June 15, 2026

Original link

Official minutes have not been published yet. A meeting transcript is available below.

Meeting Transcript

Duration: 1 hour, 0 minutes

Source: Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (1 hour, 0 minutes)

Anyone speaking? Maybe. Good afternoon, everyone. Call the 11th meeting of the infrastructure and corporate services community to order.

Please check the city website for additional meeting detail information. City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, the Haudenosaunee, Leno Wampak, and Adwondron. We honor and respect the history languages and culture that diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. City of London is currently home to many first nations, Métis, and anywhere today.

As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. We have all members of committee, either present or online, and Councillor Pribble is also joining us. The City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings on requests. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact ICSC@london.ca or 519-661-2489, extension 2425.

And we’ll look for disclosures of peculiar interests. Not seeing any. On consent, we have had request for items 2.3, 2. 4, 2.7, and 2.10 to be pulled.

So I would look for a motion for the other items. Okay, Councillor Frank and Councillor Birmingham, thank you. Okay, so 2.1, 2.2, 2.5, 2.6, 2.8, and 2.9 are on the floor, and looking for speakers. Okay, looking for any committee members first?

Okay, not seeing any, go ahead, Councillor Perv all. Sure, Mr. Chair, I’m online. I do have my hand up.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Councillor Plaza. Sorry, thank you. That’s okay.

And Jerry and I, Councillor Perboon, I might be speaking to a few of the same items as we were all copied on an email that I know Kayleigh’s addressed. In regards to item 2.2 on page 15 for the provincial government, looking up for the new landfill operating committee, looking to see what the timelines would be on this from staff. Yes, staff. Ms.

J. Morris. Thank you and through the chair. The new land cooperating committee is currently under review with the Ministry of Environment as it involves part of our larger indigenous community’s communication plan.

So we’re waiting to hear back for approval from that. And once that approval is received, then we would go forth and canvas the related indigenous communities if they’d like to form and join a committee. Follow up council. Okay, so it just, it does the fluid timeline.

Then it could be a few months, could be whenever the province does that approval . is my understanding from those comments made by Ms. Chambers. Thank you to the chair and yes, that is we are waiting on them at this point, yes .

Okay follow up Council. On that one, I appreciate that of just waiting on the province before we go out and do the engagement to see who may be interested in that capacity. In regards to I am 2.5 being the equipment rental and operators for W-12A. Looking at the tenders, just looking to staff, I realize that we’re, the recommendation is the one that we currently use.

just any comments on the one being essentially half the cost of the other tenders that we’re looking at going with. Thank you through the chair. For sure we’ve been in touch with JBL construction who is doing the current operations and they’re confident that they can deliver the same service for that price. Being the incumbent they do have already a lot of investment in the equipment and kind of having that advantage of being already set up shop.

So we’re comfortable and confident that they’re still be delivering for that Excellent price, go ahead, Chancellor. Thank you. And just one further overview, realizing Councilor Pillow might touch on some things as well, had heard from the chair of the PLC at the landf ills. A few of these reports do relate to landfill things, but we’re not a public notice distribution.

If staff could just comment that they will forward those reports just to the chair for their concern, I know Council motion won’t be required, but just if they’re watching that, they’ll know that they can get a copy. these reports coming through them, and they can distribute them as they see fit. Go ahead, Sam. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Yes, we can, in addition to sending the links to these specific reports, we can also in future, make sure that the Chair is apprised of reports coming forward to committee if they relate to W12 A, and we’ll add that to our procedures. Any other comments, Councillor? No, I appreciate that.

Realising our current Chair of the PLC is more tech-savvy than some we’ve had in the past, and it just helps with the flow of information, so I greatly appreciate that. and that concludes my questions, thank you. Thank you, go ahead Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, to the staff. I do have a couple of follow-up questions on the 2.1 regarding the review of the vehicle speeds. And the question is, do we consider when we do these studies intensifying these issues for such that the roads are narrow, there are no sidewalks, there is no, there are no barriers between the street and also the pedestrians, the citizens. Mr.

McCrady, do you give that one? Go ahead. Yes, certainly through the chair, the studies were done in response to the concerns identified by the property owners. So it was focused on measuring speeds and comparing to speed limits.

