Lots of pushback on city’s strategic plan
March 19 will see more council discussion about document

Dozens of Kawartha Lakes voters braved bad weather and dodgy roads to have their say on the 2024-2027 Strategic Plan. The deputants, who easily filled the two-hour time block set aside by the city clerk for discussion, were split into three roughly aligned groups: one generally supportive of the document and hoping for a specific change or two, another group generally opposed to the document but not outright objecting to the plan as a whole, and a third who felt the document was so utterly flawed that the city needs to return to the drawing board and create a new blueprint better reflective of local needs for the next three years.
Mayor Doug Elmslie set the tone for the evening by reminding the speakers of the ground rules for the presentation of deputations.
“You are here to give input to the strategic plan,” Elmslie told the packed visitors’ gallery. “It is not a forum to bring up other issues. It is strictly to get information to feed into the strategic plan. If people stray, I will attempt to bring them back to the subject at hand, but failing that we will have to stop people from speaking because we have a number of people who want to speak tonight.”
Fine tuning only please
Moya Beall, Wesley Found, Gary Malloy, William Steffler, David Rapaport and Michael Harvard generally supported the strategic plan, saying there is much of value in the document.
Beall, Steffler and Rapaport all concurred that there needs to be stronger language and more recognition by the municipality of the threat Kawartha Lakes faces from climate change, and commitments by the city to more actively take action against climate chaos.
“We have seen a lot of changes,” Beall said, “some good, some bad. I am very concerned about climate change. Storms are more powerful and frequent. Farmers are being whipsawed by weather issues. A healthy environment is a key to everything and municipal actions need to be seen through a climate lens.”
Steffler thought the document was “a good starting point” but stated it is essential to build on the start laid out in the draft plan.
“We have used our planet as a dumping ground,” Steffler said. “This has to stop. We cannot keep dumping garbage into the ecosystem. Governments can’t continue to say one thing and do another (on issues of climate).”
Steffler said that the plan needs stronger language about the use of fossil fuels and more emphasis on how we plan to clean up the mess we have already made.
Rapaport said that the world is facing a “climate emergency” and that he could not accept council treating the environment “business as usual.”
Rapaport shared with council his believe that better public transit is part of the solution to the climate crisis.
“We need to connect Lindsay to the GO network,” Rapaport said. “I am tired of waiting for the bus. The time is ripe for this to occur, and time is running out on the climate crisis and not nearly enough is being done. The longer we wait the fewer options we will have. We need a plan for the future that focuses on sustainability, and no jurisdiction – including Kawartha Lakes – is too small not to be involved. Humans have created the crisis and only we can undo it.”
Found and Malloy wanted to see the draft plan better address the need for more housing in Kawartha Lakes.
Found applauds the strategic plan and hopes, with the cooperation of council, to increase the residential capacity in downtown Lindsay by seeing empty upper units in the downtown core converted into as many as 210 studio apartments.
“Economic growth begins with population growth,” Found said. “I would like to see a task force made up of multiple stakeholders, including the city, to work on this project.”
Found asked councillors to consider adding downtown densification to all masterplans and strategic plans moving forward.
Malloy whole heartedly supports the idea of downtown densification, but wants the city to think long and hard about affordable housing as a more important part of their draft strategic plan.
“What is the definition of affordable housing?” Malloy asked.
“Based on a definition provided by our social services department,” Elmslie responded, “affordable housing should cost no more than 30 per cent of a person’s monthly income. The provincial definition is any apartment that rents at less than 80 per cent of market rent for an area.”
Harvard addressed specific concerns he had with the building of more cellphone towers in the city, and the expansion of a 5G wireless network throughout Kawartha Lakes.
“4G networks are known carcinogens,” Harvard said. “Europe and the European Union are much tougher on their placement and usage than Canada. I hope that the impact of cell towers, particularly on children, is considered in the draft strategic plan.”
Lots of change needed
Adam Burdeyney, Doug Shaw and Jim Greensides had many specific concerns with the draft strategic plan and made it clear to council that significant structural changes need to be made to the document before they would be happy with it.
Burdeyney was unsure how the success or failure of the plan could be measured by the progress indicators referred to in the document.
“I have questions about these progress indicators,” Burdeyney said. “I also wonder how this plan is going to be open and transparent. I also think the city should reconsider the purchase of electric vehicles.”
Elmslie told the deputant that information about the progress indicators and their operation would be forwarded to him in the near future.
Shaw spoke specifically to development of prime farmland within city boundaries for new housing developments.
“I don’t want Kawartha Lakes to make the same mistakes that Markham (his former home) did,” Shaw said. “Ontario needs farms and farmers. Development needs that farmland. Developers have arrived in Kawartha Lakes and their development will cause environmental issues. We need responsible development and too much A1 farmland is slated for development. I ask for reconsideration of decisions (in the strategic plan) regarding development.”
Shaw said that he has wide experience with one of the largest developers looking to break ground in Kawartha Lakes from his time in Markham saying, “(They) destroyed Markham and they will do the same thing here.”
Greensides told council that he also struggles with the possibility of expanding the city’s EV fleet, the plan’s emphasis on reducing the city’s carbon footprint, the city’s lack of action protecting local rivers, the decimation of local farmland due to development and the city’s decision to stop taking used tires at landfill sites across the city.
“Regarding the EV fleet,” Greensides said, “California has tried it and the infrastructure can’t support it. Canada is only responsible for 1 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. China is responsible for 30 percent. They are the biggest polluters in the world. Why don’t we (the municipality) stop buying from them?”
