The following highlights from the July 11, 2024 Dufferin County Council Meeting are provided for general information purposes. For the full agenda and minutes, please see the Meeting Agendas and Minutes page.

Sabine Matheson, Principal, and Stacy Hushion, Vice President, StrategyCorp Inc., provided an update regarding the Governance and Service Review. A copy of the presentation slideshow is available here.

County staff will review the findings from StrategyCorp Inc. and seek further input from staff at the local municipalities. Staff anticipate reporting back to Council in late fall 2024.

Each year an annual report is presented on the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan (2021-2024), highlighting significant work of the Integration Table, its partners and the community.

In 2023, the Integration Table successfully conducted a community-wide survey, which provided value information to guide the next plan. The Integration Table focused on the following priority areas for 2023:

• Community Safety and Violence Prevention
• Housing and Homelessness
• Discrimination, Marginalize and Racism
• Substance Use and Addiction
• Mental Health and Well-Being

The annual report card outlines the planned outcomes and the realized outputs and outcomes for each priority area. Read the 2023 Annual Report card linked below for more information.

The physicians at the Shelburne Centre for Health (SCFH) have entered into a collaborative agreement with the new Medical School at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). This agreement will have SCFH become a teaching site and serve as a clinical base for six students/residences each year.

Council approved a lease agreement with Shelburne Centre for Health to allow the additional space needed to make this collaboration possible. This collaboration is hoped to aid in recruiting new doctors to the area and combatting local doctor shortages.

Council have taken steps in approving proposed amendments to the Building Fees and Charges By-Law. Proposed amendments include, but are not limited to:

• Permits that have been sitting dormant for twenty-four months will be charged an automatic fee of $1,000 and an additional $200 for each month it remains open. The applicant can request an extension for their permit and it may be granted at the discretion of the Chief Building Official, or the permit will be revoked.
• A fee is currently charged when an Unsafe Order is issued, but not for other orders. This will be changed to charge a fee for all orders issued.
• A fee of $500 will be applied each month for Orders that surpass their compliance deadline.

In accordance with Section 7(6) of the Building Code Act, a public meeting regarding these proposed amendments will be held on August 22, 2024 at 3:00 pm.

More information, along with the complete list of proposed amendments, is available in the report from the Director of Development and Tourism.

Council has appointed Principles Integrity. Integrity Commissioners, Jeffrey Abrams and Janice Atwood, will be serving the County on a five-year term effective August 1st, 2024. Our website will soon be updated to reflect these new appointments. For more information, please visit our Open Government page.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario Government, through the Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks, operated a world-leading wastewater testing program that provided test results from 13 academic institutions to 34 public health units and other end users, which included many smaller communities, rural areas and northern Ontario. It has recently been announced that this program will no longer receive funding as of July 31, 2024.

Council is requesting that the Minister of Health and the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks reconsider the funding cuts to this wastewater testing program in order to protect the health and well-being of the residents of Ontario and reduce future costs to our health care system.