Hello, Councillor. Okay, so thank you very much, measuring on the speeds. But the question is, in this study, does it include or in any of the studies, do we include such things as the narrowness of the road? no sidewalks, no nothing between the street and pedestrian.

So it’s kind of more dangerous and what the residents are trying to say, it intensifies the issues with the speed limit. So is this being considered or in some cases or in this case? Go ahead, Mr. McCray.

Through the chair, yes, certainly when we study streets, traffic operations, all road users and adjacent land uses are taken into consideration when when the results are processed and considered. All up, Councillor. Okay, thank you for that answer. In terms of the demand drive, no truck should be allowed on the street, no entrances and no exits.

This road was not designed for such traffic. It was not properly paid to take on all this traffic. The truck should be taking Wellington and not cutting through their subdivisions. Can I please receive give a feedback on the statement from the residents.

Go ahead, Mr. McRae here, Mr. Chambers. Through the chair, the identified operating routes to the landfill, identify the Wonderland Road and Wellington Road and Manning Drive.

So not directing trucks onto Dingman Drive. So that is certainly accounted for. And then with respect to the overall nature of the road network, Dingman Drive is classified a rural thoroughfare, so it’s a higher classification than the other rural roads. And in general for all rural roads, according to the official plan, the priority is on through movement of vehicles, farm equipment, freight, and goods.

So although we try to limit truck traffic along Dingman, some is to be expected, just given the nature of the function of the road within the network. Follow-up, Councillor? Thank you, so just last follow-up. So the big heavy trucks that are driving through are they legally allowed to drive along Dingman?

The trucks, I’m not talking about the farm equipment, et cetera. The specific trucks, are they allowed to drive on Dingman? Go ahead, just through the chair. Yes, there is, I mean, aside from Highway Traffic Act rules, they are permitted to use the road.

Follow-up, Councillor? Thank you, no more questions. Okay, thank you. I did have a question in terms of 2.6.

Just for awareness, ‘cause I have a few people look at this and say, oh, these are the only new traffic signals or pedestrian signals in terms of how we prioritize, but then also if there are other opportunities in terms of these happening outside of this list. Look to staff for that one. Through the chair, this report is sort of the final step in the process of the city evaluating requests and our regular monitoring of the traffic signal network for new additions, new additions of signals, pedestrian signals and pedestrian crossovers. So we are certainly happy to take requests through the service London portal.

And those are processed by staff and if deemed warranted, they would end up in a future report. This is an annual process for implementation. Okay. Thank you.

And then just to confirm, this is just for new for ones that are approved, but still in the works, they would not show up on this list, correct? Through the, Mr. Chair, yes, that is correct. Locations that were approved in previous years, reports that are, you know, still in the design process or just starting construction, yes, that those are still in progress and don’t need to be, you know, that their approval is intact.

Okay , thank you. And looking for other questions, go ahead Councillor. Thank you. I forget once through the chair to the staff 2.9 the expropriation of the lands.

I have a question on the 3.0 financial implications. It states there’s a budget available for Western road and starting our own Philippines. Unless I missed it in the report, I don’t see there. The question is where is it available this budget?

Mr. McRae. Yeah, through the chair. The purpose of this report is for the purposes of the property acquisition and expropriation process.

So there’s no financial commitment being requested here. The comment is in relation to the project being a funded one and the project financials are shown in the overall budget wrap-up documents. Follow- up, Councillor? Okay, thank you.

Okay, looking for any other comments or questions in the items before us. Okay, not seeing any and just for a reminder this is for 2.1, 2.2, 0.5, 2.6, 2.8, and 2.9. So open the vote on those. Councillor Palosa votes yes, might you describe it as malfunctioning?

I’m having trouble with mine too, I vote yes. Yeah, it’s just a bit slow right now, I’ve just given this. Councillor Frank votes yes as well. Councillor Vermeer Wriggen.

It just came up, yeah. Closing the vote, motion carries five to zero. Okay, we have no scheduled items. Items for direction, so on to deferred matters, which are the ones that we moved from consent.

We will go in order on those. So 2.3, can I look for a mover and a seconder for that? Councillor Frank, okay, I’ll second that. So 2.3, looking for questions or comments?

