Ontario’s Big City Mayors meet in Thunder Bay to share solutions

Ontario’s Big City Mayors (OBCM), a group making up mayors of cities in the province with more than 100,000 residents, held their latest meeting on Friday in Thunder Bay.

Mayors from across the province converged to discuss issues ranging from provincial payments to cities to automated speed cameras.

“The discussions have been really quite invigorating,” says Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff. “It’s amazing how cohesive the mayors are, all thinking on the same wavelength. The issues are the same just about everywhere.”

Asked what issues Thunder Bay was facing, Mayor Boshcoff pointed to “taxation sustaining services” and to “some of the new automated enforcement systems. Red light cameras, speed cameras.”

Automated speed cameras are not currently used in Thunder Bay, but they were a big focus of the meeting due to a recent pledge by Ontario Premier Doug Ford to ban their usage.

Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward, who chairs OBCM, says the group passed a resolution on speed cameras that aims to strike a compromise with the premier.

The mayors also passed a resolution asking the provincial and federal governments to lift their respective sales taxes on homes worth more than $1.5 million.

“We’re in a housing crisis; every little bit that we can do to help reduce the cost of a home is really important,” the Burlington mayor says.

The mayors also passed resolutions focused on government priorities around infrastructure, energy, housing, and transportation, as well as concerning homelessness and addiction.

OBCM is made up of 29 mayors from 29 municipalities, together representing more than two-thirds of Ontario’s population.