Open Council

13th Meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee

Open Council

13th Meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee

October 28, 2025, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:01 PM; it being noted that Mayor J. Morgan, Councillors E. Peloza (6:08 PM) and Councillor S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

2.1   London Hydro Inc. Amended and Restated Shareholder Declaration

2025-10-28 Staff Report - (2.1) London Hydro Amended Shareholder Declaration

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports and the Deputy City Manager, Legal Services with the concurrence of the City Manager, the following actions be taken with respect to the London Hydro Inc. Amended and Restated Shareholder Declaration:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated October 28, 2025 as Appendix “A”, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council Meeting to be held on November 4, 2025:

i)    TO RATIFY AND CONFIRM the Resolution of the Shareholder of London Hydro Inc. authorizing and approving a 2025 Shareholder Declaration for London Hydro Inc., attached to the by-law as Schedule “1”;

ii)    TO AUTHORIZE the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the Resolution of the Shareholder; and

iii)    TO AUTHORIZE the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the Shareholder Declaration attached to the Resolution of the Shareholder as Schedule “A”;

b)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated October 28, 2025 as Appendix “B”, To Approve a Recruitment Process for Director Appointments to London Hydro Inc. BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council Meeting to be held on November 4, 2025 to set out the process established for appointments to the Board of London Hydro Inc.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That, pursuant to section 27.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, a change in order of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee Agenda BE APPROVED, to provide for Item 6.1 in Stage 6, Confidential, to be considered after Stage 2, Consent.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Public Participation Meeting - Not to be heard before 1:05 PM - 2026 Amendments to Consolidated Fees and Charges By-law

2025-10-28 Staff Report - 2026 Amendments to Consolidated Fees and Charges By-law

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the City Clerk, with the concurrence of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated October 28, 2025, as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on November 4, 2025, to repeal By-law A-60 and replacing it with a new 2026-2027 Consolidated Fees and Charges By-law that lists various fees and charges for services or activities provided by the City of London.

it being noted that no individuals spoke at the public participation meeting associated with this matter.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

3.2   Delegation - Steve Pellarin, Executive Director - Small Business Centre, London

2025-10-28 Submission - Small Business Centre Presentation

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That it BE NOTED that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the Annual Update from S. Pellarin, Executive Director, Small Business Centre, London.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

3.3   Delegation - Christina Fox, Chief Executive Officer - TechAlliance

2025-10-28 Submission - TechAlliance Presentation

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That it BE NOTED that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the Annual Update from C. Fox, Chief Executive Officer, TechAlliance.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

3.4   Delegation - Kapil Lakhotia, President and Chief Executive Officer - London Economic Development Corporation

2025-10-28 Submission - LEDC Presentation

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by E. Peloza

That it BE NOTED that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the Annual Update from K. Lakhotia, President and Chief Executive Officer, London Economic Development Corporation.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   2025 Council Resourcing Review Task Force Final Report

2025-10-28 Submission - CRRTF Final Report

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the 2025 Council Resourcing Review Task Force, and in accordance with the Final Report dated October 3, 2025, the following actions BE IMPLEMENTED with respect to Councillor resourcing effective November 15, 2026:

a) recognizing London’s growth and the public expectation of full-time hours for this role, the annual compensation for Councillors BE INDEXED to the 70th percentile 2020 median full-time employment income for Londoners, as reported in the 2021 Census, it being noted that this change will take effect at the commencement of the next term of Council;

b) the current annual adjustment formula in the Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy BE MAINTAINED;

c) the annual adjustment in Councillor compensation BE AUTOMATIC and administered by the Civic Administration;

d) the Council base compensation and the annual adjustment formula BE UPDATED in 2027 to reflect data from the 2021 – 2026 census period, and that the new data be used to calculate Council compensation starting in 2028, such that 2028 base compensation will equal 70th percentile 2025 full-time individual employment income in the London CMA, as reported in 2026 census data;

e) the Mayor’s current compensation BE MAINTAINED, and the alignment between Council and Mayoral base compensation BE REVIEWED at the next Council Resourcing Review, scheduled to take place in four years;

f) the current practice of not providing additional compensation or stipends to the Mayor and Councillors for sitting on agencies, boards, and commissions BE CONTINUED;

g) a mechanism to compensate Standing Committee Chairs for their additional responsibilities BE IMPLEMENTED, with compensation to be set at 4% of the base annual Councillor salary, limited to one application per Councillor at any given time, and not applicable to individuals serving as Deputy Mayor or Budget Chair;

h) Council undertake the following actions with respect to additional compensation and related matters for the Deputy Mayor and Budget Chair positions, and that they BE CODIFIED in Council Policy: 

i) a mechanism to compensate the Deputy Mayor and the Budget Chair BE FORMALIZED in the Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy, with additional compensation for both positions to be set at the amount of 8% of the base annual Councillor salary; and

ii) the roles and responsibilities, as well as the appointment process, for the Deputy Mayor and Budget Chair positions BE CLARIFIED within a new “Appointment of Deputy Mayor and Budget Chair Policy”;

i) the expectation that a Councillor’s role constitutes full-time service BE CLARIFIED AND REINFORCED through the development and inclusion of appropriate language to this effect in Council documents;

j) language in the Council Procedure By-law regarding Councillor service on Standing Committees BE AMENDED to further promote balanced Councillor representation across Standing Committees;

k) an expectation BE ESTABLISHED that each Councillor serve on a minimum of three Agency, Board, or Commission positions at any given time, and that this expectation BE CODIFIED in the appropriate Council documents;

l) and m) of the 2025 Council Resourcing Review Task Force recommendations, relating to the Councillor Office support staff complement, the reduction to Council Member general expense accounts, and the increase to the contract assistant expense allotment, BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Governance Working Group for consideration with respect to the related to Deferred Items on its agenda;

n) the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the necessary steps to establish a severance package for Members of Council who are unsuccessful in re-election, calculated at one (1) week of pay per year of service, to a maximum of four (4) weeks;

o) a ‘continuous learning’ model of Councillor training BE ENDORSED and supported with resources, and that both new and returning Council Members BE REQUIRED to attend post-election training and onboarding sessions; and

p) the relationship between Council resourcing and the composition of Council BE CONSIDERED in the next Ward Boundary Review process;

it being noted that the verbal delegation from M. Horak, Chair, 2025 Council Resourcing Review Task Force was received.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by E. Peloza

That pursuant to section 31.6 of the Council Procedure By-law, Councillor S. Lehman BE PERMITTED to speak an additional 2 minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part a):

a) recognizing London’s growth and the public expectation of full-time hours for this role, the annual compensation for Councillors BE INDEXED to the 70th percentile 2020 median full-time employment income for Londoners, as reported in the 2021 Census, it being noted that this change will take effect at the commencement of the next term of Council;

Motion Passed (12 to 3)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part b):

b) the current annual adjustment formula in the Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy BE MAINTAINED;

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part c):

c) the annual adjustment in Councillor compensation BE AUTOMATIC and administered by the Civic Administration;

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part d):

d) the Council base compensation and the annual adjustment formula BE UPDATED in 2027 to reflect data from the 2021 – 2026 census period, and that the new data be used to calculate Council compensation starting in 2028, such that 2028 base compensation will equal 70th percentile 2025 full-time individual employment income in the London CMA, as reported in 2026 census data;

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part e):

e) the Mayor’s current compensation BE MAINTAINED, and the alignment between Council and Mayoral base compensation BE REVIEWED at the next Council Resourcing Review, scheduled to take place in four years;

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part f):

f) the current practice of not providing additional compensation or stipends to the Mayor and Councillors for sitting on agencies, boards, and commissions BE CONTINUED;

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part g):

g) a mechanism to compensate Standing Committee Chairs for their additional responsibilities BE IMPLEMENTED, with compensation to be set at 4% of the base annual Councillor salary, limited to one application per Councillor at any given time, and not applicable to individuals serving as Deputy Mayor or Budget Chair;

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part h):

h) Council undertake the following actions with respect to additional compensation and related matters for the Deputy Mayor and Budget Chair positions, and that they BE CODIFIED in Council Policy: 

i) a mechanism to compensate the Deputy Mayor and the Budget Chair BE FORMALIZED in the Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy, with additional compensation for both positions to be set at the amount of 8% of the base annual Councillor salary; and

ii) the roles and responsibilities, as well as the appointment process, for the Deputy Mayor and Budget Chair positions BE CLARIFIED within a new “Appointment of Deputy Mayor and Budget Chair Policy”;

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part i):

i) the expectation that a Councillor’s role constitutes full-time service BE CLARIFIED AND REINFORCED through the development and inclusion of appropriate language to this effect in Council documents;

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part j):

j) language in the Council Procedure By-law regarding Councillor service on Standing Committees BE AMENDED to further promote balanced Councillor representation across Standing Committees;

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part k):

k) an expectation BE ESTABLISHED that each Councillor serve on a minimum of three Agency, Board, or Commission positions at any given time, and that this expectation BE CODIFIED in the appropriate Council documents;

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve parts l) and m):

l) and m) of the 2025 Council Resourcing Review Task Force recommendations, relating to the Councillor Office support staff complement, the reduction to Council Member general expense accounts, and the increase to the contract assistant expense allotment, BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Governance Working Group for consideration with respect to the related to Deferred Items on its agenda;

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part n):

n) the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the necessary steps to establish a severance package for Members of Council who are unsuccessful in re-election, calculated at one (1) week of pay per year of service, to a maximum of four (4) weeks;

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part o):

o) a ‘continuous learning’ model of Councillor training BE ENDORSED and supported with resources, and that both new and returning Council Members BE REQUIRED to attend post-election training and onboarding sessions; and

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lehman

Motion to approve part p):

p) the relationship between Council resourcing and the composition of Council BE CONSIDERED in the next Ward Boundary Review process;

it being noted that the verbal delegation from M. Horak, Chair, 2025 Council Resourcing Review Task Force was received.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the Committee recess at this time, for 15 minutes.

Motion Passed

The Committee recesses at 5:05 PM and reconvenes at 5:23 PM.

4.2   Committee Appointment Preferences Submitted by Council Members

2025-10-28 Submission - 2026 - Standing Committee Preference Chart

2025-10-28 Submission - 2026 - Committee Appointment Preferences

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Franke

That the following appointments BE MADE to the Standing Committees of the Municipal Council for the term December 1, 2025 to November 15, 2026:

a)      Planning and Environment Committee

Deputy Mayor S. Lewis

Councillor P. Cuddy

Councillor S. Stevenson

Councillor S. Hillier

b)    Community and Protective Services Committee

Councillor J. Pribil

Councillor S. Trosow

Councillor A. Hopkins

Councillor D. Ferreira

c)      Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee

Councillor H. McAlister

Councillor S. Stevenson

Councillor P. Van Meerbergen

Councillor S. Franke

it being noted that the following Council Members were appointed as Chair by Mayoral Decision 2025-003:

Councillor S. Lehman - Planning and Environment Committee

Councillor E. Peloza - Community and Protective Services Committee

Councillor C. Rahman - Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.3   Consideration of Appointment to the Covent Garden Market Board of Directors (Requires 1 Member)

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That David Little BE APPOINTED to the Covent Garden Market Board of Directors for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Appointment to the Covent Garden Market Board of Directors

Majority Winner: Jim Yanchula

Appointment to the Covent Garden Market Board of Directors

Majority Winner: No majority

Appointment to the Covent Garden Market Board of Directors

Majority Winner: David Little

4.4   Consideration of Appointment to the Committee of Adjustment (Requires 1 Member)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That Jeff Gard BE APPOINTED to the Committee of Adjustment for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Appointment to the Committee of Adjustment

Majority Winner: Jeff Gard

4.5   Consideration of City Appointees to Western University’s Board of Governors

2025-10-28 Submission - Appointments-Western Board of Governors (2)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the motion to appoint Lori Higgs and Marlene McGrath to the Western University’s Board of Governors BE REFERRED to the next meeting of Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to allow for more information to be gathered with respect to the candidates and the appointment process.

Motion Passed (8 to 7)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Lehman

That Lori Higgs and Marlene McGrath BE APPOINTED to the Western University’s Board of Governors for the term ending June 30, 2030; it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated September 30, 2025 from A. Bryson, University Secretary, Western University with respect to this matter.

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That pursuant to section 33.8 of the Council Procedure by-law, the Committee BE PERMITTED to proceed beyond 6:00 PM.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Moved by S. Trosow

That, pursuant to section 32.5 of the Council Procedure By-law, “shall the ruling of the Chair BE SUSTAINED?”

Motion Passed (12 to 3)

4.6   Consideration of Amendments to the Council Procedure By-law A-61 - Councillor C. Rahman, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis and Councillor D. Ferreira

2025-10-28 Submission - Council Procedure By-law-Councillors

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to bring forward a by-law to the November 4, 2025, meeting of Municipal Council to amend Council Procedure By-law A-61 to update the standing committee mandates as follows:

a)    the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee mandate BE AMENDED to include “Sidewalks and Bike lanes – Planning, Design (retrofitting into established neighbourhoods) and Maintenance, Snow Control, Street Lighting (retrofitting into existing neighbourhoods), Traffic Control (changes to parking regulations, new Pedestrian Crossovers, automated enforcement, etc.), and Waste Management”;

b)    the Community and Protective Services Committee mandate BE AMENDED to remove “Sidewalks and Bike lanes – Planning, Design (retrofitting into established neighbourhoods) and Maintenance, Snow Control, Street Lighting (retrofitting into existing neighbourhoods), Traffic Control (changes to parking regulations, new Pedestrian Crossovers, automated enforcement, etc.), and Waste Management”; and

c)    the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee BE AMENDED to include “Items related to Strong Mayor Decisions and Directions”.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by D. Ferreira

Motion to approve part a) and part b):

a)    the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee mandate BE AMENDED to include “Sidewalks and Bike lanes – Planning, Design (retrofitting into established neighbourhoods) and Maintenance, Snow Control, Street Lighting (retrofitting into existing neighbourhoods), Traffic Control (changes to parking regulations, new Pedestrian Crossovers, automated enforcement, etc.), and Waste Management”;

b)    the Community and Protective Services Committee mandate BE AMENDED to remove “Sidewalks and Bike lanes – Planning, Design (retrofitting into established neighbourhoods) and Maintenance, Snow Control, Street Lighting (retrofitting into existing neighbourhoods), Traffic Control (changes to parking regulations, new Pedestrian Crossovers, automated enforcement, etc.), and Waste Management”; and

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by D. Ferreira

Motion to approve part c):

c)    the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee BE AMENDED to include “Items related to Strong Mayor Decisions and Directions”.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.7   Request for Change of Council Meeting Date - Councillor S. Franke

2025-10-28 Submission - Council Proceedings-S. Franke

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That, with respect to the Annual Calendar for Standing Committee and Council Meetings, the following actions be taken:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to amend the 2026 Standing Committee and Council Meeting Calendar to reschedule the meeting of Council currently set for Tuesday, October 13, 2026 at 1:00 PM to Wednesday, October 14, 2026, to accommodate the Council Added Agenda deadline for communications and petitions to Council; and

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to schedule Council Meetings that would otherwise fall on a Tuesday following a statutory holiday to Wednesdays on all future Annual Calendars for Standing Committee and Council Meetings on an ongoing basis.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential (Provided to Members only.)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed session to consider the following:

6.1    Litigation/Potential Litigation / Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice

A matter pertaining to litigation or potential litigation affecting the municipality and advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session from 1:05 PM to 1:36 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 6:32 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 (5 hours, 23 minutes)

[13:45] All right, colleagues, it is 1 p.m. We have quorum, so I am going to call the 13th meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to order. And as always, we want to begin by acknowledging that the City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, the Haudenosaunee, and Lene Peiwa, and Adawaner in peoples. And we honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home.

[22:58] The City of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people. And as representatives of the peoples of the City of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. I will also share that the City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats, communication supports for meetings upon request. If you’d like to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact sppc at london.ca or phone 519-661-2489, extension 2425. I will begin by looking for any disclosures of pecuniary interest. Seeing none, I will note that all members of council are in chambers with the exception of Mayor Morgan, who is joining us remotely, and Councillor Hillyer, who is joining us remotely. Councillor Layman is in the building as is Councillor van Mirbergen. I think they’re just running a minute or too late, so they will join us as they’re able. And so that moves us to our agenda items.

[24:04] We have one item on consent. This is the London Hydro amended and restated shareholder declaration. I’m looking to see if we have a mover and a seconder for that. To get it on the floor, moved by Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor McAllister. So that is moved and seconded, and I will open the floor to any discussion now. Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you, I just wanted to take a moment to thank City staff and London Hydro staff for the work that has been done on the amended and restated version that’s in front of us. I think that we have established a good working relationship and have worked through some important issues that were in the shareholder declaration, and I welcome the conversation here. Thank you for any other speakers. Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. I’m in favor. Opposing the vote. Motion carries 14 to 0.

[25:36] Thank you, colleagues, and just for those who are present in chambers or might be watching one of the live streams. I’ll just note that Mayor Morgan is in transit to FCM meetings in Ottawa. So he is joining us verbally by phone, so he won’t be logged into e-scribe. He’ll just be voting verbally through today’s meeting. So moving on, we now need to look for on the recommendation of the clerk a change of order to deal with 6.1, the confidential matter on our agenda prior to scheduled items as an item in the confidential package relates to an item on the scheduled items as well. So Councillor ramen, you’re prepared to move that. Seconded by Councillor Ferreira. It’s not debatable, so we will get the clerk to open the vote. In favor. Opposing the vote. Motion carries 15 to 0.

[26:51] Thank you, colleagues. Moving on, then that will take us first to our confidential matter. So I will look for a motion to move into closed session with by Councillor Ferreira and seconded by Councillor Hopkins. And we’ll open the vote on that. Lame in the votes, yes. Housing the vote. Motion carries 15 to 0.

[27:37] Thank you, colleagues. So for those who are in chambers watching, we do have to ask you to leave the chambers while we deal with one item in confidential session. We’ll invite you back in as soon as that’s. I’m looking to report out from in camera. I just wanted to share the progress was made on matters of which we went in camera for.

[29:44] Thank you, Vice Chair ramen. So now we will move on to the rest of our agenda. And that begins with scheduled items. And we have item 3.1, the public participation meeting for amendments 2026 amendments to the consolidated fees and charges. But it is a public participation meeting. So I will look for a motion to open the PPM move by Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor van Mirbergen. We’ll get the clerk to open the vote. In favor. Opposing the vote. Motion carries 15 to 0.

[30:35] Thank you, everyone. So if there’s anyone here from the public who wishes to speak on the 2026 amendments to consolidated fees and charges by law, now is your opportunity. You can go to one of the mics in the gallery. And I will also have the clerk check to see if there’s anyone waiting to participate online know some of your faces up there. So I’m sure you’re here for another reason. But we will look for anybody that wants to speak to this one. Okay. And the clerk’s confirming there’s no one online and we have no one at or moving to a microphone. So I’m going to look for a motion to close the public participation meeting move by Councillor Cuddy and seconded by Councillor Stevens. And we will ask the clerk to open the vote.

[31:21] In favor. Opposing the vote. Motion carries 15 to 0. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on. Our next three items are all delegations. We do not need to approve the delegations. Oh, sorry. We do have to dispense with the item on the agenda. I’m pulling a Councillor Layman at Peck and moving right to the next item after the PPMs. But we do have to move that the recommendation of the city clerk on the proposed amended staff report being introduced at council. So looking for a mover and a seconder on the amended fees and viola charges moved by Councillor Ferreira, seconded by Councillor Cuddy. Any discussion? Councillor Rhonda.

[32:13] Thank you. Just more of a comment. But I just wanted first to thank staff for their work on this. I know it’s difficult to do the analysis year over year and come forward with recommendations on these. But I do see that, especially 2.28, the development services and some of the other fees of which fall under public support services. I agree that those are some costs that we need to recoup and that we need to look at new fee measures for. The fire services, fire incident communication, another I’m supportive of in terms of the change as well as we already have the discussion on parking. Where I struggle a little bit is 2.25 which is the neighbourhood recreation services. While I understand the justification for the increase to the cost as it relates to minimum wage increases, I do know that that can be burdensome on families, especially as it relates to things like recreational service fees, costs for swimming lessons, costs for other recreational services in that area. So just wanted to share that feedback also on right sizing golf course fees as well.

[33:32] I understand the rationale behind alignment. But again, have some concerns as I do like to see those fees kept in line with where they were. Thank you. Any other speakers? Seeing none, then I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. In favor. Using the vote motion carries 15 to 0. Thank you colleagues. So moving ahead, I will just advise our next three items are delegations, but we do not need motions to receive the delegations. They are submitted on the agenda as delegation requests as part of the annual reports from our economic development partners.

[34:26] And so no motion is required. We still otherwise have our regular process. So we’ll ask our speakers up. They’ll have five minutes each to do their presentations. We will then look for any discussion and a motion to receive the annual update. So we will start with Mr. Repeleran from the Small Business Center. Once our IT folks have the podium ready. Good afternoon. And through the chair, thank you for this opportunity and that again. We recognize that the entrepreneurial journey is different for everyone. Not everyone needs the support of the Small Business Center. And that is a good thing. But many people do.

[35:46] The disparity between those groups is growing, highlighting the need for more equitable access to guidance funding and networks. As the business landscape becomes more competitive and complex, the gap widens between those who can independently navigate the system and those who face barriers. It is increasingly important to provide targeted support that ensures all aspiring entrepreneurs regardless of background or circumstance at a fair opportunity to succeed. If we accomplish that, then we are truly building a resilient and prosperous community. That said, job creation, business launches and business growth remain important impact measurements. So how did we do last year? We assisted in the launch of 232 new businesses and helped many more grow. Collectively our most active clients reported 421 new jobs. Our small but mighty team of five staff kept busy.

[36:43] We hosted over 170 training and learning sessions with attendance exceeding 3,000 people. And with our consultations and outreach efforts, we engaged more than 6,000 people. There’s been little change over the previous years in who we serve. But it’s still important to show that we truly are a public facing service accessible to everyone. Slide five shows our activity by industry. This is influenced by where we can secure additional funding for programs and projects. Food related has dominated the last four years. But with much of that project funding coming to an end, we will see that number decline. Business stage is captured at the first point of contact. We track it this way to observe trends. Most notable, we have seen a rise in the number of people contacting us at the investigating stage. In the past three years, this segment has gone from 24% to 32% to the current 38%.

[37:47] This is due in part to our efforts to reach new audiences like the newcomer population. But we also believe in observe it is people concerned with their future job security, who are exploring their options now. Slide seven is a quick snapshot of our services. And I encourage you to refer to our website for more detail. On the next two slides, I want to highlight two provincial programs. Starter Company Plus is a micro grant training and mentoring program. It is important to note that 139 people applied for those limited 29 seats. Summer Company is a program for students. Hence, one of our success metrics is how many students remain interested in pursuing entrepreneurship post-education. And not surprisingly, there is some correlation to those who did well. This was a great year. Over that short 12-week summer, we actually had three high school students who each made more than $10,000. Now, you might recall food printer advantage was a four-year project launched in 2021. There’s two parts to this project.