I’m not seeing any. We’ll open the vote on 2.3. So Councillor Steeves and you’re able to vote correctly. Let’s hold on.

Closing the vote, motion carries four to one. Okay, thank you. We are onto 2.4, looking for a mover and a second er on that. Okay, Councillor Frank, I’ll second that.

2.4 is on the floor. Looking for questions or comments. Okay, not seeing any. We’ll open the vote on 2.4.

Closing the vote, motion carries through to two . We’re on 2.7, looking for we were seconder on this one. Councillor Frank, I will second that. 2.7 is on the (mumbles) comments.

Go ahead, Councillor Stinson. Thank you. I asked a similar question last time. I’m just looking to understand, given the value of these contracts, when we continue to use the same consultant and just ask for them to send in a submission, Is there a change in procurement policy that’s allowed this or is this been an ongoing practice?

Remlin, go ahead. Thank you, through the chair. So this has been an ongoing practice. So that this was allowed under the previous policy and under this policy.

So it is a limited tender because it is basically an extension of the services. So when we have an engineer perform the onsite inspection, it’s best under engineering practice to have the firm that did the design work, also ensure that it’s built to match the design. If we were to have a separate consultant come in, they would then have to perform basically a peer review on the design in order to then take responsibility for it to perform the inspection work. So that’s why it’s to the city’s financial advantage and to rate payer’s advantage as well, to have the same consultant to do the contract administration inside inspection as did the design.

to follow up, Councillor. Thanks, I appreciate that. So is it safe to say that it never goes out to tender these then? It’s always just offered to the existing consultants.

Go ahead, Ms. Marilyn. Thank you, through the chair. They are subject to a competitive process at the outset.

So when the design work is sent out for proposal, that is a competitive process. So these were originally awarded that way. And then at some, for some projects, We actually award the construction administration work with the original project or with the original design work. Other projects, we don’t, because there may be some question about the scope, the timelines, et cetera.

And so it makes sense to get the additional price later on. But because of the total dollar value, that does mean that it comes before committee and council for transparency. All of councilor? No, I think that’s good.

It is just the amount, it’s close to half a million dollars. So just double checking. Thanks. Okay, looking for any other questions, comments ?

Okay, not seeing any, we’ll open 2.7 for vote. Opposed in the vote, motion carries five to zero. We are on 2.10, looking for a mover, seconder for this, Councillor Frank, and I will second that. Oh, Councillor Pelosi, I saw your hand.

Okay, your seconder on that one. Okay, and looking for questions or comments. Okay, go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thanks, yes, I did send in some questions and thanks to staff for getting back to me on these.

I’m just wondering a whole bunch of questions around this report. We have $1.7, $1.8 billion here in the investment portfolio. And I noticed if I go back to 2022, there was a Canada CPI graph. Just wondering why that’s not included this time.

All right, Mr. Collins, what do you, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So we are constantly assessing what we think is the right information in telling and giving a picture of what is driving the financial markets and what is driving our investment portfolio returns. So from year to year, we may adjust or present something slightly differently. That kind of helps to indicate what the drivers of our investment portfolio performance was. For example, we’ve provided information as it relates to, for example, bond yields and yield curves that kind of help to illustrate kind of some of the relevant information that effectively tells the story for this year.

So the information or the graphs that we include in kind of the narrative of the report may shift slightly from year to year, but generally it’s about trying to explain kind of what drives our performance each year. Follow up, Councillor? Yeah, thanks. I noticed the other graphs are all the same.

it’s just that one is missing. Same as the appendix last or in 2022 at least. The cash and cash equivalents were included and this time they’re not in appendix A, so just wondering why the change in presentation. Go ahead, Mr.

Murray. Thank you, three, Mr. Chair. So this report has evolved to be specific to our investment portfolio, specifically our investments and not our cash.

And really kind of the genesis of that was the implementation of new financial instruments reporting and accounting standards that came into effect a couple years ago that really drew that distinction between cash and cash equivalents and investments portfolio investments. So this report is focused on portfolio investments. Follow up, Councilor? Yeah, thanks.

That actually makes sense to me given the way it’s presented on here. So thank you for that. The other question I have is I was looking up what other cities do and there was an interesting report that talked about whether a city did standardized reporting, enhanced reporting. Has the city looked at possibly doing more enhanced reporting for the portfolios?

