Doug Ford was in Ottawa this week, but still no word on when the province will follow through with local investments

Ontario Premier Doug Ford was in Ottawa this week for the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference, which brought city leaders from across the province together to make “stronger and more effective” governments. 

There was some hope the Premier's return to the Capital could have brought more support for the city, but no new announcements or local funding commitments were made. 

What Ford did promise, though, was a $1.6 billion funding boost for municipal housing infrastructure. Previously, the  Ontario government had already put $2.3 billion toward housing-enabling infrastructure. 

“(It) will support the construction of hundreds of thousands of homes across Ontario. Our government will continue investing in infrastructure and doing everything we can to get shovels in the ground,” Ford told the crowd of 2,500 delegates at the Rogers Centre. ”I had the chance to speak with Prime Minister Carney and let him know that we want to work together to remove the HST for first-time homebuyers and look for ways to be even more ambitious so we can lower the cost of building.”

That work cannot come fast enough. Ontario is not keeping up with its own goal of building 1.5 million homes by 2031. In 2024, construction began on 94,753 housing units, which is well below its interim goal of 125,000 homes for that year. And that was after it began adding long-term care homes and university dorms to the statistics. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the country is picking up pace while Ontario falls behind. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said in new statistics released Monday that housing starts rose four per cent every year. Ontario, on the other hand, declined 28 per cent. 

AMO is calling for a stimulus investment of $3.45 billion annually over five years from both provincial and federal sources for municipal infrastructure and social housing. In return, the group says it would help protect 14,000 jobs that would be lost in 2026 alone — including almost 5,000 in the construction sector. AMO suspects it would add $17.6 billion to the Ontario economy over the next five years.

The push for a return to full-time in-person work 

Ford had a strong message for municipalities during his AMO speech: It’s time for city employees to return to the office five days a week. 

In Ottawa, 85 per cent of the city’s 17,000 employees are in the workplace for the entire week, noted city staff. It comes after the city mandated workers back to in-person work two days a week last October. 

“The City’s top priority is delivering efficient, responsive service to residents; our employees have continued to do just that through a time of significant change,” LeMaistre said in a statement to CTV. “We regularly review our hybrid work approach against industry best practices and comparable public-sector employers to ensure our workforce policies continue to evolve and align with any changes to broader standards.”

The Premier said having municipal staff back in buildings would “help bring the public service and the municipalities closer to the people they serve and will revitalize our workplaces in downtowns across Ontario.” He credited Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, who mandated all his staff back full-time in January. 

A week ago, Ford announced provincial workers would be forced back to the office four days a week starting in November, before then going up to five days in the New Year. 

No new investments for Ottawa 

During Ford's speech, he referenced how the Critical Minerals Processing Fund would help places like Thunder Bay or Sudbury, or how new subway cars would benefit Toronto. What was not discussed was how Ontario planned to help Ottawa, which has been practically begging upper levels of government for help. 

In case you forget, in March 2024, the city announced a ‘New Deal For Ottawa’ which included a phased plan to guide the upload of Ottawa Road 174 to the province. Over a year later, there has been no traction.

Then, during the recent provincial election, Ford committed to offloading the city’s light rail transit system to the province. While Ontario would retain its costs, day-to-day operations would continue to be run by OC Transpo. There was also a commitment to fund Stage 3 light rail out to Kanata, Stittsville, and Barrhaven. But to date there has been no further information shared. 

“I would have liked to have heard a little more about what’s going on with the transit file for Ottawa. We’re looking for more detail on that and some timelines,” Kanata Coun. Allan Hubley told CTV. ”In my end of town, transit is an issue. Ridership is dropping because of changes that have been made to the system, and we need to reverse that.”

On Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney’s mind is a new ring road that would help alleviate congestion on the city’s highways. City council recently decided to remove it from its updated Transportation Master Plan — which is essentially a guidebook for what transit and road projects should be built over the next 20 years. Carleton MPP George Darouze, however, has indicated he’d like to see the province step in and get it built. 

During the four-day conference, Tierney said he planned to meet with Ford to discuss the file alongside Ontario’s Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria.

There is also talk of building a new bridge over the Rideau River between the city’s south end and Barrhaven to help ease traffic in rural and suburban parts of the city. 

New data finds province was wrong with Somerset crime rates 

During last year's AMO conference, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced the government intended to close safe injection sites located within 200 metres of daycares or schools. 

That resulted in the closure of the consumption site at the Somerset West Community Health Centre in Ottawa’s Chinatown neighbourhood. At the time, the province said crime rates in that area were 250 per cent higher than elsewhere in the city. But now we are learning that actually wasn’t true. 

The province has never released where they got their data from. CTV Ottawa filed a freedom of information request and found that in reality, the crime rate was only 14 per cent higher than the citywide average.  

Police statistics found that the rate was 5,078.83 per 100,000 residents, compared with 4,430 per 100,000 residents citywide. 

During this year's AMO conference, Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster questioned Jones on the data and what the government plans to do to help the area's social challenges. The health minister responded by referring to the death of a woman who was killed by a stray bullet outside a Toronto safe consumption site in 2023. 

“With the greatest of respect, I never, ever want to have a mother who is killed because she happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in front of a consumption site in the province of Ontario,” responded Jones. 

The safe consumption sites closed earlier this year. In their place, HART Hubs have opened — referring to homelessness and addiction recovery treatment programs. They provide primary care, mental health services and addiction care support, amongst other services  — but illicit street drugs can’t be used on site. 

Since then, the community has reported an increase in crime and rowdy behaviour in the Chinatown area. One resident said they regularly pass people who have passed out or are incapacitated on the street, reported the Kitchissippi Times. 

Troster said Somerset West being prevented from performing lifesaving work has not helped keep anyone safe. 

“Whether it’s open or whether it’s closed is not going to make much of a difference in the public drug use issue, which is related to the closure of the supervised consumption site,” Troster said. “That’s something that was done without consultation of our community.”