[38:58] Part one is the startup program. It’s a series of six live webinars delivered four times per year. Our funding for this project ended in April. So to keep this component going forward, we opened up our registration to other municipalities under a subscription model. And we now have MLUs with 21 municipalities. The second part is a scale-up program. It is accessed by application only. It is designed for CPG companies that demonstrate high growth potential. As mentioned, the funding for this project has come to an end. So what you see here is a wrap-up, and it shows the total from the four-year project. Although we had other municipalities participate, the data presented here is specific and only includes London. With the rising consumer demand for Canadian products and new and provincial trade opportunities, this program is needed more than ever. And we are actively trying to find a way to keep it going. The last program I want to highlight is a new start delivered in partnership with LDC. As you can see, the uptake from the community partners has been strong. With their help, we have been able to make our services more accessible and reach new audiences. They’ve requested even more outreach support if we can provide it. But regrettably, the future of this program is also uncertain. Finally, I’d like to close by bringing attention back to the real champions of small business. Behind every business, there is a person. That is why we do this, because it is people through business who are contributing to the economic, social, and cultural well-being of our community. Thank you.

[40:34] Thank you, Mr. Pellerin. And I’m going to look for a motion to receive the presentation, get that moved and seconded, Councillor Pribble and Councillor Stevenson. And now we can open the floor to any questions colleagues have before we move on to our next presenter. Councillor Ferrer. Thanks, Chair. I guess I’ll start this one off. I appreciate Mr. Pellerin coming here and giving us some information in the work that you do. I think you do really good work, especially considering the budget that you have. You definitely make that money go long. I see that you assisted 232 businesses, 421 new jobs. I think those are the numbers that we definitely want to see here at Council. We want to know how a job creation is happening, especially seeing the entrepreneurial momentum that we see, especially that you’re helping.

[41:27] And I do want to just point out that over 50% are women entrepreneurs that you’re helping, or over 50%, 57%, I think I wrote down. So my question, I do have some questions. So I do see that you talked about the provincial starter company, the microgrant, and how many have applied there. I just wanted to see if I get some more information on that. Just with how many applicants, I think you might have said that, but I didn’t see that in the notes. How many actually applied for that? And then how many did you actually grant again? And I think the number of grants was in the report, but I missed that. Mr. Pellerin. Thank you. Through the chair, just want to refer to my notes here. It was 139 people applied to it. And that’s through a through a screening process. So there’s about three stages they go through from the 139 to get down to that 29. Council for thank you. Thank you for that. So there’s, I obviously see some good interest in that program. And only given out the 29 just because of the financing that you have for that is that that’s the limiting factor is what I’m taking from that. That is correct.

[42:49] And what I will add is that 29 is actually up from last year. Last year, we only had 21 seats available. These are the number of seats that were granted by the province. So they up number seats. We were told this was a one time thing for this year. We’re really hoping that’s not true. We’re hoping that we will have additional seats again starting in April. And again, the more we can do to get the message to the province that these are programs and being used, that will help. But again, that’s that’s the most we’ve ever had in 15 years. We were plateaued at we were plateaued at 20 21 seats for like 12 to 15 years. That’s fair. Thank you. Okay. And then with the food preneur program in the new start, you did say that funding ended in April, I believe for the food preneur program in the new start. I believe you said funding is also slated to be ending if it hasn’t ended already. I just wanted to ask and this would be my last question with your engagement for stakeholders for potential continuation of funding or for new funding for those programs. I just wanted to know what’s the outlook looking like so far at this at this stage?

[44:01] Mr. Pelerin. You know what, if I could predict where proposals ended up, I would be, I could probably make money from that. But we, I don’t know, I can tell you that we have had some active proposals out. We unfortunately, we’ve gotten some bad news as well. I mean, we delivered a proposal to a math that we delivered a proposal to FedDev. They were both declined. We are putting some proposals forward to private organizations that I won’t mention. We’re also looking at fee-based services. So as I said, we moved to a subscription model for the first part of that food preneur program. We’ve been experimenting with other municipalities to charge them seats into our scale-up program. And I’m happy to say that the class that’s currently began this morning.

[44:54] We had, we had five municipalities purchase seats at about, sorry, not five. So we had five seats purchased by two different municipalities. Each seat being purchased at 1,500. But it’s still a long way away from getting it to where it needs to be. I mean, like it’s, that’s about 40% of what we’d like the budget for this initiative to be. Thank you, Mr. Pelerin. Councillor Ferra, is that all your question? Mr. Pelerin, your mic. Thank you. Yeah, I can add my questions there. I just wanted to, I guess, some closing comments.

[45:35] I think you guys are doing a great, great work. You’re definitely making the money that you do have. Like I said, go really long. You’re helping a lot of individuals. I do like the numbers that I see considering your budget, which is quite tight. I hope you have good luck with engagement of those stakeholders or whoever it is that would potentially be giving some extra funds to continue any of these programs. And I know I speak for myself and I don’t want to speak for council, but I believe council is in the same position. We, you know, we want to see you succeed. We want to see you help those businesses succeed as well. So anytime you want to have a conversation offline, we already set one up, but I’d be more than willing to speak with you. So I appreciate you coming out, and I appreciate the report you’ve given us. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ferra.

[46:21] Councillor Hopkins, I have you next. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Pelerin for being here with us again. The fact that you’ve engaged with 6,000 people makes me think that the center is needed here in our city. I have a question through the chair to you, regarding the new businesses that were launched about 260 or so the past year, do you do a follow-up to see if and how successful these businesses, not only in the previous year, but in other years as well? Mr. Pelerin. Yes and no, and I know that sounds like a strange answer, but think of it as though we have two service divisions of the organization. We have the stuff that we offer to the general public, like our seminars, our workshops, they can come and do consultations. That’s where we see a lot of people and we just do not have the capacity to follow up with everybody in our database.

[47:30] We’ve tried using electronic forms and of course we just don’t get strong responses on that. Then we have our programs, which are a little bit more structured. There’s a lot of expectations set in advance. I mean, they have to open up their books to us to have to report job creation to us and we will track those clients. So when we say the job creation, it primarily is coming from those clients who have engaged with us in different programs, but generally speaking, we’re missing a lot. We are missing the follow-up with a lot of those businesses. Thank you for that. I would encourage you to even a short survey or the follow-ups. I think that’s something that I would like to know a little bit more as you present the report and thank you for the work that you do here in the city as well. Looking for further speakers, Councillor Trussau.

[48:31] Thank you for your presentation through the chair and of course I’m very impressed with the work that your agency is doing. I think it’s important work. My specific question for you though is, is there any overlap between the work that your agency does and the work that’s done by the other delegations today, specifically Tech Alliance and the London Economic Development Corporation? Mr. Pellerin. There is minimal overlap. I’m not insured entirely how it can be eliminated, to be honest. I mean, in structured programs, it’s much easier to control that level of coordination, like so for instance, the work that we do in the food sector.

[49:21] We coordinate very strongly with other organizations in town, like the Western Fair, the Grove, LEDC. So we know there’s no duplication there. But where it does get complicated is when senior levels of government roll out new programs and new funding. And you can’t blame businesses for trying to open every door they possibly can. So you will have clients that could fit under multiple organizations. I mean, if they can get money from us and they can also get money from Tech Alliance, I mean, you can’t blame them for that. So that’s where we have a little bit more difficulty controlling that overlap. It’s really at the, like I said, at the provincial and federal levels. Thank you further through the chair. Having said that, has there ever been any consideration of some type of amalgamation or consolidation of these groups so you could scale up, you’d have a much larger organization and you’d still be able to carry out the same functions?

[50:27] Mr. Pelerin. As you know, I’ve been doing this a very long time and I can tell you that over the last 20 plus years those conversations come and go. And they’ve included anything from amalgamations to share databases with separate organizations. There’s been little movement on it, but those conversations are always underlying. They’re always there somewhere. But there’s nothing in the works that — no. So the short-air is no. Nothing serious at this point, sir. Through the chair would — and I’m not sure if I call you a sector or what sector it is, but I do see some similarity between these groups. And I’m wondering, if you would benefit from that, is there some way that that cooperation, data sharing amalgamation, various different levels, could be productively moved forward without losing any of the effectiveness that any of the groups have? Mr. Pelerin. At first glance, I would say yes. Whether or not a central organization is required to get those efficiencies, I think would need a little bit more exploration. When we talk about things like sharing CRMs, you know, coordination between service delivery or even grant applications for that matter. Those things don’t necessarily need a central institution organization to do that. Could it help? Sure it could. I think what you want to be cautious of in doing that, though, is recognizing that that is what you’re after, is that you’re after those efficiencies in program design, deliverables, shared data, and so forth. If you’re looking for efficiencies such as cost cutting measures, I think it’s doubtful that you would find those.

[52:31] Matter of fact, I think that that level of coordination could even come at an additional cost. But I think the results could be tenfold if, you know, if it was ever an appetite to do it. Councillor Trussow. Thank you. No further questions on this other than to say, I’ll be asking the same question of the other two presenters, so you can get ready for that. Thank you. Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had the opportunity to attend the started company plus entrepreneurs, and what a fantastic event it was. Over 100 attendees and I think out of 29, 24 actually made the pitch. I just want to say that the enthusiasm, the young people, the newcomers to Canada, that the spark in the eye, I was very, very impressed, and I do understand that we are not going to be running their businesses for them. I do understand we are not going to be fund, we are not going to be funding them. But on the other hand, we do need to be there for them organization like yours to support them throughout this journey. I do think that there is potentially additional, and I will actually, at the end of the third presentation, I will make my comments kind of for all three organizations. But I think that there is a fantastic great opportunity when I see the business applications that come through the city, either renewals or the new ones, vast majority are small businesses, which is backbone. For our industry, don’t get me wrong, I would love to see organizations that will employ hundreds, thousands of employees. But currently, that’s not the case. So I do want to thank you for the work you are doing. There are certain very much positives, but we got to find resources. And potentially, I’m not talking about just money-wise, but resources to support these people, these entrepreneurs, because the more successful they will be, the more successful we will be. If you have any comments, please do, we’d love to receive any comments. And in terms of us supporting you in various ways, and maybe there’s not the time, or you might not have the time, but certain points that you want to make across, please do so. Yeah, Councillor Pribble, I’m taking that more as a comment than a question.

[54:57] Obviously, if Mr. Pallerin wants to meet with individual Councillors, talk about those things, that’s within his purview to do it any time. So we’ve got to scope our questions to specific questions, not to sort of open-ended opportunities to have an extra five minutes of delegation status. So I will invite Mr. Pallerin if he wants to meet and discuss those things with you to go ahead and do that. But I heard a very general set of comments there and not a specific question. So, you know, leave it there and look for, let’s see if there are other speakers. Seeing none, so we have a motion to receive on the floor. It’s been moved and seconded. I will ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Thank you. In favor. Seeing the vote, motion carries 15 to 0.

[55:55] Thank you, colleagues. And as always, thank you, Mr. Pallerin, for taking the time to join us today and walk through that annual update with us. Our next delegate is Ms. Fox from Tech Alliance. So we’ll let IT reset and give her her five minutes as well to do her presentation. Thank you, Sandra. I appreciate it. Good afternoon, everybody. As the lead voice and centralized resource for London’s technology and innovation sector, tech lines and plowers, world-class ventures and fuels growth in Canada’s innovation economy, generating prosperity right here in London. Today, we’re looking back at our economic impact that closed on March 31st, nearly six months ago. The greater London area is among the Canada’s top ecosystems. And now I’m having a hard time with technology. There we go. We’re among the Canada’s top tech ecosystems, the proof, London ranked number four in CBRE’s next 25 in North America for the fourth consecutive year on the scoring tech talent report. We had the highest sector growth with 54% among the three cities on that report. Second proof point is lending number 12 in the nation. London saw major leap in rankings climbing 165 spots globally on startup links ecosystem index that benchmarks over 1,000 cities worldwide across innovation, infrastructure, startup activity and international competitiveness. Built by founders, Tech Alliance is the place for dreamers, innovators and world changing ideas and joining us in the gallery are some made in London juggernauts. Continuing our pace as an absolutely vital partner and contributed to council, we are your economic storytellers, your data synthesizers and your partners. And so our three strategic priorities guide us towards our moonshot, including fostering a vibrant community of innovation. And it’s why I participated in all of the virtual and in-person strategy sessions round table discussions for the city led economic strategy is fascinating.

[59:05] As a result, I was even more clear to me that industry leaders and Londoners see tech as one of the biggest bets that we can make for our future, whether that be AI, SaaS, life sciences, agribusiness, food innovation, defense, digital sovereignty, or even with proximity to the Great Lakes, one of Canada’s clusters of data centers. Imagine that. Imagine if in the last five years we had leveraged our unique advantages and brought an anchor technology or an anchor life sciences firm for them to choose London. And imagine if we helped locate them to the downtown, like Toronto just did before technology companies. Imagine a future in London if it was in video or Ubisoft or AstraZeneca or even open AI or Pinterest. Imagine what that might do in our downtown. So anchor firms are essential because they attract and retain technical professional talent in ways that startups and high performing technology companies have a harder time doing entirely on their own. The volume of hyper growth companies with skyrocket because large anchors spin off staff who start new startups. It’s a perfect flywheel impact. Every business, every business day in London, a new startup is born. That’s one of the roles that Tech Alliance plays as your partner. To become a world class and jump further in rankings, London must intensify its focus on FDI for technology. If our city were to be successful, we’d come very close to that moonshot. Demonstrating the mandate of us as the place for entrepreneurs who are innovating, we increased 10% year-over-year increased facilitation of connections with the 50% more alliances demonstrating our cooperative style very clearly. We author, publish, and push stories creating brand exposure like nobody else in the city and nationwide news outlets like the Global Mail, National Post, and BetaKit. You can rely on us for accurate data. Our city boasts high tech talent for technology companies closing in on 20,100 jobs. We have founders under staff who no entrepreneurs can’t solve their toughest challenges on their own. So high growth leaders need to learn by making their own mistakes or learning from others. And that’s why you’ll see 4,350 bums and seats with nearly 50 sought-after speakers. We orchestrated meetups, pitch competitions and masterclasses with undeniable swagger. We saw an excess of 140 million capital raised just in the last seven years technology companies in the city of innovation attracted an excess of 2.2 billion with a B. On big numbers we’re unique such that we leverage our funding by the city of London to bring even more investment to this city. During my tenure at Tech Lions I’ve raised 7.5 million in new and sustained funding revenue with significant flow through to funding of Tech Lions member companies. What we do know is that 75% of startups fail. In the appendix of the slide deck six slides are dedicated to the 25% of companies that took risks and are soaring. Making good on our brand promise. Making good on our brand promise. We have remarkable connections to all ranks of government.

[1:02:20] I’m not talking about ribbon cuttings. I’m talking about deep policy work and significant advocacy that is shaping the innovation economy ensuring that London is the north star for Canada’s economic value creators. Just want to know you have 20 seconds. Excellent. The result that does $3.5 million investment supporting resources aimed at all sizes of technology firms and supporting those with Gliath opportunities that we often see in the news cycle. You’ll see the next few slides are the highlight reel of some of the things we’ve delivered and I want to say we know that Londoners are building in Canada for the world. Let’s keep doing that. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fox and colleagues. I’m going to look for a motion to receive the presentation and then we’ll move to questions and comments. Councillor Hopkins and Councillor Vameh you’re working. Thank you very much. That’s been moved and seconded. Now we will look for speakers. Councillor Ferrera.

[1:03:17] Thanks, Deputy Mayor. I’ve got to go first because I heard a lot of downtown things here. But I will start with this. Top tech ecosystems number four, CBRE and you’ve climbed 165 spots globally and highest sector growth at 54%. So these are good numbers and I like hearing that. But I’ve got to go right to the tech anchor and finding and locating one of them and bringing it downtown. So that’s obviously very exciting for me. That’s a, you call it a moonshot. I would, I’d like to think it’s closer than a moonshot but we’ve done that before. So I think we could do that. But I just want to say I appreciate the comments and if you are looking for any help from council, you got a council right here that will help you bring a large actor in the industry to downtown. You are 100% and you’re going to have all my attention for that. So I just want to say I appreciate that and you have my number reach out. I’m totally with you on that. So thank you.

[1:04:15] It’s a sad one more thing. Council Ferrera, you said you made those numbers. We made those numbers. Councilor Trussell and then Ms. Fox, I suspect you may know some of the questions that are coming here but we turn it over to Councilor Trussell. Well, I have two questions. The first one is the same question I asked Mr. Palloran. Is there some overlap between what you and these other agencies do? And I know that they focus on different industry segments but it sounds like a lot of the promotional work that you’re doing is very similar and I’m wondering if you could address that question of better coordination, better working together. Ms. Fox.

[1:05:05] Thank you through the chair. I think ECOSN systems are dynamic and co-evolving communities and what we see in London is really similar to other spaces in Canada and around the world. I think there might be perceived similar offerings but that doesn’t necessarily mean duplication. I think there’s often conflating terms that could create additional confusion in ecosystems but when I look at the work that we do and the experiences that we deliver and the impact on founders who choose London and companies who grow here in London and recruit talent to London, I see a very different view from the perception of duplication. I think it is in some respects very dangerous waters to compare ecosystem partners and collaborators that have independently incorporated organizations that function very differently and I’m very omen to having discussions whether that be in camera or one-to-one to talk further about that. I think the value of the work that we bring to the city with the investment that the city provides us in just in excess of 200,000 is leveraged over and over. When we receive that funding by the city, we leverage that to gain an extra 400,000 then to gain an extra 800,000 then to gain 101.6 million and with that funding and our focus on the companies we serve, I think we’ve carved out a niche that’s similar to other ecosystems. I don’t think that there would be dialogue in other high growth cities where there’s a comparison of the technology innovation hub to the Small Business Center or to that of economic development. But again, I’m happy to further dialogue, tend to understand where you see differences.

[1:06:52] That’s where Ms. Fox should go. Thank you through the chair. On several occasions you referenced downtown and I’m smiling at my colleague here because I don’t think he’s going to like put him about the same. Why just downtown? Ms. Fox. Thank you through the chair. That’s a great question. I think of downtown as a Londoner, nine vision, the vibrancy that we see in other cities, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, where when they attract technology firms, large technology firms, they typically find a place for them in their downtown. So I did reference Toronto and my remarks and I hate to compare to them because we know that London stands on its own as drawing attention to this region like no other city in Canada. And I see that they recently acquired Pinterest.

[1:08:02] They acquired Snowflake. They acquired Lyft. There’s a fourth. And I think about the fact that they are those companies are in the space where the financial district is happening and where culture is happening. And when I think of a future London with a downtown that’s vibrant, it requires us to have creatives and builders and devs and space makers and those kinds of anchors. And it’s sad for me that we haven’t acquired those kinds of companies to London. And what a difference it would make. Don’t sort. Finally, I love your reference to space makers because I think some of the greatest space makers that we have in London right now and this does not take away from downtown and it does not take away from the core. But when I look at what’s happening on the far west side of Oxford, when I look at what’s happening in old East, particularly around the Kellogg’s building, I’m seeing some great space makers. And I think a lot of these facilities would lend themselves well to the development of high tech research and development in industry. So again, I don’t want to take away from your enthusiasm for helping us with downtown because we really needed given our vacancy rates and everything. But let’s not ignore that we have other sections of the city that creates some really exciting potential for you. Thank you.

[1:09:34] Thank you, Councillor Trostow. I have Councillor Per beble next. Thank you. It’s similar to small business center. Thank you very much for you do for our entrepreneurs and for our city. And again, a few things we already mentioned. Congratulations, number four, 54 and a half percent growth and now over 20,000 tech job, which is really very positive news. I had the opportunity to attend the tech start startup weekend. I just want to tell you what a fantastic weekend it was. I love the concept in terms of individuals starting on an individual basis than the eliminating ones forming the team. And on the last day presenting the case, I talked to many of them. They thought it was absolutely great. The judges, the feedback they were providing was very beneficial for them for their future. And I think that that’s again, similar to small business center event I attended. The future is bright. We just need to be there to support these individuals because they are very motivated, very dedicated. They are eager to succeed. But again, it will not always be going this way. It will be ups and downs. And when they are at the downs, we got to be there to support them and to accomplish their goals and kind of what I call the sky is the limit. So thank you for that. And as I mentioned before, at the end of the last presentation, I will have a comment to all three. Thank you for other speakers.

[1:11:03] Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. In favor, housing the vote motion carries 15 to 0. Thank you, colleagues. And now that brings us to in the spirit of the World Series batting cleanup, Mr. Lakocha, you’re our next delegate. So when you’re ready, you’ve got your five minutes. And I know you promised me four minutes and 50 seconds.

[1:11:46] So I’m going to hold you to that. Well, good afternoon. And thank you for this opportunity to share some highlights of our work this year. As you know, LEDC works to grow our economy through new investment attraction, retention and growth of local London companies, workforce development, and business engagement. These functions are guided by detailed strategies such as providing access to space, talent, training, capital, and measured by key performance indicators.

[1:12:26] Our work focuses on developing industry clusters that generate the highest economic activity in the region. These clusters not only create direct jobs and investments, but also drive significant economic activity throughout our area. So far this year, LEDC has facilitated over $100 million in expansions and attractions. The companies, what we worked with to make these investments have reported over 1,000 jobs being added to London’s workforce. It’s important to know that these are direct jobs only. Hundreds of indirect jobs are created throughout the economy through supply chains, construction, retail, hospitality, and service industries. The new investment attraction portfolio seeks to attract investments from all over the world, while accelerate portfolio helps establish local companies and help them scale. We do this by connecting companies to infrastructure, funding, regulatory, and permitting processes, R&D, and assistance with talent recruitment. We also keep a pulse on companies that may be at risk due to trade issues, loss contracts, or changes in their industry. Of course, given the ongoing US trade policies and tariffs, the flow of foreign investments into Canada was slower this year.

[1:13:37] A number of prospects are closely monitoring these trade issues before making investment decisions. These are some examples of companies that are new to London or growing significantly throughout 2025. We’re fortunate to have stable growth in a diverse range of industries despite global economic conditions and the ongoing US tariffs. Access to talent continues to be a major constraint as the economic climate changes. We continued to assist employers with their hiring needs and connected them to talent through London and area job fairs, newcomer attraction, and post-secondary partnerships. Of course, we are proud to launch the My London, the first of its kind digital platform in Canada aimed at making life in London more connected, convenient, and personalized for residents, newcomers, students, and visitors alike.

[1:14:27] Similarly, we deployed more technologies to showcase the diverse career opportunities London has to offer, while giving employers a more targeted and effective way to build talent pipelines. Working with local technology companies, such as Bamboo Innovations and Night Hunter, we implemented the second phase of job portal automation to scan new job postings from local employers’ career pages and add them to LEDC’s job portals, which are then marketed externally for new talent attraction to our area. We ran several ad campaigns to raise London’s profile for both investment and talent attraction. These targeted campaigns have then resulted in thousands of new inquiries. 2025 saw the winding down of a remarkably successful campaign in Don’t Tell Toronto, which has been underway since 2021. And given the current environment, we’re now ramping up our Choose London campaign in the United States in alignment with federal and provincial efforts. We also held several large industry-specific conferences and events that helped foster stronger industry connections and leverage local expertise. As you know, just in two years, film London has developed a strong foundation for building our creative industries cluster. As we continue to attract productions with leading studios in North America. And that’s it for my formal presentation.