The plan has to go
Others, including Angel Godsoe, Zachary Tisdale, Maggie Braun, Nolan Carroll, Jeff Armitage and Gene Balfour, among others, were clear and consistent in their deputations that the draft strategic plan is beyond repair, too big, too broad and too restricting of their lives, personal freedoms and right to do with their property as they see fit.
Godsoe mocked the document calling it a “load of drivel that gives the municipality carte blanch on development, our health, our energy choices and where we spend our money. It is a fluffy sales advertisement asking for a blank cheque for nothing in return.”
Tisdale expanded the critique of the document and its focus on equity, diversity and inclusion as a city priority.
“With this focus on equity,” Tisdale said, “we are splitting people up rather than bringing them together. A focus on equity only increases social division and attacks individual rights and freedoms.”
Tisdale said that diversity hiring does not get the best possible people. He stated that the city should be focusing on merit hiring because if they do not, discrimination lawsuits against municipalities, already prevalent in the United States, will soon be coming to a courtroom near you.
Maggie Braun objected to the draft strategic plan and asked council to reject it claiming the document represents a “globalist agenda” and that the plan had been drafted by staff rather than council and the voters in the city.
Braun also rejected that there is a climate change emergency saying that the Net Zero policies spoken of in the plan are “destructive” and that the expansion of the city fleet to include EVs is a poor decision because she feels they are unsafe.
Carroll disapproved of the draft strategic plan saying, “it looked like every other strategic plan written by the United Nations.”
Carroll was also very concerned by the municipality’s movement away from paper documentation to electronic documentation suggesting there is a reason to be fearful of this move in the long run.
Armitage rejected the draft strategic plan outright saying he strongly opposes it because it was using climate change to “push a United Nations-driven masterplan.”
He asked council to swear a public oath of loyalty to the people of Kawartha Lakes rather than the Municipal Act, and that council needs to start telling staff what to do, rather than the other way around.
Armitage said that Kawartha Lakes is facing a “municipal debt crisis and that this strategic plan (as written) only makes this crisis worse.”
Gene Balfour told council they need to remove all references in the draft plan to diversity, equity and inclusion, greenhouse gases and reduction of the carbon footprint.
“These are not priorities,” Balfour said. “If other people think they are let those folks fund their own concerns with their own money. We don’t want government to take on more responsibilities and grow.”
Input from this meeting will be added to information collected online and in person through surveys available at city libraries and will come back to council for more discussion on March 19.
Developers destroyed Markham ,then Brooklin where I once lived and now here. Can I send Fords daughter some wedding cash to get this rape of Ontario stopped.
Hmmmm, sounds like an argument that could have been made at any point in evolution, including by the mammoth.
I agree that the City should think twice before paying a lot of money to DEI trainers at a time when DEI assumptions are fast falling from fashion. Fairness is important and eschewing nepotism and racism for open and equitable recruitment is vital to growth in Kawartha Lakes but DEI training won’t accomplish that.
Western society, culture and law are not defined by race or other identity markers but by values. For example, we condemn slavery not because of the colour of the slavers and/or of the enslaved but because we believe it is wrong to own another human being. Slavery has been a criminal offence in Canada since 1834 when British parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act. But slavery is still practiced in much of the world and in fact there are more slaves today – over 40 million held in neck and feet chains, whipped, starved and murdered with impunity – than ever before in human history. It is not acceptable just because the slave owners are not white.
Unlike the nations, culture and law of other countries Canadians are witnessing thousands of protesters cheer for on our streets every Saturday, Canadians believe all humans are equal under God and before the law. We condemn slavery not because of what colour the slave owners are but because we believe slavery, itself, is wrong.
In the same way, it is bigoted to belittle, silence, and otherwise abuse and disenfranchise anyone based on identities they cannot change like race, national or ethnic origin, sex, colour, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, age, and ability. That includes members of Indigenous peoples and members of dominant cultures or races in Canada like the Europeans.
Canada’s Constitution protects affirmative action initiatives and that is what the City should rely on to face the challenge of nepotism and promote the successes of outsiders, including racial minorities. Canada’s Human Rights Act also protects diversity, so there is no need to attack and destroy our very excellent if not perfect system of values by introducing an ideology – DEI – that seeks to do exactly that.
One more point. Like it or not, AI and digital government is a reality. It is no good for the City and its constituents to stick our collective heads into sand and sing lalalala, hoping it will go away. Under Good Government in the Strategic Plan, I’d like to see a sentence committing to the development of standards and bylaws to regulate the use of AI in the City. I’d also like to see a commitment to aggressively recruit talent in the field of AI regulation and to train the staff we already have, by sending them to digital government conferences.
I had meant to attend the meeting and make that point in a deputation but the weather got the better of me. I have sent my points to Clerk Sarah but she is no doubt horrifically busy and who knows where email goes half the time, in any event, and if she will even see it.
this needs to stop. their proposal is a wef template..it all needs to be rejected this very minute. we will never reach net zero. and if we ever do god forbid, plant life will die and we are next…rise up kawartha lakes..just say no!
With discussing “studio apartments above Kent St. businesses, is anybody aware that there already are apartments above, at least some of the businesses?
We have a family member that is one of them.
We have covered this issue in depth several times. Here’s the latest article: https://lindsayadvocate.ca/time-to-grow-lindsays-downtown-says-bia-chair/
At least Gene Balfour has some common sense. (the last of a dying breed)