Transcript - Council Tackles Homelessness and Pollution - General Issues Committee

Council Tackles Homelessness and Pollution - General Issues Committee - March 25, 2026

Sound check. 1 2 3. Sound check. 1 2 3. Good morning. Always wanted to do that. It was bring your own gavvel to work day. Uh this is my grandfather's galvvel from the 1963 1964 district school board. I'm channeling some good karma through it today. He was a good believer in efficiency and good governance. I hope I don't have to use it. But now you know what it sounds like. I'm just going to place it right there. Hopefully grandpa's uh watching and uh approving. I'm going to call this meeting to order. It's 9:30. Uh we have in chambers with us councelor Paul's, Councelor Clark, Councelor Cooper, Councelor Casar, Councelor Alex Wilson, Counselor Cretch, Councelor Ted McMakin, councelor Moren Wilson. Joining us online, Councelor Hang, Councelor Francis. My name is Councelor Jeff Bey and I'm serving in the role of deputy mayor for the month of March. Uh, a reminder that all electronic devices are to be switched to a non-audible function during committee meetings, which is to say, please turn your phones off during the meeting. Madame Clerk, can you advise if we uh are ready to proceed with the approval of the agenda if there's any changes, modifications to the agenda? Uh, yes, Deputy Mayor. Uh, added there's an added delegation respecting item 8.8. 8. There's an added presentation for 6.3 and 6.4. There is an added item for information. Three added notice of motions and one added private and confident confidential item and all items listed as to be distributed have been added. Okay. Thank you. If I could get a mover and a seconder to approve the agenda. Seeing councelor McMaken, councelor Paul's, any questions, discussions about the agenda today? Seeing none, if we could please have a hand vote. All in favor? Seeing that that is unanimous. Thank you, colleagues. We're moving on to declarations of interest. Are there any declarations of interest? Excellent. Oh, we do have one. My apologies. We're going to councelor Cooper. Thank Thank you, Chair. I just want to highlight I will be stepping right away around 1 to three from city business. Okay. Just make you aware of that. Thank you. Yep. Not a problem. Thank you so much. Any other declarations of interest? Excellent. We're moving now to the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting. This is GIC26-004 from February 25th, 2026. If I could have a mover and secondary to adopt the previous minutes. Looking for a mover, seeing councelor Cooper, councelor Cretch. Thank you. Any discussion on the minutes? Seeing none, all in favor by a show of hands. That is unanimous. Thank you, colleagues. We're moving on now to item number six, which is delegations. And before we begin, I just want to remind members that questions of the delegations are for clarification purposes only and not for debate. And of course, a note to our delegates, we're going to give you five minutes to complete your delegation. At the 4m minute mark, you will hear a tone and then there will be an additional tone at the 5m minute mark and hopefully uh we'll be able to conclude there. Uh if for some reason I need to wave frantically at you to remind you that we're at the end of your time, I'll do that. And uh we'll begin first with uh 6.1 which is Dr. Zia Chuid from Clean Air Hamilton to present the 2022 and 2023 progress report for Clean Air Hamilton. This is a virtual delegation. Hopefully I've pronounced the name right. I apologize if I butchered that. Okay. So, I'm not seeing our first delegate online, so we're going to move to 6.2. We'll circle back to see if the doctor is joining us later. Uh, up next, uh, item number 6.2, Einer Isitan, Beef Farmers of Ontario, respecting how Ontario's beef farmers are advancing environmental sustainability through responsible land stewardship, innovation, and climate smart practices. This is an in-person delegation. and we're getting you all set up at the podium. And when you're ready, we will begin. Welcome. Good morning chair and members of committee and thank you for the opportunity to be here today. My name is Einzan with the beef farmers of Ontario and I'm joined by my colleagues Jennifer Kyle and virtually Thomas Bernsteeter. We represent farmers from across the province including here in the Hamilton area and we work closely with producers on sustainability policy and market development. We're here today to introduce ourselves as a partner in helping the city of Hamilton meet its climate and sustainability goals and to start a conversation about how agriculture can contribute in a meaningful and practical way. Ontario's beef sector includes 19,000 farmers, supports over 58,000 jobs, and contributes more than $3 billion annually to Ontario's economy. In many communities, including Hamilton, beef farms are a part of the local landscape, local economy, and local food system. But today, we're not here to just talk about our economic contribution. We're here because agriculture and livestock need to be a part of the conversation when it comes to municipal climate action. Municipalities influence food systems, waste management, land use planning, and economic development. And farmers can directly support each of those priorities in practical and measurable ways. The key message we want to leave you with today is simple. Beef farmers are already contributing to climate solutions. In Canada, beef emissions intensity is nearly half the global average, which reflects the practices, research, and standards in place here in Canada. Much of the land used for beef production is not suitable for crop protection. So cattle are converting grasslands into food. Those grasslands are also important carbon sinks and provide habitat for wildlife. And importantly, farmers are helping divert food waste by feeding byproducts, materials that would otherwise go to landfill like spent or distiller grains, imperfect produce or baked goods. These byproducts can be fed to cattle for them to convert them into high quality protein. This infographic highlights findings from the 20 2024 Canadian National Beef Sustainability Assessment released by the Canadian Round Table for Sustainable Beef and it highlights significant progress between 2014 and 2021, including a 15% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity per kilogram of boneless beef. This progress keeps the industry on track for its 2030 goals of a 33% reduction driven by improved production efficiencies, reduced water usage, and positive contributions to carbon storage and biodiversity on the ground or on the farm if you will. This looks like practical, measurable actions that are already being implemented on farms. For example, rotational grazing allows pastures to recover, improving soil health, increasing carbon storage, and making better use of the land base. Feed innovations and ongoing research are helping reduce methane emissions while maintaining productivity and animal health. And practices like protecting waterways and maintaining grasslands, support biodiversity, improve water quality, and contribute to the overall ecosystems resilience. These are outcomes that align directly with many of the environmental priorities municipalities