well, that’s good ‘cause this is my final question.

Based on what we have in the report so far, and again, I know there’s more work to do, and one of the things that I still want to see in the future is how we deal with N12s. Again, I know I’m asking you to ballpark at this time, but do you foresee this investment having the opportunity to expand to also include N12s with this sort of same approach and the same staffing compliment that we’re suggesting? Or is that going to need a whole separate process to deal with? Thank you, Councillor.

I will look back to staff. Through the chair, as mentioned, right now we’re just looking at the N12s, that’s very similar and that’s what Hamilton’s doing at this point, so there will be more work in the future. I’ll pass it back to our supporting folks here to provide a little more details on the next steps for the N13s. Through you, Mr.

Chair, I think, or I know when we drafted this, we were specifically looking at N13s only. Considering the N12 process that’s outlined in the Residential Tenancies Act, it’s a little bit more difficult to understand how enforcement would look locally, as opposed to the materials that are required to issue it in N13 versus an N12, and how we, as a city, would be able to ask for certain materials, so it’s a bit of a tricky question to answer, it will certainly be something we can elaborate on in our next comeback and talk about what an N12 program might look like, if that’s something that Council is looking for. Thank you, looking for visiting members. Councillor Cuddy.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for inviting me to speak today to your committee. I wanna begin by recognizing many of my residents from Ward 3, and most of them are from 1280 and 1270 Webster Street. And Chair, the fact that they’re in the public gallery today is a good representation of how important this by-law is. And several months ago, Deputy Mayor Lewis and I crafted a motion along with Mr.

Kritolik that was the genesis of this by-law, and I’m grateful to Mr. Kritolik for his work. I’m grateful to Deputy Mayor Lewis, and I’m also grateful to the Mayor for signing on with this. And I might add, Chair, that if you recall, that motion was passed unanimously, and we don’t get a lot of unanimous motions around Council, so I was really grateful to all my colleagues.

And Ryan here today, and really here to speak, I’m here to hear the voice of my residents and to tell you how important this is, and to tell all committee members how important this is. And many of my residents, Chair, and many of those in 1270 and 1280 Webster Street, they frankly give it up, they have, because they feel that they’re not getting ahead. And many of them have been sort of noticed that they have to evacuate to get out of their apartments. And this by-law chair hopefully is going to end that practice.

And I am so grateful for the work that we’ve done so far and what has to be done yet. And alluding to some of the comments that Deputy Mayor Lewis made, that yes, it’s a high cost, it’s six officers. And I want you to know, Chair, that I think all of us agree here that this shouldn’t be the burden of taxpayers, this should be self-sustainable. And I want to work towards with you and with your committee on making sure that happens.

I also want to mention that we have great landlords in the city, we have some really terrific ones, York, Fari, Old Oak, Siften. This is not meant for those, Chair. This by-laws meant for those rogue landlords that have come into the city with the only intention of making money as quickly as they can on the backs of our good tenants. And we are here, we are here around this table to protect those who can’t protect themselves.

It’s in our interest and the interests of our residents, Chair, to look after everyone. And this is solely for those people, for those landlords that are only interested in making money as quickly as they can. And Chair, in conclusion, I want to thank you. I want to thank all of your committee members for working so hard on this.

This is going to be a wonderful by-law. I’m excited about it. And I think my residents are very excited at both prospects. So thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. I have Councillor Perble next on the list. Thank you, Mr. Chair, to the staff.

I do have a question when we look at our recommendations and the last two parts that at the future, the penalties as well as the fees will be introduced in future. And I just want to make sure, when it comes back to the committee, to the council, are we going to be voting on the fees together with the proposed by-law? Or is the, are the fees going to be coming later? Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Mr. Mayders. Through the chair.

So in the report, we will highlight what the proposed mounts will be, but it will be a different process for us to update the fees and charges by-law. So we would go through the standard process in the, because that would require public meeting as well. So, but if there’s specific direction the council would like to give at that time, and that would be our opportunity to give it if you had concerns or would look at one different assessment at that point. So all the information will be there for you to make the decision.

And if you do want to provide direction at that time, you’ll be able to do that. Thank you, Mr. Mayders. Councillor Peril.

Thank you for that. And yes, I certainly would, I don’t know how my colleagues buy, certainly would like to know at least the approximate or actually I would like to know exact, but if not at least approximate, so we can make the full decision at the same time. And the second question I have going back to the concerns in terms of the staffing, the six staff, David based it on kind of our own experiences because again, or within our department, or is it in comparison with our municipalities? Thank you, Councillor, Mr.