[1:15:51] Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Lakocha. And it’s like you stole a base. You’re in a full minute under even the 450 you promised. So thank you for that. Can I look for a mover and a seconder? And then I’ve got a speaker’s list started already with Councillor Hopkins. So Councillor Hopkins, are you good with moving it as well to receive? Councillor Plaza will second. And I will go to Councillor Hopkins to start our speaker’s list. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Mr. Lakocha, for being here with us. First of all, I’d like to congratulate you, LADC, and partnering with Andriana Foods. I was at the event last week and I really thought it was a wonderful celebration of not only the economic development, the investment in our city, but also celebrating UNESCO City and bringing over the Italian orchestra. I thought it was a wonderful way of celebrating our city, but also letting Londoners come in and celebrate it as well. So congratulations on that. You spoke to trade issues, obviously, in the uncertainty going forward. So to build on the work that you’ve already started, are we in a good position going forward, given the uncertainty and the trade issues that you spoke to? But how are you feeling about our city? Mr. Lakocha. Thank you. Through the chair, you know, these are needless to say, these are turbulent times. And while nobody can predict how these negotiations would go, there’s some relief in knowing that we have a very, very well diversified economic base, more so than most of our peers across Canada. What that means is London is not a one trick pony. Throughout our economy, we have a very good cross section of employment across education, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing industries, food and beverage, as you reference, and the list goes on and on. What that does is it shields us from a lot of these economic ups and downs. We’ve seen that time and time again through the COVID cycle, through their recession in ‘09, and before that as well. So the steps we have taken through investment in industrial land development strategies, through other pieces, to help keep diversifying that economic base, would help us prepare for an economic uncertainty. Councillor Hopkins.

[1:18:23] Diversification. Thank you very much. Hey, I have Councillor, my speaker’s list right now is Councillor Ferrera, Councillor Trussa, and Councillor ramen. Councillor Ferrera. Thanks, Mayor. Thanks, Capil. Mr. Lakocha, I should say. Thanks for presenting here today. Appreciate the work that you do. I do have some questions. I wanted to just kind of dive right in, and you did mention that access to talent, and there’s potential constraints with that. I was wondering if you could just kind of highlight some of the high level constraints that you’re having, and maybe in some details as you see fit that we should know.

[1:19:00] Mr. Lakocha. Thank you. And through the chair, workforce development is a very dynamic and constantly changing environment. I want to start by giving you a baseline of this is a segment that’s almost never in equilibrium. The drivers of demand and supply constantly keep shifting. Companies looking for talent are constantly evaluating their needs based on their market demand, their economic climate, their projections on growth, and so on. On this talent supply side of things, we’re constantly working with post-secondary institutions on incoming talent from different parts of the world. And as you know, some of those policies keep changing based on federal and provincial priorities, as well as rescaling or upskilling workers that might have been displaced throughout the region based on what might be happening in the day. So there are lots of different tactics that are deployed to help bring the demand and supply factors closer together, and something that we might be able to influence. So it starts by having an understanding of what drives the labor market. So our team has been working with several different partners in the area to produce employment prospects reports. These partners include Smart Prosperity Institute, Fanshawe College, local employers, and many more to get a detailed understanding of the needs of our industrial base, as well as where some of these talent sources might lie.

[1:20:25] Once we have that understanding, we work with a lot of partners such as London Regional Employment Services. There’s a network of 40 plus employment agencies that serve different segments of the workforce environment to help bridge that knowledge gap and raise the supply of talent across the board. And then there are several other tactics I mentioned, job fairs. Throughout the slides you had hired at home, my London app that has a job connect feature that matches employers, job portals, the list goes on and on. So there’s really no one silver bullet. It’s an effort to connect people in different industry segments, whether it’s manufacturing tech or so on, along with bringing employers on board at the same time, and try to make that match as much as possible in a real time format. Councillor Ferrell. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for that. My next question. There’s a marketing or a campaign going on in the US right now for employment and investment. I just wanted to know if you could maybe touch on some of the barriers that might exist there from before uncertainty and tariffs and after. If you could just give us a look in how things are looking, what’s the outlook, the projection looking forward with that with that campaign? Mr. Recocha. Thank you. Through the chair, that campaign is aimed at recruiting, so I’ll speak to the workforce side first, recruiting specialized occupations in healthcare technology and other hard-to-find areas. And they’re targeting demographics and talent pools that might feel disenfranchised in the US based on different policies and practices in the states. So it’s very targeted. We’re trying to align the timing, the markets, the tactics on social media and other channels along with federal and provincial efforts to kind of double down on it. It’s really ramped up since the tariff policies kicked in. Before that, we were focused primarily on Don’t Telltra. Councillor Ferrell. Thank you, my last one. And with that, I’m going to ask about downtown. So you’ve got the numbers to show creating a good significant economic activity, sorry, in London. I just wanted to know, any focus on downtown? What do you have planned for downtown in that regard? Moving forward, any kind of success stories that you’ve had in the past specifically for the core? Mr. Recocha. Thank you. Through the chair, as you know, LEDC’s work is geographically neutral in the sense that we work with employers all across the city.

[1:23:15] A lot of the work in creative industries cluster is, in fact, coming downtown. The film office works heavily with lots of different agencies downtown to bring some of that element. As the Councillor mentioned earlier, with the concert recently with Andriani, we had close to 1,200 people that came through Centennial Hall that evening. So we do have that mental note to try to drive a lot of the cultural activity and impact as much as we can across the board in the city. There are different companies that we’ve worked with from time to time. Council funded a one-year pilot project to help bring more businesses downtown a couple of years ago. We’ve worked with Small Business Centre and a few other partners to bring 50 new businesses downtown over that one-year period.

[1:24:03] That was a couple of years ago. So from time to time, there’s some focused efforts that drive home the importance of bringing new business in a concentrated area. Councillor Ferri, you said that was your last one. Is that your last one? That was my last one, but I’m going to do some closing statements really quick. So I appreciate you answering the questions. I will say, you know, London and downtown, I will say, is the economic and cultural hub and the face of London as well. I know that you have a good focus on the industrial components. I still say focus on that. But also, you know, with the times, I do see tariffs on certainty and that could be impacting that sector.

[1:24:44] I’m still saying you’ve got to put all hands on deck there, but also this is also a chance to have some focus with the downtown as well. Just because just how things are shifting, it may just naturally align us to make some focus on that. And because downtown, like I said, you know, is what people outside of London see. I do want to see as much focus on that. We’re going to have some big changes with downtown, right? We’re working on the downtown plan. There is a lot of work here on council moving for that. So in the next couple of years, we’re going to see some changes on that. So this is a great time to really start getting hands on that deck as well for the development of that. So those would be my statements. I appreciate you coming out. I appreciate that London Economic Development Corporation doing the work that you do. And I’ll leave it there. Thank you. And I have Councilor Trussow next. Thank you very much. And through the chair, I do want to emphasize that I think all three of these agencies are making very positive contributions to the city. And I’m in no way suggesting that they stop doing that. I really appreciate your reference to the arts. It’s so important. And for me, it’s so central to what you’re doing and to what we’re trying to do in terms of making this more of a destination city. And I do think it was, and I’m sorry I missed it, I was planning on going, but I just couldn’t. Was it the food or was it the music that got people there? By may I ask that to the chair? I think we’d be asking for some speculation there. I suspect the answer is both.

[1:26:22] And to that, I would add it’s the combination of the two that created something bigger than either component. I get the sense from this presentation in my previous conversations with you that workforce development is a very important component of what you do. And as far as I see it, and I can be corrected if I’m wrong, workforce development with large cuts across many of the different. I want to make sure I get the terms right here. Sectors been used, segments been used, echo system has been used. I’m sorry if I missed any, but I think you’re all saying the same thing.

[1:27:09] I think workforce development in many ways is the glue that holds all back together. So I just want to encourage you to continue doing what you’re doing. In fairness though, I think I should ask whether or not you believe there’s any duplication between the agencies that we’ve heard from today. Thank you. And thank you for the heads up. In fairness, I had the most time to think about this. So I have a few thoughts. I jotted them. First of all, different funding models help contribute to the perception of duplication. And I’ll start with perception because there’s actual or material duplication versus using similar vocabulary or doing similar events that might suggest duplication. And I think the presentations you saw today point to the significantly different approaches, vision, and impact across the board. So just wanted to flag that. With federal and provincial dollars combined with city dollars, in some cases membership dollars, it’s reasonable to expect some level of surface level duplication. But from my perspective, I’d say Deloitte’s assessment that’s underway right now will hopefully show us some ways to achieve efficiencies and reduce as much overlap as possible. If I may ask through the chair, is that a report that this committee will be receiving soon? I’m going to go to staff the Deloitte report on economic development. Is Mr. Mathers or Mr. Fowler? I’m not sure who might have a rough timeline on that. Thank you, Chair, and through you, this committee will be receiving the first look in January 2026. Thank you, Councillor Trussa. Well, thank you. I’ll be looking forward to receiving that report. And I don’t have any further questions. But thank, thank, thank you, and thank to all of you today. Thank you, Councillor Trussa. Councillor Ramen, I have you next. Thank you, and through you, first, I want to start with a thank you to all the presenters, the Small Business Center, Tech Alliance, and LADC. I think what I noted in your presentation is somewhat of what Mr. Lococia said earlier around economic diversity as our strength. I think that all presentations spoke to different aspects of the economy and how you support the work of the economy through the work you’re doing. So thank you for that work, as it is more important now than ever.

[1:29:59] I wanted to ask a question regarding the recent announcement at Cami. What role does LADC play in assisting those in the sector who have been impacted by layoffs or closures? Thank you. Through you, Mr. Chair. So first of all, LADC works closely with the different levels of government, local employment partners, such as the London Regional Employment Services Agency, and several other not-for-profit partners to conduct a coordinated response in case of significant layoffs or closures. And this has been done to ensure workers affected in those scenarios receive timely support and opportunities to stay and work in the London region.

[1:30:46] So some tactical examples of how this work is done. For instance, in one of the slides, we have the London Manufacturing Jobs Portal. That portal currently has well over 400 current and verified job opportunities. Those are then linked to the My London app, as well as marketed to all these impacted workforce in order to make more relevant and timely matches with growing employers. We also have traditional job fairs, such as the Londonen area works job fair. We do that. We’ve been doing that for several years. In addition, we try new approaches every year. So the one that’s coming up on November 5th, for instance, is a technology platform we have partnered with called Devont. And it’s called Hired at Home. Registration for this event is currently open. Sorry for the sales plug. And the event is designed to explore current opportunities across multiple industries. And we heavily push this out to employers that are experiencing any economic downturn or where workers might be affected with the end goal to try to retain as much of that talent in the region as possible. Of course, this is not unique to London.

[1:31:52] We take a regional approach with this. So folks like St. Thomas and others that are growing in this area with PowerCo and a number of other facilities, Element 5, there’s a long list. We try to coordinate this across our peers in this region because this is not something that starts or stops at London’s borders. And I think over the last couple of years, we’ve got really good at partnering with our regional neighbors. Also, Robin. Thank you for that answer. And yes, definitely a strength. One of the other things I will say is the strength of all of these groups is their ability to build trust and relationships. And those relationships allow individuals and companies large and small to take risks. And in uncertain times, those risks are even even harder.

[1:32:40] And so I want to thank you for that work. And I want to give you an opportunity if you might just comment on how long it takes to develop some of those relationships. And I think what I saw last week with Andriani was the depth of the relationship and how that relationship has really been nurtured by LEDC as well as the London community to be able to establish quite a unique partnership and quite an amazing opportunity in the region. Mr. Lecocha. Thank you. And through the chair, it’s great when we have ribbon cuttings. Of course, it’s a joyous moment and everybody thinks it’s the glamour and glitz of the day. It’s the work behind the scenes that is paramount. In some of the earlier slides, you saw how many site selection proposals, how many missions, how many things we have to do from a tactical standpoint to get to the select group that’s actually investment ready.

[1:33:36] And based on the investment climate of the day, trade talks, contracts with suppliers, all of those things constantly keep shifting. So we’ve got leads in our pipeline for three, four, five years before they actually mature. In many cases, I mean, I’ll give you some examples, larger files like Maple Leaf Foods, which has been one of the largest investment in the region with over a billion dollars. That took five years. That includes not only the decision making timeline, it’s also a lot of due diligence on real estate, construction costs, recruitment tactics. PowerCo was a lengthy site selection process as well. All of that work is done behind the scenes for years before a file can come to a conclusion. And to be honest, we don’t win 100% of the times because some companies don’t end up getting contracts. Some boards decide they want to invest in a different geography, not necessarily in Ontario. As you’re seeing a lot of trade noise right now, a lot of that is designed to push investment in the US. Well, we had some of the same prospect.

[1:34:41] So to your point, there’s a long lead cycle. On average, it tends to be two to three years, Councilor. Thank you. That concludes my questions. Thank you to all. And I have Councilor Stevenson next. Thank you. I just want to say thank you to all three speakers too. And for all you and your organizations do in our city, it is truly appreciated. And I do want to separate that and my appreciation for what you do for sharing sentiments similar to what I shared last year, in that the level of accountability, transparency and oversight of the municipal tax dollars that we invest. For me personally, this report isn’t enough for almost $3 million in municipal tax dollars. And this, the report for LEDC is quite similar to Tech Alliance and Small Business Centre, but the magnitude of the investment is quite a bit more. As I confirmed last year, salaries are on the Sunshine List for the other two organizations, financial statements are available to be seen.

[1:35:46] And with LEDC, even though there is that, like I said, almost $3 million in municipal tax dollars, we don’t have that same level of transparency. So, and I did just want to separate the two, right? We can appreciate the work. And then at the same time, say, I feel personally that as an elected councillor, at a time when people are very conscious about the tax dollars, that there’s an expectation there, that there’ll be transparency around the wages that are being paid and that the public would see a budget for the amount that we’re spending, or even a proposal so we could approve sort of what you’re doing next year. We hear about it after the fact, but there’s no elected council approval besides the representation on your board. So, through you, Chair, to staff, I just wanted to ask again, around Tourism London is a little bit the same, or it’s a separate organization with a budget, and yet their salaries are on the Sunshine List.

[1:36:52] Councillor Trussa. I would just ask, I believe that we’re getting a little far afield to what is technically on the agenda right now. And I understand the councillor’s interest in dealing with these inquiries, but I’m wondering if this is the appropriate place to do it receiving the annual reports. And if it is, fine, but I would like the Chair to comment on this. Certainly. So, the question’s being directed to our staff, not to Mr. LaCocia in this instance, and it’s specific to why a difference in some. So, I’m going to allow it, but I will also say at the same time, I do concur with Councillor Trussa out that we’re moving a bit away from the report that we’re receiving today. I understand where you’re coming from, Councillor, and asking for why do some provide a different level of reporting, but again, through a different mechanism, because the Sunshine List is not a city list. So, but I am going to allow the question. I’m going to let staff respond, because I think we’re close enough to what I’m hearing you saying is you want more meat in the report and asking staff, why do we not ask for more meat in the report? And so, I’m going to ask, I’m going to let staff respond.

[1:38:15] Well, I didn’t actually finish my sentence before the point of order was called, which is always appreciated if I can finish so that there’s an understanding of why I’m asking what I’m asking. This report is the reporting for our investment. And when I brought this up earlier, I was told this was the place to discuss the transparency around finances around this. So, my understanding is LEDC used to be in-house. It was created as a separate organization similar to Tourism London. And yet, one is they’re both separate entities, both separate financial statements.

[1:38:55] One we can see, one we can’t, one is on the Sunshine List, one is not. And I just wanted clarity again around why that is the case for LEDC. Ms. Barbara. Thank you through the chair. So, the City of London receives provincial funding. As such, the City of London needs to report out for all of its employees, the to the province once a year, those that make $100,000 and greater. So, all employees, under the City of London’s jurisdiction, including some boards and commissions, the City of London is obligated to report. Tourism London employees are seconded City of London employees. So, as such a City of London employees, they are included in the City of London’s reporting that we report out, and that is provided to the province as per the legislation.

[1:39:49] LEDC is a separate corporation through a purchase of service. They are a board incorporated without share capital. They have no affiliation to the City of London in its creation of its organization, and thus does not fall. And under the City of London’s reporting, nor does it fall under the provincial reporting because they do not receive provincial grants from the province. Thank you. And through you, just to follow up, is there an opportunity for council to have the same setup as Tourism London, and have the employees be City of London employees that are seconded to this organization? Point of order. Councillor Ploza.

[1:40:35] Thank you. Once again, I believe we’re getting off track from this annual update. The question of where LEDC Tourism London Music Office all bets fits is part of the work of the Economic Development Plan as directed by council, and as we heard from staff already, it will be back in January 2026. Yes, thank you for that point of order, Councillor Ploza. And I’m actually going to concur with the Councillor on this one, Councillor Stevenson. It is that economic development work that Deloitte is undertaking for us, including the consultation meetings that they have with us where we can have that discussion about structure. It’s not something that would be related specifically to Mr. LaCoches’ annual report today. Okay, thank you very much. I’m just going to wrap up by saying I’m going to be voting no to receiving your report, and it isn’t about the report or the work that you do. It’s about I don’t do not feel that this meets the level of transparency, accountability, and oversight that the people who elected me expect of me, and so I’ll be saying no to this report. Councillor Ploza.

[1:41:38] Thank you. And thank you to all our presenters today. I will just pick on the one still standing right now, as I know he appreciates it. I think that’s what’s important is that these are contracted services that went through a process and just through you to either staff or Mr. LaCoches’ that your finances are confidential, but are available for viewing. I believe they live with the finance department somewhere. Just looking for clarification. Mr. LaCoches. I thank you through the chair. Yes, that is correct. We submit annual audited financial statements to the City Treasurer, Councillor Ploza.

[1:42:17] Thank you. A lot of information is there. It’s not part of our package, but it’s there if we want to get into it. I would say I don’t go into other contracts that we do for a road line painting or something, so that’s not where my interest lies today. And we have met in the past with industrial lands and information with the film office. So just thank you for that work and retention, as Councillor Romanoi said, it’s that relationship building that we don’t see it, and it takes sometimes years to come to fruition of what we’re doing. And as we see the industrial land strategy, was just going to give you a moment to speak on upcoming events you might have. That would be of interest to the public or community leaders, including Council, thinking about Made in London.

[1:43:03] Mr. LaCoches. Thank you. Through the chair, the biggest one coming up is on November 27th. It’s the Made in London Holiday Open House at RBC Place, where we showcase a number of growing and innovative local vendors. It’s become quite popular over the years, and we’d love to see everybody there. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Palosa. Thank you. I appreciate that. That’s one that we can actually go in person and talk to different London businesses and ask about their experiences and what the city, as we’re waiting for Deloitte, is or isn’t doing where the opportunity is lies. And I know I take those opportunities as well. And thank you in advance that for the invitation that will be extended to all members of Council. Thank you, Councillor Palosa. And I no need to go back, because I know that you’ve already indicated that people are welcome to come.

[1:43:59] So I’m going to move to our next speaker, which is Councillor Pribble. Thank you. And again, thank you to and to your team. Congratulations to Andriani. And I just want to make also say that I attended a couple of your job fairs and both the organizations attending. They thought it was very valuable and the attendees as well. So kudos to that. I know we all hear every day in terms of the terrorists, terrorists, but there are potentially also opportunities like, for example, the interprovincial barriers being lifted. What is the organization doing in terms of looking at these opportunities and identifying Canadian or organizations throughout Canada to come to London and to do the business in London?

[1:44:45] Mr. Mukocha. Thank you. Through the chair, there’s a number of channels that get deployed on looking at opportunities within Canada through removal of interprovincial barriers, like you mentioned. Both levels federal and provincial have investment agencies invest Canada and invest Ontario in our case. Invest Ontario tends to be the filtration mechanism for inbound leads that are coming into the province. Anything that’s a substantial investment opportunity usually involves some mechanism from the province in terms of grants, subsidy, support programs to help attract them here. London is a strong partner because of our industrial land strategy, our talented workforce, like you mentioned, along with a friendly business climate, we’re well known to our peers and colleagues at both levels. So that filtration process gives us a short list of opportunities that we work through. To my earlier comment, these are not overnight turn around. It can take quite some time. We’re early in that process. We do have opportunities from Quebec, from British Columbia in food, in manufacturing, a couple of other sectors. We’re just moving through the cycles to help them assess the business climate here. I’ll give you an example. When we attracted original bakery, it was a British Columbia based organization that set up a manufacturing plant here to serve the eastern seaboard. So there are different companies in that segment that are assessing their market potential. Of course, because of our current business with the US and the uncertainties that go with it, a lot of that enthusiasm is a little muted.

[1:46:19] Council approval. Thank you for that. And you mentioned the provincial and the federal body, like in West Ontario. But other municipalities, they have access through these two organizations, well, maybe not all of them, but certainly the larger ones. Are there any initiatives that we can do or LEDC on their own to be ahead of the other municipalities? Because once we get to the in West Ontario and other ones, we are competing already with other municipalities. Are there certain drivers that we can do on our own? Mr. Lakocha. Through the chair, absolutely. You know, on paper, we are competing across the board with a lot of different places. But when you start filtering down the sites to give you an example, there’s a certified site program with the province.

[1:47:04] London has the most sites on that program. I do believe it came through Council through a mayoral direction. Workforce capacity is something that most other municipalities cannot meet. Again, I’m talking about investments of a certain caliber that do require water, sewer, hydro capacity, workforce. So there’s a checklist of site selection criteria. And when companies start going through that, they start eliminating communities that can’t meet that. And that’s where London constantly gets into the shortlist because we have created such a dynamic environment that meets a lot of those criterias. That’s how we get to the Andrianis of the world. Council approval.

[1:47:44] Thank you for those answers. I just want to make a couple of comments, kind of tools for organizations and certainly the numbers that you are presenting, certainly those are positive numbers. Having said that, the parts that I’m missing is, which I mentioned, actually, there’s not the first time I’m mentioning it, are really the targets, the goals and measurables, deliverables that we can actually see. I know you all have your board of directors. It would be nice to share it with us as well. These were our goals. These were our targets. We reached them. We over-reached them. And I think even if they’re not treated, so we understand, so we understand why they were not treated. And I think that this would be very truly beneficial. I believe, actually, if I look at a comparative analysis with organizations in other cities, actually the other municipalities compared to us, they actually have higher funding towards these organizations. But it would be much easier for us to make the decisions if we have these targets and if we have these special cases that we can actually move forward and potentially even increase the funding. One thing is that, through my previous job, I had the opportunity to live in other cities and other countries. And one thing is, which I’m struggling with, and that’s our cooperation and collaboration. I know that we’re talking about efficiencies and duplication. For me, it’s about maximizing the opportunities. And I really think I know we do, we will have the strategic economic policy coming from the strategy coming in January.