are working towards today. Here in the Hamilton region, there are over 40 beef farms and more than 8,000 cattle and calves. These farms contribute to the local economy, but they also play an important role in maintaining green space and working landscapes within the region. They help preserve agricultural land, support biodiversity, and provide environmental services such as carbon storage and water protection that benefit the broader community. So when we talk about climate and sustainability, this is not theoretical. This is already happening here locally here in Hamilton. As this city continues to advance in its climate action strategy, we're asking that agriculture and livestock in particular be included in those conversations. We believe there is a real opportunity to align municip municipal goals with onfarmm practices and to ensure policies are informed by practical on the ground experience. We would welcome the opportunity to continue this discussion with city staff and council and to bring local beef producers forward to share more detailed insights into the practices we've highlighted today. Hearing directly from producers can help ground these conversations in what is achievable and where there are opportunities to collaborate. We've already begun connecting with staff and look forward to building on that collaboration. Thank you again for your time today and for the work you're doing on climate and sustainability in Hamilton. We appreciate the opportunity to be here and we look forward to continue the conversation and identifying ways we can work together moving forward. Thank you very much. Uh that was incredibly efficient. I appreciate that. The power of the gal stands. I'm going to look now to uh our speakers list beginning with councelor Ted McMe. Please please go ahead. Yes. Thanks uh chair and thanks for thanks for coming out and uh and sharing with us. I wish more farm groups would do do that because it's such a an important uh component of our economy in in excess now of 42 billion dollars uh cumulatively which is uh by the way the largest contributor to Ontario's gross domestic product. People uh don't realize that. Uh but my my question is uh I know that you work with other groups. One in particular that I'm very familiar with are the uh the grain grain farmers. Are are you still uh advocating as strongly as you were a while back on around cornfed cornfed beef? Yeah, thank you for the question through the chair. Um yes, we we do partner quite uh so we have our Ontario Cornfed beef program which is um is run by our Ontario Cattle Feeders Association. Uh so we do work in partnership with them to support that program. Um and the vast majority while there are lots of different options for the way that farmers are um finishing their cattle to bring them to market weight, the the vast majority are cornfed here in the province of Ontario. Um, it's a great position we're in to have choice. So, those who would like to have beef that's that's grass-finished, we have that option. But we do have plenty that is that is cornfed as well. And corn does play a big role in that sustainability picture as well in terms of the cattle being able to take the corn that is used for things like um distilling into um ethanol for example. The the cattle are able to eat that. It's a high quality food source for them. Um so yes we do still partner uh with the uh corn feed corn grain feed grain uh growers in general but in particular the corn sector best tasting and most nutritious to eat anywhere in the world right here. Um, thanks. It's uh it's good to good to know. Um I I wanted to ask a question because I wanted to highlight the connected connectiveness within the agricultural sector that that everybody benefits the the grain the grain producers, the beef farmers and uh and of course all of us around the horseshoe get to consume the best tasting most nutritious and uh best eat beef in the world. Thanks. Thanks very much. Thank you, Councelor McMe. Moving on next to Councelor Brad Clark, please. Good morning, Deputy Mayor. Uh, just one question. In their presentation, it indicated that there was a 15% reduction in greenhouse gas from today compared to 2000. I think it said 14. Can I ask how did they accomplish this? Looking to the delegate. Yeah, thank you for the question through the chair to the counselor. Um, there's a number of different ways that that's been accomplished. Um, obviously with just a short period of time today for this presentation, we didn't have a lot of time to go into some of the the details on the on into the onfarmm practices and research that's being done. Um, but there's many different practices that farmers across Ontario and across the country are using in order to help to bring those down. So, we do have the our our 2030 goals, which we alluded to on one of the slides with that infographic. Um, and contained within those goals are a number of different strategies, things like rotational grazing, um, the feeding of byproducts, um, research going into different feed uh, different feed additives and and feed sources that can help to reduce the um, reduce the greenhouse gas emissions admitted from the animals themselves. So, there's a number of different ways that that has been um been happening. And if we have the opportunity to to meet with with staff and and with council in a more uh wholesome opportunity, we can certainly delve into some of that as well as bringing some of our farmer producers who can talk about the specifics that they do on farm as well. Councelor, Deputy Mayor, I appreciate the answer. I would like more information if it can be provided at some future date. Thank you. Okay, moving on next to Councelor Rob Cooper, please. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation today. I found it very, very enlightening and thank you for the handouts as well. Um, you know, agriculture's number two economic sector in Hamilton. Um, we also have, you know, past councils have this goal around climate emergency and you've brought those two pieces together today for us. My question to you is, do you have any connectivity to our climate office? I mean, our climate office is working towards certain goals and you're in parallel working towards similar goals. Do you have conversations back and forth or how do you how does that connection work with the city of Hamilton's climate department? You said to the delegate. Yeah. So, currently we're hoping to um afterwards get into connection and have those further conversations as well as be able to present in depth um what it is that farmers are doing on farm in terms of contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So we are hoping to have a continued conversation with the climate environment um committee. Okay. Councelor, thank you. Thank you chair and through you. Um as you've gone around the province, maybe you could give us a sense. Are other municipalities highly engaged with you right now having those conversations or or is this like a new initiative or where are we in that whole life cycle? Yeah, thank you for the question and through the chair to the councelor. Um it's a relatively new uh so so Beef Farmers of Ontario typically has um done most of our uh delegating to the province um and in some capacity