Catégorie : Tribune-Express (Hawkesbury)

“I’m happy to see the future of where we’re going,” said Drouin, during a phone interview April 5.

The 2023 federal budget announced last month includes $43 billion in new spending programs over the next six years with its main priority targets as health care, fostering a “greener” economy for Canada, and helping make life “more affordable” for Canadians. Critics of the new budget complain that it does not include either new money or plans to deal with the issue of affordable housing that is becoming a growing concern for many municipalities or more funding help for dealing with aging municipal infrastructure like roads.

Drouin noted that previous federal budgets have set up programs dealing with those issues and that those programs are still in place.

“There is going to be accelerated funding,” Drouin said, for affordable housing programs. “There are funds that are available. But municipalities will have to step up and mandate how those projects go ahead.”

The MP indicated that municipal governments must be more active in dealing with developers on creating more affordable housing units within their communities. He cited as one example that local government could require developers to guarantee a specific percentage of affordable housing units as part of a new residential project during the municipal planning and approval phase.

Drouin noted that the federal government has to be cautious about how it delegates funding aid to avoid creating an artificial economy that is dependent on senior government money.

“We have to be careful not to inject too much money into the economy,” he said, “as it could cause inflation.”

The MP observed that Canada still has a Triple-A international credit rating, which is a sign of confidence in the country’s economic performance and financial management.

“Overall, we are in a much better financial shape than the U.S.,” Drouin said, “or many other G20 states.”

Positive budget items

Drouin noted several items in the 2023 budget that will benefit residents and businesses in the Glengarry-Prescott-Riding. They include a one-time increase in the GST rebate this year. Nicknamed “the grocery rebate” because it is meant to help offset the impact inflation has had on the cost of many food items, it means up to $467 in GST rebate for families, $234 for singles, and up to $235 for seniors.

“That is a positive measure,” said Drouin.

The MP also indicated that the agriculture sector will get some help with lowering production costs. The 2023 budget includes plans to reimburse farmers for the tariff they pay for fertilizer for their operations. The federal government is also working with the Dairy Farmers of Ontario on a variety of compensation plans. That includes adding $32 million to the $300 million of federal spending already dedicated to programs that assist the dairy industry on production costs.

“Milk has to go somewhere,” said Drouin, adding that the St-Albert Cheese Factory is one regional business that could benefit from the new funding provided through the federal budget.

“There are also dollars for tourism,” he said. “We have a lot of (local) businesses that are dependent on the tourism sector.

The 2023 budget includes $130 million through the Federal Development agency (FedDev) to support existing and new tourism projects.

The MP also indicated that the government negotiated a 27-per-cent reduction in the interchange fees that Visa and Mastercard charge small businesses. Drouin said that will help lower the operation costs for many local businesses.

Health and dental

The federal budget includes $3.6 billion in new money during the 2023-2024 fiscal year for health care. That includes Stage Two of the federal dental care plan worked out through an agreement between the Liberals and the NDP. The program launch last year provided dental care assistance for children under the age of 12 from low-income families. Stage Two expands that coverage to Canadians under the age of 18, people with disabilities, and seniors.

The expanded support program will be in full operation by 2025. Drouin promised to monitor how the expanded program operates during that time. He noted that some low-income families and individuals have to deal with tight budgets for food, hydro, home heating, and other expenses. He agreed that any dental care assistance program that required “up-front payments” first for dental care bills with federal rebates at a later date would be no benefit for many low-income families.

The South Nation Conservation Authority (SNC) issued a floodwatch notice for communities in the Lower Ottawa River area. The notice covers the area from Arnprior up to Hawkesbury but residents of other communities further upstream should heed the advice provided as part of the floodwatch notice.

The SNC advisory warns that rainfall from the ice storm that swept across Eastern Ontario overnight April 5 and 6 combined with warm, sunny weather over the Easter weekend speeding up the snow melt marks the start of the spring freshet in the Ottawa River basin. As the weather continues to warm up, residents living in the Lower Ottawa River region can expect to above average snow melt condition in some parts of the region, and a chance of minor flooding in low-level areas along the river banks.

The SNC noted there is no cause for alarm right now. SNC and the Raisin River Conservation Authority (RRCA), Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, and Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority continue to monitor water levels in their watersheds, which empty into the Ottawa River. The agencies and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry will issue notices of changes in floodwatch conditions and also post updates on their websites.

 Anyone with a home or business located in an area prone to flooding is advised to pay attention to changing conditions and take any measure needed to protect their property. Residents are also advised to stay away from creeks and streams where the water level is high and the stream bank may be slippery or unstable.

In some areas where ice break up continues in nearby streams, there may be a risk of ice jams at bridges or culverts that can cause partial flooding of neighbouring property or roads.

Parents are urged to talk to their children about the danger of playing near streams at this time and if a home is located near a creek or stream to supervise their children when they are outside.

Homeowners should make sure their sump pumps are in good working condition and that the pump has a backwater valve. Anyone with a portable generator and backup pump should also check that the equipment is in working order and that sufficient fuel is available to power them.

Make sure building downspouts are clear and that the outlets are at least three metres away from the building. Check that driveway culverts are clear of debris and able to drain.

Environment Canada warned earlier in the week, following the April 2 weekend, that a possible ice storm would sweep across the region before the coming Easter weekend, with low temperatures and a mix of wet snow and icy rain forecast. The weather turned cold and wet Wednesday with power outages starting in the afternoon all over the region.

