2026-03-24 - Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee

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

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Okay, colleagues, I’m going to call the fifth meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to order and begin by acknowledging that the city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwok, and Adwanderan peoples. And we honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory. The city of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people, and as representatives of the people of the city of London, we’re grateful to have the opportunity and live in this territory. The city of London is also committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request.

And to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC@london.ca or phone 519-661-2489 and extension 2425. Colleagues, I’m going to begin by looking for any disclosures of hearing interest. Seeing none, then we will move on to the consent agenda, looking to see if colleagues want anything dealt with separately. Councillor Stevenson.

2.3, please. Okay, so 2.3 is the governance working group report. So we’ll pull that for deferred matters. Anything else colleagues want dealt with separately in consent?

Seeing none, then I’ll look for a mover and a seconder for the consent items. Councillor Cuddy, Councillor Hopkins, looking for any discussion. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair for recognizing me. I do want to make a quick comment on 2.2, which is the strategic efficacy framework. I want to just express my thanks to the government relations team. I see Tyler Sutton is here and really without the support of government relations, my role as an AMO board member, I definitely rely on the expertise and the support that staff give me.

So many, many things for that. And I also appreciate the many updates that we get from updates from the provincial and federal governments. I know we’ve got a provincial budget coming our way too and really appreciate the extra information that you give me as a Councillor. So thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Hopkins, any other speakers? Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, a couple of questions on 2.1. On page three, it talks about that the asphalt will be put in later.

And I just wondered with the project potentially winding down in April of 2027, was there some thought to not putting down the asphalt? Are there other options other than that expense? Mr. Ramalu.

Thank you, through the chair, the amount of asphalt we’re going to put down is limited to the front entrance way. So that’s where the heaviest traffic is. That’s where our garbage trucks come in for garbage collection. So it gets torn up quite a bit more than the rest of the site.

So we’re really keeping it limited to that small area. So I would still recommend doing it. Councillor Stevenson. No, thank you.

That’s great to know. That sounds good to me. The other question I had is around, well, I have a couple of questions, I guess. But on page five, it talks about two participants required to leave the program following breaches of program and policies.

I just wondered if you could just share more around that because when we’re hearing about problem tenants within our housing programs, it’s difficult to address those. And so, when we talk about from a human rights perspective, people have a right to shelter in housing. I’m just wondering, tell us more about that and what happens to those people. Mr.

Green. Thank you and through the chair. So both of those incidents did involve altercations between the participants and staff. They were minor in nature, but we have a zero tolerance policy for physical altercations with staff.

So they were removed from the program. Councillor. Thank you. Let’s go back to being unhoused again.

Mr. Green. Thank you and through the chair. So we do our best to find other accommodations for them with the other shelter options.

So it’s not like we put them just out the gate and say best of luck to you. We coordinate with the other partners across the spectrum to see if there’s other space that they can attend outside of the micro shelter. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you.

And not to belabor this one, but we think of the micro shelters as being the most optimal for potentially some problematic ones in that they don’t have to deal with other people and shared accommodation spaces. They’ve got their own space to be. So when somebody is ejected like that, are they banned permanently? Is it just a temporary thing?

And are other agencies? Did you find that they were willing to accept ones that had, you know, physical altercations with staff at the micro shelter? Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and through you. We talk about problematic ones. We’re talking about individuals.

And these are complex humans. And in some cases, individuals in this instance, where there’s been a physical altercation, often are in the state where they’re refusing to stay anyway. They want to leave at that point. Whatever coping mechanisms they have may be limited and trauma in their previous life has taught them that this is their coping mechanism.

So in these instances, people have had an altercation, blow up, try to work with the individuals, but in many cases, they’re just refusing to stay and they want to leave. Despite that, as Mr. Green has indicated, we try to work with other programs. Sometimes they can accommodate.

Sometimes they can’t based on perhaps previous interactions with this particular individual or with capacity issues. So we don’t like to see folks walk out those gates without a place to go. We try to connect them to other services. But some are, I mean, we’ve got close to 70 individuals there.

We’ve been operating for three months. We have a couple of individuals who have not been successful in their first try at this. Whether they remain banned forever remains to be determined. We do have a long list of people who would like access to that space.

So we continue if there is a vacancy for whatever reason. Try to work through that waiting list to get more people in. So in the event that we are able to circle back to an individual and they’re in a different spot or ready to participate, we can always try that again. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you very much. And then there was reports of the fire. I heard it was a small fire, just a candle with a bed sheet. And yet it says that the participants out of that unit and will be able to return to the unit once the work is finalized.

So I just wondered how much damage was done to the unit and the estimated time for getting the person back. Mr. Green. Thank you through the chair.

So the damage was minor. So it was primarily to the bedding. The bedding needed to be replaced as well as some of the floor tiles under the bedding. So working with Farrow, the cabin company who built and designed the cabins.

It was just some lead time to get them down to London to make that repair. And those individuals are back into that unit now. Councillor. Okay, thank you.

Good to hear that. My last question on this is, there’s referencing through this report quite a bit is participants transitioning from the micro shelter into permanent housing. And so I just wondered if you could tell me a bit about that because I have so many people who are on the wait list for housing. People who have been sleeping on a mattress in their son’s place for three years now waiting for a housing unit.

And we made the change to it mostly being chronological. So I’m just wondering how we’re getting people right from the micro shelter into housing when we’ve got so many people on our housing list. Mr. Dickens.

Thank you and through you chair. The outset of this program was intended to try to help people along their journey in housing. That was the goal from the beginning. So some of these folks and well, no one has been in this situation yet.

So I’m speculating on what type of housing they’ll get into. But in the event that someone is able to transition out of here into housing and we hope they’re able to, that is why it’s referenced in here as an ambition. They may move into supportive housing. They may move into other housing types that might offer support through healthcare bodies, through ACT teams or others.

We don’t foresee this as being some sort of cue jumping. I don’t want to generate a bunch of fear online or in the public that people are in the micro shelter and they’re going to jump the cues for community housing. We have a matching process that we follow through the Housing Services Act, which we don’t have a lot of flexibility over when it comes to housing and community housing. So you’re right, it is chronologically based.

I will add though, the folks that are in the micro shelter have been experiencing chronic homeless for a number of years. They are chronologically showing up on that wait list and they’ve been on those housing wait lists themselves for several years and this is just a mere stop along the way. So yes, they’re indoors right now and yes, they’re in a temporary accommodation, but they themselves have been on that wait list for a number of years in some cases, I would think. I don’t have that data at my fingertips to be able to pull that up and demystify it for you on the spot, I’m sorry.

Thank you just to follow up there ‘cause I was listening to the radio this morning and they were talking about how people were likely to go from the micro shelter to the hubs through to transitional housing or highly supportive housing. But I just wondered with the change that we made around chronological versus emergency, can you just remind me about that emergency piece? How are those people being housed and I’m assuming the people in the micro shelters are the same as anyone in any of the other shelters and that’s where the emergency people are coming? I’m just wondering what our prioritization is for that small amount of emergency placements.

Dickens. Through you Mr. Chair, I don’t have that topic handy here today and I don’t have the ability to lean on some of my other team members from that department. However, the urgent piece is typically through our priority populations in the emergency components of women fleeing domestic violence typically falls within that emergency group in which case they will always take priority that is legislated under the act.

And so what Council approved was a shifting as you noted to chronological. So that is where we have our influence, the rest of the directives we fall under the Housing Services Act. So the emergency piece is really around folks that fall under the special priorities. Sorry.

Thank you. Yeah, just trying to put this all together. So there’s the urgent small piece that goes through our community housing and then I guess they would have access as well to the housing stability programs through the other agencies as well as the people do staying in the shelters. Am I correct on that?

Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair. Yes, if folks are experiencing homelessness, they’re able to access the emergency shelters and those that are on the wait list.

Some of them may be experiencing homelessness themselves. They may be couch surfing. They may be overhoused, things like that. And again, if I had this ready at my fingertips or prepared for the housing placement components, I’d be able to help you out more on my apologies.

Councilor, anything further? Okay, I have Mayor Morgan and then I have Councilor McAllister and then I have Councilor Pribble. Okay, thank you, so let me start off by thanking our staff for the report and the update. And I wanna say just a couple of things.

And I appreciate that Mr. Greens here because I think the team that is overseeing the site has done a tremendous job. Having been out to the site a couple of times, having had the opportunity to give Minister Flack a tour. I wanna say, even with the small fire, like teams performed exactly as they should, right?

Smoke detector goes off. Staff get there quickly, use the fire extinguisher, extinguish the small fire. Unit is repaired back in operation, people back in the place. This is exactly how these things are supposed to work.

So you’ve got policies, procedures in place. They seem to be working very well. And I just wanna commend you for the excellent work, not only for providing the service, but providing for the emergent issues that may come up from time to time in operating any sort of site that houses individuals. So first off, I wanted to say that.

Second, I wanna recognize that there was some hesitancy. And I know a number of members of council had some concerns about a number of aspects of the micromodular site. The operator, the location, would people wanna go there? And what I appreciate through this reporting is the transparency to show very clearly that it is working as we had helped.

And it is working as envisioned. And I wanna also very much thank London Cares for the letter that they added to the added agenda and the types of things they said in it, as well as the other partners who provide services who are partnering with us on the site, partnering with Expera and the site operators to make sure it’s going as best as possible can. And I wanna highlight a couple of things ‘cause it was on the added agenda from the London Cares letter. They wanted to commend Expera for their professionalism and the trauma-informed environment that they fostered.

Their openness to collaborate with community agencies has made it seamless. It has made it seamless for our teams to work alongside them on a shared mission. Their staff are warm, attentive, grounded in rational practice, relational practice story. This project has created a community where people feel safe enough to begin to exit survival mode and focus on connecting and healing.

Our frontline staff speak highly of this partnership that the participants regularly share, how supported they feel. People are transitioning from circumstances that are very difficult into circumstances that are safer, more supported, and exactly the type of thing that we envision. The other thing, and I can’t emphasize enough their articulation of the individual experiences that some have had in going to that site, including a participant who historically avoided traditional shelter spaces but slept more than 12 hours after moving in and has remained there full time. Others who are finding a pathway through this site at different option, not the only shelter option we offer, but a different option that provides an experience that is right for some members of our community.

Also, I want to recognize what they said about their outreach teams seeing a renewed sense of hope, supporting people in navigating the site, transporting belongings, identifying individuals who’ve been waiting for exactly this kind of opportunity after long periods of limited options, a sense of relief, pride, and possibility has been profound. This is from an agency who has worked in this space for many years, on the front lines, doing outreach, providing services, recognizing that although even they were hesitant at the first and provided a lot of feedback that I think our staff took as guidance in the way to design the space, I really appreciate them taking the time to write the letter to say, here’s what we think about how it’s going now, so that we can alleviate some of the concerns that we’re out in the community about the initial selection criteria of the site. And again, we had to move very quickly, and we did. This was one of the fastest moving municipal projects that I think I’ve seen moving from a field to places where people can live in eight to 10 weeks.

Like, that’s a pretty fast-moving project, and now, fully subscribed everybody’s there and living there. I wanna appreciate what the deputy city manager said about the pathways to housing. I’m very hopeful that there’ll be pathways to housing through the site, like there is pathways to housing in all sorts of types of services we provide. Those pathways are different.

This is, they’re different, they’re unique. They’re based on the individual, and that’s why I appreciate our CIR teams working with agencies to identify not only the people who are living at the site, but what the right pathway is for them to get them moving through the site. And I’m hopeful that this site will not be a site for 60 or 70 people, but a site where we get some flow through and people into housing over the course of its operation. So again, I appreciate the good news story that is in the report.

I appreciate the letter from London Cares, but greatly, I appreciate the staff and pulled this together in a very quick way and are operating it with extreme professionalism and providing a great result for both the community as well as those individuals who are taking advantage of this opportunity in their lives. Thank you. And right on, five minutes, Mayor, thank you. I have Councilor McAllister next.

Thank you to the chair, probably won’t take five minutes. I did just wanna start by thanking Ms. Ramalu and Mr. Green.

Really appreciate them getting the micro shelters up and running. I know it was probably a lot of work, especially through this tough winter. Really do appreciate it. And all the people who are supporting the site as well wanna give a shout out to them.

I just wanted to give kind of in terms of my perspective and what I’ve heard from my ward and which staff have been able to share with me. And the real impact it has had on our city. Watson Park is an encampment that has been a struggle for many years. And I know through discussions with staff that they have been able to assist people to be able to move to the micro shelter.

And that has made a real tangible difference in terms of that space that we’ve had to manage for a number of years. So we’ve been able to help people on their journey for housing that have really struggled in the past. And so with that, with being able to vacate that space, we can rehabilitate the park and return it to a public space as well. So I think there’s a lot of winds all around so far, so good.

I really appreciate everything that’s gone into this. I know it was a quick turnaround, but it is making a difference in terms of rebuilding people’s lives. So I just wanted to say thank you to everyone involved. It has made a difference in my ward, and I’m sure it’ll make a difference in a number of other wards as well, so thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McAllister. I’m gonna go to Councilor Pribble next. Councilor Pribble, I just wanna note you’ve used 497 hours of your time. Apparently I forgot to turn off the timer for you at council from the last meeting.

So you’ve been talking for 20 days straight, according to my timer. But you’ve got five minutes now, go ahead. I’ll try to be very brave. I do wanna as well, similar to the mayor and council, McAllister.

I wanna thank the staff and thank the experiment, local community organizations, social agencies, because I do think that the secret of the success of this project is working together. And so far, it has been, I think that, again, moving it forward, even more deeper cooperation, even more communication, visit the staff and progressing the individuals. And I do totally understand that some individuals, even if you have the space, they might not be ready, depending on the security level, et cetera. But I really wanna thank, I think they’re so far positive.

We had over 50 people that were less during this harsh winter, on the straight Indian cabments, in the warming center. So I really think they’re on a really good track. It’s a positive initiative. We just have to keep moving forward.

But thank you all involved. Thank you, Councilor Pribble. I have Councilor Ferreira next. Thank you, Chair.

I guess I’ll start with, I appreciate the report and the consistent updates that you guys are providing. I really appreciate Ms. Maramaloo and Ms. Mr.

Green’s engagement with us and bringing us to check out the site and just answering all the questions that we have. I do have some questions. I know we’re talking about pathways into housing after the fact, after the micromodular shelter, but I wanted to talk about pathways into the micromodular shelter as well. I specifically want to know, ‘cause I do see that we’re at time of the report anyways.

The micro shelters are at capacity. I wanted to know if we had any numbers on potential wait lists of potential participants who said that they would like to be moving into the micromodular sites and what that number would be. Mr. Green.

Thank you and through the Chair. So yeah, the selection process has taken care of through the Coordinated Access Group and having the privilege to sit in on several of those meetings. It is quite a community process to make good choices to send to people they believe will be successful at the shelter. So given that this time, we are at 68 tenants today.

We do plan that number will bounce kind of between 70 and 65 as people transition in and out of the micro shelter. And my understanding is that wait list is well over 100 other individuals that have met the criteria that the Coordinated Access Group has put together to fit and be successful at the micro shelter. So as Mr. Dickens and others have said, we are hoping that we’ll start to see some transition.

Of course, our longest tenants there have only been there about eight or nine weeks. So we’ll give it a little bit more time. But throughout the summer, we’re hoping to start to work through that wait list in coordination with the Coordinated Access Group. Councillor.

Thank you for that. And I do see that there’s been significant improvements at Watson Park. And I hear the Councillors remarks for the improvements there. I did wanna ask with respect to, I guess, other encampments and just the numbers of people with respect to the spaces that they’re in.

When it comes to Watson Park, would you be able to tell me how many individuals are in that park right now? Mr. Dickens, Mr. Parity.

Yeah, through the chair, I’ll take a look and bring up the latest stats. Councillor. - Thank you. So I guess my question is, is ‘cause I do have some encampments in very confined spaces and there’s many numbers of people in a very small space.

And then when I consider that with other spaces that have greater space and the numbers are lower, I just wanted to know if there’s any consideration into placement into the micromodular sites from encampments that have a larger number of people in a smaller space. Sorry, Mr. Green. Thank you and through the chair.

As mentioned, the selection goes through the Coordinated Access Group. There’s quite a few variables involved in those determinations. I can share that the determination for the first cohort was those living rough and living in encampments as we were in the middle of the winter when that was happening. But there is quite a few variables including acuity levels, paper readiness, they’re individuals who are connected to services.

So I would probably have to consult with the Coordinated Access Group on all of those variables and determine kind of how they rank certain things like where they’re located, what encampments, if they’re indoors outdoors at the time and other variables as well. Councilor. Thank you for that. Is there any consideration as we, I guess, relieve the amounts of people in some parks and place them into the micromodular sites and then we have some other parks that have a higher number of people.

If we can make any sort of redistribution so we don’t have too many people in one specific space before placement into the micromodular site? Mr. Dickens. Thank you and through you, Chair.

As Mr. Parity’s looking off some data, that would be a conversation, I think, for CIR to look at in terms of what they’re managing out there and that would fall through Mr. Parity and Mr. Ladasur.

I don’t have the CIR stats in terms of how many people are in which park handy or what their plan is for any relocation if there’s issues going on in certain parks. But yeah, when we look to do the matching, I think as Mr. Green had said, we try to find fit and I’m not sure that they’re looking at which parks people are coming from specifically. It may be part of that conversation, but I’ll leave the rest of Mr.

Parity and Mr. Ladasur. Mr. Parity.

Our last in time count, or through the chair, our last in time count for Watson Park two weeks ago was 14, but that may have changed with a better weather coming and our team can get us an update this week if it’s required. Thank you for that, Councillor Ferrell. Thank you. Yeah, I guess I’ll wait for those numbers to come out from the parks if you can distribute those out to council.