also to the federal government through our partners at the NA at our national uh Canadian Cattle Association. Um but over the past couple of years, we're starting to see more and more um issues at the municipal level that are impacting farmers. And it could be it's more than just things like climate change. It could be uh land use, um drainage, any of those types of things. So over the past year or so, we have been starting to try and do a little bit more of that municipal advocacy. uh just recognizing that the the policies and and and initiatives being taken at the municipal level are impacting our farmers as well. So, it's a relatively new uh this is I think the first time we've been in front of a an official uh committee uh of the whole but we have had some discussions with the city of Toronto as well as the the city of Waterlue as well. Um and some others are in infancy with those discussions. I think that'd be excellent if you could continue advocate. I mean, this council's done certain things like rain tax that, you know, really impacted our farmers in a negative way and so, you know, you can bring that forward in terms of the impact it has on farmers and just having a sense of what's going on with our council and uh happy to engage with you on that as well going forward. So, I thank you for your presentation today. Thank you, Councelor Cooper. Moving on next to Mayor Andre Horvath, please. Thanks very much, uh, uh, Deputy Mayor Bey. Uh, I want to say welcome and thank you for coming. I've uh spent a lot of time with Beef Farmers of Ontario over the years and good to see you at the municipal order of government. Proud that Hamilton's the first uh official kind of a body that you're seeing uh uh as a as a kind of a whole if you will as I think you call it committee of the whole we call it GIC but it's the same thing. Uh and so we're proud to do that. We do have a significant agricultural community uh in our city and our and people generally don't realize that I don't think and so it's really great to have your voices here. uh educating and sharing and uh and willing and looking forward to partnering. I think that's really really important. Uh we have um significant uh as uh my colleague said uh economic activity around our agricultural sector uh not just the growing uh of food but also uh the uh the production of uh food uh products uh and the shipping uh of those products as well. I've just took a tour recently at our port uh with um Parish and Heimbecker which are obviously makers of flour. Uh we have a big sugar manufacturer here, the biggest in the country actually is about to cut a ribbon. And so we do a lot when it comes to agriculture and it's really important that um that you're taking that time to to now look at a more regional and local level when it comes to the education work that Beef Farmers of Ontario have been doing for a very long time. So, welcome and congratulations and glad to see you here. Thank you, Mayor Horvath. And um I'll I'll add quickly to the mayor's comments and some of my colleagues um that it is really nice to see you here and that we're first and we've been doing some very intentional advocacy members of this council to remind the province and the country that Hamilton's not just the big steel city. We are a big agricultural we call us I like to call us the the biggest farm town in Ontario. Um you know people can debate me on that. I challenge them. Go ahead. But uh it is nice to see you here and I speak also as a member myself uh of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and a fifth generation farmer myself. So thank you for being here and I don't see any other questions. So thank you for your presentation. I wish you well and um if you have additional information that you did want to send members of council, you can reach out to the legislative coordinator uh through the clerk's office and uh that process will happen. We'd be happy to receive more information from you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we are moving on to item 6.3, which is Kelly Utre, respecting the city's emergency warming strategy. This is an inerson delegate. I'll just uh wait a moment for everyone to get all set up. And Kelly, when you're ready, you're familiar with the process, so you're no stranger to this. Um, we'll start you at the five minute mark and uh whenever you're ready. So through the chair, if you took a bet that I might ask for extra time, you would have won. I'm asking for two and a half extra minutes. Okay. So I will look to my colleagues. I see councelor Paul's and councelor Cooper are moving and seconding the motion to add an additional two and a half minutes. So I will try to get faster. Yeah, we will take the vote in a second. Yeah. Thank you. And that will be an electronic vote. So members are going to look to their escribe which looks like we've already warmed it up in advance. Thank you for that. Councelor Francis online still may have stepped away. Okay. And that carries by a vote of 12 nothing. Thank you colleagues. So then uh we'll reset the time here. I see the time the clock is already running. So we'll go back and reset that to the 7 minute 30 second mark. And once that pops up, Kelly, I'll I'll give you the sign. You can begin. Okay, we're populated. Go ahead. Uh good morning mayor, members of council and me people in the gallery and for those watching online. Uh thank you for the opportunity to address the Benetta Warming Center and what our community experienced. I do truly appreciate the report and the acknowledgement of the challenges, but I would like to share from firsthand experience. I live about 200 meters from the site. Our elected official likened this storm response to a sudden water main break, stating that residents are not consulted in such situations and it is responsibility of the city to just fix it. I disagree. Unlike a pipe suddenly bursting, we have 6 to 8 months to plan for winter every year. None of what I'm about to say is questioning the intent of a warming center, the hard job that the city has to shelter people, or that they are needed. You don't dress the wounds that I dress on a daily basis without knowing that. Um, my concern today is about the decision to use a rec center that is 50 meters from one elementary school and 100 meters from another. If you aren't familiar, there's an east west walking path in front of the rec center that families use to get back and forth to school every day. And the park is an after is a gathering spot after school. It's also where the bookmobile stops. And yes, I'm one of those strange people that believes in protecting children from emotional trauma. And you don't even need to be a parent to believe this. Given all the property that the city owns, it seemed like a truly absurd choice. A brief Google search showed me a few cities, G and Ashawa, um, use city hall as a warming center. I'm wondering if that came up as a nice as an idea. I do realize that there's a school nearby city hall as well, but at least there's a buffer of a main street and the rec center services wouldn't be lost. I was optimistic opening night, I dropped off about 20 folks there myself. I drove around to pockets of the city I know, letting them know that there was a warming center and asked if they wanted