The District of Kenora Unincorporated
Ratepayers Association
The District of Kenora Unincorporated Ratepayers Association Bill Blower 1 807 7273971
P.O. Box 79, Red Lake, Ontario, P0V 2M0 bblower@red-lake.lakeheadu.ca
October 4, 1999
The Hon. Timothy Hudak,
Minister of Northern Development and Mines,
Office of the Minister,
99 Wellesley St. W.
5th Floor, Whitney Block,
Room 5630,
Toronto, Ontario,
M7A 1W3
Dear Minister:
We are writing in response to the Ontario Regulation 331/99 that was just
brought to our attention at a meeting of the Kenora District Services Board on
September 9 1999.
This regulation deals with the process the residents of the unorganized
territories must follow to create an Area Service Board.
Minister, you must certainly be aware of the fact that the Kenora District
initially applied for an Area Service Board and there was no legislation that
would allow the creation of this entity. Bill 12, The Northern Services
Improvement Act, 1998 was a result of a large amount of work by both the
Provincial employees and the residents of Northeastern and Northwestern
Ontario.
We in the Kenora District Unincorporated areas formed our Association to
participate and educate the Provincial employees and Municipal representatives
on our unique situation. By participating, we gained the respect of
both of these groups.
We spent literally thousands of hours of VOLUNTEER time to work with the
Municipal and Provincial people to work out an agreement for the Area Service
Board. This agreement treated every resident and ratepayer, both
municipal and unincorporated, equally.
We spent thousands of OUR OWN DOLLARS to get this agreement.
Your ministry promised us there would be legislation that would allow the
creation of these ASBs and then your government allowed it to die on the order
table.
Your government proceeded with its timetable to download and forced us to
rework our proposal to fit into the District Social Service Administration
Board (DSSAB) criteria to allow your timetable to stay on course. This is
not what we in the unincorporated area of the Kenora District want. We
went into the process thinking the government would honour its pledge to us and
would pass the legislation to allow ASBs. When your government did pass
Bill 12, the Northern Services Improvement Act, you told the District Social
Services Administration Boards, through your field personnel, that the
government wished to see how well they could operate as a DSSAB before it would
be allowed to become an Area Service Board. The field agent did say they
expected little trouble rolling the DSSAB into an ASB because the groundwork
had all been done and consents had been given for the creation of the DSSAB.
Now with this regulation 331/99, your government expects the unincorporated
VOLUNTEERS to start from scratch, go back to all communities with members of
the Provincial government in tow, and re-certify the desire to create an ASB.
Minister, the Kenora District is the size of France!! How do you expect
us to hold A meeting that would be in an Unincorporated community, or for that
matter in an adjacent municipality, that would be large enough to hold 30,000
people?
Minister, who is paying the costs for this process?
Minister, there are a large number of ELIGIBLE VOTERS that live in the Province
of Manitoba. Will the regulation permit
a polling station there? If a polling station is allowed there, and we
understand, the precedents have been set, does this meeting constitute a legal
meeting that is governed by an Ontario regulation outside the Provincial
boundaries? It is the opinion of our
Association that this regulation was not properly thought out and had very
little consultation with the unincorporated communities.
It is the opinion of our Association that if a district wishes to have their DSSAB
rolled into an Area Service Board it should be allowed to do so. The
dissatisfaction of the public will be shown at the time of the municipal
elections when the unincorporated representatives will be on the ballot.
Minister, if we must, our Association is prepared to do the legwork all over
again but we want your government, who is supposed to be practicing budget
restraints, to know we are not happy with this regulation.
We want you to know, we will be asking for funding to pay our expenses for the
process you are repeating, and, we want you to know that the Unincorporated
community in the Kenora District will work with our municipal partners to make
the Kenora District Services Board into an Area Service Board of which we can
be proud.
Yours respectfully,
Bill Blower, Chairman of the Steering committee.
Gerry Wilson, Lake of the Woods area
Robert Wall, Oxdrift area
The District of Kenora Unincorporated Ratepayers Association
Copyright ©
Last revised: October 5, 1999