Hydro crews began removing trees hung up on power lines and repairing lines that were broken as a result of either trees falling on them or from the weight of the ice. Later during the night crews had to call a temporary stop to their repair work because of unsafe conditions in the darkness due to falling branches and trees and the icy rain and blowing wind. Repair work resumed Thursday morning as soon as it was light enough for crews to see what they were doing.

Hydro One, through media alerts and its own power outage call line, advised residents to stay indoors and promised notices of when repairs would be completed and power restored in all areas affected.

In the Prescott-Russell region, many villages and towns were without power Thursday morning. Some places had partial power in parts of the community.

For homeowners with portable generators to provide them with electricity during the power outage, the focus for them is finding service stations that have working pumps to dispense gasoline for their generators.

Residents whose home heating systems depend on electricity should contact their local municipal office for location information on any designated warming shelters during the current power outage.

During the regular meeting on March 22, the United Counties of Prescott and Russell (UCPR) received a report from Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Stéphane Parisien regarding the food hub. It was planned to be a federally inspected food processing plant that would process local produce and distribute it to the national market. Since it was first proposed in 2018, the UCPR had spent $282,912 attempting to plan, organize, and study the feasibility of such a venture.

According to Parisien’s report, there were several uncertainties to the food hub’s business plan that made it a bad idea. There was uncertainty about whether Prescott-Russell could produce enough fresh, packaged, and processed food to meet current market demand. Even if possible, the report noted, local farms and agri-food processors already have their own marketing networks, which makes a regional food hub redundant.

The last point in the report is that the UCPR covers a large area but has a low population concentration, which means that potential local customers are concentrated in a few dense areas, and the rest are spread out over rural communities.

Even if the UCPR went ahead with the food hub, local infrastructure isn’t equipped to support a large food production setup. Several municipalities don’t have high enough water capacity to keep up with production, and those that do would see a large impact on all other customers that also use the local water service, whether residential, commercial, or industrial. Also wastewater resulting from the production process would be huge, and the report was uncertain about whether a local municipality would be able to deal with all of it through its wastewater treatment system.

The report also noted that no regional government has ever administered a food processing facility, and so there are no examples of a business model to use as a guide. The report stated there were also problems finding an appropriate site for the hub with adequate electricity, natural gas, and road connections. The report also noted that none of the outside funding that the UCPR was counting on had been secured in the five years since the project began.

UCPR council voted to cancel the project for now. Parisien did note that an outside party may express interest in reviving the project at some point, so UCPR council will keep all materials and analyses created available for future reference.

During the regular meeting on February 27, Russell Township council passed a resolution regarding the new community positivity program passed by the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR). A total of $400,000 has been set aside in the UCPR’s 2023 budget for the program, which has been equally divided between the eight member municipalities for a total of $50,000 per municipality.

Russell council was concerned that this equal division is unfair, as the Township of Russell accounts for 23 per cent of the Prescott-Russell tax levy but will only receive 12.5 per cent of the community positivity funds. Russell Council resolved to request that the UCPR implement a Tax Levy-based funding model rather than dividing the funds equally. Mayor Pierre Leroux brought the request forward during the UCPR’s Committee of the Whole meeting on March 8, although he stated he didn’t agree with it.

The fund is meant to benefit the community as a whole, whether to build infrastructure, ensure open access to events, or to beautify public spaces.

Mayor Genevieve Lajoie of Casselman stated that as far as she knew, the UCPR is the only second-tier government to offer a program like the Community Positivity Fund. She saic that a tax levy system wouldn’t be appropriate as the money is supposed to be used to promote and improve Prescott-Russell as a whole, not just individual communities. She said that the original idea was that each member community received the same amount of money no matter the tax base, and that bringing in a tax levy-based system now would degrade the original decision and the spirit of the Positivity Fund.

“Right now we’re already having in-house debating about money,” Lajoie said, “and I’m not interested in being on the fence about whether my funding will get cut next year because I’m in Casselman and I have less population. I’m not interested in coming back here and fighting over money year after year at a table where we’re not all equal. If we look at the concept of universality, Casselman pays the same amount of taxes as Russell does. Every person individually pays the exact same taxes to Prescott and Russell.”

She said she’d rather cancel the whole program than start debating about how much money should go to each community.

Mayor Mario Zanth of Clarence-Rockland said that the tax levy system wouldn’t reduce the amount of funding, as he believed there was a floor of $50,000 in the fund.

“Fifty-thousand dollars goes a lot further in Casselman than it does in the six villages of Clarence-Rockland,” he said. “We are all equal, and there’s no one denying that, but when it comes to a fund for community, we have to look at how much community we have.”

He said that Clarence-Rockland has a population of 27,000 while Casselman has a population of 4000, and thus Clarence-Rockland has a lot more going on than Casselman. He said that Clarence-Rockland council will vote on a similar tax-levy request in the coming weeks, as they were “a little taken aback” by the division of funds.

Zanth also said he wanted to clarify that the fund isn’t a sponsorship program, but rather a community program. The money may come from the UCPR, but the funds are still coming from local taxes.

Lajoie said she agreed with “everything that [Zanth was] saying”, but that altering the amount would still degrade the original resolution of equal division. She disagreed with going over $50,000 as much as going under, because $50,000 to each of the eight municipalities is $1.6 million over four years, and “we can’t all of a sudden say we want [more] and leveling the playing field takes away the concept of universality at the upper tier of government.”

UCPR Chief Administrator Stéphane Parisien said council could leave the $50,000 amount as is and have discussions later about policy and criteria to better mandate the distribution of funds. He said discussion of a tax levy-based system could be part of budget discussions in autumn.

The resolution was received for consideration in the future.