[1:49:16] Thank you to the staff. I’m glad it’s coming in January, and it’s coming kind of what I call in semi-finals. In finals, we will have a chance to put our input, which is great, and I do truly appreciate it. But having said that, I hope that there will be certain things that will bring us more together, Team London approach. But I really think this reorganization and potential, including the Chamber of Commerce, we can come more together, even though you have your specific sectors. But there are certain things that we can learn from other places in the world, and have a Team London approach, the economic strength for our municipality. And even though this is coming in January, every month, every week is the last week, last month, I really hope that this review, potentially with the Chamber, four of you, can come together and really starting to explore opportunities, so we maximize the opportunities for half a million of Londoners.

[1:50:09] Thank you for that. I have no more. Actually, I’m going to quickly go straight. No, thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor Per beau. I’ve got Councillor McAllister next on the list. Thank you, and through the chair, I didn’t speak to all the presenters today, just being mindful of time, but I just don’t want to thank everyone for their presentations. Very informative, and I always appreciate these annual updates. For LEDC, just a couple of questions in terms of some of the campaigns. I’m just wondering in terms of what you’ve seen since it started, are the trends still good, are they trending downward? The reason why I say that is I’m just curious if we’ve considered targeting any other cities, or is Toronto still kind of the go-to place to target?

[1:51:02] Mr. LaCocia. Thank you. Through the chair, so the Don’t Tell Toronto campaign is actually winding down this year to free up capacity to focus on the Choose London campaign in the US. This was a wildly successful campaign over the last couple of years, and our team is able to actually, we were able to collect data points that demonstrated how many people engaged with the campaign, and then applied for open positions in London. In many cases, we’ve received direct feedback from people who have actually relocated here. I believe some counselors have also heard from talent in their words that is located here after hearing some of these ads, and that’s rare.

[1:51:44] That’s very rare. I get goosebumps when people show up at Job Fair saying, “Yeah, we saw the ad in a subway station in Toronto.” So that’s pretty cool. Social media targeted marketing of this campaign in select demographics, in select areas within Toronto that our marketing partners told us are heavier concentrations of tech talent as an example. Help drive traffic to our London tech job portals. So it wasn’t just a hope and pray, throw up an ad on the gardener, and hope for the best. There was a calculated game plan with social media targeted advertising, and then following it up with those job portals and matching them with growing employers.

[1:52:27] So we tried our best to close the loop as much as possible, and that’s why I’m pretty proud of the results it’s delivered. Councillor McAllister. Thank you, and through you, and then another question on a different thing. In terms of the My London app, I know it’s relatively new, but I’m just curious in terms of the usage numbers if you can speak to a bit of that, and just wondering in terms of reaching people, do you find the app is still the best format? Do you find it more successful with social media like other different platforms? I’m just curious kind of how the app came about, and then also in terms of the cross collaboration for the app, are we partnering with say tourism London or other people? Because I think there’s a lot of value in an app like that, but I think you could use it to maybe promote more of what’s going on in the city and not just the job aspect. Mr. Locochia. Thank you. Through the chair, just to start off, because there were questions both on workforce and marketing, I just want to point out marketing director Ashley Coningham and Christine Wilton, our director of workforce, are the ones who run both the My London app, as well as the Don’t Tell Toronto and Choose London campaign. So they’re really the ones who should be answering this. From my perspective, a couple of things. When we started ideating around the app, we talked to technology vendors to find out what’s the best delivery mechanism.

[1:53:51] Is it a website? Is it social media? There’s several channels to deploy that content. What would be the best way to engage? The app came up as a recommendation because it can push out notifications, it can keep content fresh, relevant, contemporary, all of those things. We were fortunate to have anchor partners with Western University, Fanshawe College, Tourism London, and through all of these partners, we have designed the content in a way that helps residents, visitors, students, and everybody else navigate, including employers and employees, connect for job-related functionality.

[1:54:31] It creates an environment where a lot of these user groups are able to curate the content they’re looking for. So it’s the first of a kind. To answer your question on a number of subscribers, we have close to 8,000 right now. Next week, I believe Western is deploying the app on campus under the Western umbrella. Fanshawe is going to be doing the same thing. So it’s white-labeled for both those organizations, and once that happens, there’s going to be an uptake in subscription. Deltzer? Thank you, and through you. I appreciate the answer. I just know, you know, living in the digital age, we can move forward with so many options. It’s hard to kind of push yourself to the top in terms of, you know, just getting in front of people so they know that’s an option. Just one of my last point, I just want, I know a few people have mentioned Adriana, great success story. Everyone got their carbs and got their pasta, so it was a good time.

[1:55:23] Fortunately, I couldn’t make it, but I’m just wondering, you know, you have the campaign, obviously, you said with the States, but I do, again, think there’s opportunities with, say, Europe. I know that’s, you know, across the ocean, right? In terms of proximity, the U.S. has always been the go-to partner, but I’m just wondering in terms of conversations that have happened today, and then perhaps down the road, in terms of getting maybe some European companies to take interest. Again, I think that’s kind of a difficult thing in this climate, especially when you look at the European Union as an economic regional bloc. That’s a big player, but have we seen any other successes, any interest coming from across the pond? Mr. Lococia? Thank you. Through the chair, that’s a great question. I mean, when you look at foreign direct investment trends into Ontario, Europe is certainly at the head of the pack, and for our region in general, we’ve had a heavier concentration of investment coming from the German market. With PowerCo, Dr. Rutger, there’s a whole list of other auto parts suppliers and so on. So it does stand to reason to target areas in Europe for targeted investment attraction. While we have done that for corporate investments, we haven’t quite gotten to the point where we’re doing that for workforce attraction.

[1:56:38] It’s just resources and time and focus, but I can certainly see the fact that the world is flat. Labor is mobile. People are making location decisions based on opportunities and a host of different factors. Climate resiliency being one of them. I can see in the future targeting European geographies with a more focus of attracting health care, life sciences, technology, and hard to come by professions. We have to work with federal and provincial partners because a lot of immigration rules would be outside our control, of course. So it’s the harmony of that kind of an environment that we can operate in. Councillor McAllister.

[1:57:21] Through the chair, thank you with all the answers. Again, thank you to all our presenters, and I think Councillor Purple said it too, but just looking for those opportunities, and I very much appreciate it over here having these updates. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McAllister. Now I’m coming back. Councillor Stevenson, you said you wanted to come back for another question. Thanks. And in listening to my colleagues, I do agree with Councillor Pribble. If we could get targets or metrics, even if it had to be confidential, I think it would be helpful. Seeing as you’re talking about the Don’t Tell Toronto campaign, I think I know the answer to this, but I’d be interested to hear what you say to lenders who are concerned about bringing people to come take jobs in houses when they feel scarcity around those issues here in London. How do you, when you target it, how do you assure that you’re not bringing sort of competition to lenders? Mr. LaCocia.

[1:58:18] Thank you. Through the chair. So the answer to the first part, we submit metrics to the city for the city’s strategic plan, the IODS strategy and a host of other documents throughout the year. I believe the total list last time I checked was around 40 different metrics points. The second part of the question around Don’t Tell Toronto, completely hear you on that. Through London manufacturing jobs, London tech jobs and health jobs portals, those are the three primary sources of marketing open positions in the Toronto area. By no means are we looking to fill our jobs gap regionally by just Toronto based marketing. My comments earlier on London and area works job fairs that we do regularly are there to help local people find opportunities here.

[1:59:07] They’re already here. Our goal would be to retain them here to your point. So we do a lot of different things throughout the year to help workforce in the region find suitable opportunities. Despite those efforts, there are still gaps in the marketplace. Employers regularly tell us there are certain skills that are just not in either enough supply or period. To target those skills that we have to look externally. So it’s a combination of those two, but I see your point. Thanks. I appreciate that. And just my question through you chair to staff is just to confirm when it comes to the financial statements for LEDC, are they available in the clerk’s office for a Councillor to come and view them confidentially? I think if they were resting anywhere they might be with Miss Barbone’s team, but I will. The point is that a Councillor could view them.

[2:00:02] Or I’ll go to Miss Stater’s Bear. Thank you and apologies for the delay there. There’s certainly two options. We do receive them. We’re happy to take direction from council about sharing of those. And secondly, it would be reasonable, I think, and for you to go to the organization and ask to see them as well. Thank you. Sorry, Councillor Stevenson. I was just getting a little more information for you. The clerk said, well, it wouldn’t be to me to this particular meeting.

[2:01:09] If you’d like some assistance in crafting a crafting a motion to bring those things forward in a confidential session for a future meeting, they’re happy to work with you on that. I knew that was an option, but I’ve heard that they are available if Councillors want to see them. And I’ve heard that a few times on different things, contracts and the like. So I just wanted to confirm that a Councillor could go and look at them without going through council direction. Sorry, I was just checking on the ability to receive the Madam at a committee meeting.

[2:01:45] If that’s something you want to contemplate for the future, the clerks are happy to work with you on that. I’ll leave it to the response from Ms. Dater’s Bear, though, that certainly either approach to the organization or a follow-up with our staff in terms of if you want one-on-one access to sit down to follow-up. But it sounded like a Councillor couldn’t go and look at them without Council direction, isn’t it? Ms. Dater’s Bear. Thank you, through you, Chair. The information is confidential, so they are specific to that reality, and we’re certainly happy to work with clerks to support a request. Thanks. I’ll follow-up with this online, because like I said, there are comments that have been made about how contracts can be viewed by a Councillor or this, and now I’m hearing something different. So I’m going to get clarity offline. Ms. Dater’s Bear.

[2:02:48] Thank you, if I could. I’m going to be clear about contracts. We generally bring those contracts to Council for various matters. I think the question, though, if I’m clear, was about financial statements different, if I’m sorry, through you. That was actually the same comment that the clerk was sharing, so we’re going to get some clarification from the Council. But the same thing was true with contracts, right? We needed to bring a motion before Council in order for a Councillor to see the contracts. Then recently, we heard, “Oh, no, a Councillor can just go and look at them in the office.” So I was just trying to verify here about financial statements. If they were different than contracts, then that’s fine. But like I said, it was mentioned earlier that accounts that they were available if a Councillor wanted to see them. If it’s something I can get through the organization and have an opportunity to look at them, I’ll explore my options.

[2:03:42] Thank you. Vice Chair Raman, if I can get you to take the chair for just a minute and time me so that I don’t go over, I’m just going to share a few comments. Getting my time ready. Thank you. I have the chair. Go ahead. Thank you. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to share, and my thanks to all three presenters. I know that you’re always available to us when we have questions. I appreciate the ability to touch base with all of you from time to time when when needed. I want to take a moment though to particularly recognize we’ve heard a lot of great things from our different partners today about a lot of initiatives that they’ve done over the last year. But I really want to take an opportunity now that we’re about to receive the LEDC report to extend the congratulations that I think are very fitting to Mr. LaCoce and particularly to Mr. Dodd and the film office. I will say I was one of the doubters in the last term when we rolled the dice and provide that initial funding to try it as a pilot. And I am happy to have been proven wrong in doubting and seeing the success that has come from that office.

[2:05:03] I’ve had an opportunity to talk with Mr. Dodd a couple times over the last six to eight months really learn about what’s happening in the development of our film sector here. And I am thrilled with the absolutely wonderful progress that we are making in that particular sector. And that too is not just about bringing heads and beds and production crews to the city for a shoot, but it’s all of the spinoff investment that comes from that, you know, the catered food on set, the scramble to local retailers to find set props and background things that they need thrift store raids for certain costumes for certain periods. It’s really an exciting development in our city. You know, I thought we were way too far away from the what likes to think of itself as the center of the universe in Toronto and that people wouldn’t come here. But in fact, we’re being proven wrong that they are coming here specifically for that.

[2:06:04] So I just wanted to highlight that. And there are great things happening. And for those who are curious, if you want to take a look at the most recent tourism London, Matt asked where the Matt committee through the tourism dollars extended a two year bridge funding to keep an initiative going to incentivize some film production coming here to London. And that’s not money we spend up front. That’s money that gets spent afterwards when a production crew submits receipts for expenses they actually accumulated here in London. And to see the hotel stays that have been generated, to see the business, the side businesses, the restaurants, the catering, those kind of things that have benefited from that, that was all part of the Matt ask. So it’s certainly available to you in the tourism package. But I wanted to single out through LEDC, Mr. Dodd’s extremely excellent work. That ask was supported unanimously by tourism London because of the success that he has had with that already. And I know that we’re going to continue to build on that. Not to take away from any of the other amazing work, Andriani, obviously, and all of the other fantastic stuff that’s been going on. Or to take away from the work of tech lions or the small business center. But I wanted to single that one out because that was one where I was a doubter. And I have been proven happily to be wrong that it’s been a big success. And I know that’s going to continue to grow. So I just wanted to take the moment while you’re here. I know it wasn’t really highlighted a lot in the slide deck. But for me, that’s been a highlight of the year is seeing the success of the film office. So I just wanted to share that while we had you here and look forward to great things in the year ahead for that particular division of LEDC.

[2:07:49] Thank you. I return the chair to you with no one on the speakers list. Okay, then with no one else on the speakers list, we will ask the clerk to open the vote to receive. And since I’ve been practicing my Italian lately, Gracie Mille. Thank you. Well done. Now, can you say go Jay’s go in Italian? Using the vote motion carries 14 to one. Thank you colleagues. So that completes our scheduled items. Now we will move on to our items for direction, of which we have a few to get through. I did requests for snacks and a body break for us at four. So for any recess, you may want to hold on until there’s an opportunity to get some a little bit of refreshment along with a bio break. Thanks to those who joined us in the gallery. Thanks to our presenters. You’re welcome to stay and listen to the rest of our meeting if you want. But we do thank you for coming today. And moving on, our first item for direction is the council resourcing review task force final report. I’m going to ask colleagues to give me just one moment. Just wanted to check with the clerks to make sure. So Mr. Horak, who is the was the chair of the task force is with us virtually should colleagues want to direct questions to him.

[2:09:33] So that option is available for you if you want to direct specific questions. I did circulate while the clerk circulated because they did some excellent work in breaking all of this down into some organized recommendations that we can vote on separately if people want items voted on separately. That’s been loaded in an e-scribe. I did circulate a some language for a referral that I know some multiple members of council were interested in. So that was sent to you earlier today, but I understand Councilor Palosa is going to actually move an alternate motion to what the clerk circulated with just a couple of changes. So I’m going to go to Councilor Palosa to put that on the floor to start framing the discussion, and then we can take it from there. Councilor Palosa. Thank you.

[2:10:18] I’ll just preface with this with what’s been altered. If you load e-scribe and refresh and go into 4.1 item one is mainly what was circulated the clerks had broke down. The changes held within it that I’ve made incorporates L&M, which the deputy mayor had circulated earlier as some things are already at GWG that relate to this conversation, that’s already on their list that they’re dealing with. So L&M would be a referral to the governance working group of those items. The other item changed within here for your contemplation, which I can speak to is N, and that has to do with the severance pay, and has been amended originally the it was take no like no change. Currently what I have proposed is that members of council who are an unsuccessful and reelection calculated one week of severance pay to a maximum of four weeks would be the change. I’ll speak to them in time, but just making sure there’s a seconder. And as the deputy mayor said, as we go through this, we can pull things apart, vote it on separate, make referrals to furloughs or other amendments, just trying to get the conversation started. Thank you, Councilor Palosa, and is there a seconder for that? Councilor Layman. Okay, so that’s on the floor. We can have discussion, we can ask Mr. Horak questions about it. I will maintain the speakers list, but I will first give Councilor Palosa a chance if she wants to speak now as to the changes that she’s suggested from what was circulated to us by the clerk. Thank you. I will let you be on your speakers list at some point as I have questions regarding the rest of the point. I want to thank the review task force and Mr. Horak. He actually took a phone call with me the other night. As I said, Elena M strictly was a referral as for the severance pay. I had a conversation with Mr. Horak and then had also had done research in addition to it. municipalities that already include something would be Brampton Pickering, marking Oshawa, Clareington, Mississauga, Vaughan, Toronto, Richmond Hill. Some of them actually give up to 12 months pay, 24 months pay. So it does seem to be something that’s happening across the sector. Had also contemplated to do MPs and MPPs getting something similar. MPs can get up to $100,000 being half a year salary. The motion before UNN was just be if we seek re-election and we don’t get our seat, it does not contemplate unless someone makes amendment. If you die well in office, some other jurisdictions cover that as well, that there be something to your state, or if you just simply decide not to seek re-election that’s not currently contained within the motion.

[2:13:06] This was just recognizing that we’re an interesting unique level of government that we’re still doing our city job while campaigning. And ideally you’re not seeking something if an election starts to go sideways and just that potential four weeks to help you bridge the gap of say that the contract ending with the city. So that’s overall what it is. I’ll leave it there as I do have other questions. Thank you, Councillor Ploza, and you’ve left yourself three and a half minutes, so lots of time left. Councillor Hopkins, I have you next. I’ll be very quick. Is this on the public record? Do we have a process here? I’m just wondering if the public’s listening in as to… Yes, the Council Resourcing Task Force report was in the agenda. The live streams are going. So yes, it’s public record. Thanks. That’s a pretty well. Thank you. Just a question to you, Chair. Maybe to the clerk. Right now we have motion one, two, and I just want to clarify. Number two is what was circulated before, originally, and number one is kind of the changes with which Councillor Ploza just stated. Yes, so let me help everybody here. So number one is the alternate motion that Councillor Ploza just on the floor. Motion two is the version that the clerk had put together from the Council Resourcing Task Force that was circulated to everyone yesterday. And then motion three is just the piece that I had circulated to everyone this morning via the clerk with respect to the referral to the staffing piece only, the two clauses that were with regard to staffing of Councillors and the word expense account and what that looked like. So there’s three different votes because there’s been three different versions. One is the alternate motion that Councillor Ploza has proposed, and there’s the two clauses that are different there. Thank you. Councillor Ferrera. Thank you, Chair. Just to clarify, so Councillor Ploza’s motion that she put down incorporates the original recommendation from the review task force, but items 12, a recommendation 12 and 13 are being referred to the government’s working group. That’s correct.

[2:15:42] Okay, and then the third motion has not, the motion that you submitted is not being discussed at the moment. We’re on the motion. Councillor Ploza and those two are going to GWG. Okay, that’s, that’s, I just want to clarify that. So thank you. Yeah, so I’ll just pause, pause you there for just a moment for everyone’s clarity. The rather than having, so the item that I circulated this morning that said here is a potential referral hearing that several people were interested in potentially referring the staffing piece because there still is an outstanding item at GWG related to staffing in the Councillor’s offices. That’s why the referral is there because governance working group has not finished its part of the discussion and so to take those two recommendations and send them for consideration with completing that piece that is still with the working group.

[2:16:36] Rather than do that referral as an amendment, Councillor Ploza has just built it in to her alternate motion. So does that clarify everything for everyone? Yes, seeing nods now. Sorry if that was complicated. That was, it was rather than going through an amendment to an amendment to an amendment, Councillor Ploza has just built in the potential referral right into her alternate motion. And Councillor Ferri, you have the floor. So if you want to speak, go ahead. I’ll defer to colleagues and I will probably get myself back on the speakers list. So.

[2:17:16] Councillor Layman. Thank you, Chair. I’m going to speak primarily to the 70th percentile reference which kind of covers the whole general general feel of the task force recommendation. Just to give a bit of a timeline here, it’s been about a decade since this was last reviewed. Since then, London has changed dramatically. We now have about half million people in big city and about a billion plus in budget. And with that, I believe the Council role has also changed.

[2:17:54] I think there was a general feeling with our current Council that looking forward to future Councils that we should kind of address this. It went to the governance working group where it was discussed. And, you know, there’s various options we could have gone the direction like the province that which, like ourselves, have the rare task of, you know, dictating what our compensation is, which personally is very uncomfortable. I would prefer that, quite frankly, that the province would dictate what Councils are made across the city. But here we are.

[2:18:41] We, governance working groups said, you know, let’s not award ourselves that. You know, what we should do is have an independent arms-like task force to do an in-depth study and make recommendations. That was, I believe unanimously, approved at the working group. Went to SPPC, which was unanimously or almost unanimously supported as well as then to Council. And here we are, the task force has taken quite a bit of time and it in-depth study and has brought forward their recommendation. I want to refer to a couple things that the task force looked at.

[2:19:22] First of all, they looked at time needed by a Councillor to do their job. And, secondly, the responsibility plus other things they considered like comparables, etc. I’d like to address a couple of those things from my perspective. Let’s start with the time needed. In my experience, a Councillor’s job is, you know, there’s been this argument, it was a part-time, it was a full-time. Whatever it is, it requires the full-time equivalent hours. It requires the amount of hours that a full-time person would do to do a full-time job, including evenings and weekends. Side Council work, there’s committee work, there’s boards and commissions, there’s outside groups, and of course constituent work. One thing that I noticed when comparing ourselves to other government bodies is we don’t have a party organization system supporting us. All our work is done by individual Councillors. We have to read considerable agendas, drill down and come to conclusions ourselves with conversations with staff and external, both within Council and the boards and commissions that we serve. This leads me to a responsibility and the complexity of the job. With a billion dollar plus budget oversight and approval, that’s a considerable responsibility that requires a certain skill set and experience to address in a proper way.

[2:21:11] Added on top is a myriad of bylaws that affect all aspects of city life, plus the constituent and ward issues. This is a very complex job. We have to deal with finance, waste management, roads, roads building and maintenance, zoning, building, parks, rec, police, fire, etc., etc., so it requires a skill set that allows you to quickly come up to speed and deliver on behalf of the citizens and taxpayers of London professional work. In looking at that, and I look at, not with my Councillor had, because this is for next Council and future Councillors, but I look at more as a taxpayer. As a taxpayer, what do I want to draw from a pool of potential people, a talent that would look to consider this job? I believe strongly that I don’t want to exclude those that are making higher than the 50th percentile. I think the 17th percentile will lead us to a more, to a lead us to a skill set and talent pool that I don’t think are properly considering the role of a Councillor. I think that we have to think, not just, we’re not thinking about this particular Council, we’re not passing this Council, we’re thinking about the next Council and future Councils down the road. So, like a decade from now, what type of I’m just going to ask you to look for the job. Thank you. Okay, you wrapped up because I’m just, you were at your five minutes, so I wanted to see if you needed an extra 30 seconds or if you’re done or yeah, it was abrupt wait and if you can allow me just a quick wrap up. Well, do you want to, do you want to ask for an extension? If I could ask a minute or a minute, yeah, if I could, yeah. Okay, okay, we’re having a bidding war now to increase your time further. We’ve got two minutes, we’ve got three minutes, two minutes. Councillor Frank and Councillor Ploza are moving a two minute extension for Councillor Layman and the clerk is super fast and that’s ready to go in e-scribes, so we’ll open that in favor. In the vote, motion carries 15 to 0. Well, thank you, everyone, because I think that’s the first time I asked for extension, but I guess it’s important to finish what I was kind of going down the road on here. I’m really trying not to look at what I want to pay myself. I really want to look at what it is that takes people to consider running for office. You know, I think we’re having a challenge in getting folks that are considering it because of, you know, all of the social media pressures, the public persona that you have to do, what does it take to consider running for Council? I think it’s different than running for a provincial legislation or federal. It’s a very ground zero point of place where you are with your neighbors and friends and that public exposure. I know personally that there’s people that I’ve had conversations with that would consider, you know, running for future councils, but quite frankly, while there is an altruistic part to all of us that we do, there is that altruism that we do that we bring in and believe in giving back, but at the end of the day, you also have to provide for your family. And I think we’re excluding those that look, if you have a certain skill set, you’re going, that’s a considerable pay cut that I’m going to take to do that plus all the other things that requirements of the job. I don’t want to exclude those folks from considering this very rewarding profession, but it’s limited. You’re going to have to quit what you’re doing, go to this thing, and then are you going to, you know, if you go for a couple of terms, you’re going to get back into the workforce. So it’s that sacrifice. So I think it’s important that what is it 70, 80, 50, or, you know, you could argue about that. That’s why we had a task force to look at.