rides. I went as far as Wentworth Street, City Hall, Salvation Army, the Manet Tab Terminal, the Good Shepard, and the Cathedral Cafe. While there were some uneasy moments in the front of my small car, everyone I drove was polite, thankful, and they actually really looked out for one another, and it was really um it was really touching. When I brought in the first person, we were greeted by plenty of bright-faced and friendly Red Cross staff at a registration table. Fast forward to one week later, January 31st. While there had been a steady stream of EMS vehicles all week, something about this day was different. A few concerned residents reached out to me as the park was full of people either actively using or exhibiting the effects of using and even doing so on the playground equipment. What struck me most was the calm that I encountered when I went over on the first night was gone exchanged for pure mayhem in what had become a 24-hour permissive drug environment. Considering that this was the one place the city opened 24/7 in a storm with bathrooms and food, I'm surprised you were so surprised what it became. It was the hottest ticket in town. I was there for about an hour and in that time six families arrived for programming. Having been turned away and not received private proper notification, they were intercepted by Hamilton police who told them that programming was not running. There was about eight officers plus security, two ambulances trying to gain control of the situation. That morning, I was advised by the police that there had been one arrest, weapons confiscated, and three people had been banned by 10:00 a.m. that day. I don't believe most of the staff were trained to deal with the concerns that come with housing high acuity people. This report stated that the warming center was also meant for those experiencing power outages. If that was the case, the staff didn't get the memo as I was asked to leave first by a security guard after telling them that I have a home. I of course did not leave. So, they asked the police to escort me out. I told them I'd be happy to leave if they had paperwork telling me that I was not allowed to be there. I countered that as a citizen anyone should be able to stay and that people there in war 2 were without heat recently. This should be for all of us. Again I was asked to leave. At that point I offered to register as a guest to which I was told they were no longer taking registrations. This checks with the language in the report that says approximately 90 people were there overnight and approximately 35 people were there during the day. This is a serious concern to me to operate a shelter-like facility with no real complete picture of who was or was not in the building at any given time. Like the encampment protocol, this decision failed to recognize rec centers are the heart of our communities. They host swimming lessons, youth sports, seniors programs, afterchool care, and community meetings. They are preventative health spaces. They are safe, structured environments for children, families, and vulnerable youth. For two weeks, the after school program was displaced and families who rely on affordable recreation lost access. Let me tell you about a group of senior ladies who coined themselves the Benetto mermaids that attend Aquafit regularly and have formed a really neat social group. This happens to include my mother who is one of two recent widowers in the group. My mom has also had renal recent spinal fusion and she depends on water fit to maintain her mobility and also to combat social isolation. This disruption was immediately and deeply felt by this group of ladies while the city cabbed folks around the city to bring them to the warming center. Fair enough. It was storming and it was late at night. Did you think to offer the same courtesy of a cab ride to our north end residents who were displaced to attend programming to other rec centers? Personally, while this center was open and even a few days after it closed, I witnessed many people smoking drugs on the blocks around the rec center and just sleeping standing up or lumbering unsafeely in the middle of the road across the street from the elementary school. It's like taking what you see out in the corner out there um and putting it in our rec center. I was dismayed at this state the city left the outside of the recreation center in when it closed. Considering the large number of staff involved, the outside cleanup should have been a priority part of the closure. My neighbor has had bylaw notices for not having her recycling bins hidden. Yet, our community had to watch the garbage pile up all week. That's quite the double standard. Lastly, I am here to ask why North End residents are treated differently than others. When a CO isolation center was needed, Bonetto was chosen. A couple years back, the mayor said, "We are not going with sanctioned encampment sites, but the city proceeded to allow large unofficial sanctioned sites at Bayfront, Pier 4, Strong Street, Ferguson Avenue, Ferry Street, and Barton Tiffany. Central and Kescare are closer to many of those places I picked up from Benetto. So, it cannot be about convenience. Throw in the impending closure of Eastwood and it really feels like our community well-being does not matter. I'm here to ask all of you if losing access to your rec center and inviting this type of activity to your community is acceptable to you. If your answer is yes, then please be first to put your hand up to volunteer your rec center for next year's warming strategy, which I hope is already in the beginning stages of planning. Residents should feel their public spaces are safe and their concerns are valid. Council has a responsibility to bound the needs for all. If something requires $35,000 in security and policing, it does not belong in a community center. Thank you. I have just a few pictures I want to show real quick. Okay, you've got about 10 seconds left, so please go ahead. All right, so you can see the proximity of the YX, which is a warming center, St. Lawrence School at the bottom, and Bento School beside G and Ashwa, their overnight warming strategies. I just wanted to show you um how some North End residents were impacted. This person's son has ASD and really depends on swimming. If you know anybody with ASD, when you throw off their routine, that can be really complicated for them. This is the garbage that was left outside. I went about a day and a half later expecting it would had all been cleaned up. And this is the garbage that we got to watch pile up all week long. That's all I got. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Kelly. I'm going to now look to members of committee and I see we are first up with councelor Esther Paul's please. Hi, Kelly. Thank you for coming. Uh, I just uh I I'm not sure when somebody goes to the warming center inside, are they allowed to take drugs or because you say they're taking drugs? Is it inside, outside? It was both. Both. It was both. So, um, so is the police inside as well? they come in and I think that when I arrived um there was a lot going on and I think there were some situations they were trying to deal with. Um police were not I was advised that police were not told about the center or that they were not involved until midweek. Um and then they decided to station two officers there and what they told me was that they were having a hard time with just two of them. They would go into the gym and then things would happen in the park and in the foyer. if they came to the foyer then things were happening in the gym. It there just were not enough of them. So they have and also the question is I I I'm going to ask staff few questions because I I I haven't been down there and I don't know how it works. Um you said they there's a registration. So um what what is the max registration? They told me they were taking 40 to start and they would call in extra staff if they went to about 80. I understand they took about 90 at towards the end. So 90 people because you you said they weren't sure how many people were there. So uh and what do they do? Did they ask um when I first dropped off the first guest? I dropped off number one. Um there was a registration desk. They greeted them. They didn't really ask many questions. Just offered them a bag and there and they went to and showed them where to go. It was a very simple procedure. I think they don't want to pry, right? They just But then when I went there on the Saturday week later, there was lots of staff but no registration desk. There seemed to be no way of knowing. Uh I agree with you. Rec center is not the place where we should put people because uh I know my rec center in the mountain everybody uses them and and uh so it's important but we'll ask question to staff and I'm wondering how close do you live to that area? About 200 meters. 200 meters. So, I understand what you're going through and uh thank you for coming, Kelly. Thank you, Councelor Paul's. And of course, um we are free to ask the delegate their your observations as to what you saw, but we will have an opportunity during the report to ask some operational questions of our staff. Looking next to um Mayor Horvath, please. Thanks, Deputy Mayor Bey. Kelly, thank you for being here. Thank you. Your voice and your presence is extremely important. Uh and being able to come and talk about the experiences of the community helps us to make better decisions going forward. And so I just want you to know I appreciate that you're here and I appreciate that you provided the slides that you that you've just shown as part of the presentation already. So some of us were able to have the time to kind of review those prior to your presentation. um the time you took to bring people yourself to a warming center during a crisis of weather uh is laudable and I want to thank you for that as well. I think that um what you've brought forward is uh obviously uh an indicator of of work that we need to do. Um the observation of the acuity levels that we're seeing now compared to maybe let's say 10 years ago if a warming center were set up. Would you Oh, I guess this is my question. Have you seen or is it your sense or how do you feel about whether there has been a change in what might have been uh a warming cent's um performance or uh or uh capacity to to provide warmth and you know a little bit of coffee or tea or those kinds of necessities maybe 10 years ago versus today? Would would you what would your opinion be on whether there's been a change in that regard? The change in the acuity or a change in the need. Uh maybe overall I mean probably both. I mean clearly and I can tell you what sort of started my it wasn't a planned thing that I was going to go out and bring people there. as my son and I were driving home and on the corner of James and Strong there was a person in clear distress and we started talking about it and I said maybe he would be less distressed if he was warm. So I parked my car. Um I was gone for about an hour which really ticked my husband off cuz I didn't tell him where I was going but my son did. Um and given what I was seeing I wasn't comfortable approaching them on my own. So I did call police. They seemed familiar. Um like I mean they were throwing around a um a grocery cart. They were hitting themselves. They were banging their head on a bench. Um and as I started talking to this person um I said, "Do you want to go to a shelter?" Well, the police officers are the sh the shelter option. He he said, "I can't go to a shelter." A lot of swear words. I am not allowed to yell in a shelter. I'm not allowed to do this. I'm not allowed to do that. Um and I said, "Well, what about a rec center?" And then his, you know, that is one thing like he just really seemed to be more um interested in the idea of a rec center that seemed more um appealing to him. And so I asked if I could help him carry his things down and we'd walked and talked and he happened to be like a local North Ender. Um you know, he told me a little bit about his family and I reached out to those families and they never responded back. Um so there's yeah, a huge need. I can tell you that I circled around the block. This was the probably the following day um in front of the library and I always looking and I thought, "Is that person wearing a black sock or was that frostbite?" And I said, "Guys, we got to turn around." So, we turn around and sure enough, the whole lower foot was frostbite. I probably could have flicked his toe and it would have fallen off, you know. So, and it happened to be the first Sunday the library was closed and it was a Sunday morning. Um, thanks. So, yeah, it's tough to rehash all of that and to relive it. So, thank you. Appreciate your comments. Thank you, Mayor Horvath. We are going next to Councelor Rob Cooper, please. Thank you, Chair. Uh, thank you for coming. It means a lot that you would come and present this to us. Let me ask you a question. When you're talking about the garbage that's around the facility, I know this can be I had the same thing happen in my neighborhood, so I know where you're coming from, not with the rec center, but just in terms of some of the challenges. And uh let me ask you this. When you were talking about the garbage that was around the uh facility, was there in fact drug paraphernalia there as well? I didn't see any needles, but I saw like gloves, I saw saline bullets, I saw um turn keys. And And how long did it take us to clean that up? I think I attended a day and a half after closure. I sent a email um and I think they came fairly quickly the next day. Okay. So that' be some of the garbage that we saw stacked outside there. I mean the garbage was stretching all the way from the sidewalk to the other sidewalk. It wasn't just localized to the rec center. It was Yeah. You know. Yeah. And there was empty garbage cans around too. So thank you. Thank you for coming and bringing this to light for us. Appreciate it very much. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Cooper. Thank you, Kelly. I don't see any further uh comments or questions from members of committee. And so what we are going to do now, folks, is we'll receive both the previous delegate 6.2. It was the beef farmers along with Kelly's delegation all at once together. If I could have a mover in councelor Cretch, seconded by councelor Paul's by a show of hands, please. All in favor? Thank you folks. That is carried unanimously. We're now moving on to 6.4, which is our next delegate, Laurian Gagny from Victoria Park Homes, respecting report HSC 26016, the removal of certain consents for part 7.1 housing providers. This is item 8.8. This is an in-person delegate. Laurianne, we'll get you set up in a minute. And you know the drill. Five minutes. There'll be a ding at the four minute mark. Okay. Just take a minute to get set up. You can't use the mouse to move. the arrows. You want to look at this screen. Okay. Um, the first light is going to be a little finicky. It's going to take a little while, but just play with it and then we'll come along. I'll turn your mic in a minute. There you go. Thank you. Whenever you're ready, Lauren. Technology is not usually my friend, but we'll give it a shot. Thank you, Mayor Horvath, members of council, and city staff. I am delighted to be here today. Delighted to be here today to encourage you to support the recommendations contained within section 8 or your item 8.8 on the agenda today regarding a new service agreement for low-risk providers including Victoria Park. The agreement will reflect a shared commitment to long-term affordability, stability for tenants, and a stronger, more inclusive Hamilton. I really am here to say thank you because this has been a long time coming, and this agreement unlocks the next generation of affordable housing in the city. Oh, she did say it would take a little There we go. who we are now. I think most of you know this. Victoria Park Community Homes is one of the oldest and largest private private nonprofit housing providers in all of Ontario. We have we own and manage 34 over 3,400 and growing units with 1,500 of those homes here in Hamilton. We have over 50 years of service record providing affordable housing to the six municipal service manager areas um where we have housing. Of course, I think I have mentioned to council before back in 2024, we were granted frequent builder status by CHC who looks at us as a trusted partner. So, what this newest service agreement that's in your package will achieve, the continued support for residents, the city funding goes to the rent gear to income units. We agree to maintain that number of units and and discuss the possibility for more. We as an organization have a long-term commitment to affordability. Our market units are affordable market units and it is our mission and vision to keep them that way. So our two organizations, you as the city, us as a housing provider, we align with the priorities, but it's more than just that. By allowing Victoria Park to use our equity in a business fashion, it means we can raise additional funds without coming to you. In 2024 alone, we put up 57 million of our equity from our federally funded projects that had reached the end of their mortgages. And we were able to raise over 150 million in grants and funding. On top of that, an additional 70 million from CHC for development and repair and regeneration of renewals. And this is at zero risk to the municipality. We're only asking you to allow us to leverage our own properties. Click away. So, our continued commitment to Hamilton, preserve and protect. We will maintain these units so that they are in the stock for the next 20 to 50 years. We grow supply. We have an aggressive growth strategy which targets 1,00 to,500 units by 2030. So, we are aiming to provide more additional affordable housing, unlocking new projects and new opportunities. Of course, we've put in our submission to Build Canada Homes, which lists those thousands of units, and we're ready to go. Supporting tenants and communities, we have hired our own social service worker. We partner with agencies so that we can connect those tenants that require additional sub or additional supports the connections that they need. And I am just about done. Caladon shows you what is possible. Our 261 unit drive by there opening for occupancy next year. And that's not the only one. Stone Church, another 107 units starts construction in a week. So, Victoria Park will be opening over 370 units next year of affordable housing. We are looking at acquisitions, preservation, and supports again aligning with all of the city's goals within your housing strategy. So, we have proven strong governance, risk management, and oversight. We're in full compliance. We have a strong board. These agreements are adaptable to recognize our sophistication in the housing system and together we can do more. So I do encourage you to support item 8.8 when it comes forward and thank you for the multiple years it has taken us to get there. Staff have been really patient as we negotiate. Thank you all. Thank you Laurianne. Perfectly timed and thank you for your energy and excitement in the room today. Okay, I'm going to look around the chamber to see if we have any questions from members of committee and I don't see that we do. So, thank you again for being here and you're welcome to stay should you wish to uh make it through the agenda when we get to the item. That's I'll be listening. That's completely up to you. Thank you all. Okay. Uh so, if I could get a mover and second to receive this delegation, Mayor Horvath, seconded by Councelor Moren Wilson. Uh looking for a hand vote. All in favor? And that is unanimous. Thank you, colleague. So we're going to circle back to the beginning to 6.1 to see if our delegate from the beginning, Dr. Zobia, has joined us from Clean Air Hamilton uh virtually, and I do not see that happening. So unfortunately we'll have to reschedu which means we're now moving on to item 7.1. Beginning the items for information. This is the climate change advisory committee annual update. We have Beatus who is going to join us as the project manager from climate change initiatives. We'll introduce the presentation and it'll take us just a few moments to get set up at the podium. We also have Gabby and Ian joining as well. Cool. Yes. Okay. Can I Okay. So, good morning chair and members of the committee. I'm Beatric Koko, project manager for the office of climate change initiatives and I'm also the um staff layers on for the climate change advisory committee and I'm joined by senior project manager Trevor Imhof and director Linda Lucassic. I'm pleased to introduce today our co-chairs of the climate change advisory committee and they are Ian Borak and Gabby Galapos. Hope I said that right. And they'll they'll they will be providing the uh presentation on the climate change advisory committee's 2024 2025 updates including highlights or um of activities as well as an outlook of for the remaining 2026 uh work plan. And so before passing over to Gabby and Ian, I would like to note that we also have a staff recommendation report and that's item 8.4 on the agenda today, including a short presentation from myself which provides the details and analysis regarding the proposed climate change advisory committee transition to the community leazison um group model. So thank you and now I'm going to turn over to Gabby and Ian. Thank you manager Koko and we'll begin with uh our presenters. You've got 10 minutes. Please proceed. Yes. Hello committee. Um, never been given 10 minutes before. So, me and Gabby were talking about this beer earlier. Apologies if I still talk really quickly. Um, I've been conditioned after 10 years. Um, just before we get started, I think me and Gabby, just on behalf of both of