Mayders. Through the chair, so it’s a combination of the two. We’ve looked at what the Hamilton model, which has 28 staff, what they’re suggesting. And we’ve looked at our current complement and maybe how we can operationalize it a bit differently.

So we do know that there will be a lot of licenses coming forward. So we’ve looked at other licensing programs, the amount of staff that we’ve had for that based on the numbers we think might be coming through. And to develop a fairly well thought out at this point based on what we have as a by-laws proposed to, if there’s large changes based on the public consultation, then that would change these numbers. But it’s definitely a combination between what we’ve heard from other communities and how we operate currently at the city.

Mr. Mayders, Councillor, thank you. And I’m glad to get that. If you look at both sides internally, as well as other municipalities.

Again, I’ll leave it as kind of as the staff, but we don’t know how fast it’s gonna kind of move forward. And we, all these individuals, all these the six are needed and certainly in terms of the support staff. So I would just leave it with the staff. Please look at our current resources.

There are certain periods of time that we can carry on with the ones we have. And then once the volume increases, we would tire train additional ones. So I will leave it with our staff, but thank you. I saw the nodding, so thank you for consideration.

You, Councillor, look into other committee members, visiting members, if they want to make any comments or have any questions. I see none, I have some questions, so I will turn the chair over to the vice chair. Thank you, recognizing Councillor Ferra. Thank you, vice chair.

So I do have some questions and I wanted to make some comments. Some of the questions that I had have been answered, but I did wanna ask about when would we potentially see this program fully implemented? I understand that we’re gonna go through a budget update for the multi-year budget, and I just wanted to know if everything is successful as we are right now. When would we see this program be gearing up in operation?

Thank you to Mr. Mathers and team. Through the chair. So if everything goes as per our schedule, which if there is that uni piece in the consultation piece, we don’t want to undermine the value of that.

So there could be some changes, but based on the schedule we proposed, this could be brought forward in Q1 of 2025. Councillor Ferra. Thank you, vice chair. My second question would be with respect to how the program would be applied.

Would we be seeing this program applied retroactively? I got a few N13s and I do know that some other counselors have a few of them also. I wanted to know if we are able to apply that to in current N13s at the moment. Thank you, Mr.

Mathers and appropriate staff. Through the chair, we have some folks, Evelyn here from legal, so she’ll provide a response to you. Through the chair, generally speaking, bylaws are not retroactive, unless there’s specific authority to do that. So the bylaw would be effective when it was passed and in terms of N13s that are issued as of that date that it is passed.

Councillor Ferra. All right, thank you for that. So I guess I’ll save the other questions for another day. But I did want to just say thank you to staff for your work on this report, especially for bringing it in so quickly and how comprehensive the report was.

That turnaround time is impressive to say the least. You know, it’s based on legislation, it’s based on the work of our peers and it’s something that works within the parameters afforded to our municipality. So we are very grateful for that. It’s also built on the understanding that people need housing first and that renovations and unaffordable rent and homelessness are all three parts of that same multi-sided coin.

So we are being very surgical and strategic with this license. So, you know, I see it as a very perfect step, one of the steps that we’re going to take. I also want to look at Councillors, the members of Council, yourself, for moving with this and bringing this to the table. You have brought our words into something material that we can give to the people of London.

So I’m very appreciative of that and I’m very honored to be part of something like that. I myself have a few N13s on my desk, big pile cases of N13s. Most recent was about three weeks ago from 435 Nelson Street where 11 more Londoners from my ward were served N13s. And the new owner, new owner and landlord is stating that the building is unfit to live and they’re also stating that they’ve pulled a demolition permit with the city.

But the issue is that building is fine. And there is no demolition permit pulled with the city. So I’ve seen these scare tactics again and again. And this is something, you know, this license would be something that would be strategic for issues like that.

So I’m very grateful to see something like that. It’s just another tool that we can now use in our toolkit to combat something like this because it is on that front line. So I’ll leave my comments there for now. I do see Councillor Cuddy wants to ask a question.

So Councillor Cuddy, you have one minute, 51 seconds. Sorry, you actually don’t have the chair at this time. Oh, right. As presenting officer, I will note that Councillor Ferri used two minutes and 47 seconds for timing purposes.

And I’m happy to return control the Councillor. Thank you, Vice Chair. Sorry for that. I have the chair now recognizing Councillor Cuddy.

You have one minute, 51 seconds. Thank you, Chair and through you. And thank you for mentioning that about the issues you have in Word 13 because I think many of my residents think it’s isolated to Word 3 and it’s not because I know Deputy Mayor Lewis has said similar problems in Word 2 and now in Word 13. So thank you for mentioning that.