[2:25:59] I think the 70th percentile is reasonable. And I think it will enhance the pool that are attracted to throwing their hat in the ring. Thank you for the extension. Thank you, Councillor Layman. I have Councillor Trustee. Thank you. And for clarity, we’re debating Councillor Palose’s amendment. It’s right now, it’s the she moved the entire motion, so you can speak to any parts of it. I will also, and just before you start, Councillor, I will also just say if people want the reason the clerks went through and took all of the report recommendations, and I do recognize and sorry, Councillor Hopkins, when Councillor Ferrer spoke, I recognize that one of the differences is our motions are lettered. The recommendations are numbered. So it’s all the same stuff. It’s just been changed from numbers to letters, but it is in the public agenda that way. So just wanted to share that if people do want clauses pulled out and dealt with separately, just let us know. We can do that. Councillor Trussau, the floor is all yours.

[2:27:05] Okay. I’m really glad to see the change. One problem that I had with the motion was the setting up an account for Councillors to be able to hire, I think the term constituency assistant was used, and that would be $15,000 a person, and I would not be able to support that. I would have to ask that that people hold separately, and I would vote no one that. So I’m very happy to have that deferred for further discussion. The only other piece of this that I’m uncomfortable with, and I’m not willing to support, is the severance pay. I don’t think when you run for a political office, you have any reasonable expectation of having your term renewed. You might, you might not. I personally would not be able to support, I’m sorry, am I out of order?

[2:28:10] Oh, okay. I personally would not be able to support severance pay, and I could go back and look at the numbers that I’d like pulled separately, but I would like the severance pay issue dealt with separately. And with the way that Councillor Palosa restated L and M, I can support that for now. So it’s just a severance pay. For me, other than that, I really want to thank the task force for doing an incredible job they went into. I know how hard they worked, and they were very thorough. So I’m not going to second guess 70%, or the other things. So just thank you.

[2:28:50] Thank you, Councillor. So that would be clause N. So we’ll call clause N separately. That’s the amendment by Councillor Palosa to establish a severance package of one week per year of service up to a maximum of four weeks. So we’ll have clerks pull that, put it into a separate vote for us. And I will reference, I know people have thanked them for the work, but I do want to just remind folks that I know he’s online, not in front of us, so we sometimes forget Mr. Horak is online, if we want to direct any questions about the work to them. And so just that friendly reminder.

[2:29:29] And you did say nice things about him, and I’m sure he appreciates that. And I’m going to go now to Councillor Frank, and then I have Councillor Ferrera on the next list. Thank you. And again, appreciate all the work that’s gone into this review. I did have a question through the chair to Mr. Horak in regards to the discussion that they had. I wasn’t able to attend or watch all of them. So I was just curious in regards to recommendation number six about not providing additional compensation or stipends for ABCs. I agree that we should, and especially for going to be increasing the pay so significantly. But I am wondering, given there was a lot of commentary from the community in regards to some people sitting on more and some people doing more work, and there’s no real methodology for compensating based on number of hours or workload, and the ABC compensation model is one that we actually can kind of look at and say, oh, you are doing more boards, you’re doing more work. So I’m just wondering what the discussion was like at the task force, and how come they went with, you know, a large increase to the base salary as opposed to maybe a small increase, and then reinstating the ABC compensation?

[2:30:43] Well, let’s ask Mr. Horak. Okay, well, thank you for the question and good afternoon everybody. Can everybody hear my audio well? Yep, we’re seeing a little bit of stutter in your video, but your audio is coming through just fine. Okay, so through the chair, we had an interesting conversation about that in a number of elements went into our recommendations. So first of all, we were very aware that there’s vastly different workloads and tie commitments for different ABCs, and so suggesting a standard piece of additional compensation seems like not the way to go, because they’re actually different workloads. At the same time, given the nature of a council position, we can’t actually take compensation to hours in any systematic way. So that’s really not an option for us either. And we further were talking about, you know, what does it mean to be a counselor? What’s kind of a core part of the job? And we really judge that’s serving on ABCs, and we heard this as well from the counselors who responded from the public that that is a core part of the job. And so our approach was to really suggest that it is a core part of the job, not something additional, and instead of proposing additional compensation, we instead make recommendation number 11. I don’t know what that is in the writers, but number 11 was the recommendation that council set a standard of three ABC posts minimum per counselor, which is based on, you know, the number of posts that need to go around for all those posts to be filled. So that was partly our way of addressing the equity piece. But I will just say one final thing, and that’s that there’s a number of other recommendations that we make, that also we hope will encourage a more equitable distribution of workload among council members, because we understand that that’s been a bit of a challenge. And so for example, in recommendation nine, we recommend a number of pieces of language or the counselor role description potentially to recommend for the province in the code of conduct review that really make it clear that this is a full-time equivalent position. And so together, these various recommendations working together, we hope will address the issue of equity to a significant extent. So that’s I’d say basically our reasoning as best I can represent it. And I’m happy to answer more questions. We’ll keep you on standby. And I’m going to go back to Councillor Frank. Thank you and appreciate the answer. And I do have a follow-up based on that. So in regards to recommendation number 11 regarding the minimum of three ABCs, I have two questions. One, towards staff, are we able to codify that requirement and then actually enforce it in a material way?

[2:33:57] And two, perhaps back to Mr. Horrik, was there any discussion given the workload of the various ABCs? For example, some meet quarterly and have half an hour meetings, whereas others meet monthly for a whole day. So is there any discussion in regards to, you know, three, but maybe one who is, which is a heavier workload and two that are medium or lighter? So two different questions to two different audiences. Let’s first get the clerk’s commentary on the ability to codify it into policy and whether there’s any enforcement mechanism to council policies and procedure bylaws. Through the chair, we can put it into the council procedure bylaw to have a shall serve. But at this time, I’m not aware of any enforcement mechanism for that.

[2:34:57] And Mr. Horrik, if you want to comment as well now on the second part of that question from Councilor Frank? Yes, through the chair. We did briefly discuss that. But we chose not to make a recommendation on that partly because it wasn’t really possible for us to get that kind of level of detail in terms of which committees are a lot more work than others in a way that’s really reliable over time. And so while I don’t think we would discourage council from considering a more fine grained approach to the three ABC minimum that also considers specific workloads, we just felt like we just felt like we didn’t have enough information to be able to make that recommendation on a solid basis. So we kind of leave that to council to potentially discuss.

[2:35:49] Okay, Mr. Horrik, Councilor Frank. Thank you. Again, appreciate those answers and perhaps that’s an item for further discussion on another meeting. I generally share the same sentiments as Councilor Lehman in regards to discussions I have with folks who would consider running but simply they won’t be able to sustain their household if they have to leave their job that is higher paying. So again, it is an awkward position we find ourselves in. But I do think in order to have more people running and a more diversity of representation around the horseshoe, I think it’s important that we compensate people effectively for the role that they would be stepping into. And given the volume of work, the responsibility of the decisions we make at this table, as well as the pressures we see in regards to social media, emails and phone calls and being available regularly, I do think that it does require a higher salary compensation. And again, we could argue the various levels. But I appreciate the task force having done that work and the research and had those discussions in advance. So I will be supporting this at this time. Thank you, Councilor Frank. I am going to go next to Councilor Ferreira.

[2:37:04] Thank you, Chair. I guess I’ll start off with some of the last comments about just making sure the door is open for the right compensation. Like I hear the arguments that we got to make sure that we don’t want to have barriers, financial ones for good candidates, especially ones that have a lot to contribute coming forward. But I would also say it, there are candidates out there that will still take the role just for a duty in public service. And regardless of if it’s not able to maintain the household, it’s tough to do that. But they do exist. And, you know, I agree with increasing the salary just to make sure that we can have a living wage that’s able to maintain that. So we don’t have to worry about finances and expenses in the household and our personal matters. And we can actually focus on with our Council roles and duties. But I would think that some individuals who have that duty to serve their community and their society in London, they still come forward. So, and I know they exist. There’s some Councillors here who do that.

[2:38:16] With that, I would also say when I look at this Council Resource Task Force and the recommendations that came through, like for me, what really stood out is how do we increase our ability to do our job? How are we able to be more effective with our job? How do we give us the tools that we need to do our job? That’s what I’ve been focusing on a lot here. So when I see, you know, recommendation nine, which is for the Council’s roles and just delineating that out. And when I see recommendations for the ones that are going to actually governance, the GWG, in the recommendation like 12 and 13, that’s the one more administrative assistant full-time equivalent complement and the Councillor expense account. Those are also areas that help us do our job. Those are tools that we need. I’ve been, you know, fighting for more, especially with the compliment, how many staff members do we have in our office to help us? And with the Councillor’s expense account, I would strongly urge that, you know, whatever the discussion is like at GWG, we do need this type of expansion. I know some colleagues have already spoken to this, but I think these are the tools we also need to do our job. Like we are at the controls of our Council and of the corporation with a budget that’s well over a billion dollars. And, you know, we need to make sure that we have all the tools, the effective tools for us to be able to control and operate and operate the city with that. So the more resources we have to help us do the job to lessen our load so we can focus on governance is better for this Council and it will serve the city much better. So that’s kind of the things that I see when I look at this. I did, and I guess I’ll go back to this, like when we started with our orientation, when we started, like we had a few new Councillors, I was one of them, I was very green at the time.

[2:40:12] And I was always searching and seeking out, you know, more information of how to do the role, looking into the procedure, speaking with clerks for the procedure document, I really think that what I see here with these recommendations are really going to help with any potential new Councillors that come on in the next term or terms thereafter or even with Councillors continuing from one term to the next. Even for myself, I will still be using these resources as they come about because being effective knowing procedure gives you the confidence. It gives you the ability to know what is within scope of the item. I learned that one.

[2:40:47] What is not within scope, things like that, being able to chair a committee. I do got to make a shadow to the clerk’s office. You guys have been very helpful for me. But those are the types of areas that we could really focus on at the beginning of the term just to help us once again. And that’s the common theme I’m trying to say is how are we effective to do our job? How are we the most impactful to do our job? So all the recommendations here I like, I would be very hard pressed and I will be advocating against any reductions to the one more admin assistant or the Councillor’s expense account. I really think that we should keep that as it is at the moment because it will be effective in doing it for us to help us to do our job. You know myself, I get anywhere from 50 to 80 emails a day. So those are the ones that I have to look at.

[2:41:33] And that’s on top of my governance roles, my research, making notes, getting prepared for committees. 30 seconds as a chair. So I guess to wrap it up, we will discuss that at GWG. I do like the comments that I see. But again, this is about helping us be effective. So that’s really kind of the point I want to make. And that’s how we should be focusing moving forward. How do we make our job? How do we increase our effectiveness in doing our job? So I’ll leave it there. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ferra. I have Councillor Hopkins next.

[2:42:09] Thank you, Mr. Chair. And first of all, many thanks to the working group for the hours spent debating and working on this and also to the clerk’s office. I want to probably just start off with the 70th percentile 2020 medium full-time employment income for Londoners. All for that. I don’t think we need to get into the weeds there. I appreciate the recommendation coming from the working group. I appreciate what Councillor Layman had to say as well.

[2:42:47] I also want to add to that, I do think being an elected official, there’s a public element to that. It’s about public service as well, which I think we don’t speak enough about. And it is important when we look at public service that we take that into our work. And the compensation as well is important to be able to carry on. Since Mr. Horak is here, I do have two questions for him. I would really appreciate his thoughts on, I think it’s the G, the mechanism to compensate standing committee chairs for their additional responsibilities with a compensation of 4%. I wonder if Mr. Horak, if you can share any conversations with us that you have with the working group, why did you come up with that percentage? And as well as did you look at the responsibility of the chair. I’m not exactly sure if it’s the same for every chair with every standing committee, but I’d like to have a better understanding on how you came up with that amount.

[2:44:08] Well, let’s ask Mr. Horak on those points. Thank you. Well, through the chair, first of all, I, and I believe that this is in the rationale in the report. In general, we’ve recommended a additional compensation for standing committee chairs because we do understand that there are substantial extra work. And of course, there are many fewer standing committees than there are counselors. And therefore, there’s no way of spreading that work relatively equitably across the whole council at any given time as there might be for the ABCs. And so it’s just extra work that falls to some and the significant leadership. And regarding the precise percentage, we had quite a bit of discretion about that.

[2:44:58] And it was kind of a process of triangulating between what we were recommending as an increase to the base and taking that into account. And also, what has been the practice up to now in terms of additional pay for the deputy mayor and the budget chair? And we had a discussion where we judge that the deputy mayor and budget chair roles are significantly more work than the standing committee chair roles. And so they should be compensated that the additional compensation there should be significantly more. We also had a discussion in which we came to the conclusion that since we are recommending a very substantial increase in base compensation, and we don’t necessarily want these positions to be competed for for financial reasons, then we didn’t want to go overboard in terms of recommending increased compensation or additional compensation for them. And so we had a number of numbers in mind and moved through the discussion and this is what we’ve rendered on. There is no magic formula where they’re brought us to for this discussion of all the factors. I would say it’s a more, but it was more of a qualitative processing in that sense. Thank you for that. I do have a question on which is the continuous learning model of counselor training be endorsed. I appreciate that you are that we are required to attend post-election training and onboarding sessions. I think that is standard procedure, but I do really appreciate the conversation or the endorsement around the continuous learning model. Did you, as a working group, talk about what that could look like? Mr. Varak?

[2:46:49] Yes, I threw it at the chair. We had the beginnings of a discussion. So with respect to counselor onboarding and training, we had a presentation from one of the folks who manages the process in the city, and we really came to the conclusion that the quality of the onboarding and training immediately after elections is good. The materials look good, but also in conversation with him, and I’m sorry, I can’t remember the gentleman’s name right now. What came out is that sometimes it can be really difficult for counselors who are new to the job to retain everything they’ve learned in an intensive few days just after they’ve been elected, and so that it may make more sense towards the to move towards a model where there are sort of learning points or check-in points spread out at intervals throughout a counselor term, so that it’s not a one-and-done process of onboarding and training in the first couple of weeks or so after the election. And so we didn’t get too far because I don’t think we felt like we had the expertise to go there. We didn’t get too far into discussing exactly how that might look, but it’s a basic principle that we’re recommending, and but we’ll leave it to, you know, we’d like to leave it up to people who really know what they’re doing in that respect to enact that principle. But the basic principle is that learning is done best when it’s done on a continuous basis and an interaction with your experience instead of learning things in theory, and then trying to put in the momentum practice and perhaps figuring out that the practice is different from forgetting what you’ve learned, which would be a natural learning connection inclination. So that kind of continuous or at least periodic movement between practicing and then going back and talking about it and learning is what we’re recommending of the general approach. And, you know, we’ll leave that others to take it to others to take it from there.

[2:48:40] Thank you. We, sorry, I’m just going to give Ms. Dader’s bear an opportunity because I know she had a comment to share about that as well. Thank you, Chair, through you. Only to share that. As we’ve been starting to look at orientation for the next council, we’ve been getting some feedback from each of you about what that looks like, what you’re looking for. There has been, and I think it was Mr. Fowler who spoke to Mr. Horvak, there has been a request that we have not just orientation at the beginning, that we do educational opportunities throughout the council term, both planned and maybe some out of hawk as well. So we’re very open to that as we start and we’re already in the process of developing orientation information and working that through as well. So happy to take any advice that council has as it relates to that too. Thank you, Ms. Dader’s bear. And because that was in response to Councillor Hopkins, I’m just going to see if Councillor Hopkins had any follow-up before I go to our next speaker. Or if you’re good, you’re good. Okay. I have Councillor McCallister next. Thank you through the chair. I appreciate the discussion. A lot of my thoughts have already been said. So I won’t repeat them. I do think in terms of what’s involved, this is a full-time job, a lot of responsibilities. And I think having the 70th percentile, as has already been said, people who are considering it, potentially they have the opportunity to put their name forward where they otherwise would not have been able to. Just a few comments on some things. Do you have a question actually to start with for Mr. Horvak? I’m just curious in terms of the discussion when it came to the 4% for chairs, with the strong mayor powers, was there any discussion in terms of some sort of rotational system or a nomination process? Because I think where the strong mayor powers kind of brought up against that, you could potentially have the same people as chairs all the time.

[2:50:52] So I’m just wondering in terms of the course of that conversation, were there any discussion about the mayor’s role in being able to select chairs? Mr. Horvak. Thank you. Through the chair. Yes, there was. And we in fact initially were drafting some recommendations that so got into that a little more explicitly. But then we realized really that we think that it’s the, it will be the job of council to work through some of those contingencies. And by contingencies here, I mean that on the one hand, you have a number of pieces. We’ll put it that way. That’s kind of together to find a role like a budget chair or a deputy mayor role, right? There’s who appoints the person, how long they’re in the office for, what are the things they are actually tasked to do, and how much, if anything, they’re getting compensated, and all of those things are interrelated, right? And so this is why we made recommendation 8B, which we are hoping is encouraging council to begin having a conversation about those relationships by discussing a broader appointment to deputy mayor and budget chair policy that would talk about and regularized appointment processes and kind of delineate the roles and responsibilities. Now we do that understanding that, you know, under strong mayor powers, these things could be revisited at any time. But nonetheless, we didn’t want to sign posts that there is, you know, there are these interrelationships and it’s for council to consider those. At the same time, we did decide to stay with recommending additional compensation for those roles simply because regardless of how they’re appointed, they are significant extra work, and we wanted to be able to recognize them.

[2:52:56] I hope that answers your question. Councilor McAllister, thank you to the chair. Yeah, that answered my question. So I appreciate the additional information there. I’d also like to say, you know, I appreciate the task force work in terms of trying to come up with a policy to have a more equitable distribution of work. I know that’s not the easiest task. I think Councilor Frank had already spoken to this earlier in terms of the frequency that some of the committees meet. I think some of the ABCs in terms of just orders of magnitude, some of them are dealing with bigger budgets, some of them have regular boards, some have subcommittees. I can understand where you’re coming from in terms of having to go through that work. But I would say, you know, for future councils, something to consider with having that requirement for three, to look at which ones people put their name forward to. I think just as a cautionary tale, I think what I worry about is, you know, you don’t want necessarily, you know, a few people just doing all the quarterly meetings.

[2:53:56] I think, you know, as people submit for that, I’m looking at, you know, trying to have, again, more equitable distribution. I don’t mind if, you know, a couple of Councillors are doing the boards that have the quarterly meetings, but to stack it that you have all quarterly, I don’t think it’s fair to your Council colleagues. And then I’d also say in terms of what Councillor Palosa has put forward in terms of the severance, I’ve had this discussion at AMO a few times. I think some of the municipalities were mentioned, some councils have it, some don’t. But I think a recognition when you are a large city that, as we said, you know, with increasing the percentile, people are putting their careers on hold. I do think there has to be a certain amount of grace given in terms of people, you know, putting their life or their professional careers on hold to then give them a little bit of leeway to get that back up and running. Because like with any job, stopping and starting is not really a reality. And the workforce these days takes time, job hunt, and you know, get that back on track. So I appreciate that. I’m, you know, happy to hear what my other colleagues have to say, but I do think that’s an important thing that we should include and I would be supportive of it.

[2:55:05] Again, appreciate all the work that’s gone into this. I know many months, many discussions, tried to tune into as many of those as I could to hear what was going on. But this is never an easy conversation to have. I know, you know, the public look at this and I’m like, oh, you know, you’re debating your salaries. But there has to be a recognition in terms of the job itself and what it entails. And I think sometimes that’s forgotten in the conversation that this is an important job with a lot of responsibilities. And I think that the pay has to reflect that. So never did it is a conversation to have. But I think it’s important that we do this and I’m supportive of what’s in front of us. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor McAllister. I will ask Vice Chair ramen to take the chair. I’ll share a few thoughts. Thank you. Just a moment to get my time already. Thank you. I have the chair. Go ahead. Thank you. So again, thanks to you, Mr. Horack and all the members of the committee. I appreciate that it’s not an easy task and that it’s a qualitative measure you have to find in some of these things. There’s not a magic formula here. I’m going to first speak to Councilor Paloz’s amendment clause N on the severance pay. And I think through you, I’m going to first, Madam Chair, ask Mr. Horack if the task force took under consideration the fact that Councilors are actually not employment insurance eligible, even voluntarily. We do not get to pay into the program even if we choose to. And if they also took into account that until this most recent term of Council, it used to be that new Councils were only sworn in in December after an October election. And so there was a full month of delay before a new Council took over. The province has now shortened that time period. And so there is no runway now for departing Councilors to have any sort of timeframe. Was that taken into account or was that something? I understand that there was probably looks at what other cities were paying. But in terms of the reality of a Councilor no longer being elected were those factors considered. Thank you. And I’ll go to Mr. Horack for a moment.

[2:57:28] All right. Thank you. And through the acting chair, I would say noted the first and yes to the second. So so the EI issue was not on our radar. I’m afraid that would have been interesting to bring that into the conversations. But it’s not something that we’re aware of. The change in the start of Council, new Councils, there is something we’ll talk about. And I can elaborate further on our reasoning. But I think that will really answer your questions. It’s not worth to you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Yeah, thank you. And we don’t need to go into a long elaboration. For me, I think that’s that’s the reason why I’m supporting and and I think it is a very small and reasonable runway that we’re offering one week’s pay for each year of service capped at the equivalent of one term. Basically, you get a month to figure out what you’re going to do. By the way, in that month, you’re also still a Councilor for two weeks. Still expected to do this job. Wrap up your campaign, start getting campaign filings processed and getting those things ready to submit to the clerk.