ourselves as co-chairs, but also the rest of the citizen members of the committee. Um we just want to say in particular thanks to the staff from the OCCI in particular uh Petra Sakoko over the last few years learning and getting this committee going with us dealing with you know technical difficulties and the like. Um we just want to really extend our thanks to the OCCI staff for being such great supports for us uh over the last few years and then as well to councilors Cretch uh Wilson and Casar as our counselor liaison. Um there were a number of meetings that we had where the one of you or all three of you or two of you interjected and stopped us from over complicating things, giving ourselves a lot more work than we had to and the like there too. So uh on behalf of the entire committee, just thank you the three of you as well for your time and effort uh over the last few years. Um so to begin with uh I am Ian Borsick. I'm the co-chair of the climate change advisory committee and I'm here with Gabby, my co-chair. Um I'm going to run through the presentation and then when we get to questions uh Gabby will take over and we'll Gabby will also interject if I miss anything as well. Uh so just to begin with uh as a quick background we reformed in 2023 uh following the approval of the Hamilton's climate action strategy uh uh this was an important governance structure recommended through engagement. The original terms of reference was approved back in January 2023 uh following the citywide pause on review of advisory committees and included a mandate and a list of objectives on the prioritization, implementation, and monitoring of Hamilton's climate action strategy as well as an objective ensuring equitable representation from diverse voices from across Hamilton's communities and sectors which was uh if I recall correctly a large concern from council at the time. Just moving on. Um, so after forming and electing our co-chairs me and Gabby, we established five working groups. Uh, as you can see here, the first one was buildings, which was to inform and track progress towards climate mitigation and adaptation efforts relating to the city's community building, decarbonization, and resilience efforts, decisions, and outcomes as well as to advance an equitable lens on building decarbonization efforts. We also formed a community engagement and climate justice working group. Uh this the purpose of this was to advance community awareness and involvement in Hamilton's climate action plans, inform how the city is incorporating social justice and equity principles into our climate plans and identify alignment and opportunities for UNRIP and Hamilton's urban indigenous strategy as well as other related plans. We also formed the technical and governance working group uh which focused on how and when the city tracks it its its follow-through on climate action implementation and overall climate accountability and governance. Uh they also reviewed the technical and industrial components of the city's current proposed climate change assessments, strategies, key performance indicators and disclosures and provided recommendations. We also had to round it out the transportation working group which sought to inform, support and review progress towards climate mitigation and adaptation efforts relating to the city of Hamilton's transportation efforts, decisions and outcomes. Uh also endeavor to identify how to evol involve affected communities in decision-making and ensure that transportation policies and projects do not disproportionately harm vulnerable communities. And then finally was the nature nature-based solutions working group in which was uh put together to inform and support service mapping and assessments actions and policies to ensure that the city is advancing leading nature-based solutions and incorporating ecological knowledge and indigenous ways of knowing. So going back to 2024, in terms of our highlights, as you can see, um there was consultation and advice given on the Hamilton climate action strategy, priority indicators, carbon budgeting and accounting framework, which was one of my favorites, OCCI's climate communications and engagement strategies, the corporate net zero policy, the 2024 climate change reserve recommended projects, the urban boundary expansion frameworks for processing applications, and then GBS, the green building standards and policy alternatives to enhance its efficacy alongside planning staff which some of you may recall included a citizens committee report or CCR as we learned. Thank you councilors and delegations to planning committee uh to alternatives that were accepted. Uh some spotlights from 2024. uh there was delegations to the general issues committee on climate change reserve projects resulted in refined uh a refined process for 2025 and also saw volunteers added to that committee to help score projects. Um there was also the citizens committee report um and delegations relating to green building standards as I mentioned before that moving on to 2025 there was consultation and advice given on the carbon budgeting and accounting framework uh in particular the pre-engagement survey the climate justice project charter uh the light rail transit change tracking indicators uh consultants netzero acceleration technical memo advisement of the 2025 climate change reserve priority focus areas and this is where we saw the two CCAC members uh as volunteers added to that working group that was composed of other senior staff. Uh there was also the delegation uh to planning committee on April 29th of last year following further consultations on an updated green building standards metric and then there was the expanded climate justice and engagement working group to include mental health resources and expertise. Uh in particular in 2025 highlights was on the green building standards. There was the delegation in April as I said um as well as there was through the planning there was the recommendations of the planning division um and ultimately it was the message was to provide recognition of planning division's efforts to undertake external consultations and consider the CCAC recommendations um in addition to that there was the include recommendations for the general issues committee implementation plan um we did education efforts on the GBS metrics with the development community andor guide books for each of the metrics and we and training opportunities for both internal staff and externally for the development sector. Uh and then there was the WSP uh supported uh our recommendations ultimately and that was approved back in April of 2025 as well. WSB was the consultant. Continuing on, there's been some ongoing collaboration with mental health groups and professionals. Uh the the purpose of this was to advance cross- sector collaboration on climate change uh related mental health supports with a focus on equity, community engagement and integration into municipal planning. Uh collaborations uh on this included the McMaster climate crisis working group, Hamilton Health Sciences, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health or CAMH, St. Joe's Hospital, and of course the city of Hamilton. Uh and then just a quick plug coming up on April 15th uh of this year um there is the showing up to the