And I guess I’ll have a conversation with you, I guess on the back end about how we can just have a better distribution of individuals considering the space of the park itself. ‘Cause I do see that we’re making some good progress here with the micro modular sites themselves, but there is also an amount of people who are looking to get into the micro modular site. And I would like to make sure that just the work that’s done beforehand has a distribution that doesn’t really have too many higher concentration of individuals in smaller amounts of space. And I have Councillor Palosa and then Councillor Raman on the list.

Next, Councillor Palosa, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair, just on a high level for next steps. I know a report’s gonna come back in Q2, just looking to see exactly what as council we can maybe prepare ourselves for, what kind of decision-making you would like at that time.

Realizing this project was already approved to go through until around spring of 2027. Mr. Chair, did you hear my question? Yes, staff are just conferring.

Okay, sorry, thank you. Dr. Dickens. Through you, Chair, and thank you for the question.

Just needed to confer with some folks. So first off in the April report, you’ll see more of a financial update. So the construction contracts and invoices should all be in Ms. Ramaloo’s inbox by that date.

So we can update the report at that time. As far as recommendations and suggestions, as Mr. Green indicated, we are very much in the infancy stage here of just getting through one season and into the next. Our longest tenured participants have been there roughly nine weeks.

So we wanna make sure we’re monitoring this situation every single day and getting a better sense of how to make an informed recommendation, but it is a topic of discussion at the senior leadership team level. And you can rest assured that civic administration will be reporting back to council with any future recommendations. Councilor Palosa. Thank you.

Personally, I think just looking to see if it’s the right mix of double occupancy versus single occupancy on site. And if the amount of people we’re housing is adequate, or if there’s a capacity for a little bit more, I also realize it’s a temporary site, but really appreciated the work and the impact it’s meaning on the community. And also through next steps, some people residents have reached out looking to see how they can support people as they transition out of this housing and into other housing. So if there’s any focus on ways that the public can become involved in help our neighbors become housed and support them in that journey, happy to have that as part of the report too.

So just a comment, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Palosa, Councilor Raman. Thank you and through you. So on item 2.1, I just wanted to say thanks to staff for the report.

I’m a little concerned that we’re getting a bit more operational in this discussion around who should go where and how and what criteria are being used, et cetera. And just wanted to return the conversation back to a governance place. So just with that, I am looking forward to the next report understanding what those costs were and how we move forward in any other future recommendation. But overall, just wanted to say thanks for the tremendous work on that.

With 2.2, the Strategic Advocacy Framework, I really appreciate the report that’s in front of us because I have a chance to see all of the efforts that have been put forward so far this year. But I do note there are things there that potentially don’t fit a category. So sometimes they don’t show up for that reason. But I do know that your team is on it and those are things that you’re working on.

So I do appreciate seeing all that’s in front of us. One of the things that I quite like about the report that’s in front of us is not only does it help to frame what we’ve done in the past, but where we move to in the future and what continues to be the priorities. And I think that in general, I’m starting to think a little bit differently about how we align those priorities and ensure that we’re all having strategic conversations that are in the same direction. And again, this report just reminds us of where those conversations take place and where their best place.

So again, thanks again for that and I’ll leave my comments there. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Ramen. That exhausts, oh, Councillor Trussa.

Thank you very much and through to the chair. Given the amount of information that we’ve received, I think it might be difficult to draw a hard line between the policy, especially looking forward and the operational. I see in the report that, I see in the report just to use the right word, that we’re working with the coordinated access working group to coordinate participant referrals. Does that group make the decisions about who gets admitted?

Mr. Green. Thank you and through the chair. Yes, that group is comprised of both city staff as well as staff from the other supporting partners in our social service kind of agencies.

And they do make the decisions through different criteria that they select as discussed earlier. So that could be as we did prioritize the first cohort for those who were unsheltered, but it also had criteria of their willingness to move to that site if they had any partners to come with them, pets to come with them as the micro-shelter is one of the only shelters that it does allow pets. So there was a whole list of criteria and that group does take that criteria into account and make the best decisions on who goes where. So they’d not only decide who goes to the micro-shelter, but they also place people in the other shelters as well.

Council, trust how? Thank you, through the chair. I take it that list of criteria is something that’s been published and available to council. It’s not already in one of our reports.

Mr. Dickens. Through you, chair, no, I believe that’s not published for council. It’s what the coordinate access staff use.

It’s very much like the assessment tools we may use or, but it’s, no, we’ve not published that for council. Is there a reason why that’s, sorry, thank you. Is there a reason why that’s not published for council? When we’re not asking for names of individuals, we’re looking for the criteria, Mr.

Dickens. Through you, chair, just for clarity is council asking for the criteria for selection into the micro-modular shelter, or the various criteria that coordinate access uses when we’re determining placements everywhere. Well, I’m following up, excuse me, thank you, through the chair. I’m following up the conversation that we’re having based on the representation that was made by staff about how there is a list of criteria that is utilized to determine who gets into this particular facility, and I’m trying to probe a little bit what is on that list and how we might be able to see that.

So just before I go to Mr. Dickens, ‘cause I think it’s a legitimate question, Councillor, I’ve allowed a little bit of leeway. Folks have asked some questions around encampment, management, some of the CIR work, but we are on an update to the micro-modular. So there’s an opportunity to ask about the micro-modular criteria, but if we start veering off into questions about criteria for placement with our some of our third party providers, like homes unlimited or partnership with Indwell or whatever, I’ll rule that out of order.

It’s not relevant to what’s on the agenda today, but Councillor, I hear you’re asking just for this particular site right now. So I will go to Mr. Dickens. Through you, Mr.

Chair, Mr. Green has touched on a lot of this criteria in his answers already. This is the coordinate access working with a reach organizations. A lot of it is assessment-based, it’s information-based, it’s, hey, we’ve got a group of people here.

Are these folks likely to be successful? Are they interested? Some of the things are hard and fast, do they have a dog or not? But a lot of it is more of an art than a science, and so while we might have some general criteria that we’re using in the conversation with the individual that they’re trying to place, it’s not like we just have a static form.

And so I think giving you a list of criteria, we’d be happy if that’s what Council directs us to do in the April update, but just know that it is not a, just a paper-based sit-down assessment. A lot of this is subjective, a lot of it is nuanced, the situation changes, but we’d be happy to, if that’s what Council wants, is to give you some of the rough guidelines that the professionals use. Thank you, thank you, I’ll continue this discussion when we get the next report. Watson Park has been mentioned.

Could you give me an estimate of how many people are in the current facility, the micro facility, who came from Watson Park? I’d be a little concerned, Councilor, that we’re starting to veer into personally identifiable information to start giving numbers of specific locations where residents have come from. I will ask Mr. Dickens if he or Mr.

Green have information that they can share, but I think we are starting to get into some questionable territory for public session questions. Mr. Dickens. Thank you and through you, Chair, I wouldn’t have that information handy anyway, but I would just say at the highest level, we have 68 individuals that were previously unsheltered, that are now at the micro shelter, and people don’t always stay to one fixed park and one fixed ward, they do move around quite a bit.

Councilor. Well, that, in all due respect, I’m not asking for personally identifiable information, and I think the group here is large enough that I would not be able to infer anybody’s identity. If you told me there were 20 of the 60 were from Watson Park, or 15 of the 60 were from Watson Park, I would not be able to deduce the identities. I’ll save this for now, maybe I’ll get back to it at Council if you could get us a little bit more information, and I’ll certainly be compiling my questions for the April report, because I would like to, I mean, I support this program and I want it to work, but I also feel as a Councilor that I have some responsibility to understand this better than I do, and a lot has been on faith because it’s been rushed and we wanted to get this started.

But as we go through a second or third iteration of this program, I think that it would be very reasonable for Councilors to be asking these types of questions. I would not want to see a situation where, for example, we’re trying to clear a certain encampment, and I’m not saying that that happened, but I think it’s reasonable to ask for aggregate statistics. So we might also want to brush up on what the privacy rules in terms of where you draw the line between personally identifiable information and aggregate statistics are before we have this conversation again. So thank you very much, I’ll leave it there for now.

Thank you, Councilor, so that does Councilor McAllister. Thank you through the chair. I just wanted to clarify something. I was just speaking in terms of one experience.

I’m in no way inferring that that is the only one. Just speaking from my ward experience, I’ve had people move in and out of Watson. I have people who’ve been chronically homeless for years predate my time on Council. As staff have said, there’s a lot of criteria, but I do think, as has already been said, we’re kind of going into the weeds.

I just wanted to point out a success story that had been conveyed to me because I know people have benefited who were on house to my ward. So I’m sure there are other success stories and I hope Councilors will take that opportunity to speak with staff ‘cause that was just something in terms of my conversation. So I’m not trying to just highlight that. I just wanted to point to that as a success story that we can all look to, thanks.

Hey, Councilor Ferreira. Thank you, Chair. Well, the questions that Councilor Truso was asking are similar to my questions. And I believe that some of those aggregate data, I don’t want any personally identifiable information at all.

I just want to know how many individuals from certain parks, maybe even the previous service depot parks have been successfully moved into the micro modular shelter. So I was under the understanding that we would get an email back with that aggregate data. So again, I think we’re straying into encampment management rather than the micro modular shelter piece. Ms.

Dater’s bear. Thank you through you to the members of committee. I am ecstatic and pleased that committee is very excited about this initiative and that you’ve given us the support to ensure that up to 70 people are housed in this community. We have great support from Expera and others in this community and I appreciate your desire to get information.

We are being respectful to the fact that a number of vulnerable people in this community have been housed here and we will try to give you as much information as possible. We are not trying to keep you from getting that information. People who are living on a house do tend to move from different locations. You’ve heard that already.

We’ll try to get you as much information as we can, but I also want to be assured that this is very fluid. I’ll put it that way and individuals come and go, but I can tell you that some that we would have seen would have been supported through all the initiatives that we as the city have been involved in, not only the warming centers this year, but also shelter services and other services in the community. So we will provide you as much information as we can in the next report. Councillor.

Councillor Stevenson, you have about a minute and 50. Yeah, I just have a quick question to follow up on this. I think it would be really helpful to get that encampment data though that is available. You know, if we know that two weeks ago there were 14 people in Watson Park.

We haven’t had that kind of detail and to have it would really be helpful with the overall picture because when we just did the warming center the last time we just did it, I was surprised there were 73 people there given that we just created this new space of 70. I was hoping to see the number go down more and maybe it’s gone down in the encampments, but it would be really helpful to know that we are making a difference and be able to relay that to the public. So I would support getting some more detailed information in April. Again, we have gone through everybody who’s wanted to be on the list at least once, but I’m going to start, I’ve cautioned colleagues, I’m going to start ruling out of order, operational questions about encampment management, the report that’s in front of us today is the micro modular update.

So with all due respect to colleagues, stick to the item on the agenda, please. Councilor Pribble, and then Councilor Ferrer, you want to go again? Councilor Pribble. Sorry, Chair, I’ll be really brief, but I’m going to, you might say that this is what you just said, I’m a little bit away, but I want to say a couple of things, which are staff already reiterated, but I want to say it again.

These individuals, they move from one another. If you’ll get the statistics and our staff is going to tell us they came from this part, they could be there only two days and three weeks before, they were in the other one, point one, point two, the warming centers, they’re not going to help decrease the number of the encampments, we let them out in the morning. Where are they going to go? Back on the street and back to the encampments.

So it’s not going to make any difference. Thank you. Thank you, because I was about to cut you off. Any other speakers on the micro modular update?

Seeing none, then both items have been moved in consent. I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. Councilor Pribble. Yes.

In the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you colleagues, moving on. We have no scheduled items. We have a number of items for direction.

We’re going to start with 4.1, the draft economic development strategy. We have requests for delegation status from two individuals as well as a presentation from Deloitte, who’s our consultant on this. So I’m going to ask for a motion to approve the delegations. We will then hear from our consultant.

We will then hear from the delegates. Then we go into our discussions. Councilor Hopkins is willing to move. Councilor Ferrer is willing to second the delegations.

And we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote to approve the. Councilor Pribble. Yes. Housing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero.

Okay, thank you colleagues. So I’m going to invite Mr. Fowler to give us an introduction from staff. Then we’ll go to our presentation from Mr.

Blaze from Deloitte. And whenever you are ready, Mr. Fowler, go ahead. Thank you, Chair and through you.

Thank you for having us here today. So Deloitte is here today to present the full economic development strategy and implementation plan for your review. At the January SPPC meeting, committee members expressed interest in an opportunity to review the full plan before staff came forward with the request for endorsement. And so that’s what today is focused on.

The vision, the strategies and actions in this plan are built on London’s strengths and are designed to reflect what business leaders and community leaders said they wanted for this city economically. And also what they’re looking for from their city government as one actor in the ecosystem to help make that happen. And so as you look at the actions, you’ll see that many focus on systems and processes and governance and that’s deliberate. It reflects an understanding of the city’s role in creating the conditions for economic development and really leveraging our functions in funding and policy and advocacy.

And as I’ve come to really appreciate the role we can play in convening. So for me, one of the most consistent messages we saw in the ecosystem review and in the engagement is that London has the right ingredients. We have good bones in economic development and we need to work on the connective tissue. So it’s about how we come together and how we organize and what I heard and saw when I looked at the literature and the conversations that I was part of, we are well positioned as an organization to help bring folks together, to encourage the alignment of efforts and to build a stronger culture of working collectively for London’s economic future.

So I’m pleased to introduce Paul Blay from Deloitte LLP, Canada, who will walk committee through the strategy. Mr. Blay is a leader in economic development with deep experience in this work working with cities across Canada. You can read more about him and the project team in appendix C of the cover report.

Those are my opening remarks on that. Thank you, Mr. Fowler and Mr. Blay, go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the opportunity, Trevor. Thanks for the kind introduction.

As Trevor mentioned, my name is Paul Blay. I’m managing director of economic strategy and impact at Deloitte. On January 13th, my colleague, Rebecca Taylor, was in this very spot presenting a draft economic development strategy to you. Since then, we have continued with engagement with members of the city’s economic development ecosystem.

And today, I’m sharing a refined version. It’s designed to live with the city, adapt as conditions change, and guide coordinated action over the next five years. I’ll start with the vision mission and guiding principles and walk through the five pillars at a high level. The vision reflects London’s strengths, a creative identity, strong post-secondary and research institutions, a diversifying industrial base, and a strategic location with access to major markets.

The mission is clear about the city’s role, align the system, close coordination gaps, and focus municipal investment where it generates the greatest return for residents and businesses. Before the pillars, these principles describe how the city will make choices while delivering on its commitments. They reflect the values expressed during engagement and establish shared expectations for how the city approaches economic development decisions. Strategy is organized into five strategic pillars.

These five pillars define where the city of London, working together with economic development partners, can have the greatest impact on London’s economic future. Each pillar is grounded in quantitative research and engagement results with over 200 individuals, and identifies where London currently stands, what success looks like, and what the city will do within the economic development ecosystem. Actions were selected under these pillars because the city and partners have a distinct role, and the efforts that are taken are feasible, and they will have a positive impact. These will move the needle on jobs and investment in the city.

The report has more evidence from engagement in quantitative research, and also includes detailed implementation plans for each of the pillars. Pillar one is about people, because talent and innovation underpin everything else. London faces significant workforce pressure. A projected 40,000 new workers are needed by 2031 due to growth, retirements, and sector shifts.

The first strategic initiative is where the city will convene a talent working group to set a small number of shared annual workforce priorities and create workforce navigation map, so employers and job seekers can find the right supports quickly. Second, taking action with the second initiative will improve the retention and economic involvement of students, newcomers, and underrepresented groups by strengthening pathways from education to employment, and supporting inclusive retention practices. Thirdly, pillar seeks to strengthen the innovation ecosystem by piloting a co-investment fund, establishing an inventory of innovation spaces, and continuing to modernize approvals so innovative firms can scale. Second pillar is about being investment ready, which means to establish the conditions that ensure London is an attractive place to invest.

London’s priority sectors align nicely with global growth trends, but action is required to ensure the city gets its share of future investment. The pillar focuses on London’s competitive advantages by aligning site readiness and infrastructure into an investor-ready roadmap and advancing work like with the Life Sciences Innovation Hub, while also integrating creative and cultural industries into sector planning. Second, a focus will be on activating the downtown by identifying underutilized buildings, preparing an investment portfolio, streamlining approvals for tenant improvements and adaptive reuse, and piloting small business resilience supports. The third initiative in this pillar is to strengthen commercial and community hubs, city-wide by focusing on zoning, infrastructure incentives and branding, treating them as one integrated investment portfolio.

The third pillar recognizes that many major investment decisions are regional, so this pillar positions London as a coordinating hub. The recommendation includes an initiative for the city to deepen collaboration across Southwestern Ontario by coordinating infrastructure and investment plans, advocating for trade-enabling infrastructure, and telling a shared regional investment story that highlights complementary strengths. Also, the aim is to build, build mutually beneficial economic partnerships with indigenous nations, starting with a dedicated indigenous-led engagement process to identify shared priorities. Pillar four, mobility enables opportunity.

Stronger air and rail connectivity will improve London’s economic position through a focused advocacy strategy there will be enhanced alignment between regional partners to make evidence-based cases to decision makers. Secondly, the city will drive local and regional mobility improvements by working across municipalities and agencies to better link communities, jobs, campuses and employment areas, and by coordinating advocacy for investment. And thirdly, the strategy positions London as an aerospace innovation center through an aerospace innovation zone around the airport and partnerships that support testing, manufacturing and talent development. Strategic pillar number five addresses the backbone of implementation.

First, the pillar aims to enhance coordination and accountability by establishing the economic development partnership around table and updating funding agreements so priorities, outcomes and coordination, expectations are clear. The second initiative is about aligning internal city processes by strengthening cross-department coordination and refining service standards with performance tracking and continuous improvement when it comes to economic development. And the third initiative is to improve measurement and transparency through an annual economic development outcomes report that shows what’s been delivered, what’s working and what needs adjustment. Before I close, I want to sincerely thank the city’s team and the people who form London’s economic development ecosystem for sharing their perspectives, experience and contributions.