[2:58:35] You know, if you’ve lost campaign, you’re probably struggling with a little bit of mental health issue and taking it a little bit personally as well, because I mean, we all put ourselves out there on a campaign trail. And I don’t think even in the private sector, when you look at employees being terminated, there’s often a little bit of a severance package that goes out the door. It’s a little bit different, obviously. We are facing a, you know, 30,000 person job review versus a one person job review. But I think that this is a very small gesture to recognize the years of service that somebody has put in. So I will support that. I think Councillor Palosa has put forward a very reasonable amendment there. I do think I’m certainly going to support the referral of L&M on the staff pieces to governance working group, because I think we have started but not completed a very important discussion there about what Councillors feel the job itself needs and requires to support us, what skill sets and things like that are involved. I’m not opposed to higher staff compliments, but I do want to know exactly better how that job is going to be supporting us, rather than being just an administrative position where we don’t have necessarily the ability to direct, to bring them to events to support us to do those kind of things, which in a constituency office scenario, you would actually have. And so I think that discussion has to be finished before we can make any finalised changes to staffing. Like Councillor Hopkins and a number of people have referenced the 70th percentile, I’m not going to pick numbers. The task force has done what we asked it to do. I’m going to follow their recommendation on this. It would be easy to say, well, I want 75 or I want 65 or committee chairs should get 3% and deputy mayor should get 9% or whatever, but I’m not going to play a numbers game like that. I think we’ve empowered an independent task force to come up with some recommendations, and I’m going to support their recommendations on that.

[3:00:33] I guess what it comes down to for me is if we flip this away from the elected representative perspective for a moment, if you’re a business owner, if you’re running a family restaurant, or whatever, if you want excellent employees, you don’t provide average working conditions, you don’t provide an average salary. We heard from Tech Alliance and LEDC and others earlier, if you want to attract good people, then you have to pay an attractive salary. And so I think that I’ve certainly heard from people too that they would never do this job because a 15, 20, 30,000 pay cut is not something that they could maintain their mortgage and their kids and their home on.

[3:01:15] And so I think that that’s reasonable. And so I’m supportive of the recommendations as put forward by Councillor Palosa. Thank you. I will return the chair to you, knowing the speakers list, other than the people you have on your speakers list. I had no one on myself. So who did we add in the time that so I’ve got Councillor Stevenson now? Councillor Stevenson, go ahead. Okay, thank you. Thank you to the task force for their work on this. I have a couple of questions. HII says that the deputy mayor and the budget chair roles will be clarified. When that’s done, will that be coming? So this isn’t for the task force, but through you to staff. Will those roles come back to council for review and approval? Go to clerk. Yes, I believe the direction is to codify that into council policy, which would be passed by by-law by council. Okay, thank you.

[3:02:26] That’s great to know. And then a question through you to Mr. Horak. I’m inclined to not support the four percent for chairs because we are not looking at compensating the ABCs. And so there’s going to be an unfair work distribution. And I kind of like the idea of just limiting the extra increase to deputy mayor and budget chair and leaving the rest to just where it is. And I’m wondering, knowing that if you have any comments, Mr. Horak. Thank you. Well, I mean, I can’t, I guess, speak for the whole task force, of course. I can speak on my own behalf. I will say with respect to the task force’s reasoning as I had sort of indicated before, the reason why we adopted the recommendation of extra compensation for those positions and not for the ABC positions is that we decided that it would be best to conceive or to think of the ABC positions as just part of what every councilor should be doing. But there’s not enough standing committees for every councilor to be a standing committee chair. And so by default, that’s not something that every councilor can be doing. And therefore, we thought it would make sense to recognize that extra work with that compensation. Now, again, as I said, I think the, you know, the exact four percent is something that we live back and forth on a fair bit. But yeah, I think for the moment, I’ll probably leave my comments at that. If there’s something more specific that you’d like me to speak to, I’m happy to, I’m happy to speak to it. But that’s really, that’s how we arrive with that conclusion. I guess is what it’s. Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. I appreciate that. And that’s good enough for now.

[3:04:21] So in theory, I support everything that’s, that’s here. And I do believe that the role has the responsibility and the hours and everything else to warrant exactly what’s here. My experience, however, in the last three years, just doesn’t, isn’t going to allow me to support at this time, the increase in councilor wages. And like I said, it isn’t that the job doesn’t deserve it. I just don’t feel, and it’s not that I know we’ve all put tons of hours in, but I don’t feel like we’ve provided the value to taxpayers to be able to ask them to support this at this time. So I love the idea of doing it like it. Any point of personal privilege, Councillor. Just the Councillors, using the words that we don’t provide value to taxpayers for this increase. So just mindful of language that could be how they feel about themselves, but tying us all to it, I do take offense with.

[3:05:33] So I’m going to say Councillor Stevenson did say she feels, so she was qualifying it to her feelings, although I would caution as well that we want to be careful about judging other people’s work values. So, but I, she did qualify it with she feels so. Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s an awkward spot to be in for me because I end up casting judgment on the work that we’ve done over the last three years, and I don’t know how else to do it except explain from my perspective, given the high property tax increases, given a strategic plan that I feel as though Council hasn’t participated in since we first came up with it, because we, we, we came up with it and then civic administration decided how that was going to be implemented and we get updates, but we haven’t done the annual check-ins to refocus, to direct where we want things to be. The whole community seemed to have been delegated the responsibility of addressing the homeless crisis, the $1.4 billion budget. I don’t feel like I’ve really provided oversight over that. We, we discussed changes to it, but the, the bulk of what we do, I, I haven’t seen, and, and I’ve looked at other cities and I’ve been watching what happens there, and I don’t feel that, that I’ve provided the level of oversight that I feel is part of this responsibility to look at the numbers. I haven’t been, you know, as you know, I’ve had difficulty getting contracts, seeing budgets, getting information. There’s a lot of delegation. Point of order, Councillor Trusso. Yeah, I think at this point, we’re definitely going beyond what’s before us. What’s happening here is we’re judging the output of certain decisions that this Council made that this Council disagrees with. We’re not talking about whether or not the people have put in the, the, the effort, and I just, I just think that once we start going too far away from that, it just becomes a critique of the policy of this Council, and this should not be a place where we do that. So that would be a point of personal privilege rather than a point of order, but I’m going to rule on that as a point of personal privilege, that I’m actually going to agree with you, Councillor Trusso, that we are not evaluating our jobs. We are actually talking about the compensation of the future Council, and who actually is on that Council, and how their job performance is evaluated will be up to the electorate. So I, I do think Councillor Stevenson, we need to bring it back to the value of the job, not in terms of frustrations or, or feelings of things that we have or haven’t done in this term, but what we expect of future Councils, because we are deciding not on our own pay increase, and I think that’s important to be clear to everybody. If this passes, the pay increase is not for tomorrow. The pay increase is for after the election in 2026. So I’m going to sustain that point of personal privilege.

[3:09:02] Okay, thank you. I, this is not about me being frustrated, and I’ve said clearly, I do believe that everything that’s come forward from the task force, everything that here is appropriate for the role as it is out laid in the municipal act. My, my, I’m trying to explain why I’m going to be voting no. And the reason I’m going to be voting no to A is because I don’t feel that value has been created for taxpayers to make this move at this time. And that’s what I was trying to explain, that haven’t been able to see contracts and budgets, asking questions at committee has been an issue. And so it’s, and, and I feel as though oftentimes stuff is coming for approval, rather than having us be the decision maker. So it’s for these reasons and not that the role itself doesn’t deserve it, but I just think that the timing is such that I’m unable to support at this time. And it’s unfortunate, because I agree with everything that’s here, just given the circumstances, the condition of our city, the, the feelings that people are expressing to me, I, I just am unable to support what I think is a great motion at this time. So I’m going to ask that A and G be pulled separately for a vote. Thanks. When we pull A and G, can they be together in one? Okay, I’m going to just very quickly, if Councillor Stevenson wants A and G dealt with separately, that is the salary and the committee chair implementations.

[3:10:53] Are folks okay voting on those together? You want them separate, Councillor Pribble? Okay, so we’ll deal with them in separate votes. Okay. Okay, Paul, sorry, Councillor van Mirbergen. Right to you, by the way, just, you have to go home and call a Blue Jays game in a couple of hours. That’s just, it just ended. Yeah, so I’ve got a sort of where Councillor Stevenson is, but I definitely have a different take than what most of what I’ve heard this afternoon.

[3:11:42] The simple fact is, we’re, if you want to use the word hired, we’re elected/hired directly by the people we represent. It’s not the city of London that hires us, it’s not the council that hires us. It is directly the people. We’re responsible to the people. If the people don’t like the way we do our job, they deal with it. It’s not some bureaucracy or the council itself. And so it’s always been thus, and it should always be that way. If we’re representing the community, which we are, why should we be compensated more than what their average is? We’re already getting a full-time wage, which is the average of the people we represent. That seems very fair. And not only is that average being paid to us, it’s indexed to inflation, which is also something that most of whom we represent do not get. We also get an additional pension in addition to CPP, which is another item that most of the people we represent do not get. So we’re already getting these things, and yet somehow we seem that it’s appropriate, and indeed it’s due to us, that we get paid even more, much more than the average of the people we represent. So I don’t support that. I can’t support that. I never have supported that. And then when we take a look at the so-called workloads, my question to those who drafted some of this is, what are we going to do in the future to prevent, for example, what happened in this particular council? I don’t know if many of you still remember, but right after the election, that’s when we split off into our committees and so on and so forth. It was almost a bit of a free-for-all in terms of who he had the most committees. In fact, it even went to a vote in some cases of who should get it. And so at the end, there was nothing left.

[3:14:13] There was nothing left to take, but the final situation was that some had way more committees than a lot of others, but that’s because of being new, didn’t understand. And then after a few months, some people woke up and said, “Oh my, look at all this work.” So what, and I do remember the mayor, by the way, stating, and he was quite accurate, be careful what you wish for. That’s ringing in my ears, that he stated that, and that’s really good advice. But of course, when you’re new, you don’t know. So my question then is for future councils, when we go through that process of dividing ourselves up into different committees, how do we prevent the eagerness of newness from grabbing all these committees not knowing what the downside is? How is that going to go?

[3:15:15] Has any thought been given to that? That’s my question. Mr. Herak. Thank you. Through the chair, and thanks for the question. Yes, as a matter of fact, we did give thought to that. And I would say that our recommendations 10 and 11, and again, I don’t know what they are matters, but I’ll tell you what they are, are meant to kind of minimize that issue. So the first one is that we recommend changing the language about standing committees that every councilor shall serve on at least one and no more than two. And we added the no more than two as a recommendation precisely to prevent the kind of thing that you’re talking about. And then on the ABC front, we also recommended the three minimum ABCs per council member to try to even out below there. Beyond that, so I think those are both things that could be done that would probably help. Beyond that, if this is an issue of concern, then I think also some of that immediate post-election education might be targeted specifically towards talking about managing workload, and maybe it already is.

[3:16:30] I don’t know the details of that educational piece, but so it could also be tackled in the action. But primarily our recommendations 10 and 11 are meant to speak to those inequity issues that you’re talking about. Councilor, you have a lot of minutes left. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much for that answer. I’ll just close by saying the way our economy is right now. It’s very uncertain. People aren’t sure if they’re going to be employed next week, let alone next month. And then they see their elected representatives giving themselves healthy raises. It’s just not in favor of that. So thank you. Thank you, Councilor Van Mirberg, and I have Councilor Raman next. Thank you. I’d like to start by thanking Mr. Horak and the task force for their work, and stating my position on this matter. At this time, I will not be supporting indexing the compensation of counselors to the 70th percentile of the 2020 median full-time employment income for lenders, or what the media has portrayed as supporting a 33% increase, nor do I support the rebasing in 2027. I do believe that a compensation discussion and the ward side to size discussion should be linked, and I support my earlier position that the size of Council should be smaller.

[3:17:59] I would have supported a change in practice to provide additional compensation or stipends for sitting on ABCs with a stratification of the ABC workloads, as this is reflective of a strategy that incentivizes contribution, which I support. I believe that the uniqueness of the position as stated in Guiding Principle C needs to be maintained because viewing it as a job has implications on things like severance, which we’re discussing today. Unlike other jobs, the performance metrics for an elected official is the election, and thus it is unique. With respect to the 70th percentile indexing, I’m reminded that we set the tone for agencies, boards, and commissions, and for numerous employees of whom we show leadership in our roles as decision makers. The impact of our decision has broader consequences, including benchmarking. I also believe that the role of Deputy Mayor and Budget Chair are different from each other and should be compensated differently, and I believe that the distinction and equivocation of the rules is causing a blur that needs to be clarified, and I will support that in the motion. I support a continuous model of learning and learning as a team, and we’ll support that aspect of the motion. On the issue of severance, I can’t support the severance clause as amended in this motion, mainly because I don’t think it goes into enough depth on what the severance should mean and should be implied. Example, if someone leaves their position, mid-term isn’t contemplated in this motion either, and I do think that the start of when that severance compensation would come into play, would it be at the time of the end of the term, etc., also would need to be fully baked before I could support it, and if this goes forward and reclassifies this basically as a full-time job. These are my comments at this time, with the utmost respect to my colleagues and the task force. We all bring a unique perspective, and I recognize the privilege that I have, and I bring into this decision, and I recognize that for me that the service component of this role carries a heavier weight, and that is why I sit at this council horseshoe. Thank you, Councillor Robin. You both stuck up your hand pretty much at the same time.

[3:20:24] You both used a little bit of time at the beginning. I have Councillor Palosa and Hopkins, so we’ll go to Councillor Hopkins first, and then to Councillor Palosa. Yeah, thank you for recognizing me. I did not have an opportunity to speak to the motion brought forward by Councillor Palosa on the severance package. I really appreciate the conversation we’ve had here, and I will not be supporting these severance amendments, even though I appreciate the intent and where it’s coming from. For me, it’s about fairness, I know, and have known candidates in the past that have had to give up their jobs because of running for an election was not allowed with the corporation or the company they were with, and I just think that this is a — it’s about fairness as candidates run for elections. I think it’s fair to say that nothing is guaranteed, and I appreciate the intent, but I won’t be supporting it. Councillor Palosa.

[3:21:38] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll be concise as I can, but my sheet is a hot, massive notes all over. Just a good Councillor said it earlier, so just to reiterate, this is not our pay. This is for whoever fills these seats in the next term election of office after an election, so this is not coming into effect while we are still sitting here and will not affect us. Regardless of that, the wage increase that’s proposed or severance or a distribution of workload that’s before us. Found it interesting within the reports that through the environmental scan that letting Councillors or 25% less for comparative municipalities for pay, to Councillor Ferris’ point, the workload can be heavy, I would say, on average at max eight minutes between emails coming in to greet us in our inboxes. My question through you to staff has to do with number three being C now, which is the automatic versus for the annual Councillor pay. And prior — so looking for clarification of will city administration just make those changes annually? Traditionally, it’s come to council every year for a vote, so just looking for clarification of what’s intended for C. So, Councillor Palosa, I just want to correct something that you just said there in terms of — and it’s a clarification on what you just asked. In 2022, it became an automatic administrative function. It does — civic administration does it automatically now.

[3:23:20] That old council voting on it every year process was done away with. Thank you. Obviously still traumatized from it. As it never is — and I know members of the public say, like, you’re voting for yourselves. I’m like, there’s no other way to procedurally to do this, but it has to come through council procedurally and legislatively to making these changes. So, thank you. I guess I was just a little bit confused that I thought we had done it, but then it was in here anyways and it’s already in effect. So, thank you for that. I would say I had comments on G as well for the increase to committee chairs, for those who have chaired or haven’t. It’s not just the meeting that you see someone staying there for.

[3:24:07] It’s the pre-meetings behind the scenes, the extra meetings with staff and the stick handling of wording and motions and timings and if it’s procedurally in order. For 11 being okay, which is the ABCs that we’ve been talking about, we heard from Mr. Hrak that committee has viewed it as a core part of the job. I would say in some cases we’re legislated just on some of these, but sometimes the public perception is very different that they’re saying it’s nice that you chose to sit on these, but get back to your award work or you bounce your time accordingly. So, just some of that public information, maybe we just don’t relay it well enough of the ones that we serve on and where we spend all our time as those meetings aren’t publicly broadcasted and they can’t see what we’re doing and sometimes are usually members of the media are not there to cover advancements in those spaces.

[3:25:06] I appreciate the conversations that we already had of that we shall seek to see three. I know last from a council just based on some councilor’s schedules. As the councilor I said, we kind of scrapped it out and just what was left didn’t fit into their schedule and they couldn’t actually make that commitment that we’d saw. For N briefly again, language before us is just if you saw it re-election and didn’t get it versus if you decide to retire step away or you were elected another level of government or another opportunity came up and you left 15 seconds, councilor.

[3:25:41] For okay, thank you. My last one was OB number 15, which was team building should be nice. I think we’ve personally, I believe we’ve lacked that a bit. Just to miss Dater’s Bear, you mentioned the onboarding process last month council, we had a chance to give feedback. When would that mechanism come forward for councilors to formally give feedback in meetings with us before the end of this term at council? Ms. Dater’s Bear. Thank you for the question through you chair. I don’t know that I know specifically the date and the time frame, but what I will ask is the team who’s working on this to identify that and get back to council about it. Thank you.

[3:26:29] Thank you, Councillor Palosa. So that has exhausted our speakers list. Oh, no, sorry, it hasn’t. I’ve got Councillor Pribble next on my speakers list. Thank you, answer the chair to questions to Mr. Horak. I’m going to start from the kind of a big picture and the big picture I consider is always here that the councils are accountable only every four years and to the residents, to the voters. Are there any other options or is this really the only accountability that we have to work with once every four years? Mr. Horak. Thank you for the question and through the chair.

[3:27:09] I think that’s a really interesting question and I think it’s a relevant question to a lot of the discussion about the nature of the role. I think there’s what we have to do is distinguish among different kinds of accountability. So there are some kinds of accountability that you can certainly enforce and encourage in various ways and create mechanisms to encourage between elections. So first of all, there’s process accountability and you already have some documents in place such as your code of conduct and conflict of interest, regulations that try to make sure that Councillors are accountable for their actions and the way that they behave in office.

[3:27:58] Another accountability might be workload accountability and this is something that we really develop quite a bit on the task force and so we’re proposing things like recommendations nine through 11 for those of you who are working with letters. Those are the full-time equivalent service language, the minimum maximum committees, and the minimum ABC service, right? So we can think of those as provisions that try to even the workload and make people more accountable for the kind of work that they’re putting in, set standard expectations and enforce them. So there’s that kind of workload accountability, right? So we’re proposing some things that would kind of help encourage Councillors to all work roughly equivalently at their jobs to give them their full attention.

[3:28:51] But in terms of actual output, what we could call performance accountability, I don’t really think that there’s any substitute for an election and this is something that we also talked about in the task force and we really reaffirmed that because Councillors are elected by the people, it’s ultimately the people that have to decide whether they’ve done a good job in terms of output because, you know, one Councillor’s metric of output success might be another Councillor’s metric of output failure if they have different ideas about what appropriate policy is. And so in terms of outputs or performance, I think really it does ultimately come down primarily to the election. But in terms of workload and process, I think there’s things, some things that you’re doing as a corporation as a Council and something that you could still be doing.

[3:29:51] Councillor Proble. So to share to Mr. Rock, if the Councillors would agree to a certain output measures, whatever they would be, and this would be an agreement in writing, is this legally binding or is it impossible? Is any other municipality doing such initiative? Oh, through the chair, I’m sorry. Can I just ask you for a clarification? When you’re thinking, when you say output measures, what comes to mind for you as an example?

[3:30:30] Councillor Proble. It would be, let’s say, again, you mentioned the number of committees, but the number in terms of potentially, it could be ours. It could be number of involvement in terms of the word, town halls, whatever it would be. But certain outputs, it’s not as much for me to state now exactly which ones. But if this would be an agreement within the Council, Councillors, if this would be even legally binding possible, if we introduce this?

[3:31:08] So I’m actually not going to ask Mr. Horak to speculate on what’s legally binding, that the Municipal Act outlines that, Councillor. I’m not going to ask him to speculate on that. I will allow his pilot, if she wishes, as our city solicitor, to comment on whether Council can bind itself beyond the Municipal Act. Thank you, through you. It’s a little difficult to answer without knowing exactly what kind of metrics or performance measures, but generally speaking, the Municipal Act sets out what the role of a Municipal Councillor is.

[3:32:06] Councillor Proble. So just to repeat it, the way the staff answered through the chair, so if there would be anything beyond, there would not be legally binding, correct? So, Councillor Proble, I’m going to maybe try and assist you here, and the city solicitor can offer some advice too. But just as we cannot bind decisions of future councils, we could not set parameters by which a future council is bound. It would be free to change that at any time, nor would you be providing potential candidates with any understanding of what the expectation is when they can simply change it themselves. So it’s not a metric that you can enforce, as this council passing something, that would then have to be respected by the next council.

[3:33:03] They could change it. I hope that’s helpful. I’m going to go to the city solicitor to see if she’s got any additional, based on the question you asked. Well, if she’s got any additional advice for you. Thank you, and through you, I think what the deputy mayor has set out is accurate, and it would be similar to the council role description, where you can set it out, but a future council could choose to make amendments to it. So it wouldn’t be, per se, legally binding council approval.

[3:33:45] And thank you both for the answers, and I do understand that in terms of we cannot bind the future council, but I was just curious, even if it would be feasible legally, so you both answered my question. So the chair to Mr. Harak, in the eye, and I guess in yours, it would be nine, I was wondering what did you base the 8% on in terms of the deputy mayor and the budget chair, because in the second clause of this point, you are saying that the chair, it will be clarified in the future. So if it’s not clarified, what do you base the 8% on Mr. Harak? Thank you for the question. And through the chair, we based it on the only thing that I think we could base it on, which was the our understanding of the workload enrolled as it has been defined to date date. This means that if the role gets substantially redefined, such that, for example, it’s a lot less work that it is now to be a deputy mayor, then that might be a good reason to reconsider the percent along with that definition. So really, the only thing that we could go on is our understanding of the roles as they stand right now, and that’s what we went with. I will just actually also just take a minute to say with respect to your previous question. I think that it’s useful to keep in mind that there are things that are not legal, but that I can still be meaningful, that are not rather legally bind, I would say, but can still be meaning. But what I mean by this is that, for instance, we are recommending that that council make commitments that each councilor serve on at least one and no more standing of two than two standing committees at a time. It is true that that is not legally binding in the sense that any other council could come and change that, but nonetheless, it still could be a meaningful commitment to a certain norm of workload performance, right?