I noticed that other cities provide the details of all the investments that are, you know, and given the amount of it, the 1.8 billion. Go ahead, Mr. Roy. Thank you.

Through you, Mr. Chair. Of course, we’re very much interested in continuous improvement, and if there’s opportunities to enhance the information that we’re reporting on, we’re certainly open to considering that. I think we provide a pretty good snapshot of our investment portfolio and performance through this annual report.

It aligns with our legislative requirements, it aligns with our investment policy. I think the important thing to note as well is that our investment portfolio is not small uh, in terms of number of investment securities. Uh, as noted in the report, we have north of, uh, 180 different, uh, investment, uh, securities in our portfolio. So it is a fairly, uh, sizable portfolio and in terms of, uh, number of securities.

So, uh, you know, a pretty, a pretty good number, uh, to, to, uh, report on should, uh , we include that level of detail. So, you know, having said that, we’re, we’re always open to opportunities for improvement. And if there is, specific things that Council wants to direct us to include in the future. We’re happy to receive that direction but otherwise happy to continue reviewing what others are doing as well and considering whether we can incorporate additional relevant information as well into our report.

Follow up, Councilor? Yes, thank you and through the chair. Yeah, I think I’m gonna work on this, I’ll reach out to staff and some of my colleagues between now and Council because it’s the same thing as the multi-year budget. If we have 180 different investment securities, and we’re managing 1.8 billion of taxpayer money to have one line, or two lines, be nice if there was just something in between those two.

I also, in best practices, there was reference to some cities choosing the prudent investor program. Is that something that staff have looked into? Go ahead, Mr. Ray.

Thank you, through you. So, yes, we have reviewed the prudent investor program. We continue to monitor developments in that area. It is a relatively new option that has been introduced in the last few years to Ontario municipalities.

I think there’s a couple important things to note though that go along with the prudent investment regime. One of them being that council would give up some measure of control over the investment function to an external investment board. So that’s, you know, I think one big consideration that if we were to ever move in that direction would need to be considered carefully. The other I think important thing to note as well is that the designation to opt into that prudent investment regime is irrevocable.

So once you’re in you can’t opt back out. So we haven’t we haven’t gone in that direction to date. Our new kind of in-sourced investment management function is only a couple years old at this point, but if we down the road assess that we’re not able to kind of adequately meet our broad investment objectives through our current model and our legal list framework that we currently utilize, and then it’s possible that we may bring a recommendation in the future to counsel to consider the prudent investment regime. But again , it’s something that is not without implications, and we’ll keep looking at the developments in in that space in the years ahead.

Follow up, Councilor? Thanks, yeah, just a couple more questions. When I go back to 2022, again, it talks about percentage of the portfolio externally versus internally managed. I don’t see that here.

Is it all internally managed now? Go ahead, Mr. Mayor. Through you, Mr.

Chair, yes, we have, we have in sourced the investment management function at this point. So the only component that is externally managed, if you will, is the equity component of our portfolio. That is through the One Fund program that is offered through subsidiary of AMO. And it is the only means of us being able to get exposure to equities in our portfolio.

So that is something that we cannot implement internally ourselves if we are not in the prudent investor program and therefore that is the one remaining kind of externally managed components. Follow up, sir? Yeah, just a couple more. So when I look to, since 2022 to now, the investment portfolio looks like it’s up about $300 million, is that budgeted?

Do we know where we were expecting to be at this point? Go ahead, Mr. Ray. So I think we need to kind of differentiate here between the component of our investment portfolio is operating related versus those that relate to reserves and reserve funds.

So operating investments or investments of operating funds, that investment income forms part of the property tax budget and that money offsets funds that would otherwise need to be collected through property taxes or through some other source of funding. So that’s the one component, the other component And certainly the majority component is investments on reserve funds, and that is not budgeted, but is included in the forecast and the projections in our reserve fund schedules, in our reserve fund forecasts in the budget document. So that is kind of the two components of it. Ultimately, on the reserve fund piece, if we exceed our targets for investment income on reserve funds.