We know it’s a city-wide problem and this by-law is going to correct. We hopefully is going to correct it city-wide. Thank you again. Thank you, Councillor.

I’m going to turn the chair over one more time to the Vice Chair. Okay, thank you. I have the chair. I recognize you and I’m restarting your timer.

Thank you. I see this as an epidemic in our city. It’s going unchecked and we need to bring it back into check. It’s resulting in a systematic drive to increase our rents and it’s unraveling a big chunk of the city’s societal fabric.

So, you know, people are being systematically forced to leave their homes, families are getting kicked out. Then their neighbors, then from their neighborhoods and then from their communities and sometimes the city itself. And I’ve seen these cases again and again. It’s a strained relationships, pulled kids out of school.

It’s causing anxiety for many individuals at this very moment. The fear of being renovated is a real fear that people are thinking about and they are stressing about. And I’ve had enough of that to be perfectly frank. So, when it comes to people who are trying to turn our housing into purely strictly investment vehicles, I would have this message for you.

You know, if you investors are unhappy with the returns in the traditional market with your investments and are looking for other areas to invest, I say this. A home is a home. A home is not a commodity. And I hope you’ve had your bets planning your portfolio because you’re about to be regulated.

And this is only one step we’re taking. When your business model comes at a cost of the basic human rights for people, expect the people to respond. Expect the loopholes to close and I say to you, please, start investing your money with wisdom and not with greed. So, thank you.

Thank you. Looking for further speakers. Okay, I’ll be returning to chair to you and I have no further speakers in my list at the moment. Thank you, Councillor.

I’ll look one more time for committee members or visiting members. I have Councillor Preble. You have three minutes and 25 seconds, Councillor Preble. I would need this much, but based on the last comments we’re made, I just wanna make sure that we are very open to our community and our city and outside the city investors.

We are very much welcoming them and we want them to invest in our housing and we need that. And again, we are not planning to make. What I say to ongoing strict restrictions. Yes, we certainly will be considering this no doubt, but on the other hand, we do need housing and the developers investors are very much welcome into London.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, looking for committee one last time for any comments or questions, visiting members. Okay, I will call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero.

Okay, that leaves us to scheduled items. I have none, items for direction. I have one item from Councillor Roth. Sorry, I still have some questions regarding the consent items.

Okay, moving back to the consent items. Yes, point of order. Respectfully, we’ve voted on it and I don’t think we go back procedurally. There’s always an opportunity at council, just procedurally, I think it’s just forward from here.

Thank you, Councillor, the clerk is confirming that with you. So procedurally, you are correct. So Councillor Pribble, I apologize. I won’t be able to make any more comments for the consent items.

No, that is correct. That’s what we were just doing 2.2 and we were going to the other ones, but no, I’m all good. Okay, that leaves us to scheduled items, none. And then items to direction.

There is an item on this from Councillor Ramen and myself. I see Councillor Ramen on the screen. Sorry, Mr. Chair.

I’m not sure if you want me to take control for you at this time and then you can introduce it as Councillor Ramen is unable to as a visiting Councillor. Thank you, Councillor. That’s what I was just asking with the clerk. I will pass that over to you.

Thank you and I will turn it back over to you, recognizing I have Chair to introduce your motion and then I’m happy to recognize Councillor Ramen as I can see her on the screen, so welcome. And thank you, Vice Chair. This is a motion that Councillor Ramen and I have brought. I will let her speak to the merits of the motion, but I support her on the cost recovery aspects.

So I would like to move that motion and I’ll leave it at moving the motion. Okay, looking to see if there’s a seconder for the motion. Okay, I see Councillor McAllister as a seconder. The item is now on the floor and open for discussion and you would like me to recognize Councillor Ramen at this point, I am happy to do so.

Welcome, Councillor and please proceed. Thank you and through you presenting officer. Much appreciate the opportunity and I’d like to thank Councillor Ferreira for his assistance in bringing this forward to committee. So the motion in front of you today is to request a report back in that report, looking for some key learnings from what took place, the CPKC fire that took place in our city back a month ago or so.

The reason for this is that I think that it was very clear to us that there was an expectation or clear to be sorry, there was an expectation from the public that more information would have been shared on that fire. There were people that reached out to me, I know, and to other members of council, expressing that they thought that they should have maybe seen something through either our emergency management protocol, others that were learning about it through social media. And there was genuine fear and concern. And so I think that it’s important that we take the information that we learn from an incident like that in order to better our practices and find ways to address some of those concerns.