[3:35:54] And so that it’s it’s entirely commitment or possible for councils to make commitments to certain workload standards for themselves, understanding that those aren’t legally enforceable in some bigger sense, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not entirely meeting us. Excuse me, it doesn’t mean that they’re entirely meeting. Thank you for that. I don’t think I have any more questions, and I’m just going to go from the back from my point of view. The severance, I will not be supporting because I will be supporting something else going to the top. L&M, thank you very much for referring it to the GWG. I will be supporting the 8%. I will not be supporting the 4% for the standing committee, because again, we’ve got the ABCs that are certain once if you are sitting on the board are very time consuming and very challenging decisions. And also, we have actually in the last sentence that the Peter Mayor and budget chair, they would not. So I don’t think this one is very clear. So I will not, and again, for the reasons I stated, I will not support the 4%. I struggle with this one, but I will support the 70th percentile, I will. And it was stated before, and I was really kind of fighting for having 12 wards as well, instead of 14. But one thing is, and I see it more and more that the decisions around this horseshoe are very critical, very critical for half a million of Londoners. And I do believe that with this increase, there will be hard talent that will be applying to the half a million of Londoners to apply for this job. I hope the voters will do their homework and they will be selecting in the next election, the best potential individuals, not just based on name recognition or anything else. Very crucial times ahead of us. And I do believe the best people will be more attracted with the 70th percentile. And that’s the reason why I’m not doing it, not based on trend, but based on future talent, future counsel. Thank you.

[3:38:10] I have Mayor Morgan next. Sorry, Chair, you broke up. Was that was I next? Yes, go ahead. Oh, yeah, and I apologize. I’m somewhere near Kingston, but not there yet. So I’m not sure if I I’ll be choppy or not. So I’ll try to be as concise as possible. I just want to say a few things on the debate. First, I’m, you know, it’s interesting for me to participate in this one, because there’s there’s no recommendation at the mayoral level for salary recognizing that it would be the next mayor who would would or wouldn’t receive that. And that’s fine. And it puts me in I think a perspective where having been a ward counselor and having watched this term of counsel that I think I have some some comments to share. You know, the first on a broad basis and only because it came up in the debate, I just wanted to say to my council colleagues, I think each and every one of you. And that includes all 14 provide tremendous value to the city and the community of London. I think each of you have served your constituents very well with clarity, advocacy, and you continue to do that. And there’s still a whole year left. So you’ve got lots more time to continue that work. But I just wanted you to know that, you know, from my perspective, having been on councils since 2014, I think, you know, this current composition of council is serving their constituents very well. And you are all excellent counselors and provide a lot of value for your constituents. So I wanted to start by that. That being said, you’re not actually making a decision for yourselves. You’re making a decision for the next iteration of council. And I would say two things on that. The first is, I agree with some of my colleagues who say they support a smaller council, but that’s actually something I’ve supported in the past. It’s actually something I’ve tried to move a motion for not this term of council, but a previous term of council and failed to get the majority votes to even get a map that showed, you know, what a council of 10 would look like. You know, that being said, we have authorized a different composition of ward boundaries.

[3:40:13] That means there is a bit of a resetting of the constituency and representation in the city. There is a bit of a rebalancing of the size of the wards. And so if there was ever a time to approach the issue of compensation, it would be now, because there is a bit of, I think, a larger rebalancing and restructuring going on across the city. And so, you know, I want to thank the members of the task force for providing an independent review of this. I would say I don’t necessarily agree with with all of the assessments they’ve made. But on the whole, I represent and recognize, sorry, not represent, but recognize, you know, the independence of the committee and the thought that they put into providing the best possible recommendations they have on the issues that they considered with the time that they had to consider them and the resources at their disposal. And so thank you to Mr. Horak and members of the committee for the work that you did and your thoughtful engagement on this. You know, on the issue of the matters before us, I think I can support most of the things before us. The one piece that I do have a bit of an issue on, and I haven’t had proper time to think about it is the severance piece. And it’s actually for different reasons than colleagues have mentioned. The Employment Standards Act doesn’t apply to municipal counselors. We also don’t get to contribute to EI whether we want to or not. So there’s a situation here where, you know, municipal counselors can lose their election in late October and stop getting paid by November 15th. It’s a difficult spot for anybody to be in who is relying on that and on their income. And I actually think that counselors, you know, although we do serve an elected role, although there’s an element of public service to this, you know, for all intents and purposes, our employees and leaders who run large organizations and large corporations with a tremendous amount of legislative responsibility and legislative expectation, whether it’s the Corporations Act or whether it’s the obligations to provide a safe and healthy workplace, you know, the type of work that you do parallels, you know, executive level work and a number of organizations both at the Corporation and on the boards and commissions that you provide leadership on. So I think it’s appropriate to approach this question in some way. But my preference would be not to approach it in an arbitrary way by saying you get one week per year and it’s capped at four. But although the Employment Standards Act doesn’t apply, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t think that, you know, some sort of iteration of something that parallels the provisions of the Employment Standards Act would be the fairest way to approach that question in the future. So I’m not sure I’ll support that clause at this time, but I, you know, I’m open to having more thoughtful dialogue on it in the future.

[3:42:58] But maybe under the the auspices of, you know, what is fair from a general employment standard because I don’t see counselors as being, I don’t think it’s fair to treat counselors any different than you would treat, you know, average people across the province in the way that they’re employed. Again, on the compensation piece just to be clear, I support the recommendations of the committee. And I appreciate, I appreciate the debate and how counselors have approached today. Thank you, Your Worship. And that exhausts my speaker’s list. Before we go any further, based on Councilor ramen’s desire to support a couple of clauses, but not the majority of it, it’s simply going to be easiest if we vote on every single clause separately. There’s just, there’s no other way to organize it, folks. So that’s how we’re going to have to proceed.

[3:43:51] So I can start calling the votes. A lot of people have used up most of their time, going to just see if there’s any last calls for speakers, and we’re just going to work alphabetically through the various clauses. Yeah, I’ll just give you the readout of which one we’re voting on each time. Yes, we’re on vote number one, but we’re going to break it out into all the individual clauses. Bear with me for just a second, because I have to refresh my e-scribe. So I’m going to ask the clerk to start opening the votes. I’ll preface what each one is at the start so we know what we’re voting on. So I’m going to ask the clerk to open the motion on part A. This is the component that indexes the compensation to the 70th percentile of the median income. Mayor Morgan, in favor, closing the vote motion carries 12 to three, open the vote on clause B. This is the current annual adjustment formula in the renumeration for elected officials and appointed citizen members be maintained. So this is the annual adjustments that are made. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 14 to 1. Okay, part C is the annual adjustment in councilor compensation be automatic and administered by the civic administration. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 15 to 0.

[3:46:54] The next vote is vote D. This is the mid the 2027 adjustment for the 2028 base salary. Basically, this is the adjustment to the salary after the 2026 census data is received in favor, closing the vote motion carries 13 to 2. Okay, part E is the mayor’s compensation be maintained and the alignment between the council and marrow based compensation be reviewed at the next resourcing review. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 15 to 0. We will now open part F.

[3:48:05] The current practice of not providing additional compensation or stipends to the mayor and councilors for sitting on agencies boards and commissions be continued. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 14 to 1. Vote G. This is the compensation of 4% for standing committee chairs. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 9 to 6. H is a two part motion. This is the codifying of the mayor and deputy mayor, the deputy mayor and budget chair positions and the formalization of the 8% of the base annual salary. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 13 to 2. Vote I. This is the motion to approve that a councilor’s role constitutes full time service be clarified and reinforced through the development and inclusion of appropriate language in council document. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 15 to 0. J. This is the language council procedure by law regarding councilor service on standing committees be amended to further promote balanced council representation cross standing committees. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 15 to 0. Part K. This is the expectation be established that each councilor serve on a minimum of three agency board or commission positions and be codified in the appropriate documents. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 15 to 0.

[3:51:13] Next vote is parts L&M together. This is the referral of the staffing and board expense account pieces to a future G.J. governance working group meeting for consideration with respect to the deferred item on the governance working group agenda. In favor, closing the vote motion carries 15. N is the next vote. This is the amended piece to establish a severance package of up to four weeks against. Closing the vote motion carries nine to six. Vote O is the continuous learning model of councilor training be endorsed and supported with resources. Both new and returning council members be required to attend post election training and onboarding sessions.

[3:52:34] In favor, closing the vote motion carries 14 to 1. And our final vote part key and this is the relationship between council resourcing and the composition of council, which would be size of council, be considered in the next ward boundary review process. And the it being noted that the verbal delegation from Mr. Horak was received in favor, posing the vote motion carries 15 to 0.

[3:53:34] K colleagues that finishes item 4.1 of our items for direction. The exciting good news is we have items 4.2 through 4.7 to deal with still. So we’re going to be here for a little bit longer, but we do have some snacks. And I know folks have been very patient, need some bio breaks, need some water or coffee or whatever they would need. Councilor Ferreira was very quick to flag my attention and wants to move a recess. Councilor Ferreira, thank you chair. I would move 15 minutes recess. Councilor Trussa. Yeah, I truly believe that I voted no on the severance matter. And I would evidence that by my comments that I made saying I would be against that.

[3:54:18] And yes, you did. It’s in the record. You voted no. That’s the ninth or sixth vote. Yes. And I’m listed as yay. No, you’re voted as you’re listed as nay. That’s strange. Yes. Okay, I’ll deal with the clerk because it says yay or mine and nay on his. Okay, we can say we can see here in the clerk’s record. It is a no. So we can you can chat with the clerk about that at the recess. If that’s okay. If absolutely necessary, we can come back to a reconsideration. But I the records here showing you voted no. Councilor Ferreira has suggested a 15 minute recess. Is there a seconder? Councilor McAllister? This we can do by hand. All those in favor? My hands up. Okay, it’s 505. So we will see everyone back here 520 colleagues. I’m going to call the meeting back to order. Mayor Morgan, I’m just going to check verbally to see if you’re still with us. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. We are going to resume our meeting with appreciation for everyone for the pause there. Our next item is item 4.2. This is the committee appointment preferences submitted by council members. I’m hoping colleagues I can make this really easy for everyone. We actually have a scenario that has worked out where we can fill each of the committees with everybody getting their choices with the generous offer by Councillor Frank if she’s still willing to move to infrastructure and corporate services and allow Councillor Hilliard to have his first choice as planning and with the offer from Councillor Stevenson to fill the vacancy the one vacant spot on infrastructure and corporate services if she’s still willing. I’m seeing a nod over there. So we could have a single vote that approves the following. Planning committee, Deputy Mayor Lewis, Councillor Cuddy, Councillor Stevenson, Councillor Hilliard, community protective services committee, Councillor Pribble, Councillor Trussau, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Ferrera, Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee, Councillor McAllister, Councillor Stevenson, Councillor Van Mievergan, Councillor Frank, it being noted that Councillor Layman, for planning, Councillor Palauza for community and protective services and Councillor ramen for infrastructure and corporate services were appointed as chairs for these committees by the mayoral direction 20-25-0-0-3. So if that’s amenable, if there’s no objections, I’ll look for a mover and a seconder for that motion. Move by Councillor Cuddy and Frank. Any discussion? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

[4:16:17] In favor, closing the vote, motion carries 15-0. Thank you, colleagues. That moves us on to item 4.3. This is the consideration of appointment to the Coven Guard Market Board of Directors, requires one member. Our approach here will be that the clerk will put in all the names. We will do a runoff ballot. On the first round, anybody getting 0 or 1 vote will drop off and we will continue through the remaining candidates until a majority threshold or an inability to achieve a majority is obtained and the highest vote getter is chosen. Councillor Palauza.

[4:17:19] Thank you. By chance to the board, say what skill set they’re actually seeking for and lack of. We have no communications from the board and this is to feel the vacancy created by the resignation of John Feithmiller. So, we will ask the clerk to open the balloting. Certainly, yes. So, just before you go, Councillor Cuddy, if anyone wants to speak on, you know, in favor of, encourage a vote for a particular candidate that’s in order now, then we will go from there. Councillor Cuddy.

[4:18:08] Thank you, Chair, and through you, I’ll be brief. I’ve known David Little for many years. He had 27 years with TD Bank. He’s a financial guy. I like people who walk the talk, Chair, and if you’re interested in library board because you read books or you’re interested in art because you want to be on the art gallery board, David likes the market. He goes twice a week. He shops there. I know that I shop there as well. The vendors know him. He understands the market. This is what I want to see, and I think this is what we as colleagues want to see. We want to see people who are invested in the boards they serve on, and David certainly would be one of those.

[4:18:55] He’s a strategic planner, a strategic thinker, and I think he’d serve very well on the board, and so I would encourage my colleagues to support David Little. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cuddy. Any other speakers on Covent Garden? Councillor Ferrera. Thank you, Chair, Deputy Mayor. As a member of the Covent Garden Market Board, I’m looking, obviously, for candidates who have a lot to offer. There’s a few here. There’s one that did jump out to me, and that’s under James Yanchula, so I just want to confirm. Is this Jim Yanchula? Yeah, so he, obviously, we know that Jim has served the city for a long time. He’s got a lot to offer.

[4:19:35] I would be voting for Jim, because I know that he’s got a lot still more to offer in my last conversation with him, and he’s put his name here. So I think just to serve the market and really kind of have the most impactful candidate and member of the board, I would be supporting James. Other speakers? Councillor Pribble. Thank you and colleagues. I will be supporting James Yanchula as well. I’ve known him many years since I owned a business downtown. He’s a person who knows the Covent Garden Market inside out, supports it. He deals with downtown issues, never had a problem.

[4:20:20] Any time there was an issue downtown, he was there for the merchants to support, and, as I said, tough challenges for the market, for downtown. We do have them, but he’s a guy. He never, he never ran away, and he was always there for the membership to deliver. Thank you. Looking for any other speakers? I see none, so I’ll ask Vice Chair Ramen to take the chair just briefly. Thank you. I have the chair. Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Preseding Officers. I’m going to be really brief.

[4:20:57] There are three people who I looked at on this list as names I recognized, and people who have offered themselves in some way to our community that I’ve experienced firsthand interactions with. Stephen Diamelio, previously very involved in Pride London. I can only say good things about Stephen. I also have had the privilege of knowing David Little. I appreciate and echo what Councillor Cutty said. In fact, when I first, my first meeting with David, I think, away from this building was at the market, because it was a convenient spot for him. I also have had the opportunity to interact with Ian Sterling Leishman, again, somebody that I think is very positive. In his professional role, he was just introducing me to a new business that’s establishing itself in my ward. Good communicator, and so I think that those three individuals have something to offer. I say that without indicating a preference for any of them individually. I just share that I think any of those three would do a good job, and I’ll leave it at that. Thank you, returning the chair. Do you have anyone else on the speaker’s list? Last call for speakers. Seeing none, I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote, please. Sir Hopkins. Are we ranking the voting, or are we just? No, you’re only selecting one.

[4:22:53] And Mayor Morgan, you’re the last member now, so can you indicate verbally? Yeah, I’ll support Stephen D’Amelio. Voting is closed. We have Jim Yantula at six votes. David Little with five. Stephen D’Amelio with two. Ryan Aziz with one. Puri Khan with one. The rest will be deleted from the vote, and we will resume voting. Just has to type in the second ballot, so we’ll just give her a minute to do that. Okay, the clerk’s going to open the second round of voting. Mayor Morgan, we’re just waiting for your vote now. We did not receive a majority. Stephen D’Amelio, one vote.

[4:26:47] David Little, seven votes. James Yantula, seven votes. We’ll have one more ballot. And the final ballot’s now open. And Mayor Morgan, we’re just waiting for your vote. David Little. Voting the vote, receives eight votes, and is the winner. Okay, so now we will need a motion that David Little be appointed to the Coven Guard Market Board of Directors for the term ending November 14, 2026.

[4:27:55] I saw Councillor Hill here in his beautiful Blue Jays jersey, put his hand up on screen. Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Stevenson. And the clerk will open the vote on that. Good favor. Voting the vote. Motion carries 15 to 0. Thank you, colleagues. That completes item 4.3. Our next item for direction, 4.4, is consideration of appointment to the Committee of Adjustment.

[4:28:41] This also requires one member, so it will be the same process. We will have everyone on the first ballot, and then we will start to drop people off until we receive a majority support. And I will look now for any speakers to anyone who wants to speak to in favor of a candidate that they’d like to highlight. Councillor Trussow. Thank you. I’m going to speak in favor of Sean Menard, and the reason for that, and I don’t believe I’ve met him, and if I’m wrong, I really apologize to you, Sean. This was not based on people I knew. This is based on what I read here. The reason I’m supporting Sean is he speaks directly how minor variances or severances may input neighborhood character in long-term livability, how to roll in a school council, and an executive of a home and school committee. That’s very important to me, that he’s had that background. And the fact that he actually addressed that aspect of what the Committee of Adjustments does, I think is important.

[4:29:58] So there were other people on here I know, but that just really rose to the top for me. Thank you very much. Councillor Cutty. Thank you, Chair. I’ll speak in favor of Jeff Gart. I’ve known Jeff probably for 35 years, maybe longer, which dates both me and Jeff, and I know Jeff to be a reputable business person and community-minded citizen. Jeff’s been active in many, many community services, too many to name at the moment. But he does have a strong interest, Chair, in heritage and preservation. Jeff understands what’s required on Committee of Adjustments. He has patience. He’s been sitting here for the past six hours. And I think Jeff would be a fine member in a good country and add a great deal of contribution to Committee of Adjustments.

[4:31:02] Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cutty. Councillor Palosa. Thank you. I’ll just speak briefly to two people. One, I haven’t really known him like Councillor Cutty, but Jeff, just Jeff Gart is, he’s been here all night and he’s certainly been through the process and understands some things more intimately than he probably liked to. So just that experience from the outside of how we work internally that he might bring to the table and also impressed by the application. F in your package by Alice and Tate just recognized that they already serve in the London’s Planning and Heritage Stewardship Committee. So acknowledging that expertise, they would bring to the table. Any other speakers? Seeing none, again, I’ll just ask Councillor ramen to take the chair quickly. I’ll be very brief. Thank you. I have the chair. Go ahead.

[4:31:57] Thank you, Councillor ramen. I want to say, Councillor Trussau, thank you for for highlighting that Mr. Menard referenced in his application. I think that that’s a valid point. I also have, of course, interacted with Jeff because he served on an advisory committee here as well. I’m also fairly impressed with the applications of Bob Wright. So again, for me, those three candidates are all worthy of consideration. Colleagues will choose who they will, but for me, those were the names that sort of stood out as names that I would consider for this position. Returning the chair to you, no one on the speaker’s list. Last call for speakers. Seeing none, then I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. Mayor Morgan, if you can indicate verbally, everyone else has voted. Posing the vote. Jeff guard is the winner with nine votes.

[4:33:23] Okay, then just as we did with the last selection, we will need now a motion that Jeff guard be appointed to the Committee of Adjustment for the term ending November 14. Councillor ramen and Councillor Stevenson. So that’s ready. The clerk will open the vote. That’s now open. And we’ve got your vote, Mayor Morgan. Posing the vote. Motion carries 14 to 1. Okay. Next is item 4.5. This is consideration of City Appointees to Western University’s Board of Governors. We have the submission from the University. We have an added from Councillor Trussow and Hopkins. And so we will look Councillor ramen and then Councillor Trussow. Thank you. Before we move on this matter, do you need a motion to sit past six o’clock? You know what? We better do that now just in case, because we are getting close. So motion to move past six p.m. Seconded by Councillor Stevenson.

[4:34:53] David. Posing the vote. Motion carries 14 to 1. Okay. And Councillor ramen. Thank you. So I wanted to speak to 4.5 by first putting the motion that’s in front of us on the floor. Okay. So that’s on the floor as their seconder. And then we’ve got Councillor Trussow and Councillor Hopkins’s alternative suggestion to dispense with as well. Sorry. I didn’t vote to that Lori Higgs and Marlene McGrath be appointed the Western University Board of Governors for the term ending June 30th, 2030.

[4:36:06] It being noted that the SPVC received a communication date in September 30th, 2025 from a Carson University, Secretary Western University with respect to this matter. Yes. So we have the original item from the agenda and then we’ve got your added Councillor. So we can yes, go ahead. That was that was a letter. It was a request. It was not moved or seconded by any Councillor. Now she’s making a motion, but I would think that the one that you received that was in the form of a motion would take precedent and would be heard first. Not that it really matters, but I just I just felt that you have a motion that’s been submitted. Okay. Let me just confer with the clerks on the communication from the Western first and then your submission to that communication. So clerks say there’s no precedent. As you said, Councillor Trussow, I guess it’s either one or the other and however that order goes. So I’m in committee’s hands. I do acknowledge we received your communication that you wanted to receive a motion. So I guess I’m going to check with because Councillor ramen had her hand up. So I’m going to see if she’s willing to let you put yours on the floor. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay with it either way. Okay. Sorry.

[4:37:51] Okay. So the the original motion is on the floor arising from the communication from Western and certainly we can start the speakers list on that and then see where it goes. I’d like to raise the point of order though before we do that. Go ahead. I’d like to argue that the motion is out of order. The reason why I think the motion is out of order is that this is a statutory appointment. Provincial law says City of London selects two persons. If we have a long standing process for taking applications from public, from the public, and not cutting that short, it’s often the case that when we get it’s usually the case, that when we get a recommendation from a board, we honor that and we go along with it. But we never and I would ask the clerk is there any precedent for us actually cutting off the ability of members of the public to submit nominations? Because I think in fairness, well, that’s that’s my point of order. I’m arguing now. Okay. You’re going to have to give me a minute to discuss with clerks.

[4:39:20] So there is precedent for appointments that are not just open to the public. And as another example, just as an example, RBC place submits a recommendation. It is dependent on the bylaws of the governing body and the clerk has the UWO Act here and election procedures. Well, it denotes that there are a number of positions, right? The Mayor, the Warden of the County, the Chancellor, Secretary of the Board, four persons of the Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant Governor, two persons by the City of London, four persons by the Alumni Association, four members of the faculty, two should be members of the Senate. But in the election procedures, it speaks to that the members be members to be elected under subsection one, which is the list that I just meant referenced, shall be elected in accordance with such procedures as shall be determined and established by the Board and that the Board has, in this case, submitted selections that they’re recommending to us. Well, if I can address that, they’ve just submitted the two names. They have not submitted an application nor have they pointed to that procedure. The fact that they would like to have these two incumbents reappointed is fine, but that does not mean that there is, and you would have to consult with the University of Western Ontario internal bylaws and being familiar with those, I can tell you, this is a decision that is made by London City Council.

[4:42:16] It’s not made by the Board of Governors. They can make a recommendation and that could carry a lot of weight, but they do not have the ability to supersede the typical process that this, and by the way, in the RBC case, we did have a very specific bylaw in front of us, which we do not have in this case. So what I’m reading from here, Councillor, is that is the provincial bill PR14 1982 as revised bill PR37 1988, an act respecting the University of Western Ontario.

[4:42:59] So, well, I agree that I don’t have the University’s bylaws in front of me. What I do have is the provincial legislation. Yeah, which city? And I have to read from that, and my determination of this is that it does say that the Board determines the process by which people are elected. It says that the two people are appointed by us under subsection one, but it then does read that the members to be elected under subsection one shall be elected in accordance with such procedures as shall be determined or established by the Board, which we don’t have. In which case, we could send other names. They would not have to accept those. We could send, no, that is not right. The act specifically says, and I will send, is that act specifically says, but Councillor, we’re on a point of order. We’re not in debate. So, I’ve ruled that the motion’s in order. So, the process now is if you disagree with that, it’s not a question of the city solicitor. It’s a challenge of the chair and a ruling of the Council. Okay, I’ll speak to the merits when it’s time. Okay.