This strategy is ultimately a weaving together of the capabilities, opportunities and hopes that they have for their city. What we hear today along with what we’ve heard through the engagement process will directly inform the next phase of work. The city will lead additional consultation through April before the final strategy is brought forward. Importantly, the strategy is intended to be a living framework.

It is one that depends on continued collaboration, shared accountability and real world feedback as it moves into implementation. Thank you again for your time, your candor and your commitment to London’s future. It has been an absolute pleasure working on this with you and your team. Thank you, sir.

We will keep you around for questions if you’re able to stay for a little while with us. But we will move now to our delegates. We have not made a decision by alphabetical order or by rock paper scissors. So Mr.

Henderson and Mr. Zafeman, we’re going to just invite you in the order that your delegation status requests were received. So Mr. Zafeman, you are first.

And I know you’ve presented to us before. If you can just give us your name, the organization you’re representing and then you have your five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Jared Zafeman, CEO with the London Home Builders Association. And you know, it’s nice with the last name starting with the Z to not be last for the first time. So I do appreciate that. Thanks for the opportunity to speak today.

Keep it brief. Certainly appreciate how the construction industry is discussed in this report. To be honest, just speaking today, just about how critical that industry is for our community. I think on an ongoing basis every year, Council often is presented with assessment growth and where that comes from quite often is from the construction industry.

Obviously, there’s, I think, a bit of positivity in this report, not here to sort of share pessimism, but at the same time, just to present some realities to this Council and that over the next number of years, we certainly see some concern ahead for our industry that without certain supports, that this could be challenged for the years to come. So certainly ideas and ways that you can support modular construction, which I know is part of this report, certainly could be part of the future that it looks at, especially in part because of the challenges that we foresee over the next eight years, particularly with a number of retirements on the horizon. We also are quite concerned that if there are not sort of substantial changes or supports for the industry in the next couple of years, those numbers of retirements and shifts from this industry to other employment areas could grow. So just wanted that to be mindful for Council as you explore the broader economic strategy for the near-term future.

Certainly feel that obviously Council with the housing accelerator funds very much geared towards housing, there are certainly opportunities, I think, to support this from an economic development perspective and we’ll leave it there for now. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Safeman and Mr.

Henderson. Welcome, again, I know you’ve done this before, but if you can just give us your name, the organization you’re representing, and then you’ll have your five minutes. Thanks, Chair, let me get this right. Thanks, Chair.

I’m Graham Henderson, CEO of the London Chamber of Commerce and timer set up here. We ready? So on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, I wanna begin by saying that we support the direction of this draft economic development strategy, and it’s subject to several comments that we believe would strengthen it before final adoption. I also wanna acknowledge Trevor Fowler, Cathy Parsons and the good folks at Deloitte for the considerable work that has gone into this document.

It reflects thoughtful effort and offers the first full expression of how earlier direction setting work is now being translated into a comprehensive strategy for London’s economic future. And there is much in the draft that is encouraging. The stronger treatment of culture and downtown is welcome. Downtown is now described as an economic and cultural driver.

The strategy rightly treats London’s UNESCO City of Music designation as part of the city’s economic proposition. Culture appears more clearly in the vision, in the ecosystem description, in sector planning, and in downtown activation. These are meaningful advances, and they reflect in understanding that culture and downtown are central to London’s long-term economic future. We are also encouraged, oops sorry, we are also encouraged to see indigenous reconciliation addressed more directly in this draft.

The document makes clear that reconciliation requires action, and it points towards indigenous-led partnerships, a more intentional engagement process, and possible future equity partnerships in infrastructure. This is meaningful progress. The chamber has been urging this kind of movement for almost a year, and we’re pleased to see it in the work. At the same time, the city now has an important guide that recently approved for a conciliation plan, and that plan should shape the next phase of the work.

To this point, however, the Reconciliation Plan does not appear to have played a meaningful role in guiding the development of the strategy. Council will want to ensure that this changes as implementation moves forward. The key task is now execution. Economic reconciliation needs to be visible, not only in partnership language, but also in procurement, workforce development, placemaking, public realm planning, cultural programming, housing, and accountability.

In other words, the Reconciliation Plan should function as a lens across the strategy as a whole. Sorry, this is gonna eat into my time at the same time. There are several areas where further refinement would strengthen the final product. First, the relationship between the economic development strategy and the downtown plan still needs to be a much tighter, much tighter.

The chamber has consistently argued that these two exercises must work together in a far more deliberate way. If downtown revitalization is central to London’s economic future, Council needs a clearer mechanism to ensure alignment in implementation, governance, and measurement. Related to that, Council should seriously consider the creation of an arm’s length municipal development corporation focused on downtown regeneration. Properly structured, such an entity could focus on the acquisition and assembly of strategic downtown sites, interim activation of underutilized properties, partnership packaging, and the advancement of catalytic projects that are too complex or too slow moving to be driven through the ordinary process.

Regional collaboration, if it is to succeed, needs a practical definition and regional partners. The themes are sound, but what is needed is a clearer set of priority outcomes, lame lead partners, timelines, and right measurable results. Third, the stronger recognition of culture in the draft now needs to be matched by execution. Culture should be treated as a practical driver of economic development, talent attraction, city building, and investment.

That means clearer ownership, clearer measures, and stronger connection between cultural development and economic implementation. Finally, I wanted to speak briefly about the role of the chamber itself. Our submission to you encourages clearer recognition in the final strategy of the role that the chamber can play in implementation. Economic development is a central pillar of the chamber’s own strategic plan, and the chamber is well positioned to support delivery as a business-centered connector, as a convener within the implementation structure, as a source of market facing accountability and business feedback, and as an advocacy partner on infrastructure, mobility, competitiveness, and regional priorities.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Henderson. We appreciate that presentation from the chamber.

Before we move into questions and comments from colleagues, I’m going to go back to Mr. Fowler, and if you can just outline for us the timeline of next steps, because I think that there might be beneficial for colleagues to understand. We’re not actually amending the draft plan today. We may be providing some commentary for your further consideration and when you would be coming back to us.

Absolutely, thank you, Chair, and through you. So that’s quite right. Today is intentionally presented to committee as a report for information. This is designed as an opportunity for you to have a look at what is in the recommendation from Deloitte, and to have an opportunity to make comment without committee today to an endorsement request, which is scheduled for Q2 of this year.

In the intervening time, it’s our plan to incorporate the feedback from today’s session, and also to conduct further engagement with leaders in this community, with the intention of we hope to like secure buy-in for the directions outlined in this strategy. I wish we’d said this in the covering report, but we also intend to use the equity lens and the climate lens tools that we have properly on each of the actions that will come forward to counsel for endorsement at the end of Q2. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.

Fowler. So I hope that just frames the conversation for colleagues today. So just for a little further clarification, we have two communications from Mayor Morgan. Those would be something that we would receive today.

Staff will take those away and incorporate them in the work that they’re doing on the draft revision. Similarly, I know Councillor Frank circulated to the clerks earlier, something that she wanted to be included. So while you can speak to that today, Councillor Frank, the ideal scenario stepping forward would be to add that communication to the council agenda, so that it’s formally on the record, so staff can take that away as well. Again, certainly something we can talk to today, but we’re not making additions deletions.

We’re providing feedback to staff today to incorporate into the next iteration that they bring forward. So that’s how we’re gonna proceed colleagues. And Mayor Morgan, I know you had your two letters. Did you wanna speak to them first or did you wanna wait?

So I’m gonna look, so are you willing to move the receive and then speak to your, so we’ll move the motion to receive the staff report and the communications and delegation submissions. Get a seconder for that, Councillor Ferrera, and then you wanna be on the speaker’s list next. Go ahead. Okay, I’m happy to second that for you.

A technical question, I don’t have any communications, but I do have feedback. Am I able to verbally say that feedback and have staff still come back and incorporate that into the final document? Mr. Fowler.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Oh, through the chair, yes, absolutely, pardon me. Yes, so all of our verbal feedback today is something the staff will be capturing as well as the feedback that we had from our submissions.

So, yes, thank you for asking that so that Mr. Fowler could confirm. So that’s been moved and seconded. I’m gonna go to Mayor Morgan to speak to his communications first.

Right, and I’m just on the heels of what you said. The Councillor before asked, we’ll be incorporated. I think what we’re doing is suggesting things to consider. We may not necessarily agree on some of the things that we share, but I think you’re looking for our individual feedback as Councillors on the document.

Although, come up point, you may include some, you may not. We’ll have the recourse if we feel like you didn’t listen to our comments, which you may not, ‘cause we’re asking you to consider them, that we might wanna try to include them later as an amendment. We also may, not like some things you put in. We may try to remove that later as an amendment.

So you’ll see the way I’ve drafted my letters is, staff consider thinking about these things, right? And I understand that you may put some in, you may not. It may be structured under a pillar in some way. It may be part of a strategic framework, but I’m not gonna prescribe or say, put these things in for sure.

I just wanted to outline two things. For the consideration of the process, as you go out and engage with other partners, and as you think about the incorporation of the overall document and how everything fits together. There’s two pieces that I won’t touch too much, ‘cause I put them in writing, ‘cause I’m trying to get around my five minutes of time. The, I put two pieces in writing for consideration.

One, you know, I really do believe when we talk about economic development, and I’ll first say, I appreciate everything that’s in the document, I’m not lessening that. But I think there’s two pieces that, for me, are important. I think, you know, the economies of the future are gonna be driven by, you know, access and proper management of resources, and the two key resources are, you know, power and water, right? We have a utility, I think London Hydro is an enormous asset for public good in this community, and their capacity to provide power in a secure and stable way, their ability to engage as the province shakes up the electric industry means, I think we need to be forward thinking about that strategic asset as, you know, an economic development driver, and so I put some consideration to that in the document.

I think water, too, we’re one of the few areas in the world that can draw water from two significant, fresh water sources with dual redundancy and adequate and significant reserves. Our ability to provide a continuous, a stable flow of water in the short term is tremendous. You know, in the long term, you know, we need to think about the management of that asset and resource as, you know, high volume water users and AI, you know, starts to consume a lot of that resource. So I think, you know, from an economic development standpoint, you know, us turning our mindset to those kind of two pieces in the medium and long run is really critical to us being at the forefront of discussions, rather than being dictated to or trying to play catch up.

You know, the other piece I put in there is kind of a thought to return London to what I feel was an area of previous prestige. And that is we are a center for testing new products. We can be continued to be a center where innovation comes to try new things. And when I think about that, we have a tremendous amount of city assets, both within the corporation as well as within our boards and commissions and partner organizations.

You know, we have the ability to think differently about those assets and partner with private industry in the ways that we have, say, through wastewater, previously at the Greenway Plan, in saying, you know, we’ve got fire trucks driving around the city. You know, if you’ve got a new technology, you want to test a new type of GPS, like why couldn’t we use our assets, our fleets, to maybe be at the forefront of business development and innovation, rather than, you know, hoping there’s new technologies out there. So the idea that we would incorporate into the economic development strategy, this more openness to saying, you know, come and potentially utilize our municipal assets to create new products and innovate right here in the city. And if we set a framework that manages risk adequately, I think this might have a place in the economic development strategy, so I forward that for your consideration, too.

The other piece, and probably more controversial, maybe around the table for some of my colleagues, is, you know, the federal government’s interest in the defense industry, you know, we have significant defense presence in the city, we have an international airport, we could talk about aerospace and aerospace innovation, but there is a lot of federal investment moving into the defense space. There’s probably a lot of Canadian jobs at stake in that, and so, you know, we might want to think about how we approach that from an economic development standpoint. And I’ll just finish by saying, I appreciate all of the conversation from the delegates. I don’t want to comment on that now, I appreciate what’s in the draft report, and we’ll comment on that now as much.

I just wanted to have some time to forward a couple of ideas for consideration and future iterations of the draft that you can go out and consult on, so I appreciate your time and work. Thank you, Mayor Morgan. Just so folks know, my speaker’s list right now, and I did put you down, Councillor Ferra, I don’t know if you want to go right now, or if you want to wait, but I’ve got, Councillor Ferra, Councillor Pribwell, and then Councillor Hopkins, so you’ll wait, okay. I just wanted to make sure, ‘cause when you were seconding, I know you had your question, but I thought you were also wanting to get on the list, so I will go to Councillor Pribwell next.

Thank you, Chair. I do have two questions for Mr. Blay, and one question for Mr. Fowler.

I know if I cannot see if Mr. Blay is he still there, or is he at the podium? Yes, he’s still here. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Blay, as I mentioned, I have two questions, and I was comparing the strategic plan you made for us, together with the Markham and Oakwell, and when I looked at it, and I’m happy with it, thank you for that work, but when I look at it, for example, I think it was Markham or Oakwell that you have in the implementation plan lead. And when you put there in the lead, there was someone who was already accountable, specific person, who is gonna drive it forward. I did not see that in our plan.

Can you please tell me why it wasn’t included, or why you thought it wasn’t important, Mr. Blay? Thank you, through Chair, Chairman, to Councillor. The ecosystem in London is a little more complex than the economic development ecosystem in Markham.

You have an external economic development corporation, and you have many other agencies that Markham doesn’t have. It’s not to exclude the thought that we wouldn’t want to think about it, but there’s a need for more championing, more engagement, as Mr. Fowler has mentioned, going out and looking at this next level of engagement to include buy-in from the organizations. We have, and thanks to the Chamber’s remarks today, you can see that there’s buy-in there, and there is buy-in from a large component of the community, but there’s still more work that needs to be done to ensure that leadership is clearly defined.

Councillor Pribble. Okay, thank you for that answer, but I’ll be honest with you, I was really hoping that you together with our staff would kind of already show us the path forward. Path forward that we might not agree with, but path forward that we might get some suggestions, recommendation based on your experiences from other municipalities, because exactly what you said, I totally agree with you, but I was hoping that you would be narrowing it down for us. Question four, Mr.

Fowler, through the chair, the downtown plan is going to be coming up, as you said, Q2, and I’m quite sure it’s not going to be as aligned as it could be, of course, and I totally understand that, and that’s no one’s fault, because it’s of the timing. Who will be doing the better, deeper alignment with the downtown plan, because I’m quite sure that it will be beneficial of our municipality to be more coordinated these two plans together? Who will be doing it at once the downtown plan is finished? Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair, just, this is an update to everybody’s first at timing, so we had eventually suggested that the downtown master plan is going to come forward in the Q2 of 2026, so that is still the plan. We’re actually working incredibly integrated with the work that Trevor’s team is doing, and we’re going to bring those two plans to the same SBPC meeting. So you can see them both at the same time, we’ve integrated all of those aspects, and then you’re going to be able to approve it, or provide commentary at the same time, so we’re working really hard together to be able to provide that to you, and I think there’ll be some really great options coming forward.

Councilor Pribble. Thank you, Mr. Chair, to Mr. Mathers, just to follow up, if I understood correctly.

So when the two plans come together, if we feel that the strategic economic plan is not deep enough in the downtown, certain downtown initiatives, we will be able to propose to have it included, and it will be considered. Is that correct? Mr. Mathers.

That’s through the chair, everyone of you want to— Yeah, absolutely, through the chair. Absolutely, that’s the purpose for bringing these plans back to Committee and Council, so you have the opportunity to provide that input, so there’ll be absolutely the opportunity to provide that at that meeting. Thank you for that, and the second question was, Mr. Blavich, I forgot, but I remember now, but now look at the other ones, and it said, let’s say they’re pillars, or they were more targeted, more, I consider aggressive, improve investment readiness.

Attract new investment and jobs. Ours does cover these bases, but I feel, let’s say, in the other one, it was more aggressive, more targeted, more driven. Do you feel, or have you had communication with our staff, that our implementation plan is gonna be driven just as the pillars in the other cities? Mr.

Blavich. Thank you, through the chair, to Councillor. The initiatives that are identified, the strategic initiatives that are identified are identified because we think that they will have impact. We think that there is a locus of control that the city and its economic development partners have to ensure that that impact has.

So these are all identified because they will result in jobs and investment. To the point about the framing of the strategic pillar itself, I think what the main difference is is that there’s a verb at the beginning of the strategic pillars that the Councillor has identified. The verb is not here in these strategic pillars. It’s a consideration that can be given going forward, but it shouldn’t, without the verb, it still shouldn’t take away from the directness or the focus that the strategic pillar is meant to have through its initiatives.

Councillor? Thank you, Chair. No more questions currently. Okay, then I will go to Councillor Hopkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to Deloitte and to staff for allowing us to have this draft economic plan in front of us today and to have another conversation. I do appreciate the Chair reminding us where we are in the process. And I think it’s such an important plan in our city that I think sometimes we maybe jump the gun a little bit.

I also wanna thank the stakeholders here in the delegations because it’s important that we hear those voices as well as Council voices. And Mr. Fowler, I think you said it very well when it comes to having the bones, the good bones in our city, but the challenge and the importance of how we all come together, I hope this is a start. And I think this plan has kind of created that conversation in the community.

I do wanna just share some of my comments with you. For me, the pillar when it comes to transit or transportation and access is so vital in our city. As a growing city, I do think we are behind in how we support and our transportation, our transit and how we invest. We do need to catch up with the growth in our city.

I think it’s a very important pillar. I do wanna speak to pillar number three as well, which is the regional collaboration. And I’d like to just underline and just speak to that with indigenous communities. To me, and I’ll give you an example what happened this morning when I read the considerations coming from the mayor’s office.

And I wanna thank the mayor for bringing them forward. But when I read them, I automatically thought where is the indigenous component in these asks. And I was not confident in the economic plan that would give me that confidence that we look at everything through that indigenous lens. And in a way, it was a test for me this morning on how I look at things and how we can avoid adding other things to projects.

They should already be in the plan. They should give us that guiding principle that we don’t have to double check everything. And I’d like to see a better job being done with that indigenous component, how we can strengthen that. The other comments, I sort of wanna make just from my own perspective.