This is, you know, a new environment for all of us as we navigate through these types of instances and the perceptions that also take place on social media. So being able to have an understanding of what the community expects and how we can better communicate, I think, is important. One of the other things that I’d like to see come from that report is just more information from the debrief. I understand that staff had a really good conversation with CPKC and were able to share some of their learnings in those meetings, and I think it would be helpful for what can be shared publicly to be shared from that.

And so that council is also given that full information, which I think is really important because it helps, again, inform our expectations as we move forward. And lastly, the last piece of the motion, you’ll see it’s a little bit different in the letter that was provided in what is now in the motion here. So in the motion provided initially and the letter started provided initially, it talked about cost recovery and directing staff to do so. I was in Calgary this weekend and the mayor and I had a chance to meet with CPKC and have a good discussion about cost recovery.

And so we’ve found a path forward and with that we were able to change the language and the motion to include the report back on what the invoices contained that were provided to CPKC. So really pleased that we have a partner that is willing to engage in those conversations with us. When they can be difficult so that we can find solutions for the community. And I think through open transparent communication, as well as through report back to us, I think there’s an opportunity for us to have more dialogue and understanding about what to do in these situations.

Hopefully this won’t happen to our community again, but again, kudos to our staff, firefighters in the city who responded quickly and made sure that this wasn’t worse as it could have been. So much appreciation to everyone for that. Thank you, Councilor. I’m not sure if IT can put up the motion on the screen as it is different than what was circulated in advances Councilor Raman has noted, perfect.

And just anyone in East crime, it can pull it up there. It’s also loaded into the system. Looking for further speakers on this from committee members or visiting Councillors, I will recognize Deputy Mayor Lewis then as the next hand up. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And through you, I just want to take an opportunity. And I know that neither Councillor Raman nor Councillor Ferra intends this, I know that they understand this, but given the way that it was introduced in the comments about what the public expects and should know, I think it’s very important that everyone understands that there will be things during an emergency situation that the public will not know to protect the operational integrity of the situation, whether that’s fire control, whether that’s police and community safety, that there are components of public safety action that are actually not shared with the public, and there are specific reasons for that. And as I said, I know that neither Councillor Ferra nor Councillor Raman is proposing, in fact, that information that can’t be publicly shared would be, but I just want to be cautious about setting up an expectation that, in fact, they are going to have access to everything that they think they should have access to, when in fact, some things are actually privy to confidential decisions. And likewise, and I see this regularly on social media as well, a police action at an intersection or at home in a neighbourhood, and people think that there should be live real-time updates.

Well, again, they’re actually not entitled to those. There’s an integrity of the operation that needs to not be compromised, and in some cases, there are very specific public safety reasons why that information is not provided in real-time. But the most important reason is that our emergency responders are responding to the actual emergency. And communications after the fact, and Councillor Raman said it really well.

You know, important to hear the lessons from the debriefing and what can be done better next time because there’s always that opportunity for continuous improvement, but in a real-time emergency, the focus should be on containing and dealing with the emergency issue. Again, whether that’s a fire, whether that’s a public safety issue around policing, whatever it may be, and so communications will sometimes take a back seat to that until such time as the situation is secure, and the issue has been resolved to the point where communications can start to become a priority to get the word out. So I just want to highlight that. Again, I know that compromising operational integrity of anything is not at all what the Councillors are suggesting in this motion, completely support where they’re going here, but for those members of the public who might think that this is going to provide, you know, real-time information in the future when these things happen, that’s not the case, and it won’t be the case in most instances.

So just wanted to share that perspective. Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. Thank you, looking for further speakers on this item. I don’t see any on screen at the moment.

I don’t have anything in chambers at the moment. Councillor Ferri, did you want to make comment? Or you’re, nope, okay. So the motion is in the East Cribed and haven’t been moved and seconded.

Call on the question. Opposing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. Thank you, I’ll return the control to the chair. Thank you, Vice Chair.

I have the chair. Okay, that is it, for items for direction. I have nothing for deferred matters or additional business that leaves us to the last, or sorry, to the second last confidential. We do have one item.

So I will look to committee for a motion to go into closed session. Happy to move it. And are we staying in chambers? Okay, happy to move it.

We were staying in chambers. It’s moved by Councillor Ploza, looking for a seconder, Councillor McAllister. That will be up in the system in a second. Councillor McAllister, closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero.

Recording in progress. Okay, we are back into the public setting. I am going to look to my Vice Chair to report out. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, reporting out that progress is made for the item in which we went in camera for. Thank you, Vice Chair. That leaves us to adjournment. So I’m looking for a motion to adjourn.

Moved by Councillor Pribble, seconded by Councillor Palosa. And we’ll put that up. We’re looking for a hand vote. So all of those in favor of the adjournment, okay?

That’s carried. We’re adjourned.