[4:44:11] And certainly, I would also say, in fairness, if you were able to consult with the clerk and with Western’s bylaws in advance of Council, there might be a different ruling, but I’m ruling based on what I’m reading in front of me right now. Well, that’s fine. I think Western would want to send along their specific bylaw that says they can do this. Yeah. And that’s not in the communication. So, yeah, it’s not. So, no, it’s their application. So, I understand your point, but right now, I’ve got a rule at the motions in order based on the information I have. So, it’s it’s either a challenge of the chair or we advance on the debate that we have. Yeah, I think given the severity of the determination here, I am going to move to overrule the chair, which is not debatable. So, I can’t explain why legally, I think there’s no debate, but certainly that’s your right to challenge the chair on that. And we can move to a vote on the challenge of the chair. So, we’re going to open the vote. And this is shall the ruling of the chair be sustained.

[4:45:54] So, if you vote yes, you’re upholding my ruling that the motions in order, if you vote no, you’re agreeing with councilor trust out that the motion is not in order. I’m in favor of the chair’s ruling. No, I was saying the boat motion carries wealth to three. Okay. So, the ruling is that the motion is in order so we can debate that now. And apologies. I know councilor trust you would just be the clerk actually just asked me to move a motion to past six p.m. So, we’re all getting a little tired and fuzzy brain. That’s okay. We’re in debate on the motion on the appointment of the two members that the university submitted to us. And we do need a seconder on that. Councilor Lehman. Okay. Speakers. Councilor ramen. Thank you. Just to speak to the motion that I moved.

[4:47:38] So, my reason for supporting the two candidates is I did have a chance to get some more information on them and the rationale. Marlene McGrath has retired 3M executive after 24 years Canadian international and global business experience. Not to mention that it was requested by the board as she currently serves as a vice chair to the board. And effectively will become the chair in July 1st, 2026. Should she be reappointed here? She has extensive leadership as well as recognition around being a female executive in also her ICD designation as well as significant board experience including IV business school and their advisory board. Lori Higgs serves as the chair of western audit committee. She has extensive audit and health care background. She’s accountable for budgets in the 500 million, leads a team of over 6600 staff, has received much recognition, has extensive experience in the community among some big sisters of London, Russia, London Chamber of Commerce. She’s currently a member of another board of directors in Mohawk, and as I mentioned extensive experience in auditing and labor relations.

[4:49:08] We’ve got speakers going. I’m just going to go in reverse numerical order. I’ll go for Rara and then pull us up. Thank you chair. I did hear I guess the resume from Council Raman there. The reason that I voted for the challenge of the chair is because I did want to get that information as well. I’m a little conflicted on that because I didn’t have that to review beforehand. So I would make the comment I guess in future. I would like to see those resumes be attached to this. If we are selecting and we are approving reappointments or appointments to any board, I would like to see that. So that would be my comments. I’m not saying that Ms. Higgs or Miss McGrath are I’m not saying that they may not be qualified. I’m sure that they are. I would just like to see that information on the report on the public report that we can vet and discuss before him. Councillor Palosa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Question through you to staff, civic administration, clerks. I appreciate Councillor Trousa’s concerns. I’m also not having the bylaw in front of me, not sure if there’s those notwithstanding a certain amount of years per term, how long they’ve been standing to make sure everything’s procedurally in order. If this was Council, I’d be making a motion along the lines of civic administration be requested to obtain and circulate to members of Council the appropriate bylaw and their applications. Wondering of something that could be requested prior to Council. I don’t want to backlog this. I know there are no timelines. I’m not questioning the credentials of the applicants of just could civic administration reach out on our behalf and seek if that information’s available to circulate beforehand. If not, I very well might have to make that motion at Council and potentially delay decisions. Okay, the clerk has advised that she doesn’t need a motion. She can reach out to Western and ask that both the resumes/applications and the bylaws be forwarded to all of Council prior to the Council meeting. Absolutely fantastic. Thank you. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you. I quite agree. So thank you Councillor Palosa for that.

[4:51:33] And the reason I too didn’t support the ruling of the chair was so we could have this conversation get a little bit more information. Especially when there’s a lot of time to be had here with this recommendation to the board July 2026 is a long way. When these come to us, I am constantly trying to figure out what our process is. We tend to have different processes. We can understand boards have different processes. But the more we get information to be able to make a decision here at Council is very helpful to me. So there you go. Thank you Councillor Hopkins.

[4:52:18] I appreciate Councillor Palosa’s suggestion. I would take it a step further though and say in light of the fact that this appointment does not have to be perfected until shortly before July 1st, I’m wondering what is the rush and why don’t we defer this to get this information. The other information that we should have is the following in the University of Western Ontario left. And I’ll just paraphrase it. I can go into the detailed language. The University Board of Governors has the ability to, in addition to the enumerated people who are listed, who should be members of the Board of Governors, they can appoint up to four persons. They have, in other words, they have four discretionary additional seats in addition to all of these. And one of the reasons I know this is I have some experience with this body. I would like to know whether they have used those up because if they have not, then it would be within the immediate prerogative of the Board of Governors to just appoint these two candidates for another four year term. But they would be doing so under clause H, four persons elected by members of the Board. They have the ability to do that.

[4:53:55] So if the concern is that we need to be able to keep these two excellent people, including somebody who’s going to be the chair, they may already have the power to do that. And if it turns out that they have a few seats, one, two, three or four of these seats and they’re not using them, and they’re asking us to give up our ability as a council to ask the public for applications, that would be even more cause of concern. So I really think that we need to, before we take any action on this, we need to understand, and perhaps I know the mayor is a member ex officio, he might know off the top of his head whether those four additional seats under subdivision H are spoken for. But I think that’s something we should know. Because if the concern is we don’t want to jeopardize their ability to stay on the Board, and if it turns out that the Board actually has the power at their next meeting to appoint these two candidates, then I think that’s something we should know before we give up our ability to, yeah, and I think it’s a valid point. So Councilor, in consultation with Clark, if you wished to refer this without a vote on the motion that Councilor Raman has put forward, you could refer this motion to Council, knowing that we’re without a recommendation tonight. So the motion would just go to Council, and we can get that information forwarded from Western in advance of Council. Yes, I would be inclined to do that, although given the fact that we’re looking at a July deadline, I’m wondering why we don’t put this over to the next SPPC, because that would be something that would normally come through the SPPC. And there’s no exigency here. There’s no emergency. There’s no emergent nature to this.

[4:55:48] So I would make a motion that this matter be referred to the next SPPC for a determination of these points that have been raised. Okay, that referral would be an order. Referrals take precedence and are in order, seconded by Councilor Ferreira. And again, the clerks, we don’t need in the motion that the reach out for the information will just happen. That doesn’t need to be there. It’s just referred for future consideration and additional information. We’ll just give the clerk a minute to get that typed up. Let’s a referral. You can debate the referral. Just give me a moment to make sure the clerks got it captured. Any scrap point of personal privilege, everyone keep doing their stuff.

[4:56:43] I just need to go virtual, but I’m still here. Okay, so the clerks capture that so we now have a referral on the floor. Let’s see if there’s any speakers. Yep, give me just a moment. The motion to appoint to the Western Board of Governors be referred to the next meeting of SPPC to allow for more information. I’ll fix it. Okay, so Councilor Truss, I was fine with that. Councilor Ferreira, you’re okay with that? Okay, any debate? Looking for questions or comments? Councilor Truss?

[4:57:46] Usually I make the mistake in the other direction. I just want to say, were this a situation where their term is going to expire next week? I could see not wanting to do this. But given the fact that it is still October, late October, but it’s still October, and this new appointment has not become effective until July 1, 2026. I see no prejudice to anyone, including the candidates of the University or the Board, or anyone on the Board for not putting this off to get more information. I think we need to be careful here, and I think referring this to get more information is the cautious and prudent thing to do, because there is going to be a sentiment that we should have at least been able to proceed with this as per usual, although that’s debating the main motion, so I won’t do that. I think a referral is in order. I will do a little bit more research by myself. We probably could dig through the membership list of the current Board to determine whether those four additional seats are spoken for, but I think that would be a burden at this point. Therefore, I think it should be referred. Thank you. Okay, looking for any other speakers before we open the vote. Chair, I’d like to be on the list. Well, we have no list, so you’re up, Mayor Morgan. Councillor Truss, I’m just going to ask you to turn off your mic while we do that.

[4:59:25] Mayor Morgan, go ahead. Thank you. I just want to say two things. On the referral, I don’t have any huge objection to the referral given the timelines. What I will say, and I think we need to be absolutely clear about this, especially if we’re going to consider a referral of this, is that this is a legitimate motion. A member of Council is putting names on the floor, which is Council making an appointment. That being said, the reason why I don’t mind supporting getting a little bit more information about these candidates is I think they are excellent candidates. I think they weren’t reappointed to the Board, and I don’t want anything to overshadow that reappointment because Councillors have questions about process, but we have the absolute ability to move the motion that Councilor ramen made because us moving a motion as a municipal Council is a Council appointment.

[5:00:17] That is the process. I’m happy to hear what others think, but in no way do I have any interest in questioning the integrity of these candidates, nor do I think any member of Council is. I just don’t want it to be perceived that way if we simply ask for their resumes and a little bit more information about the Board’s process, which I think is fair, but I also don’t think anything is wrong with the process that we’re following. Okay, thank you, Mayor Morgan, Councilor Ferra. Thank you, Chair. I wasn’t going to make a comment, but I do want to make one now after hearing the Mayor. For me, it’s not procedure. For me, I don’t want to be voting against two candidates that potentially could be excellent candidates. I just don’t have the information in front of that. So if I didn’t have that, if we were to go with the recommended or with the motion that was put on the floor with those two candidates, I would be hard pressed to support that even though they may be good candidates. So this is why I like this referral because I get that information and I can make my vote with an informed decision on that. So that’s why you see me seconding the referral. Any other speakers? Seeing none, then we’ll open the vote.

[5:01:31] Close the vote, Chair. Mayor Morgan, can you just repeat as Councilor Palosa and you both started speaking at the same time? Chair, I’m in favor. Closing the vote, motion carries 8 to 7. Okay, that’s been referred. The next item, consideration of amendments to the Council Procedure By-law A61. This is a submission from Councilor ramen, Councilor Ferra, and myself as committee chairs with a realignment of some committee, in terms of references to just move some likes with likes. So first, I will look to see if Councilor ramen wants to move it and Councilor Ferra will second it. So it’s on the floor and now we will look for any discussion or debate. Councilor Palosa would like to speak to it. Okay, we will we’ve got Councilor Trust, I’ll hand up to you. So I’m going to go to Councilor Trust and then to you Councilor Palosa as the second speaker on the list. Councilor Trust, I’ll go ahead. First of all, through the chair, I appreciate the the Councilors looking at this and coming up with that list. I felt that since realignment, there has been just eyeballing the agendas. There has been somewhat of a imbalance in terms of the workload of the committees. But I’m wondering, is civic administration able to provide us with anything further than that in terms of a the this committee has had this many items, this committee has had that many items so we could actually see see see exactly why we’re making this change? Well, I will let the clerk respond to that since they’re the combiners and put togethers of the agenda. Through the chair, we we don’t have that information available right now. Councilor. Thank you. And the reason through the chair that I would find that information important is there are there are categories here. And I want to make sure I have these in front of me correctly. But we’re talking about we’re talking about sidewalks and bike lanes, maintenance, snow control, street lighting, traffic control, and waste management. We’re talking about four things. And it might it might be that the appropriate way to correct any imbalance in workload is to look at those for in some more detail. Now, I will be prepared if I can save some of my time to speak to why I can’t support all of this now. I can support some of it now, but I can’t support all of it. And I would I would like to get a little bit more precision between those four categories and to be to be very to be very open just so you know where I’m going with this. I think the traffic control since that since that overlaps with law enforcement more so than the other ones should stay with community and protective services. And I totally get waste management sidewalks. But I would I would like to be a little bit more precise with this motion. So I might want to make an amendment. Thank you. Okay, Councilor Palosa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that was the outgoing chairs you jointly send the letter as the incoming chair was just looking for a brief overview of the rationale. I think it’s pretty straightforward, but just wanted to make sure that we’re on the same page as the incoming chair. Sure. Well, I’m trying to not leave the chair for like the eighth time tonight. So I’ll see if one of the other movers and seconders wants to speak to it. Councilor ramen. Thank you and three and I’m happy to speak to it. I’m just looking at it again from the perspective of this alignment and our workloads at committees and then also from some of the conversations that have happened. And I can speak to an infrastructure and corporate services. Oftentimes it feels like we veer into things, veer not trying to make a pun related to some of these items, specifically around snow control and sometimes around bike lanes and other things when we’re talking about other matters. And then we are reminded that those items actually sit at caps. So I think that this just helps with that realignment and then part C. And this just comes from discussions around some of the items that have come through through strong marriage decisions and directions and where there is value in having all of Council participate as SPPC. And I’ll also give Councilor Ferra a chance to respond to Councilor Palosa as well. Thanks, Chair. I don’t have much to add to Councilor ramen. We are just trying to make areas that we think align more with the mandate in the terms of reference of the committee. So that’s what we’re doing. I hear what Councilor or Councilor Palosa, I forget which Council brought it up, which you’re saying about, I believe you’re talking about the new pedestrian crossovers. There’s always going to be a little bit of overlap with certain areas. There’s always going to be a little bit overlap with one committee or the or the next. That was a discussion that we actually had this specific item as well. But in the end, we did land on thinking it would be more appropriate to be moved to the ICSC. So nothing more to add, but just trying to, I guess, give more information on our thinking reasoning. Thank you, Councilor Ferra, Councilor Palosa.

[5:07:42] Thank you. I appreciate that. And you know, it’s always that fine line of it’s, yeah, of where things go and definitely appreciate the staff coming to SPPC that strong marriage powers just make sure that we all get the information and nobody misses anything. So happy to support us. Thank you, looking for others. And I’ve got Councilor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Quick question. I’m happy to support this. My question is around if this is supported. Council, the bylaw, would be in effect. Where are we with notices to the public and the agenda that’s probably already set in place for November? Just want to make sure we’re connecting all the dots and crossing all the Ts. So I can provide some of that to you in that the intent of bringing it forward was today was to align it with the new committees that we just voted for. So the bylaw would come to Council on November 4th to take effect for, well, December 1st is when the new committees start sitting. So the new slates that we voted on earlier tonight. And so that would be the intent would to be aligned with the new, the start of the new committee terms. Councilor Hopkins.

[5:09:00] Yeah, thank you for that. And just to make sure notices and the process going forward, it won’t. There’s not a problem with the public notifications and what’s already set in the agenda, even for December. Just want to double check. Yeah, and I can have the clerk respond to that. There’s no concerns right now with public notice and setting the agendas going forward into the new term. Councilor Trussell. Rather than hold this up anymore, I think I would like to just request that part B traffic control changes to parking regulations, new pedestrian crossovers, automatic enforcement, et cetera. Number one, the word et cetera be clarified, because we’re making a change of jurisdiction here. And I don’t think et cetera is a very precise term. But but more important than that, I’d like that quote separately. Okay, so the et cetera is actually right from the bylaw as imprecise as that may be. It allows flexibility for the clerks to assign new items that might come up. So for example, we didn’t have automated speed enforcement and then the province gave us the power. And so it was allowed to be assigned under the et cetera as a new category. So that’s why that’s there as imprecise as it is. So we can call we can call A and B together separate from C. Traffic control is embedded in there.

[5:10:47] I’d like that removed and voted on. So then you have to amend if to move an amendment to clause A and B to delete traffic control and the brackets. Well, actually all I’m asking for is to be able to vote on traffic control separately. I’m not even moving that it be taken out. I can I can I can read the room. People want to move all of these things to infrastructure. That’s fine. I’m not going to try to impede that. But I would like to record a vote against not the whole thing but to traffic control. And in particular, the automated enforcement that’s very that’s very much tied to a law enforcement activity. And I think that that should that should remain with with caps. But at the very least, I’d like to be able to vote on these separately. And I think asking for a severance in terms of. Okay. So so you can’t call those as separate clauses because they’re they’re in the clause. You have to amend the language in the clause to remove traffic control from both A and B, which would leave it where it currently resides at caps or put it under a separate section. If a counselor wanted to support moving traffic control. Okay, well, I will I will move to I will make a motion to remove traffic control changes to parking regulations, new pedestrian crossovers, automated enforcement, etc, and the parentheses. Make a motion to remove that from B.

[5:12:25] Is there a seconder for that? Councilor Ferreira. Okay, sorry, clerk’s just made one. So you’re removing it from A and B and then B says so A says add it to and B says remove it from. So if you change A, then you’re not. You need to change. We got to we do have change both. Yes. That’s my motion. Okay. Councilor Ferreira. Thank you, chair. I seconded that because I’m under the impression that we’re going to remove that those pieces of the clause out. It would say a separate clause, the community protective services committee mandate will be amended to remove. And then the items that the counselor has listed so the counselor can vote against that separately. As far as I’m concerned, it keeps it doesn’t change any direction for the motion. It just breaks that part out so the counselor can vote against that and support the other parts of the motion. So I just want to clarify that was the motion that was brought forward. Okay, I’m going to try and make this as clear as I can because I stayed up till the 18th inning last night and my brain is really starting to not be thinking clearly here. We have to so we have two motions. One that says add it to ISC in part A and in part B, remove it from community protective services. That is consistent for all the parts. So if we just remove traffic control and then the items in the parentheses from both, then it stays where it is. That’s the way that the clerk has written the motion up. So it is status quo or change. Councilor Ferreira. That’s not the intent of my second. I wouldn’t second that because I still want to have those items moved. I just to help the counselor out pull those parts out separately so that CPSC will be amended to remove those parts and then another section to add those parts to ICSC. So in the end, I know it makes the things a little more… It makes things more much more complicated and it’s procedurally out of order because you have an entire clause here. So you can change the language of the clause. You can’t subdivide a single clause. So you can’t subdivide clause A or clause B. You can only change the language in them. All right. In that case, I wouldn’t be able to second it because that’s not the intent of my second. Okay. So is there a seconder then? Okay. I’m not seeing a seconder. So we’re going to vote on the original as worded motions. We can call A and B together and then we can call C. So if people want to vote against the change between caps and ICSC, they can and still support SPPC. So we’ll call A and B and then we’ll call C. Any further discussion before the clerks open the vote? I’d like to speak to the main motion chair. Okay. I am going to go to Mayor Morgan first because he hasn’t spoken yet. Mayor. Go ahead, Mayor. Yes. So I generally support what’s happening here. In fact, in fact, I support all of it. I just want to provide just a couple of clarifications on the strong mayor piece because I’m bound to follow the provincial legislation. So my understanding of the intent here is that colleagues, if they passes, would like to see things like when I direct staff to bring something before council, for council decision making, they’d like to like it to go to all of SPPC rather than the standing committee, which the clerks would send it to. I’m very supportive of that. The things that won’t change is when I issue a direction staff or issue a decision, those will still be circulated to council within the 24 hour timeframe that the legislation requires me to do so. And then of course, there are pieces of the legislation that says my ability is to bring a bylaw directly to council. Those bylaws would still go directly to council because that’s how the legislation is written is it’s my ability to bring something directly to council. Although those would be very different from things like the micromodular shelter or the office residential diversion or the other things that I’ve said, do some work and bring this forward for staff decision making. So I just want it to be clear that fully support the intent of the motion because I believe the intent of the motion is anything that I’m providing staff direction for council decision making to be brought forward would come to all of us. But I wouldn’t be able to do that for things where the legislation is specific about where I have to bring stuff like things that go directly to council. So as long as that’s clear, I’m very supportive of the motion because I do have to follow the French legislation.

[5:17:37] Well, it was clear to the city solicitor because she was nodding her head in agreement with your comments. And I think we’ve got understanding because colleagues are nodding their heads too that we certainly understand some things legislatively have to go elsewhere. So but that’s good comment to share and we’re going to look to see if there’s any council trust how you wanted to speak again before we call the vote. Anyone else signal to get on the speaker’s list and council trust how you have about 45 seconds left. Okay, that’ll be enough. As much as I really want to see sidewalks, bike lanes, maintenance, snow control and waste management moved to the infrastructure committee, I feel even stronger that traffic including the enforcement, new pedestrian crossovers should stay with CAPS. And I’m sorry I don’t have the ability to be more precise with my vote, but I will be voting against this. But I want it understood that I really like the idea of having the sidewalks and all those other things other than the traffic moved to infrastructure, which is where I thought it was in the first place. But I feel very, I feel very close to the traffic issue and I sort of want to, well, no, I mean, it’s not just a sentimental thing. I think there’s a certain expertise on CAPS right now that we’ve been dealing with. So that’s why I’m going to vote on this and just so you know. Okay. Thank you, Councilor Trussow. I have no other speakers.

[5:19:11] So we’re going to call A and B first, and then we’ll call C. And that vote is now open. Oh, Councilor Trussow, can I get the mic please? Closing the vote. Motion carries 14 to 1. Okay. And now we’ll call clause C. Close the votes. Yes.

[5:19:57] The favor. Closing the vote. Motion carries 15 to 0. Thank you, colleagues. So our final item on the agenda is the request for change of council meeting date from Councilor Frank, and I will go to Councilor Frank. Thank you. I’ll be quick. My reasons are outlined, but I pretty much just don’t want members of Council have to read a package over a long weekend of holidays, as well as it takes away the added agenda timeline, which means the community cannot provide input on long weekends.

[5:20:36] And so I’d like to move Councils after a long weekend to the Wednesday, and that pretty much only impacts Thanksgiving next year. And then staff would look for any future dates where that also has the same impact. So that’s been moved. Do we have a seconder for that? I’m going to go with the booming voice to my left in Councilor Van Mirbergen. Councilor Frank and Councilor Van Mirbergen are teaming up, so it must be a good idea. And I’m just going to go quickly to the clerk to verbally confirm that this, in fact, is doable for next year’s calendar. Yes, we can do that. Okay, just going to ask for a little bit of order.

[5:21:20] We’re going to, so that’s been moved, seconded, confirmed by the clerk that it works, and looks for any speakers. Councilor Trusso. Just to say strong support, thank you very much for bringing this. This has been, this has been a problem. I tried to point it out a few times. It’s difficult when you get calls from people saying I wanted to put something out on the added, but I can’t, because the deadline’s already passed. So thank you, thank you for doing this. And I think it’s just a little anomaly that should make sense. Thank you. I have no other speakers, so I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. All those votes, yes? I’m in favor. Voting the vote. Motion carries 15 to 0.

[5:22:25] Thank you, colleagues. That concludes our agenda. We will allow the mayor to continue his journey to Ottawa safely. Good luck at the FCM meetings and look for a motion to adjourn. Councilor McAllister and Ferreira, by hand, all those in favor. That motion carries. I’m in favor, even though the motion carried. And I’m almost to Ottawa. That’s how long the meeting took, just so you know. It’s an hour and a half to first pitch. Everybody make it home safely for the Blue Jays game.