We hear a lot about AI. I’m not sure how that is taken into this plan. Regardless, it should be somehow a consideration, both the positives and the negatives. I think I just found that was an important part.

We don’t know what that future looks like, but I think we, from an economic lens, really need to consider that. Under aspirations, when it comes to the environment leadership and sustainability, I think we should be doing it now. We shouldn’t be aspiring to it. I think as governments, we do a good job at reacting to things.

But I would like to see that area strengthened. I was surprised to read that our wages here in London tend to be a little bit below some of the other municipalities. And that is concerning. I know there’s other cities that tend to have a more I guess a diversified kitchener, the kitchener Ottawa, those cities tend to have a greater wage.

We seem to be sort of a little bit stuck there. I’m not sure how we do a better job at that, but I think that’s a consideration that we need to take. So those are my comments, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Hopkins. And I will go to Councillor Trossow. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I have quite a few comments through the chair. I’d just like to, I’ll try to frame these in a series of questions. Just to be clear, we’re not being asked to approve anything today. This is just receiving this report.

Thank you, that’s very important to me because as this report is presented to us today, I do not think it’s ready for approval yet and I will be making some suggestions. Although I made suggestions last time and I don’t see them in here, but I’ll try again. So first of all, reconciliation. I think we need to go beyond just sort of reciting the words reconciliation.

We do that, we do that all the time. I guess a technical question I have though is this exercise that we’re going through right now, something to which the duty to consult would attach. Ms. Pollock.

Thank you and through the chair. This would not be something typically that would engage a duty to consult. Councillor. The word typically intrigues me because I think there’s a lot in here that could be subject to the duty to consult.

So could you refine that without using the word typically with respect to this particular exercise? Ms. Pollock. Thank you and through the chair.

So individual projects may result in a duty to consult that’s typically owed by the federal and provincial crown. There’s certain requirements under the Planning Act for a duty to engage, but it’s something you’d have to look at specific projects within the economic development strategy to understand whether there’d be a specific duty. Councillor. May I ask what activities have been undertaken so far that would be in the nature of consulting with the Indigenous peoples in the area?

Mr. Fowler or Mr. Blay? Thank you.

So thank you chair and through you. So as part of the engagement process here, there was a reach out. So we work with a project advisory panel who gave us some guidance on different organizations and individuals that we would bring out to the consultation or whether we would invite to the consultation. And so there were invitations extended there.

There was some uptake probably not as much as we would have liked, but there was some there. And then following that, there was some individual one-on-one conversations with an urban Indigenous organization and an investment corporation from one of the neighboring nations. And really, that’s probably the extent. That’s really where we saw, okay, that’s not enough, right?

And we know that and knowing that we had a delivery timeline for this initiative, the idea behind the action was to lock in the process, a good process that was properly resourced and that the key metric wasn’t the timeline, but the quality of what we were building. And so that’s why it’s in there as an action that sort of looks beyond the planning period for the strategy. Okay, I’ll leave it there for now. I will come back to that when we approve this, because as things stand right now, I don’t think it’s been adequate.

And I’m just letting you know that’s the direction I’m going in. How can the clearer connection between this report and arts and culture, as suggested by one of our speakers, be incorporated into the final report? Because, well, I think there is more mention of arts and cultures in this report, so it’s a marginal improvement over the last one. I don’t think we’re anywhere close to where we need to be in terms of this area.

How can that be improved, Mr. Fowler or Mr. Blay? Thank you, through the chair, Councillor Truso.

How can it be improved? Well, there has been, I mean, there has been an effort made since the last meeting with council in January to improve it, and thank you for recognizing that. The main focus for us with this economic development strategy was to change the impression that is in the community, perhaps, in certain circles that culture is not— we want to ensure that people come around to seeing culture as an industry, as a creative economy, as a set of occupations and business types that lead to employment growth. It’s not just, quote unquote, events.

It is an industry, and you have such strength within the community, not only your institutional supports that drive the creative economy, but you have designations like the UNESCO City of Music, which can and has been creating momentum behind a more creative industry. And you have investment. You have investment in many areas of the city that are all to do with the creative economy. So we’ve made an effort, the idea of future direction, I suppose, is to see how that could potentially be improved.

But again, we’ve taken this to an end where we’ve heard from more than 200 people. It’s been nearly 10 months of conversations. At some point, Council will need to make a decision to move forward or not with a plan that’s on paper. And this is to the point where we’ve taken it.

Thank you. Councilor. OK, I’ll just briefly comment on that. I think a much closer nexus is going to be needed, and more emphasis is going to be needed as well.

I know I’m probably running out of time, so my next question deals with the more detail, I believe, is needed on how to activate underutilized properties. You talk about the problem of underutilized properties. I don’t see enough in this report to satisfy me in terms of where this is going. Could you speak?

I mean, is what we’re doing now OK? And we just have to follow that through, or do we need new programs or approaches in terms of dealing with underutilized vacant? In other words, properties. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Councilor True, so there’s more that can be done for certain. There’s inferred in the initiatives our enablement funds to stimulate investment. There’s references to one stop London or a one stop source of streamlining approvals processes.

There are a number of things that are holding back investment in underutilized property and creating underutilized properties or ensuring they stay vacant longer. And there are a couple of examples of ways of moving it forward. Councilor. Well, I think one of the barriers through the chair is that some owners are just sitting on their vacant properties and they’re not utilizing them.

And I certainly hope that that is something that’s given some consideration and treatment. I see that there is a implementation cross-projection, and I’m wondering if that could be broken down further and how you arrived at those figures. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The cost estimates, whether in staff time or in staff time and in pure costs are based on our experiences on our team of working in economic development at a municipal level, but also working as a consulting team with municipal economic developers. And they’re based on guidance of existing budget and opportunities for potential budget. Councilor. OK, I’ll let that go.

I consider that to be pretty vague and I hope that that will be concretized a little bit in our next report. And finally, with respect to transit, we just went through a very, very long multi-year project dealing with our mobility master plan. So I don’t think we have to reinvent the wheel here in terms of the wheel. That’s funny.

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel in terms of the transit piece of this. And I certainly hope that you are taking into account what we’ve already done and we’re building on that, because I just feel that this is sort of an empty shell in terms of how you deal with it in terms of what we’re doing internally in the city. So I’ll just leave it at that. I’ll say I am not satisfied with this report.

I don’t think adequate progress is being made. I think that a lot more work is going to have to be done. And I wish you well in doing that. But there’ll be no surprises in terms of the position.

I’m taking on this. I really need to see a lot of improvements made in those areas that I just spoke to. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor Trussow.

I now have Councillor Ferrera. Thank you, Chair. Just crossing out some of my questions, because they were asked just now. So I’m not going to be able to ask all of them, but I still have some.

So the first thing I guess I’ll start with Mr. Fowler. I really appreciate the work that you did. You have been very engaging our monthly meetings, all the work, me calling you off meeting time, saying, you know, what about this?

What about this? I appreciate how responsive you’ve been. I also say to Ms. Parsons, I think you’ve done a great job as well.

I’ve only spoke to Deloitte once. I don’t believe I spoke to you, Mr. Blase. But I do understand just how the framework works and how you do the development.

And then we kind of go through city staff and how that process works. But I think so far the report does give us some details. It does leave some room for more details. I understand we’re still at like a theme level.

So, you know, some of the concrete actions hopefully will come as staff picks up the work from here on out. And then we see those concrete actions. I want to ask the questions that were asked. I do appreciate the last questions that were asked by the last three or four counselors.

But I do want to ask, I guess, the ones that haven’t been asked. And I guess I’ll start with pillar one. And I see that, you know, the strategy correctly identifies the workforce mismatch as a problem. And I see that a delivery mechanism is kind of being contemplated a little bit, but not necessarily pointed to.

So I wanted to know what is specifically meant by, or what is the intent, or what can we expect when we are talking about improved workforce navigation? And what will, I guess, physically exist as a result of that work for employers, for workers, and for students and newcomers? If we could get like an idea of what we might see with the final report, Mr. Blay.

Thank you, Chairman. The outcome of improving the workforce ecosystem is ultimately to ensure that employers who are looking for job employees of the future have those employees when they’re needed in the marketplace. So that the ultimate outcome is that employers are able to move to market faster with their more quickly, with their innovations, and they’re able to scale their businesses, or mean, in some cases, just maintain their businesses as ongoing entities are not face downsizing or closure because of ineffective workforce capabilities in the area. So that essentially, that’s the main outcome.

Is that the direction that you’re looking at for your question? Councillor. Just any like concrete initiatives, like a development panel, or I guess, like how will that actually function when it comes down to, let’s say, a potential employee looking to connect with an employer or vice versa? If you have any information on that, Mr.

Blay. Thank you, through the chair. One of the strengths of London’s workforce ecosystem is that there is a channel for anyone who’s desiring to find a pathway to employment to access. So there’s not necessarily improvement there.

It’s the interconnection of them so that everyone is working. I think one of the main things to do is to ensure that all agencies have a clear picture of what the workforce of tomorrow looks like. To Councillor Hopkins point about AI. That’s where that would certainly come in.

The skills and requirements that are needed in the future so that all agencies are working towards supporting a London focused strategy on these are the types of people that are required in the future, move the training supports towards in those directions so that people are more quickly employable when they complete training or skills improvements. Councillor. Thanks for that. Okay, I guess my next question, I do want to just expand a little bit on the indigenous partnership part.

I do see the report does speak to the indigenous led partnership development and that does suggest more consultation. But I wanted to know with the indigenous led engagement, how does that translate into practice? What structures are being used to make sure that this is shaped with indigenous partners and what structure are we considering to make sure that there is an equal partnership between the two? Mr.

Glae or Mr. Fowler? Thank you, Chair. The recommendation, Mr.

Fowler did a really nice job of describing the engagement that has occurred to date. And as we’re preparing the strategy draft, we felt that as he has said that engagement has been good but it hasn’t perhaps gone as far as needed in order to be more specific within the strategy. So thus the more general nature of this initiative and recommendation, it’s not appropriate for us to identify initiatives at this time without concurrence from our indigenous nation neighbors. So the engagement needs to get, the next steps need to get to that point where there is consensus or agreement on the types of initiatives that would be impactful and that the municipality and the nation have some control over.

So how do you get there? Well, it is, it starts with conversations and it ends with conversations. The nations have development corporations, they also have councils. So navigating where, at what level, conversations need to take place from staff and the nation as well as from council and the nation are important considerations to make because there are conversations at different levels.

And I don’t want to make it sound, it’s certainly not a simple process but it is about building trust over time and finding pathways that are mutually beneficial and clearly seen as mutually beneficial. That’s all right. Thank you, Chair. How much time do I have?

Two minutes and 30 seconds left. Okay, I appreciate that answer. I would hope we get some concrete frameworks for the final report. Okay, I’m gonna move on to downtown ‘cause this is obviously a big thing for me.

And I do see that downtown was named as a priority and I see the practical tools are a little more open-ended at this point and I feel like they may ultimately depend on what comes through with the downtown plan and I do understand the downtown plan is gonna come to the committee at the same time. Those are two very large documents that we’re gonna be expecting. So it’s gonna be very heavy. But I wanted to just know as this strategy is supposed to be aligning with the downtown plan, what specific levers are being contemplated for downtown like under pillar two, I should say?

Like with business retention supports or with investment marketing or approvals or like modernization of things or court or activation. I wanted to know if we had any idea of what specific tools we may expect. Mr. Blay or Mr.

Fowler, either one of you. Thank you, Chair, to Councillor Ferrera. The specific mechanisms are not defined within the strategy. The strategy is meant to provide guidance on where the most impact can take place.

So I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to answer very specific. This is the tactic that should be utilized to improve the situation. After the initiative that’s been identified. I will say there’s eagerness across the ecosystem, the economic development ecosystem, the different agencies that are involved to support downtown.

It’s clear we’ve spent more time discussing the pros and cons of positioning the downtown in the economic development strategy draft than any one single issue. It’s a complicated one. Ultimately, we wanted to ensure that the strategic pillars were identified as we could be seen as city-wide priorities. And that’s why the downtown maintains its place as a strategic initiative within pillar two.

It does not take away from the importance that is seen by the ecosystem on it. And on the importance that we place on it, continuing to be and enhanced as the heart and soul of this community. Councillor Ferrera. Thank you, that’s a fair answer.

I have a suggestion then for alignment when I think it would work with the economic development strategy and that would be kind of the governance structure. And I know Mr. Fowler and Mr. McCauley, if he’s here, we’ve had this conversation at depth with when it comes to the governance team.

And really, who has the responsibility on the administrative side? Is it, you know, and where does that initially lie? Can that be within senior leadership? Can that be under the city manager?

Can that be one of our arms length corporations? I wanted to know, I want to make a suggestion that we have whatever the governance structure falls, that we have a specific team that is focused on downtown’s plans initiatives and has that team aligned with the economic development strategy for city-wide. So I wanted to know if I could just maybe ask staff, you or Mr. Fowler or anybody who can answer, what are some of the discussions or what are some of the possibilities that we could have when it comes to that governance approach and what specific areas or just how would it look?

Like, is that a possibility? Is that something we can do? And how would I give that direction? Can I just say it here and you look into it and bring it back?

We’ll go to Mr. Fowler to start. And I’ll just let you know, Councillor, you’ve got 30 seconds, Mr. Fowler.

Take a chair and through you. So certainly we’ve had the governance conversations in the system optimization pillar. There is a pillar, there is a strategy that’s focused on the internal like alignment within the city of how we’re going to manage this. Like the economic development as a subject area is very diffuse and it manifests across our city in various service areas.

So as we look toward coordination and optimization, we’re very much looking at how we do that within the city too. And so that is a concrete strategy for us. And we don’t have the specifics nailed down because for us, this is a strategy and it’s both direction more than the precision of each step at this point. All that to say, those conversations and those possibilities have very much been contemplated.

What we’re looking to do with this strategy is to cement the intent and the direction to pursue those. All right, I’ll try to use my 30 seconds wisely. I do think that a good way to align the plan, the downtown plan and economic development strategy would have maybe have a governance structure that has a core portion of that, a team, a person, or whoever that has a focus and the ability and the responsibility to see the implementation through the downtown plan coming through. So I would just say that and I would like to see that in the final report.

Running out of time, I wanted to speak about the airport. I got jet fuel running through my veins. So I got a lot of information there, but I don’t think I have the time. So yeah, you actually are out of time.

You’re wrapped it up right there on the spot. Looking to see if there’s other speakers, I’ve got Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and thank you for the presentation. Just to be honest, I haven’t supported this from the beginning.

So I’m happy to be proven wrong at some point, but it was just for the city to spend a quarter of a million dollars on a strategy, as you’re saying, not a plan, is it’s like, again, after all the plans we’ve got, it feels like this is a starting point instead of something that we can walk out. And it feels very general, very vague, and very widely spread. So I’m open to hearing like, what is the value? What would you say is the value that’s been provided by this report?

What am I missing? What have we been given that we didn’t have before? Mr. thank you, Councillor Stevens and through the chair.

What you have now that you didn’t have before are priorities. As you can even see through this discussion, there is a unique idea of what economic development is to each and every person, and multiply that by the number of delivery agencies that you have in the community. Multiply that by the number of people who sit on boards and commissions or run businesses in the community. There are countless numbers of ways that people see economic development should occur and the highest priorities that things should be given.

So we have narrowed that down. We’re down to five strategic pillars with two or three initiatives within each one. And that will provide support for the city staff to come with, to create business plans and to come to you for direction and for funding to implement initiatives that will, when implemented, have a positive economic impact on the city of London, Councillor. Okay, thank you.

And when I noticed on page 19 that it’s got the $4 million, $835,000 for one-time strategic studies and feasibility work, 600,000 a year for five years for annual program investments. So will each of these be coming to council for approval? Like when we get this and we say we approve it in April, is it just gonna go and we’re gonna be report back? Or the details of this gonna be approved by council?

Mr. Fowler. Thank you, Chair, and through you. So depending on the cost center, some of these can be accommodated within existing budget.

And so we would be looking to execute those. Anything where there is a new incremental cost to the city, we would be following the established budget process. And certainly for some of the bigger cost items, we’re, it’s our thinking at this point that it would be part of the next budget process. So it would come back to council then.

Councilor. Thank you, maybe I missed it, but I thought this $4 million was already approved in the, in our multi-year budget that we had. Mr. Fowler or Ms.

Barbo? Thank you through the chairs. So through the last multi-year budget process, there were some placeholders that were put established to fund the plan, but there were no formal approvals for anything coming out of the plan ‘cause that was not yet known. So certainly as Mr.

Fowler described, anything that is a new investment would need to go through, likely through the strategic plan, then through the multi-year budget as a business case and everything would ultimately be subject to council approval as part of the multi-year budget. Councilor. Thank you. So then this estimated cost in the formula, we’re not looking at anything actually happening until the next multi-year budget.

Mr. Fowler. Thank you, Chair. And through you, I would say anything significant in terms of new costs.

There are a number of items in the plan that are about coordination governance and infrastructure pieces that we can do with an existing budget and with existing resources. And those would be the pieces that we would prioritize for action now. And some of those are really contact setting pieces that we hope then create the conditions for some of the cost initiatives to be more successful. And those will come later.

Councilor. Okay, thank you. I noticed in the report, it talked about London added 18,000 net new jobs with more than 70% of that growth concentrated in health and social assistance. And that comes up quite a bit through the reports, health and social assistance.

Can you let me know what social assistance is? Mr. Glick. Thank you, Chairman, to Councilor Stevenson.

The health and social assistance is an industrial code that Statistics Canada uses to track. It’s one of, but it doesn’t high level industrial codes that Statistics Canada use to track, excuse me. And social services is, I think what we may imagine it to be agencies that are established to support the health and welfare of members of the community. So there are organizations, agencies, there are likely some private sector businesses in that space as well.