That brings us closer to achieving the target balances on those reserve funds that we articulated back last month, in fact, in our reserve fund monitoring report. It also helps fulfill our capital plan requirements. So if we exceed our projections for investment income on reserve funds, that allows us to then look at the contributions that may be going into the reserve funds and adjust them accordingly as part of the next budget development cycle. Follow up, Councillor?

Thank you. That’s what I was hoping was that there might be some cost savings for the taxpayer. So did I miss a report that showed whether we were exceeding in terms of our investment income on reserve funds or not? Go ahead, Mr.

Mayor. Thank you, through you, Chair. So we don’t report out specifically on the investment income component, but more broadly on how the balances of our reserve funds are progressing towards their target balances. So it’s part of the reserve fund monitoring, and I was keeping a report that we bring forward annually.

Follow-up, Council? Yeah, thanks. I’ll follow up on that one a little bit more offline. So when I look at 2025, the investment income was approximately $112 million.

In 2022, the report showed it was $36 million. And then the operating fund investments, it’s 0.5 million this year, but it was 11 million back then. So I know things change, but if we’re looking at it as a huge swing in both ways, anything that staff can share about that? Mr.

Ryan. Thank you and through you. So the one thing I will point to that comes to mind, you know, very specifically is going back to the previous question around the change in the focus of this report. what you would have been seeing in 2022 would have been inclusive of not only investment income but also earnings on cash in our bank.

This and I believe the chart that you’re referring to is specifically related to investment earnings in this portfolio investment report. So that is the one big component that I can that I can refer you to. I mean of course our investments are all subject to market returns and market conditions and certainly interest rate environments now are very different have been very different in the last couple years than they were say back in 2020-2021 and 2022 where interest rates were much much lower so we would naturally expect higher investment earnings just because of the very different interest rate environment we’re now in. follow-up council.

Okay, thanks. The other thing I looked at was, you know, given the amount of the reserve or the investment portfolio, when I look at other cities as a comparison of the amount that’s in their investment portfolio versus their annual budget, ours seems to be significantly higher. Like a couple of the cities are 50 percent or one is 85 percent, one’s 30 percent. We’re 125 percent.

Is that something that staff look at? Do we know sort of of are we in line with where we should be or is that even a relative statistic? Go ahead, Mr. Ray.

Thank you, through you. So going back to my previous response, I think it ‘s important to note that the majority of our investment portfolio relates to reserve funds. So I’ll refer to Appendix A in the report. I think about 95% of our investments are related to reserve funds rather than operating funds.

I think what I would say in relation to other municipalities is I suspect they have very different reserve funds for very different purposes. They no doubt have very different reserve fund levels that they’re comfortable with and targeting to have. So I think that is likely to be a contributing factor as well. I suspect other municipalities, I don’t know what they are including or excluding as well in their investment income reporting, others may have, you know, different approaches to investing or not, for example, some municipalities may choose to simply leave a greater portion of their financial resources in the bank and not invest it in the same way that we do.

So that may lead to differences in terms of our investment portfolio relative to others. So it’s really difficult, I think, comparison to do on the basis of operating budgets because there are a lot of different factors that could play into why those differences might exist. Follow up, Heather? No, fair enough.

I’ll just make a comment that I appreciate that this is what is required and that there’s nothing wrong with the report that’s been given to us, but I’m going to vote no to receiving it for the same reason I did with the multi-year budget and the strategic plan and that kind thing is I just don’t feel that it’s adequate reporting to the public to have two lines for 1.8 billion so I’m going to be voting no and then I’ll look to see if there’s a motion or support on council to do a more enhanced reporting as some other municipalities are doing especially when there’s a lot of talk about that right now and a lot of desire from the public. Okay if any other questions comments not seeing any we’ll open the vote on 2.10. Wasn’t the vote motion carries 4-1. Okay thank you we are on to confidential matters I look for a motion to go into closed session.

Okay Coun cillor Frank, Councillor Mirberg and thank you and we’ll open the vote on that. Motion to vote motion carries 5-0. Okay we’re back into public session I’ll look to Councillor Frank to report out from closed session. Thank you I’m pleased to announce that progress is made for the items for which we went in camera for.

Thank you and I look for a motion to adjourn. Councillor Ben Mirberg Councillor Frank, all those in favor? Any opposed ? Motion carries.

Thank you everyone have a good day.