ORILLIA – Garfield Dunlop, MPP for Simcoe North, today criticized the McGuinty Liberals for presenting a very flawed Intergovernmental Action Plan (IGAP) to the mayors of the municipalities representing the Cities of Barrie and Orillia and the municipalities of the County of Simcoe.

Dunlop, a former County Warden and Chair of the Official Plan Committee and MPP’s Joe Tasona and Jim Wilson have not been invited or included in any discussions between the province and the municipalities they represent concerning IGAP. Most municipal council members have not been included as well.

“In a very secretive meeting, held in Ottawa on Monday, some 400 km. from Simcoe County, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, John Gerretsen, presented the Mayors of Simcoe County, Barrie and Orillia a seriously flawed IGAP document that comes nowhere close to a responsible plan for the citizens of Simcoe municipalities for the next 25 years,” said Dunlop. “There are serious flaws and intentional oversights concerning governance, environmental impact and infrastructure costs that all municipal politicians and citizens alike should be made aware of under the Barrie and Area preferred option.”

Dunlop points to a number of examples:

a) The document clearly points out that the Barrie and Area Option has a distinct disadvantage in that the population plan clearly over exceeds the Assimilative Capacity targets; therefore, reaffirming concerns for the future water quality in Lake Simcoe and the Nottawasaga River.

b) The document intentionally does not address the issue of who will pay for expanded infrastructure. For example, the document points out that in 2006 dollars, the costs for sewer and water expansion and upgrades will cost some 651 million dollars to accommodate the 247,000 additional citizens. In the 2006 COMRIF, the McGuinty Liberals did not allocate any funding for any sewer or water projects in Barrie, Orillia or the County of Simcoe. There are also no plans to expand any of the 400 series of highways in Simcoe as well.

c) The document discusses people living where they work. In adding another 247,000 citizens to the region by 2031 the document does not address any jobs strategy or support that would indicate that tens of thousands of additional people will not have to commute to the GTA each and every day.

d) Under the Implications for Governance Section of the document it is clear that the Minister wants the cities of Barrie and Orillia to rejoin the County. This would be the first step in forming a completely restructured county that would ultimately end up with only 5 or 6 municipalities in total and a far more expensive and bureaucratic regime.

MPP Dunlop added, “The minister has failed miserably in his attempt to actually address problems that will arise as a result of growth pressures. Instead, he just wants to restructure or try to fix something that is not broken.”

Contact:
Garfield Dunlop, MPP Simcoe North
(705) 327-4500 (cell)