Councilor. We get used to it. So then just to follow up on that, in the conclusion, in the appendices, it talks about healthcare and social assistance. And one of the key challenges and trends, it says fragmented funding for integrated municipal responses.

So I was just trying to, can you just maybe explain more about that key challenge? Mr. Blake. Thank you, Chairman, Councilor Stevenson.

The challenges probably in the context, without reading it right now in front of me, the context is likely in, sorry, the point is being made likely in the context of, how do we identify priority sectors that hold potential for the growth of London’s economy? That’s a priority for us in terms of being able to identify strategic directions that will have the most impact on a community. In the case of situations where funding, or let’s say economic growth, or economic maintenance of a sector is highly reliant on external factors, like a provincial agency or a federal agency, then the ability for community and municipality to have impact on that sector and create growth within it is limited. So we would move that sector down the wrong in terms of priorities.

We would concentrate more on sectors where a municipality or a community through its investment in time and money can have a positive impact, state readiness, investment readiness, incubation, innovation and technology business support. Councilor? Yeah, thank you. This was specifically around social assistance though, right, health and social assistance, ‘cause we’re not doing health funding.

So I’ll maybe, if I have some more specific questions, is it, who should I be emailing on the more specific ones here? Mr. Fowler, I’m going to guess that that would be to you. Okay, thanks.

There was also a mention here that 43,000 untapped labor potential not in the workforce with barriers disproportionately affecting indigenous racialized women, people with disabilities, newcomers. I did go to the reference point, but I didn’t see anything. Is it possible to get the actual statistics on that? Mr.

Blay? Through the chair to Councillor Stevenson. Yes, absolutely, we can get you data to support that. Councillor.

Okay, thank you. So then on my page 104, it talks about results. And when I look at this, I worry that we are doing this again, where we’ve got such a broad scope that we’re all over the place looking at everything and then we’re not really focused. So given that this is an economic development strategy, we’ve got results, we’ve got economic growth and workplace development, downtown revitalization and urban vibrancy.

But then we’ve got housing and community stability, sustainable and environmental leadership, tourism and culture, regional integration, transportation. I mean, if it were me, I would go through, I would cross out, like I would only keep economic growth and downtown revitalization. Housing is a separate thing, sustainability, tourism, regional, transportation, public perception, inclusivity. I mean, I think we should just focus, because we’ve got so many plans, as you’ve seen.

This one, to me, should just be economic development and strategy so that we can keep it tight, hold the attention, otherwise we’re all over the place and we don’t even know what happened. So that’s my feedback there, would be to cut it right back and keep it tight. And then on page 120, it talks about streamlined processes and clear points of contact. Respondents express frustration with bureaucratic barriers and a lack of clarity in city processes.

They would like a more welcoming, efficient and accessible system for navigating city services, obtaining permits and accessing economic development support. I can’t tell you how often I hear that. And that that would be a game changer for many of our businesses. The other thing is we talk about bold ideas.

I didn’t really see any of me. I might have missed them. Maybe those are coming once we get the strategy going. The openness, accountability— No, sir, just want to let you know you’ve got about 30 seconds.

OK, I’m all four. I’d like to know the KPIs. So if we’re going to have an annual report, I’d love to know as we approve it. And we all agree on what it is we’re measuring and getting back next year.

And I’ll leave it there because I’ve lost my spot here. But the one point of contact, one point of accountability, an overview, I think, is concise as we can keep it, that these are the very important things. We’re going to measure them. And we’re going to report them.

And we’re going to celebrate. Thank you, Councillor, and that is your time. Looking for other speakers, Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes, and I’ll mostly just be making some comments.

And I appreciate staff’s willingness to respond to some of my questions in advance. I also echo Councillor Stevenson’s comments just now in regards to having some KPIs for the final approval. I’d really love to see that as well when that comes to us for final review. I did circulate some of my comments to my colleagues, and I’ll submit them as well to the council agenda.

But specifically in regards to strengthening the strategic pillar number two, I would also like to explicitly add completing and implementing a circular economy framework that’s in our strategic plan and in our climate emergency action plan. And so I think it’s important that we continue to see some movement on that, especially given the resource recovery innovation hub we have at the south end of the city. I also would like to see some pursuit of opportunities to attract green economy industries. I think as we look to the future, it’s important for us to try and future-proof some of our economic choices.

And the green economy, including clean technology, renewable energy retrofits, is one of the fastest expanding sectors. And I think it’s important that we recognize that and reflect it in our plan. Additionally, under strengthening strategic pillar number three, for regional collaboration, I would suggest we build on the existing efforts of the inclusive economy, London and region group. They existed for about three years, but due to lack of funding, no longer exist.

But they did a lot of incredible work in regards to building an inclusive economy and finding anchor institutions like the city and the hospitals and the university and trying to build local economic chains, which is why I suggested under item number three. I think building that work really supports local labor force participation, as well as addressing the regional supply chain. I also want to say I like, in general, item 4.2. So I want to keep that in regards to improving regional and local transportation, sitting on the transit commission we hear regularly about the need for more industrial transit servicing.

So I think 4.2 is great. I also like the mayor’s suggestion for energy and water. So I would support some additions for that to be included. I will also say I heard mention of AI a lot.

I don’t want to see any mention of data centers in any of these plans unequivocally personally, because I know that they are a huge draw on energy and water and provide very little economic benefit. So just wanted to throw that out there. I’m also personally not interested in prioritizing any investments into defense or military. I did hear some comments on that.

Just wanted to share that. In regards to item 4.3, the aerospace innovation zone item in actions, I’m worried that some of it might actually work against some of our already council endorsed strategies, including the climate emergency action plan, depending on how it’s actually implemented in regards to the aerospace innovation center. Some of my concerns might be addressed if I understand what kinds of manufacturing, testing, and services would be provided. And I’m not saying that’s not an important industry.

I just don’t know to earlier comments if we should be prioritizing that when we have many other competing priorities. Because I’m worried about a lack of public benefit in regards to seeing that strategy. So predominantly some concerns being that if it is more about increasing how many flights are coming to that location, I see some issues with public health concerns as well as environmental concerns. But if it is more about developing new technology or ways to improve the aerospace sector from a green perspective, I’d actually be interested in it.

So I’ll probably spend some time between now and council learning a little bit more. Because I might either be supportive of it or against it. So those are just a couple of my thoughts. But I will submit them to council and, again, appreciate the work that’s been done so far.

Thank you, Councillor Frank. I have Councillor Raman next. Thank you and through you, Chair. First, thanks to Deloitte and those that participated in the consultation and the team from our city staff as well for all their leadership on bringing this work forward.

But I’m a bit lost as to what our next steps are. In terms of the process, I understand another Q2 2026. We will get the final version of this report. But right now what I’m hearing is a lot of members of council inserting their own opinion on where we’re heading.

But I’m not sure how we take that to council— to actual council direction for staff to bring back. So I need a little bit of clarity, because I could go for five minutes on all the things I’d like to see in the plan and where I’d like to spend my energy. But I don’t understand how that process works right now. So I’m just looking for some clarity.

Mr. Fowler. Thank you, Chair, and through you. So this is about dialogue.

This is about stress testing. And I would say every conversation that we’ve had since we first started forming drafts has resulted in new insights, new and great critiques on ways we can push it forward. And so as complex as the conversation can be, it is helpful for us. And we’re soaking this all in, and we are operating this all down.

And we are, I believe we are tasked with taking all of this away and synthesizing it and putting forward what we would advise is the best approach based on the work that’s been done so far, what we heard today, and also some conversations that we plan to have throughout April and made with others in the community. And so if you have pieces that you want to share things that you think we need to push harder on or step back from, we want to hear it. This is a form to have a conversation here. We’re also happy to hear afterward if that’s your preference.

But really, we’re interested in hearing what’s working and what’s not. And we’re going to take that back and do our best work to deliver the best final strategy for you in Q2. Councillor? Thank you.

OK. I appreciate the exercise that we’re undertaking at this time. My challenge is I don’t know how we discern what’s important if we all have our individual perspectives on what’s important right now and how they align with the report. So for instance, when I look at this report and I read the portion of the report that ties into health care and social services, I see opportunities that we’re missing when it comes to our research and innovation sector where I see health care research going in this city, how we seem to have a room be missing, the integration of health care research within and understanding how we interact with that because we are at the municipal level.

So I’m not sure maybe if you can expand on how those conversations have went around health care innovation and what maybe the participants see as the role of the city in helping to foster an environment for health care research. Mr. Blay or Mr. Fowler?

Yeah, go for it. So thank you, Chair, and through you. Yeah, so in terms of the health care piece, of course, we have data that shows the health care is a priority sector health care and life sciences. We’ve engaged with members from the health care field as well as folks from Western who work in innovation and I guess I would characterize the conversations as a conceptual agreement that there’s partnership and collaboration opportunities and a desire for the city to engage more in being part of the planning and of the mobilizing resources.

We haven’t gotten down to what exactly we’re going to do but the intent is there and that’s where the conversations have been with the folks that we’ve talked through the engagement process and I don’t believe anything to add to that, Mr. Blay. Thank you, Mr. Fowler, through the chair.

You set it up well, we had even in the presentation a couple of weeks ago to members of the ecosystem we had representatives from the post-secondary community and they liked what they saw in the draft gave us some recommendations to bring forward which we’ve incorporated. But I think to Mr. Fowler’s point about the next steps, if there are specific ideas that you’d like to have come forward then there’s still opportunity for that. That’s all.

Thank you. I’m just wondering in terms of orders of magnitude where do you see the greatest opportunity within the pillars? Mr. Blay.

Thank you through the chair to Councillor ramen. We don’t want to prioritize the pillars I suppose because the five are equally important. The last one is not there last but not least. It’s there because it is a coordinating function and while the ecosystem is working well there are ways to improve the city’s participation in that as well as the outcomes from other agencies.

So that is a critical one. If one thing needs to be done as an outcome of this work it’s the ongoing, we call it a table, a round table for my words today but that kind of ongoing conversation where the ecosystem is actively rowing in the same direction and those directions are the four other pillars. There’s tremendous potential in technology-oriented industries, green industry, the broader macroeconomic evolution of our economy is towards that. So London is quite well positioned and I know through conversations there’s frustrations that it just isn’t more even at this point in time but the opportunity, the potential still exists to elevate that.

So I can’t help but think that is an incredible way to not only bring to one councilor’s point about increased wages in the community, increased business prosperity, less environmental impact, all of those synergies with London’s current corporate strategy or municipal strategy align when it comes to technology-oriented investment. Councillor ramen. Thank you, okay, I understand how that answer went in the direction that it went in. I’m just wondering perhaps more in line within the scope of the different sectors of which we’ve looked at if we have more, if we can have more clarity on orders of magnitude from the sector perspective.

I can see it broken down in employment data in the appendices but I’m wondering from a future trend perspective, where do we see the opportunities for growth and whether or not that can be given to us in some form of an order of magnitude? Thank you, through the chair. The opportunities are in technology development within each of the sectors, I suppose. If it’s manufacturing, if it’s food processing, it’s in advanced manufacturing.

It’s in increased automation, increased skill sets required to operate facilities that have more automation. Within the more pure technology, research and development sectors, it is increasingly about making connections with post-secondary institutions and ensuring that the talent base exists in the city of London to not only attract that kind of investment, but ensure existing investors have the workforce, the skills that are required to scale their businesses when it comes to, so that’s speaking to most of the largest sectors within the employment base, as you mentioned, Councillor. Technology-oriented businesses and manufacturing in London are the two strongest and then services delivery when government and social assistance services and health sector is really, again, still more about technology-oriented improvements, and that is where the macro economy is going. That’s where countries like Canada will continue to succeed to capitalize on the talent and the business base that we have.

Councillor. Thank you. So, my interest is in the advanced manufacturing, the technology, the automation, the healthcare defense, but also an entrepreneurial, and when I read some of the data that’s in the appendices around entrepreneurs, I see that we have an interesting statistic around immigrant entrepreneurs here in London, and I’m wondering if you can speak to kind of the recommendations we may see come forward from your team on what should, or I guess that’s more implementation, but where we should take that information. Well, through the chair to Councillor ramen, the ecosystem exists to support entrepreneurs, and there is a recognition within the ecosystem that new Canadians immigrant entrepreneurs require different types of services than someone who’s been here longer.

There’s adjustments to working within current banking, within banking systems, with getting technology support funding for businesses, which is different for immigrant entrepreneurs. The broader perspective of ensuring that London is positioning itself as a city of future, of equality, of having its eyes on the future of technology is attractive to those looking at Canada as a place to invest their time and their money. And the more London can be on that stage, and ensuring that not only that perspective is out, but also the economic development players, whether it’s at the city or LEDC, Chamber of Commerce, or any other agency are connected to the brokers, I guess, for those connections with immigrant entrepreneurs, the better position the city will be. Thank you.

Yes, I’m interested in the point around reducing borrowing costs, lower interest rates, supporting innovation and entrepreneurship at the local level through some incentivizing as well. And I’m just wondering how much information we can anticipate to receive further than that. Right now, it’s just kind of a sentence. Mr.

Blay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councillor Raman, I don’t have an answer specific to that now, but I can go back to the team and see what information may be available for that, is that sufficient and provide it through Mr.

Fowler? I’m sorry. Thank you, that’s excellent. My last point will be around youth and looking at the information for youth in our community here, looking at unemployment rates, as well as educational pathways, just wondering again, I know we’ve engaged in institutions, just wondering how much more we’re going to do to get a sense of how we can help spur growth there.

Mr. Blay. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Raman, can I provide the same answer as the last one?

Yes, we will. Sorry, anything. Thank you, that’s it. Thank you.

Okay, I have no one else on the speaker’s list. I am gonna ask Councillor Raman to take the chair, just I’m gonna offer some brief comments myself. Thank you, I have the chair, go ahead. Thank you.

So I wanna say to Mr. Blay and Mr. Fowler and all of the team that have been involved in this, thank you for the work that you’ve done so far. Perhaps I have a different view of this than some of my colleagues.

I don’t expect at this point, although certainly in the final draft, some general KPIs might be a good thing. The reason it’s a strategy and not a plan is because economic development requires partnerships. Economic development is not going to happen because this council says do X, Y, and Z. It is going to require investment from the private sector.

It’s going to require businesses stepping up and saying that they wanna play an active role in our community as employers and as investors. And we can identify any number of things that we want to work on. If no partners step forward to fill that role, then it’s simply not going to happen. So we can have all the strategies in the world.

And I’ve said this to folks during the strategic plan development as well. When you have 150 priorities, you have no priorities ‘cause when everything becomes a priority, nothing is a priority. So I don’t want to get into the weeds. I don’t want to get into the details of how is this going to happen?

How is this going to be implemented? Because I think first we have to have the strategy and then we have to go out and we have to talk to partners at the Chamber, at Tech Alliance, at the Small Business Center, with the Home Builders, with the Development Institute and find partners who are willing to move some of these items forward. Now I will say a couple of the things that I really find positive coming out of what we have in front of us today. And I know this is one of those items where Councilor Trussow and myself and Mr.

Henderson all agree that the UNESCO City of Music is a key component of what we can do on the cultural scene in driving economic developments in our city. So I’m happy to see that component continue to be referenced in here. Picking up where Councilor Ferrer ran out of time, I think the emphasis on the London International Airport and the opportunities there are fantastic. I think, and I’ll say, this is a great example of where we don’t all agree.

I don’t agree at all with Councilor Frank’s concerns. I think this actually is a very valuable part of the plan. I think we’ve underestimated and undervalued what our airport can do for us for honestly for decades in this community. So I think that there’s tremendous opportunity there for both freight and passenger travel and the attraction of businesses who are able to bring in things by air or send out things by air, but also who have access through Veterans Memorial Parkway to the 401 corridors in the entire region.

So I think those are a couple of very positive things in here that I’m very, very supportive of. Let’s develop that transportation piece is particularly around aerospace. I’ve had the opportunity to visit the International Test Pilot Center. We have some heritage to our city involved in the aerospace industry with the training of World War II pilots, with the secrets of radar and the Jet Aircraft Museum are out by the airport.

There’s a cultural piece to that as well. And so I am very, very supportive of those things. I also support the comments that the mayor made and his submission around energy and water and to Councilor Hopkins point around in collaboration and working with the indigenous communities, especially on things like shared water infrastructure, I think is a really critical step forward. And I don’t think that that is paying lip service to reconciliation.

I think that’s a real action towards reconciliation if we’re developing partnerships that develop better water and wastewater infrastructure for all of our communities. So I see us going in the right direction here. I will say that I do share some of Councilor Stevenson’s concerns about perhaps being a little too much that maybe a few of these things are being prioritized where perhaps the return on investment is not going to be as valuable as some of the other ones. And again, I come back to that.

If everything’s a priority, nothing is a priority sort of mantra where I think we may need to look at some things that maybe are elevated higher than perhaps, but we’re going to see the ability to actually execute as well. Because when we hear about things like activating underutilized or vacant properties, well, colleagues, we all know the budget numbers. We’re not sitting on tens of millions of dollars that we can go out and buy properties. 30 seconds.

So there are realistically going to be budget limitations on this as well. That’s why we have to see those in the next multi-year budget business plan of business cases as well. But I think we’re off to a good start. Thank you.

I’ll return the chair to you. If no one in the speakers list. Hey, if we have no one else on the speakers list, then Councilor Pribble is your hand up for a second time? Yes, it is.

I do have a quick question through the chair. In the report, it states next steps, this report marks the completion of Deloitte’s engagement in the city of London on the economic development strategy, et cetera, et cetera. But Mr. Blay, he was writing a few points down and my question is to either him or to staff if this is correct or if they are going to take those points further.

Mr. Fowler. Thank you, Chair. And through you, in terms of final deliverables, the appendices that are in front of Council represent the final deliverables for the project.

