Cabinet Shuffle, Municipal Risk, and Gender-Based Violence

New Municipal Affairs Minister

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark tendered his resignation on September 4. The Premier announced changes to his Cabinet later that day, including:

• Paul Calandra moves from Minister of Long-Term Care to Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. He retains his role as Government House Leader.
• Prabmeet Sarkaria moves from President of the Treasury Board to Minister of Transportation
• Caroline Mulroney moves from Minister of Transportation to President of the Treasury Board. She retains her role as Minister of Francophone Affairs.
• Stan Cho moves from Associate Minister of Transportation to Minister of Long-Term Care.
• Rob Flack becomes Associate Minister of Housing with a specific mandate on attainable housing and modular homes reporting to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing;
• Todd McCarthy becomes Associate Minister of Transportation reporting to the Minister of Transportation; and
• Nina Tangri moves from Associate Minister of Housing to Associate Minister of Small Business reporting to the Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

AMO looks forward to working with all of the Ministers in their new roles.

AMO Acknowledges Gender-Based Violence and Intimate Partner Violence in Ontario

On August 19th, the AMO Board of Directors acknowledged that gender-based violence and intimate partner violence is an epidemic in Ontario, requiring an urgent and coordinated response.  Building on this acknowledgement, an AMO delegation of municipal representatives, joined by the Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Native Women’s Association, met with Ministers Michael Kerzner (Solicitor General), Michael Parsa (Children, Community and Social Services), and Charmaine Williams (Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity) to highlight the need for partnership with municipalities and community-based organization to urgently address these issues. A letter to the Ministers calls for the provincial government to work with partners to develop a concrete plan of action to address intimate partner violence, gender-based violence, and violence against Indigenous women that is accompanied by sufficient resources, clear accountability mechanisms, and a robust implementation approach. AMO’s Social Policy Task Force and Policing Task Force will lead ongoing work to address these forms of violence.

Municipal Risk and Liability Report

For decades, municipalities across Ontario have experienced fluctuating insurance premiums. Insurance premiums are determined by several factors, including number and type of claims, economic conditions as well as global and local events. Since 2022, AMO and the Ministry of Attorney General have come together to form a Technical Working Group to provide an inter-governmental dialogue on municipal insurance costs, coverage and liability issues.

Two key takeaways of the group’s work for AMO are:

• to consider alternate risk financing options that may address concerns with municipal insurance cost growth; and
• to collect joint and several liability data to identify any future opportunities for legislative change.

Click here to read the full report.

Correction to AMO Conference Update

In our August 25 Policy Update, we had mistakenly identified Councilor Kelsie Van Bellenghem as the delegate who put to Minister Clark the question of municipal codes of conduct during the Ministers Forum.  The impactful question was, in fact, delivered by Councilor Lindsay Koch of Kenora. We apologize for the error, and attribute it to AMO’s Director of Policy clearly needing to build in additional recovery time post-conference prior to drafting updates.