There are project close out activities. And I like to think that we have a good relationship through this project. And so I can anticipate that the work, the notes that Mr. Blay is currently writing down will be part of that final project close out phase.

The substantive work to occur between April, May, June into the Q2, that is going to be led by staff because this is the conclusion of the formal contract piece with Deloitte. Deloitte. Thank you very much. Through you, Chair, Mr.

Blay, can I receive your confirmation as well? Through the Chair, Councilor Pribble. Yes, we will work with Trevor and get the information to Council that’s been requested. Thank you very much.

Any more questions? Thank you, Councilor Pribble. Councilor Van Wieberken. Thank you, Chair.

I wanted to perhaps echo a little bit about the blessings that we enjoy geographically here in London in this part of Canada, this part of Ontario. These of you are access to international markets. I mean, we only have to look at the CPKC rail line that seamlessly travels right through into Mexico and from there, truck traffic can get into Central America and South America and through the US, of course. And we have to remind ourselves that that market, the US market is an hour away by transport truck from London, Ontario.

You look at these transportation linkages and yes, with the London International Airport, a very robust airport, long runways can handle very large freight aircraft. So there are, we have an infrastructure blessing in addition to the geographic blessing, which begs for not much improvement to be very, very effective to get to very significant markets. And that’s really what attracts investment is they, they see that they can access these significant markets and have willing and wanting customers. Everything, you can see it all kind of linking up and that is indeed a challenge is to get through that.

But for example, the water, I mean, again, that was stated earlier. The water is an amazing asset, it’s high quality water, huge volumes available. You look at the food processing industry, it hasn’t been talked much about, but we’re surrounded by some of the best farmland in the country in North America. And food processing is increasing in this area and that requires vast amounts of water.

So all these ingredients are around us, they just need to be connected and maybe improved upon a little bit. More streamlining on the transportation infrastructure, but again, excellent rail linkages, the airport, the 400 series highways connecting up with the interstate system in the U.S. And we just remind ourselves again that if we can get through these next three years, we will almost certainly have a less troglodyte president. And I think we can all look forward to that.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Van Wierbergen. I have no one else on speakers list. So I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote.

Having grown up watching terminators, hopefully the data centers don’t need too much power to process the vote for us, Councilor Frank. Councilor Perbal? Yes. I vote yes.

Boarding Councilor Trossau as no. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to two. Thank you, colleagues. So that completes our first item for direction.

And thank you, Mr. Blay, for your time. You’re certainly welcome to stay and watch the rest of our scintillating agenda or proceed with other work you might have this afternoon. We do appreciate you spending so much time with us.

Moving on item 4.2 is the mayoral direction 2026001, creation of affordable home ownership incentive program, report back on program options. We do have two requests for delegation status. So I’m going to first look for a mover and a seconder to receive the delegations. Councilor McAllister and Cuddy, thank you.

And we will ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Councilor Perbal votes yes. Councilor votes yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero.

Thank you, colleagues. So for the second time today, Mr. Zafeman, despite having a last name that starts with Z, you get to go first as you were first on the agenda. So when you’re ready, just as before, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jared Zafeman, CEO at the London Home Builders Association. And again, nice to go first.

Thank you once again for opportunity to speak to this program. You know, we’ve had a chance, obviously, to delegate in front of committee previously and shared a bit around our thoughts on this program. You know, as I mentioned in previous remarks, certainly we’re finding there are challenges locally in our economy, especially in the construction and the home building industry. You know, so we are right now advocating with all levels of government to see where support can be found, really in part to help get more people into home ownership and to get more homes built in our community, which have a significant economic impact.

This program and what’s been brought forward, certainly we appreciate all the work that staff has done on this. I think it’s helped bring a lot more information and ideas out to council, which is helpful. I think one thing we have found is certainly we, still very much as an organization, found that the, from the report itself, feel that we still speak very strongly to the idea that this program, we felt would have been most beneficial as a rebate that could have gone directly to builders to help offset the, excuse me, the list price of a home. When we speak about this program and the way that it could potentially most help with affordability, that if someone could potentially reduce their list price by that total amount versus potentially getting a check after the fact, could have likely the largest impact to helping with home affordability.

At the same time, I think recognizing with a number of conversations with councillors, I don’t know if we really found a lot of support with that and it’s certainly understandably in part based around challenges relating to residency at the address so that there’s concerns around home flipping or rentals. So certainly heard those challenges and concerns. So I really don’t know at this point, certainly if there is a directive here or a specific option that might have the most support. What I will say is certainly appreciate, I think the mayor’s creative support in this in trying to use the Housing Accelerator Fund dollars to be able to support development charges essentially.

The idea of using the Housing Accelerator Fund to help create new housing units which certainly is the intent of the fund, I think is an excellent way of doing it. And it also prevents the potential of development charge reductions going on the tax base which I don’t think anyone on council really wants to do. At the same time, we are certainly challenged in trying to find ways to help reduce prices for homes for all home buyers. And so finding that any additional criteria could certainly make this program more challenging and could limit the potential pool of eligible candidates to it.

So again, we are certainly in your hands at this point and hope that however comes out of this that there could be obviously hope and support for our industry and getting more homes built and more people into home ownership. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zachman.

And we’ll invite Mr. Wallace now for his delegation. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of council here today.

I do want to repeat what Jared had to say. I agree 100% with his presentation. I do want to thank staff to be frank with you on having the, we were proactive after the last meeting with where you sent it back with a bunch of changes. And we need to be frank that the changes that were added to the potential of the program, we expressed to staff that we thought the uptake on it would be limited at best.

And so we needed to strip back to where the mayor had taken the leadership role on how to get this half of money out the door and support home ownership. And if that wasn’t going to happen, that we would look for another way for that half of money to get spent so that it supports the development of new housing and housing in this community and using that half of money before it expires. And so I’m not going to comment on what the discussion would be on option one and option two and so on, but the mayor did send a letter, I have it here that in the piece and I appreciate the leadership on this, what at the end of the day, where the industry is looking for council to help the industry using half of money. And in this, in the previous case, was using half of money and builder’s money to move the yardstick further on developing housing that in ownership that we spent a lot of time and effort on the rental side, we thought this was a great program for the ownership side of the equation of the housing market.

And so we look forward to what the discussion is today. In principle, we believe in the direction that the mayor has put out in his letter here, but we’d be happy to hear what the discussion is if there’s any of the options that are put on the floor. But the more hand caps you put on this program, whether you’re a first time buyer, whether you’ve lived in London all your life, the more hand cuffs you put on it, the less chance the program will have success. And that is not what you want, and that is not what we want.

So appreciate hearing what the discussion is today. And as an industry, are more than interested in working with you and staff and making sure that we put this half of money that you have left in this fund to good use to make sure that we are able to put shovels in the ground in this community over the next two years. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.

Wallace. Excuse me, colleagues. Okay, Mayor Morgan, you’d actually circulated an alternate motion. So I’m gonna go to you to see if you want to introduce an alternate to what was in the report.

Thank you. So yes, I would. I do have an alternate motion that I’ve circulated in the correspondence. I’d be happy to move that.

If there’s a seconder, I’d provide rationale for why I’m moving that. And I see Council Raman as a seconder. And the clerks have loaded that as a vote three in the East Gribe, if folks want to refresh. And I’ll ask the clerk to put it up on the screen as well so that the public can see it.

And then when you’re ready, Mayor Morgan, if you’d like to speak to it, go ahead. Sure, so I wanna first thank our staff. Thank Council and thank the representatives from the industry who consulted with staff on the report. The motion before you essentially receives the report and the other pieces of communication and then provides a direction that I’m hoping will satisfy what I’ve heard from my colleagues, what I’ve heard from the industry and what other colleagues have written in some of their correspondence on this.

Essentially, what it does is recognize that I’m not sure we can cobble together a majority of votes of Council today that would represent the original program as contemplated and be effective without the desire of colleagues to layer some conditions onto that, which probably, as you can see in the report, starts to shrink the possibility and effectiveness of the program in driving the number of units we want and supporting the goals of homeownership. But the Housing Accelerator Fund dollars are really important because we have a working timeframe that we have to try to get the dollars out the door to create the units to get the next tranche of I think 12 million or so dollars, I think it is. I will say I made one error in my letter. I said permits for new units by September 7th, 2027.

It’s 2026 that we actually have to keep the permits bold, but you can actually build them by 2027, I believe. So just a small error there in the correspondence in my letter, it’s not in the motion. But essentially, what I wanted to do with this alternative motion is recognize that our progress towards targets are really important. And so getting an updated report from staff about what our progress is, the remaining unit gap, time considerations, the risks to program outcomes of not achieving that, and the proposed incentive options that would support housing activity within the remaining program window.

So let’s try to maximize the use of the Housing Accelerator funds. To do that, I’m suggesting a couple of options, but I mean staff could bring back more. One is recognizing what was said here, and in part what Councillor Stevenson wrote in her letter. The idea of subsidizing development charges in some way for new residential development, but including options that could be targeted under the half money’s timeframes, and probably the half money’s priorities.

Like we could talk about targeting just the missing middle and those sorts of developments that we know that the half money was really designed to try to hit, and that we know is a bit of a lag in some of the progress we’re seeing on the housing development side. So that’s what B does. C recognizes the success of the ARU incentive program for existing homeowners that exists for exterior units. There’s two programs, right?

We had the built the exterior unit, and then there was an additional program that was if you want to house individuals from the list that we would give you extra money. I’m not talking about replicating that program, but what we saw was on the loan side of the program, just for creating additional units. There was a significant uptake for people who wanted to build those units, not exterior to the house, but as part of the existing house and adding a basement unit. I’m suggesting staff investigate, perhaps, moving to a grant portion of that loan program to try to accelerate the interest in that and drive a bunch of units in the timeframe to hit our housing fund target.

Again, staff would report back on whether that’s possible and what that looks like, but that piece of the recommendation gives that flexibility to see if we could actually achieve some goals there. And then, of course, D and listening to my colleagues’ desire for having a lot of the details, what are the implementations considered for each of these options, estimated costs, expected housing unit impact, whether or not it could be implemented under a community improvement plan, existing one, or whether we would have to have by-laws to counsel, because if we have to create a whole new community improvement plan, we’re talking about months and months of lead time. We probably missed the September window and we’re doing a different public consultation for a new community improvement plan than an addendum to an existing one. So that’s the direction I put forward is, let’s take kind of all of the discussion that happened so far, the intent to try to drive numbers, the intent to use the Housing Accelerator funds effectively, and then give staff the empowerment to say, come back as quick as you possibly can, with some options in these spaces, based on both the comments from the industry, the comments from colleagues, the letters submitted, and I think the discussion we’ve had, let’s see where we can go from there.

That’s what I’m put on the table, and I appreciate the second year for supporting that. Thank you, Mayor Morgan. We’re gonna look for other speakers. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you, I’m happy to have a new motion to look at and to be able to support because we do see the need that is out there within the industry and within people that are trying to purchase a new home right now. The initial plan that came, I couldn’t get behind it, as I already said, right? The administrative burden, the fact that it was a cash rebate after the purchase had already gone through, for so many reasons I didn’t like it, and I understand that some of the changes we made made it worse, but for me, that was intentionally to try to support the referral back for something better. So it’s good to have this.

I just wondered through you to staff, and I understand that this information’s coming, but is there any just sort of broad information we can get around the remaining gap and the approximate amount of the final payment for the half? Mr. Mathers, through the chair, I absolutely can provide you a very high level update before that more comprehensive report. So the final payments, there’s four payments.

Each payment is approximately $20 million each, so the final payment is going to be $20 million, and that payment is conditional on us meeting our targets or showing progress towards the targets. It’s fairly open-ended comment from CMHC, so we’re actually having a meeting with them tomorrow to be able to be able to give you more robust information at the update report. I can tell you as well that as of last week, we are at 84% of our target with approximately a little bit less than 20% of the time remaining of the three-year period, so we feel like we are on track, but we can’t take our foot off the housing accelerator. We need to keep moving and ensuring that we can move these permits forward, so we’ve reached out to the development community, and of course, as part of all of our normal meetings, and to be able to let them know that we’re here to be able to get these permits across the finish line and to ensure that we will get that final payment, but I will be able to provide you even more information in that report, but that’s a high-level update.

Yeah, no, thank you. I really appreciate that high level. It sounds like we’re close, and that’s great news. The other thing is I just wanted clarity on, it says directed to bring this back together with the mid-year update report, just wondering, I’m assuming we’re talking about moving faster than that, so if I could just get an idea of when we might have some of these back?

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, we’re, I want to bring a report forward to the April 14th PAC meeting. It would go to PAC ‘cause that’s where housing and salary goes to, but we actually want to get it done very quickly and bring that back to you.

Councillor. Okay, that’s great. One last question, these are all great answers, so thank you, this is getting better every time. And D, when it talks about estimated costs, will that have an approximate administrative burden cost to in terms of staffing?

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, absolutely, we can provide that. The good thing about the housing accelerator program and that it allows us to capture some of those costs for staffing unlike some other programs, so we will be able to capture that and include it in the report for you.

Okay, thank you. I think I’m happy to support this, so thank you. Okay, thank you. Councillor Frank, I have you next.

Thank you. Comments and questions through you to staff. I’m just wondering, is there a way we can guarantee that builders or developers will pass along the development charge savings in the final price to homeowners? Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair, so that is a bit more difficult thing to do in a program that’s a rebate program. We could ask for an itemized list for that transaction, the sales transaction, to show something like that, but again, that’s not as robust as what we suggested in our initial program of having that ability to have the lien and with the agreement with the actual homeowner, but there’s ways to do it, but just not as that robustly. Councillor Frank.

Thank you, yes. I’m not interested then in item, what is it? Item I and II, because we are unable to guarantee that the savings will be passed along to the buyer. And then additionally, if we don’t move along with these items with the funding, I think it’s about 5 million that was set aside, still go towards the two infrastructure projects and can we spend it in enough time that we don’t have to return it?

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, absolutely, yes. You’ll be able to reallocate that funding to the projects that are initially indicated.

Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes. I am open to exploring the III, the ARU incentive program. I do think that that is interesting and I would look forward to some feedback on that.

But at this time, I will not support the development charge rebate because there’s no way to guarantee that it would be passed along to new homeowners or buyers. So Councillor Frank, are you asking for I and II to be called separately, clause A? I think just II, I looks like, sorry, I looks like it’s in regards to just general reporting back. So II, yeah, II, I’d like to report on, or vote on separately.

Okay, we’ll make sure that the clerk set it up that way so we can deal with that one and then we’ll deal with the balance of clause A after we’ve pulled that one. I have, actually Councillor Frank was my last speaker on the list, so Councillor Trust, out your turn. Yes, I agree in large part with what was just said. I am not going to support two.

I think one is problematic ‘cause it talks about the proposed incentives. Actually, this is directed to Schuyler, so maybe I’ll wait for her to. Okay, I think one, I’m not going to support two and I think one would also be a problem because it talks about the proposed incentive option, so I’m thinking one should be voted together with two, but this is more of a procedural thing. So if I could have that.

Yeah, so I can tell you Councillor, in my read of this, one, so A, I is not tied to II. A, I actually refers to all of the incentive programs. Okay. So it’s actually, it is a standalone.

So I would only be asking for a separate vote on II. I think I’m just going to not even go through the reasons why I won’t be supporting II ‘cause I think I’ve done that in some detail at previous meetings unless anybody thinks it would be helpful for me to go through that again. No, no, please don’t. Okay, I’ll leave it at that then.

I’ll be voting no on II and yes on everything else. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Trussow. We have other speakers.

Councillor ramen and then Councillor Ferrer. Oh, sorry. Thank you and through the chair, just wanted to start by saying thanks to the mayor for bringing this communication forward. I was interested in seconding it to put it on the floor.

I am just wondering from city staff if how they will address those options with respect to the rebate and if there’s a way for them to address some of those potential concerns around that rebate being credited back on the home price instead of taking out the option or voting no, I’m just looking for a path to find some way that I can support it where I can see and evaluate where that money and how that money flows to the homeowner. Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, absolutely.

That would be part of the content of the report. We would outline anything that we could incorporate into the program that would allow for that information and also just provide you with any kind of alternatives that might be available as well, Councillor. Thank you through you. So this would go to the April 14th PEC meeting and then on to council.

How much time would staff need to then implement something like this and what’s the timeline after implementation that people would have to access the program? Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, based on what’s included here above, if it’s what we want to do is actually bring by law with the report so that it gives you opportunity to be able to make those decisions at the PEC meeting so that we can roll it out after the next council meeting because we really want to be able to hit some of those time frames to be able to get the funding rolled out and these programs rolled out so that it will be up to council to be able to go forward with it, but you’ll have all the information you need to be able to proceed, Councillor.

Thank you and through you. So on III, I’m just wondering if you can clarify for me, why do ARUs only apply to existing homes versus new builds? Like why can’t a builder that’s building an ARU with a, or sorry, building a home includes an ARU? Why doesn’t it count the same way as this does?

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, sorry for the confusion there. So it’s existing homeowners.

So if you have a home, whether it’s brand new or not, it would apply. It was just flagging that it’s not only open to people with brand new homes, it’s open to everyone that has a home. So the intent was to also have this applied to a brand new home as long as it’s owned by the homeowner at the time versus making that payment directly to the builder to create the unit. So that could be something you want to consider, but it’s at this point it would be open to a brand new home or to an existing home.

Councillor. Thank you through you. So I’m sorry, I’m still confused. So if a builder is building a new home and they have a purchase agreement from a homeowner and the purchase agreement includes that they include an ARU in the build that’s counted as two separate units.

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, yes it is, and they would be able to make a claim to this program for that. The homeowner would be able to make the claim to the program.

We weren’t, it’s really up to where Council wants it to go with it, but the intention wasn’t necessarily to include like a builder to be able to build a spec home within unit and then sell it. The idea was that the funding would go directly to the person that’s purchased the home, whether that’s a brand new home or whether that’s something that’s an existing home. So. Thank you, thank you, that’s very helpful.

So I’m interested in getting more information at this point, appreciate what we have in front of us, but I will say after reading the report, I was prepared to support an amendment today and bring an amendment forward to allow for that five year window and to create just some language around the fact that it’s the primary residency of the individual, not making it London that you had to own property first in London, but that you will, and this will be your primary residency. I think that could take us to the same place. So just wanted to put that out there. That’s what I was willing to support today, but I will move with what’s in front of us, but I think it could be complimentary to doing something else, and I’ll think about that in time for council.

Thank you, Councilor Raman. I have Councilor Ferreira next. Thank you, Chair. I guess looking at C or I as it is for the motion, I just like a technical question, I guess, for this one.

I see that this is supposed to be implementation for interior or basement in attached ARUs. Does that not capture an ARU that may not be attached to the primary residence, but on the property? Mr. Mathers.

Through the chair, so the program, the existing program already covers attached. This would add other forms of ARUs to be able to be allowed for that grant. So we already have attached ARU grant programs. This is just to add and allow more flexibility.

Councilor. So if the ARU was not attached, but it’s on the property, it still applies to the program. Mr. Mathers.

Thank you, and through the chair. So we currently offer a detached ARU grant program. What is being asked of us through this direction would be to expand eligibility to that grant program to not only include the existing detached units, but also interior units, expansions to existing houses, house footprints, and basement units, which we are seeing a lot of uptake on. Thank you, Mr.

McCauley, Councilor Ferreira. Thank you for that. I hear what colleagues are saying about I and II. My question, I guess, for the new residential development was with the financial incentive framework.

From what I understand, the program eligibility criteria meant that after the loan agreement and all the other agreements were set, then we would be providing the rebate to the new home purchaser after the fact, after being approved by a lender, after closing, after all of that. So I guess kind of focusing in on B, is that framework still applicable to B? Council, I just want to make sure so everybody’s using the same language you’re referring to II. II, I’m looking at the mayor’s, I’m looking at the added report, but it’s II on the motion.

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, so the way that this would flow from the perspective of if you did have a rebate program is that the developer would not be required or pay a reduced DC at the time that occupancy is granted for the home. Therefore, that adjustment in price would be as part of that purchase and sale agreement.

So the homeowner would buy a house that was reduced in price by the amount of the DC amount. So there isn’t any opportunity for something to happen after the fact. However, that price that is set at the time that it’s sold, that would be what the lender would be looking at as far as providing opportunities for the person to take other mortgage on in the property. So it would be based on that amount.

And that’s all happens before the sale occurs. Councilor. Thank you, sorry, to clarify. So the developer pays the 40% DC or reduces, I guess reduces the price of the home by that 40% of the DC.

But then our 60% of DC rebate that we’re offering, is that included in the purchase price of the home? Or is that still not included? And then we rebate it back after the close. Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair. So if we maintain that same 60, 40 split, and that’s something that the builders want to maintain as well, that entire DC payment portion would happen before the hellness saw both sides of it. Councilor.

Okay, so to clarify, just to make sure the entire amount would be considered for the lending approval part. So, ‘cause I’m focusing on obviously the affordability part for someone who is kind of right there, but they just need maybe a little bit more legroom to get to an approval from a lender. But that will be, that is seen before the agreements for the, okay. So that’s my only questions.

I still, I hear the concerns from the other Councillors about I and I, so I appreciate splitting it out like that. I do like I-I-I, and I would be interested in seeing, I guess the implementation considerations for I-I-I or IV. So just to, I guess a technical question here, we’re not directing anything. We’re just looking for a report back on more options, correct?

That’s correct, Councillor. Okay, thanks. I’m going to go to Councillor McAllister first. He hasn’t spoken on this one, Councillor Trussow.

Councillor McAllister, go ahead. Thank you. So I was trying to flag somebody down over there. So I appreciate the clerks for that.

So, and through the chair, I like options. I think we have had a number of debates like this where we’re not all on the same page. We were looking for, you know, a few different options. And so I’m supportive of this, just to see what things look like.

I think there is an appetite for a program. I think we might have different opinions in terms of where that lands, but I’d like a full suite of options before I make any sort of a decision. I’d also say with the rebate portion, I guess I have a few questions with this as well, but I have a question through to staff. In terms of a rebate, for a program like that, would we put in, in terms of like participants to the program, like is there anything that would come from the city in terms of who is interested, who is participating in it?

Would there be any way from our side, in terms of communicating to the public, who is part of this program? Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, absolutely.

Part of any of our housing accelerator or any of our CIP programs, especially if they’re ones that are actually directed to the public, we undertake a communication strategy, we develop for each of these programs and get that word out. So we’re happy to be able to do that for this effort. We don’t necessarily provide a list of preferred contractors or anything like that. So we don’t get into that kind of detail, but we’re happy to provide information for the organizational sites and things like that, to be able to connect people, but absolutely we would have a full communication plan, strategy on this.

Councillor? Thank you through the chair, appreciate that. ‘Cause I mean, I hear the hesitancy from some of my colleagues in terms of having a rebate program, but where I would struggle with it is, I have a hard time believing if developers are just taking this cash, I mean, you probably wouldn’t be in business for very long if you participate in a program like this and take those dollars. So I think there is some reputational accountability that would go into this.

There is clearly an appetite for developers in the city to have something like this. So I think there is already buy-in. I think there obviously we need to look at those checks and balances, but I do think even on the surface that it would be difficult and you know, reprehensible for someone to take those funds and not use them as intended. I did have another question in terms of the community improvement plan.

Obviously this is a report back to look at options, but I’m just wondering in terms of what we currently have on the books and whether we think that’s robust enough or would we be looking to make further enhancements to the CIPs? Mr. Mathers or Mr. Macaulay on that one?

Through the chair, so at this point, to be able to have a short-term like opportunities where you wouldn’t be necessarily recommending changes to our CIP program, maybe additional financial incentives under those programs. I think that there is a review process that we do on a five-year basis and that was part of the discussion in the recent audit related to CIPs that we will be undertaking further review moving forward. But there isn’t anything that’s necessarily on the books, but if that is something that Council wants to provide some directions on, that’s we could do that over the coming year, Councillor. Thank you through the chair and appreciate that in terms of the timeline and wanting to get things off the ground as quickly as possible.

I would just say on that point though, then if we did approve something specifically with the CIPs, I would still have some sort of a bit of an ad blitz in terms of reminding people which areas have the CIPs, what’s available, just to remind people and try to get that buy-in as quickly as possible. ‘Cause I think some people are aware of it, depends kind of what circles you’re in, but some more than others know which areas there are and what’s available. But again, I think just as anything we adopt, we really do need to promote it as best we can to get that further buy-in. So I’m happy to support the options, Steve what comes back and we’ll go from there.

Thanks. Thank you, Councillor McAllister. Do you have Councillor Trussow for a second time? I’m gonna look to see if there’s any first time speakers before I go back to Councillor Trussow for seconds.

Councillor Trussow. Yes, I would like to, through the chair, just get more clarity on where this report is coming back. It says civic administration be directed to report back to council. Is that right?

It comes directly to council without going through a committee, when to go through SPPC first, or do you really want it to go straight to council without coming to a committee? In which case, we’re really not gonna be able to do the kind of committee work on the report that we would need. So I would say it should say SPPC in that council. So actually, Councillor, as Mr.

Mather’s responded earlier, because it’s housing accelerator, it would go to peck on April 14th and then come to council after that meeting. Okay, one other thing I would like to see in the report, would you be able to tell us how many through the chair, how many properties, property owners would have to take up the ARU program in order to exhaust the funds that are left in the account without anything else? Because I would wanna know whether that’s a reasonably foreseeable goal to have. Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair, absolutely, we always wanna provide an estimate of how much funding’s available for each of the programs and how many units you’re gonna get out of it. So we will provide that related to each of these programs. Okay, I’m gonna go and ask Councillor Ramen to take the chair quickly.

I’m just gonna offer some hopefully very brief comments. Thank you, I have the chair, go ahead. Thank you. So I’m just gonna share right off the top that I’m gonna support all of this today because it’s a report back with some options for us to consider.

On II, the DC rebate piece, I still, in something that comes back, I still wanna see a primary residence requirement. I’m not interested in DC rebates for somebody to buy a rental property. As was referenced by Mr. Zafeman, we put a lot of effort into rentals through half.

If you wanna exercise an opportunity to use this program for home purchase, I expect you to live there. That’s as simple as it is for me. So when this comes back, if II passes, I won’t be supportive of it unless the primary residence requirement is in there. I do share some of Councillor Frank’s concerns about how we make sure the money gets to where it’s going, but I also agree with Councillor McAllister.

We’ve got some pretty reputable builders who are putting their reputation on the line here. And as Mr. Mather said, there are some tools that they can indicate to us in their report back as to how that accountability might be tracked. However, I do appreciate while the half money allows for some administrative costs.

I hope that we can find a way to do that. That’s not overly administratively burdened some either. On the ARUs, I think the interior basement component is important, I really do. I think that basement conversions in particular have been very, have been a lot of interest to folks and the fact that they haven’t necessarily been able to access some financial supports to undertake those costs has impacted how much the uptake has been.

So that’s where I am. I just wanted to share for today, I’m going to be supportive across the board, but when it comes back to us, AII, I really need to see a primary residency requirement. And I need to understand where the accountability piece is, ‘cause I don’t believe our local builders are gonna take the money and run, but we do have people who sometimes build who are not from the community, who we don’t have as much experience with. And I do think that there needs to be from an accountability side, accountability for us to say to the public, yes, these homes were in fact sold for less because we put money in the pot.

I do hope that if the DC charges rebate comes back in a workable form, that the industry would still be interested in being a partner and putting some of their own funds into make that money go as far as it possibly can. ‘Cause I know they had, I think it was 3 million that they were offering to put in on the table to help make that program more robust. And when the sector’s willing to put in some of their own cash, I hope we can still utilize that. I hear some of the comments that they’ve offered us today.

I hope we can find a way forward to work together. Thank you for turning the chair to the Councilor Ferreira on the list. Thank you, so I go to Councilor Ferreira and I’ve got you at 220, so you’ve got about 240 left. Thanks, it’s just a technical question.

I did hear that this is gonna be going to PEC because of the Housing Accelerator Fund SPPC and the next one’s going to PEC. And I would suggest that this should come to SPPC rather than PEC. So I can tell you that it’s here today because it originated from a mayoral direction and the committee assignments were all mayoral directions come to SPPC to start. But this no longer, if we pass this, it’s no longer the mayoral direction that was provided.

It’s different now and so it would go to the normal half committee which is PEC. If that’s helpful in terms of why it’s here today, what would go to someplace else different? I guess it is. It still did originate from mayoral direction and we seem to all have some stake in this.

And we may be putting it to PEC and then have this full conversation again at council. I’d like to do committee work at committee and to just, as council has some interest in some areas, like I obviously have interest in the ARU component ‘cause I see that it gives affordability for an existing homeowner that may want to make an ARU and it also provides new units and it is using the existing housing stock. So I like that. But I would suggest, if we can, to send it to SPPC to have that full of some conversation with all council before it goes to council.

Okay, sorry, I had to converse with the clerk there for a moment and I am, before I go any further, I’m gonna go to Mr. Mathers just so that he can clarify why his recommendation on this is that it’s coming to PEC. And then I’ll come back to you, Councilor Ferreira. Mr.

Mathers, can you just expand on why you were planning for the April 14th PEC? Through the chair. So historically, we’ve had a number of conversations back and forth with our city clerk and the assessment has been that because it’s even though there’s a funding component of it that it’s primarily housing related. So we’ve been directing all of our update reports related to housing accelerator fund to PEC.

So that’s the rationale of why we’ve been going to PEC. So now I’m gonna go back to council Ferreira. Because this is your second time speaking, you actually can’t move an amendment now. There are a couple of councilors who haven’t spoken.

If they wanted to move an amendment, they could do so. You can move an amendment to bring it to PEC. Oh, sorry, and I’ve got Councilor Palosa on the speaker’s list next. Councilor Palosa, I wanna let you know that we got your hand up there, so.

Sorry, yes, so you could amend it to SPPC and then it would be up to this committee to decide whether it wants it to come here or whether it wants it to go to PEC. The next PEC meeting, as Mr. Mathers has indicated, is April 14th, the next SPPC is April 21st. Thanks, Chair.

The next SPPC, I believe, we have the downtown. No, that’s the one after, two after, okay. Well, I can’t move an amendment as it is my second time speaking. But yeah, those are my comments.

If another council would like to move the amendment and I guess I could do it at council. Councilor Palosa. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As it’s my first time speaking, procedurally, if the clerk does not deem it out of order, I would make a motion that the report come to the April 21st, SPPC meeting, realizing we have, from what I’ve heard, very divided ideas about what portions we’d like and not knowing the staff report is gonna contain, trying to do committee at business at committee. So there’s a seconder, but I’m moving amendment. Okay, so here, your amendment, Councilor Palosa. Councilor Hopkins has indicated she’ll second that for you.

So now it’s on the floor and we’ll just give the clerk a moment to get it written up to move it from a planning committee to SPPC. Once that’s ready costs. Well, is there any discussion on this or are we okay to just vote? Councilor Ferrera, Councilor Hopkins, you seconded it, so I’m gonna go to you for a minute.

Yeah, I’m happy to second this. I think we’re all very interested in this. SPPC committee of the whole will all be there. If not, the PEC committee will all have to attend there and then rehash the whole conversation at council.

So hoping we could do better committee work at the right committee. Councilor Ferrera. I support that, thank you. Any other speakers are on the amendment or can we open the vote?

Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Councilor Perbele, yes. Housing the vote, motion carries, 10 to four. Okay, so now we’re back to the main motion and it’s, all we’ve done is change where it’s gonna report back to.

I’m not going to deem that substantively different. So you don’t get an additional five minutes on the as amended. We’ve made a very minor change in terms of which committee it’s reporting to. So with that, I’m looking for any other speakers on the main motion.

Okay, seeing none, we’re gonna vote on AII first because Councilor Frank wanted that called separately. Then we will do the balance. Councilor Perbele votes yes for entire 4.2, thank you. Well Councilor, we’re calling two separate votes.

So you can only vote on AII but the clerk’s recorded the yes on that. Housing the vote, motion carries, 10 to four. Okay, and I will now ask the clerk to open the vote on the balance. Councilor Perbele yes.

Housing the vote, motion carries, 13 to one. Thank you colleagues, that dispenses with item 4.2. This will bring us to item 4.3. This is a request for special intergovernmental meeting put on the agenda by Councillor McAllister.

So I will go to Councillor McAllister now if you’d like to introduce this. Yeah, I’d like to introduce my motion. Provided the wording, I won’t speak to it, I’ll look for my seconder and then I’ll speak to it seconder. So you do have a seconder in Councillor van Mirbergen.

He already indicated to me that he’s happy to second your motion. So it is moved and seconded. Perfect, thank you and through the chair. Yeah, I feel like it’s appropriate this time to bring something like this forward.

I spent the last few years attending for AMO, FCM, Good Roads, participating in those delegations. I still think there’s a lot of value in those in terms of direct lobbying. I think those organizations do good work. But I really do think we need to have a public forum where we can bring provincial and federal local representatives here.

I understand this used to be a thing a few years ago. I wasn’t around but I think everyone may have their opinions in terms of the value of something like this. I just wanna personally speak in terms of why I’m bringing it forward and where I see there being value. I’m curious what everyone has to say about it.

Open to amendments if people wanna do things differently with it, but really where I see the value is in terms of having that greater coordination and that communication directly with them in a public setting. What I’ve heard and seen over the last few years is we do have these conversations. I think they’re unfortunately sometimes a bit disjointed in terms of setting those priorities early with our provincial and federal partners and saying this is something that we’ve seen at the city level and we’re looking for your support and for them to be able to take those back to whether it’s Toronto or Ottawa and move those conversations forward. As we’ve said many times here before we can’t do everything on our own and we need those partners to support us.

I think it’s important. I suggested a bi-annual because my thinking behind this was to have these conversations earlier in the year before the budget session. So those pre-budget conversations could happen. And then at the end of the year to have some follow-up in terms of how those conversations went, where the provincial and federal governments are in terms of conversations or any sort of programs that might be rolled out.

Just to have this discussion amongst the representatives. This is the political side. I think we have a lot of conversations more in terms of other things. I don’t want to say behind the scenes, but I think that this is an appropriate forum that’s public where politicians can discuss these things more openly.

And so I see a lot of value in something like this. Curious what others have to say on it. I’ve heard already suggestions in terms of maybe just have it once a year, which I think is what it was previously. Do you want all representatives?

Do you just want city government? There’s a lot of different directions you could take this in. But I still think we need to have these come back. I think there’s a lot of value in terms of that coordination.

There are a lot of issues facing the city, the province, the country. And I do think we need to have alignment in terms of where we’re going with things. And I think it would be providing clarity, not only for ourselves, but for staff as well, in terms of where the priorities of the government’s lie. So happy to see where this goes.

But I think this is something we should really contemplate. So I’ll leave it there and see what my colleagues have to say. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor McAllister.

I have Councillor Van Meerbergen, Councillor Raman, and then Councillor Trussaal. Councillor Van Meerbergen. Oh, and Councillor Hopkins. Thank you, Chair.

Happy to second this. This was practiced on a very regular basis in previous councils. In fact, thank you for this motion because it reminds us that, yes, we used to do this all the time. And they were very productive.

And I think it was COVID that got us off track. But I think it’s time to bring this back again. It’s very useful. Opens up the lines of communication, streamlines, the flow of information and new ideas.

It’s win-win. So to me, as a no-brainer, let’s endorse this. If we feel that two times a year is too much, it can always be changed at a later date. I recall it was two times a year when we did it previously.

Mayor DeSico, practiced that along with Mayor Fontana. And I think it went up right through to Mayor Holder, but then stopped with COVID. So I’m 100% behind this. And thank you again for bringing this forward.

Thank you, Councillor Van Meerbergen. Although I can assure you it did not end with Mayor Holder or COVID. It has been more than a decade since one of those intergovernmental meetings has been held. We checked with the clerk’s office.

So it’s been a while. It’s been a while. However, we’ve got Councillor Hopkins next, and then Councillor Raman, and then Councillor Trussa. Councillor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you for that. And thank you, Councillor Van Meerbergen, for your comments, since you were around longer than I’ve been around. I do recall we did this with a Brown Council, which was the Council before Holder’s Council. But I am supportive.

And if I recall back then, I think doing it twice a year may be a little bit more challenging with scheduling. I think it’s important that all MPPs attend, if we don’t have a full house, it may not be as effective. I did find sometimes it was more performative than really seeing the outcomes. But I think it’s a great opportunity to communicate and share concerns with our MPPs and MPPs.

So I’ll support it. And Councillor Raman. Thank you and through you. So I want to start first by thanking Councillor McAllister for the communication.

However, I’d like to move a referral of this item. So the communication that’s dated March 9th from Councillor McAllister with respect to this special intergovernmental meeting to refer it to a future meeting of GWG for further discussion. And then if I have a seconder, I’d like to speak to it. OK.

OK, Councillor Truss, I was willing to second that. Councillor Raman, go ahead. Thank you. So I fully respect and understand the premise of the communication that’s in front of us.

However, I would want to ensure that a meeting with other members of government is more than performative. And for that to happen, I need the opportunity to have a discussion in GWG to structure the conversation more, to set those parameters around how that relationship and what that communication looks like, sharing my own experience. We did this at Thames Valley District School Board. And I don’t want to be too harsh and say exercise and futility.

I just found it very challenging in terms of having that kind of a conversation without some more guardrails in place around how we’re going to put those priorities forward and make sure that we’re talking about things where there is an opportunity for those in government, maybe those in opposition, and everyone to partake in a discussion that’s helpful for the community to understand where our position aligns and maybe where partisan positions may be separate, but how we’re rowing in the same direction for Team London as well. So I think that having a bit more structure would be helpful. So I would like to refer that to GWG, a future meeting for a future discussion. I’ve got Councillor Trussow and then Councillor Ferrer.

Councillor Trussow. Well, I was going to speak to the main motion, but I’ll speak to both of them if I can’t. Yeah, I think a discussion at GWC is fine. It shouldn’t take— well, no, cancel that.

A discussion at GWC would be fine. The reason why I was going to vote against this was I was going to ask the question, is there anything to stop us from— if, say, for example, the provincial budget is coming up. Is there anything to stop us from asking provincial members of Parliament to come to an SPPC meeting as it is now? So I think that I’m going to go to see if Ms.

Dater’s Bear wants to comment. I will say I think that that’s part of the reason for the referral Councillors to sort some of these things out at GWG before we get a motion. But Ms. Dater’s Bear, with respect to timing of provincial budgets, federal budgets, and inviting someone to attend, is there— from an intergovernmental relations perspective, perhaps, if you can comment on that?

Absolutely. Thank you. I think it’s been mentioned already through you that some of these meetings require a lot of time to set up because of schedules. And so I think if the question is, could we have them come before budgets?

Yes. I’m not sure that’s exactly the question you asked, though, Councillor. My apologies if I’ve missed exactly what you’re asking. Councillor— The question specifically through the chair is, without this motion, is there anything to stop us from inviting MPs or MPPs to particular meetings?

Ms. Dater’s Bear. Through the chair, no, there isn’t. I think it would take the direction of council to staff to ensure that we have council’s direction to ask MPPs and MPs to come to a meeting of full council.

But if you were having meetings on your own, there’s nothing that prohibits you from having that discussion as well directly with elected officials. I hope I got that right. I think any further comments would go to the main motion, which I’ll defer from taking your time with pending the resolution of the amendment. OK.

So we’re on the amendment, Councillor Ferreira. Or sort of on the referral, not the amendment. But Councillor Ferreira, and then Cudi and McAllister. Thank you, Chair.

Because it’s a referral, this is the main motion. Were you speaking to the main motion? No, we’re just speaking to the referral. OK.

So I appreciate the motion. I appreciate the referral as well. I will be supporting the referral. I do want to get more information on, I guess, why these meetings were stopped in the past.

I’m not going to ask staff now. But if we could have that discussion at GWG, I’d also like to see what our government relations team would have to say about it. Because I do understand that this is an area of government relations as well. Obviously, I want to be avoiding anything that could be performative or anything that may not lead us to a productive conversation.

But it is something that interests me. But I will be supporting the referral. And I guess I’ll leave the comments there. And Councillor Ms.

Dater’s there. I’m happy to respond to you, Chair. In the past, it’s my understanding, and I was here when it happened before, that there was a decision to engage in a discussion of having them come to the meeting. And I’m not sure if that was sparked by the sitting mayor at the time, or if there was this general agreement that they would come.

And they partnered with our GR staff to have them come. But it was done as part of a regular, I think, corporate services committee meeting, or SPBC committee, I can’t remember. The clerk can clarify that. But it was about we wanted to have this.

It was part of a process. I think the reason, if they stopped formally in the council chambers was because of COVID, or because there wasn’t a desire to do that at that point in time, but not for any other reason other than they just haven’t happened again. Councillor, thank you. Okay, I’m just, I heard it’s being stopped before COVID from two, from the city manager, and from Councillor Van Mierberg, and then I heard it was stopped 10 years ago.

So I’m not gonna ask the question further. Maybe we can, you know, get it clear. There’s no substantive reason, okay, okay. Well, I’m gonna support the referral.

I think it’s, I should go to GWG. I’d like to see government relations there to speak on it too, and I’ll leave it there. Thank you, Councillor. And again, just ‘cause I didn’t provide the year, but according to the clerks, the last one was in 2016.

Councillor Cudi. Thank you, Chair, and through you. And I do appreciate Councillor McAllister bringing this forward, and Councillor Van Mierberg and seconding it, and I would look forward to this. Although I am going to respectfully support the referral by Councillor ramen, and I want to reference Councillor ramen’s remarks that at TV DSB, we did this.

And also, to your comments, it needs, it was challenging. And the guardrails are important, so I do believe we should bring this to the governance work and group, and I’ll support the referral. Thank you. Councillor McAllister.

Thank you to the Chair. And I’m honestly happy to support the referral. I totally understand where people are coming from. I just wanna kind of provide in terms of where I was thinking.

I mean, governance, government’s working group makes total sense to me, where my mind was at with this was what we would try to do in terms of having those guardrails in place is have a governance meeting prior to calling one of these meetings to set the agenda in terms of the items that we wanted to discuss to keep it tight, because my intention is also not to throw everything at higher levels of government in terms of every issue under the sun. It was to keep it tight in terms of say we have a priority in terms of housing, and we were like, we would like to specifically talk about this program. This is something we wanna have. To keep it tight to ensure that not only we’re prepared our staff are able to provide briefings as we would with any other sort of say delegation, but then also to give them the chance to know prior to what they would be discussing at the meeting to ensure that they know as well, that this is not an open forum for, you know, just having another House of Commons or Queen’s Park.

This is not the way it’s gonna go. It’s also there will be controls in terms of we have our procedures, I’m sure they would be aware of that too, but to ensure that everyone coming into the meeting understands what’s involved, I think is very important. So I’m perfectly willing to support the referral, flesh out some of this, but also recognizing that I did not intend for this to be open season on every issue under the sun. So appreciate the discussion.

I still think there’s a lot of value in this, and I look forward to discussion and governance. It’s all, thank you. Thank you, Councillor McAllister, Mayor Morgan. Thank you, so I’ll support the referral, and I’ll explain why.

I think some thoughtful dialogue, and this is probably pretty important. And Councillor McAllister mentioned a number of points. And so first off, I appreciate, and I think the desire to do this makes a lot of sense. You want to engage as a government to government representatives in a forum that is open and with the public.

Now, I’ll say that we’ll create some restrictions and some risks to it, right? When you put members of government, members of opposition in the same spot at the same time, there’s a system of parliamentary government where the opposition opposes the government. It provides different perspectives, and they engage in a different type of debate than we engage with a municipal council. And so there’s some inherent risk to setting up a constructive discussion that is more than performative.

And as having been a part of some of these in the past, I would say, there’s been points where there has been some productive discussion. There’s been points where I think it’s been less productive and pretty performative and pretty high level. And we really achieved the real GR work in the one-to-one dialogues that we had. I want to say, too, for any of our MPs or MPPs who may be catching wind of this discussion, irrespective of where this goes and what we set up, I think we do have a really great productive relationship with all of them.

I think we’ve had Minister Flax sitting on our side of the table at delegations at AMO. We’ve had opposition members raising issues of importance to members of the community. We’ve engaged with government members from all different levels. And we’ve had, at times, a team of people representing different parties saying, I represent London in part when I go into the cabinet room or with my party caucus and I’m fighting for this area of the province.

So I certainly think we have great representatives and I think we have a partnership that’s working very well, but I do appreciate the desire to evolve that and use a different forum to engage with them. And so I’ll support the referral to the government’s working group, but I wanted to be clear that I support that for the discussion. I also think we have a very constructive relationship with all of our existing representatives and I think they work with us well from a variety of different perspectives. Thank you, Mayor Morgan.

Since Councilor Roman has a motion on the floor, I’m gonna ask you to take the chair so that I can offer a comment. All right, I have the chair, you can go ahead. Thank you. So I too am gonna support the referral because I think this needs some more conversation before we provide some direction to our administration.

Councilor McAllister mentioned it, the bi-annual basis. That’s something I wanna discuss at GWG. That’s why I’m gonna support the referral ‘cause I’ve been part of these as an MP staffer. I can tell you that there were times when it took us three weeks to find a date that worked three months from now to get all four MPs together in the same room.

Scheduling these is not going to be easy and I don’t think that personally, the reason I wanna support the referral is I wanna discuss just doing it annually, but perhaps we do one with MPs and one with MPPs, something like that. But that’s part of the reason I wanna do a referral. So we can have that discussion at governance working group. I also have some concerns ‘cause I was lucky to be part of what all of us as staff kind of jolted of as the Golden Age for London because we had some MPs that really were able to leave Ottawa and Ottawa and be Londoners when they were here in front of council and we had representatives from each party ‘cause we had the former Minister of Science and Technology as he likes to remind us in MP Holder and we had MP Irene Matheson and we had MP Glenn Pearson and they brought and we had MP Joe Preston and they brought a collegial London area approach when they came here.

They left the Ottawa stuff in Ottawa but that’s a personality mix from four MPs who were able to do that. So I also wanted to have it at GWG for us to have some discussions because you’re suggesting that we had this as an SPVC which means I’m gonna have to chair this and I want you all to help create some guide rails so that I can rule tough with the MPs and MPPs and cut off their mics and tell them they’re out of order if they behave the way that they behave in question period. So I think that’s why this needs to go to GWG so we can figure out exactly what this looks like before we move forward with trying to set up a meeting. And for those who might be listening or their staff who might be listening, I know we’ll be asking extra work and time commitments of you as well but you are representatives of the city, not just your parties but the city of London.

And so I hope you’ll welcome the chance to have a dialogue with us if we are able to figure out a way to make this a reality moving forward. So I’m gonna support the referral. Thank you for the motion coming forward, Councillor McAllister and looking forward, I think sounds like there’s some consensus. So I think looking forward to some discussion at GWG about how this gets structured.

Thank you, I’ll return the chair to you. I don’t have any else in the speakers list at this time. Anyone else on the referral? Seeing none, in chambers or online?

I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Councillor Peruzza, a vote, yes. Using the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Okay colleagues, that completes items for direction and brings us to deferred matters additional business.

We have item 5.1, the added from Mayor Morgan, myself and Budget Chair Palosa. And then we have the item that was pulled from consent to deal with. So we will deal first with the item 5.1 as it’s on the agenda. And then we will move to 2.3 from the consent agenda.

And then I will remind colleagues we still have closed session. So as I’m chairing, I’m gonna see if Mayor Morgan wants to introduce the motion on the communication. Chair, I’m willing to put it on the floor and look for the seconder, which I see you’ll do. I see Councillor Palosa willing to second.

So that’s been moved and seconded and is on the floor now for discussion. Sure, I’ll kick it off and I appreciate Councillor Palosa both being on the correspondence and seconding it. And I’ll save some room for her for discussion. The concept here is having done this a few times as an elected official, getting elected, especially if you’re new Councillor, and then having to go through a very substantive assessment of the applications, in some cases, the desire for interviews and the assessment of how many people should be appointed to what boards and commissions across the city.

Some of them locked into a four year period. Is a fairly daunting ask at a single point in time where you don’t might not have all the information you’d like. And being able to put some distance between the election and doing that would provide Council some more thoughtful time to get settled into the position, to get to know each other as a group, and then make a collective decision on who should lead the boards and commissions. And so extending the terms for a period of time for the public appointed members would allow us the time to do that and not have to deal with that as the first thing.

I remember my first time I got elected to Council. There was 11 new members of Council and we were up to two in the morning making these appointments on like our second meeting or our first meeting. And it just didn’t feel like a great way to make decisions. Now we’ve gotten the process a little better over time, but it still is a fairly significant and intense process.

At a time where we’re trying to establish our own collective perspective as a Council, we’re trying to get a note to know each other and what we’ve all just campaigned on and promised and try to sort through that and appoint members of boards and commissions. So this is a thoughtful approach to say, we’ve got great people serving on these. Let’s see if they’re willing to have their terms extended through this motion. If people want to resign, we can always do the interim process.

But for the most part, I think many of them would be happy to continue to serve. I think we should probably deal with the Council appointments when the new Council is here ‘cause there may not be the same people around the table given some people aren’t running and there’s a whole election process. But for the citizen appointments, I think we could put some distance between that and that’s essentially the concept that we would be looking at. And so this direction says, let’s do that, but we’ve got to bring forward the amendments, the applicable policies and bylaws.

We’d be making the actual decision on that when the amendments come forward and you can see what it actually looks like. So appreciate my other colleagues’ desire to put this on the floor for your consideration and looking forward to your thoughts. And I’ll go next to Councilor Plosa. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. With this one too, it was, I don’t know the mayor, so he’s gonna leave some space for comments for me, but I don’t know how much he left. So just being brief on this, that we started our new roles on Council and right away we get our appointments to standing committees. I know I was guilty of being a chronic hand raiser when there was opportunity to be filled, happy to fill it.

And sometimes it was just the over commitment when we’re still trying to, as new colleagues, learn a job and what’s required. This would also give some opportunities for that ability to go and see the boards in process and what is happening there, understand their needs a bit better, maybe attend some of their meetings and really look at the relationship with the ABCs and how they integrate with the city and the business and our various plans. So looking for support on this just came forward as a Councillor myself that, who is new a couple of turns back and just a way to make the transition of a higher quality and a little bit easier. Thank you, Councillor Palosa, looking for other speakers.

I see no other speakers, so I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. Yes, for Council approval. Seeing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. A colleague brings us to the other deferred item, which is 2.3 from our consent agenda.

That’s the first report of the governance working group. And Councillor Stevenson, you asked for this one to be pulled. So I will go to you first. I did, thank you.

I moved and motion passed at the end of governance working group and I had the wrong date of the council meeting. So it was ruled out of order at the last minute. I just wanted to bring it forward again now. So it just says, if I can just, you want me to read it, I would just say the gist of it.

Yeah, if you can read it out for us. That with respect to the MNP London housing development project lessons learned review report, civic administration be directed to provide council with last year’s tenant placement policies via email by April 15th, 2026. Second by Councillor Trussow on the clerks just checking to make sure we got the right dates. So that’s in order, that’s fine.

I just wanna make sure that you and Councillor Trussow are moving the rest of the GWG, like the piece from consent with this. I’m good with that. Seeing nods from both of you. So the clerk will just draft it up that way.

Looking to see if there’s speakers, Councillor Stephen. I’ll just explain quickly for those who work at governance working group. This item has already been approved and it’s on the deferred items list to have a full complete list go to governance working group for discussion. I’m just needing some of that information for something I’m working on.

So I’m just asking for it to be emailed to council. I took out a full list so that it doesn’t have to be exhaustive. Hopefully it’s an easy thing for staff to just forward to me so that I can get going on that, knowing that governance working group might not happen till June. There should be no work involved or anything.

I’m just asking for last year’s policies. Yeah, and it would be to all of council and not just to you. That’s what I thought. Okay, for any other speakers.

Councillor Robin. Thank you and through you. I just wanted to, through you to staff confirm that this is something that can be done in that timeline. Mr.

Dickens. Thank you and through you chair. If it’s not a staff report, yes, we can send the email by April 15th though. Confirm with my team that that’s not an issue.

Councilor. - Thank you. Seeing no no else on the speakers list. I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Council votes yes. Councilor Pribble votes yes. Marking, Councillors, Herrera and Hillier as absent. Marking, Councillor Hillier as absent.

Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Thank you colleagues, that concludes our deferred matters additional business portion of the meeting that moves us on to confidential session. So I’m going to need a motion to move in camera. Councillor McAllister and Councillor Cuddy and we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that.

Council votes yes. Pribble votes yes. Bozing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Thank you colleagues.

So please, Councillors, please don’t leave. We’re going to get right into closed session. Okay colleagues, we are back in public session and I will look to the vice chair to report out on the items for which we went in camera. Thank you, I’m happy to report that progress was made for the items of which we went in camera.

I’m also happy to report that it was the mayor’s birthday yesterday, happy birthday Mayor Morgan and their donuts and cookies to celebrate in the lounge. And with the announcement of donuts and cookies for the mayor’s birthday awaiting, do we have a motion to adjourn? We’d by Councillors McAllister and Stevenson and by hand, all those in favor. Motion carries.

Thank you everyone, have a good evening.