crisis the result of some of this ongoing work that uh our volunteers on the CCAC are working hard on putting together and I think that this upcoming event on April 15th is going to be uh particularly interesting and will feature of course uh as the master of ceremonies Dr. Linda Lucas of the OCCI. Um there was a a lot of OCI presentations to the CCAC. Uh as you can see here in January we covered the initiative's work plan. In February was the climate change reserve priority list. In March we uh went over the annual update report. In April we discussed uh metrics primarily. In May uh there was the climate change reserve as well as the community lays on group group discussion. A lot of community less on group discussion. In June, uh there was the annual progress report uh to the GIC. Uh there was the proof of concept on the carbon budget calculators, climate justice framework, development community partner agreements, corporate net zero policy, better homes pilot project. Uh and then the internal climate change reserve applications was also discussed in September. Uh we discussed the community laser group transition update. In October, we also discussed that along with the reserve. And then in November we talked about the climate change uh strategy update report and then we also uh discussed the feasibility study on green stormwater infrastructure projects. In December we discussed the community lay group transition update as well. Um we've also not just had OCI staff uh give presentations to us but we also had citywide staff. So back in 2025, we had updates from the urban forest strategy, green building standards, as you guys can probably assume from my previous updates, biodiversity action plan with back in March of 2025. Uh consolidated tree private tree bylaw and the urban boundary uh came up in April. Uh we talked about energy storage systems as well as the community lays on group transition update in June of last year as well. And then getting close to the end, uh, we talked about solid waste master plan and organics management. Uh, then back in November, we talked about energy storage as well, uh, with an update on that. And then we had updates actually from the W 3 office, uh, the community climate action coordinator, uh, who gave a great presentation to us back in November. Um, we've also heard presentations from external groups. Uh there was two uh rain ready Hamilton which was from green venture and then there was the renewable energy projects leading practices and processes presentation that we got from Pemba. We also engaged with McMaster crisis working group the Hamilton health sciences center for addiction and mental health and uh as well the Bay Area climate change council has what they call implementation teams. So we engaged with the implementation teams that was working on buildings uh back then too. So a lot of green building standards work in 2025. Then for 2026, uh we have uh some remaining uh work ahead of us. We're meeting on April 28th. We're going to be having a presentation on transit uh and a discussion on that as well as the climate report card as you can see here. In June, we're going to be talking about climate ready buildings as well as going back to the solid waste master plan. And then in September, we're going to be talking about the LRT. Um for 2026 uh the working groups which are of course like the committee going to be wrapping up uh put together some objectives for the remainder of the year. Uh for the buildings working group uh the objectives are to track progress on the GBS and relevant relevant legislation, share input regarding GBS to the planning committee, receive the Better Homes Hamilton update and residential retrofit plans, receive progress update and advise on municipal building uh retrofits and decarbonization. receive updates on climate related standards at city housing. Identify how the buildings working group can support building emissions disclosure efforts and then identify additional interested parties to engage with in key actions from the above points. Uh for the community engagement and climate justice group April 15th event that's coming up. They're working very hard on ensuring that that's successful. The technical and governance working group is uh working on recommendations to easy understand uh for people to easily understand the climate change uh the climate report card as well as provide support and advice on the advancement of the car carbon budget and accounting framework. The transportation working group is going to be working on meeting and consulting with community and non-ity organizations active on transportation issues as well as re relevant city staff such as our upcoming meeting. Uh identify and recommend policies that will help the city of Hamilton reduce emiss transportation emissions that are not currently adopted. And then the naturebased working naturebased solutions working group is going to be working on advising the consolidation of updates and information regarding nature-based solutions and actions across the city. and I went through way faster than I had to. I forgot I had no more slides after that. So, we're happy to answer any questions. Uh I'll let Gabby take it away for most of those. Um but we really appreciate uh your time and we really appreciated the opportunity to form as the committee and we've I think me and Gabby have had a lot of fun. Um and uh the other members have had a lot of fun as well I think too. Awesome. Well, thank you so much Ian for the presentation. We're going to begin uh with questions starting with councelor Crutch please. First, thank you very much for all the work you do as volunteers. I want to say we listened to that long presentation of all the different kinds of things that have happened, all the advocacy that's been done. This is being done uh by volunteers and my question for you is about that specifically wanting to know how that has been a challenge, a benefit, right, as doing this group of there's there's dozens of people who are involved in this work. It's a big committee. How has that worked? How has it been a challenge as volunteers to do this work? Uh through the chair chair, thank you for the question. Um I think it really it has worked in the sense of having the working groups do a lot more of that indepth work and then bringing that to the committee as a whole for the larger education and decision-making process. I will say that it's been a little bit on the challenging side of switching from the um advisory committee format to the community less group that took a fair amount of bandwidth in terms of understanding of what that means and what that has the implications. We have had a number of resignations just from various things over the the the couple of years course of this with some people going becoming city staff members and no longer able to being on the committee to moving out of the city of Hamilton and because of the switch between the advisory committee to the community leazison group recruitment has been a little bit more on the challenging side. So the the the the movement to towards kind of bringing that needed perspective and diversity of stakeholders to the team was really more focused on the working groups to recruit people to the working groups with that kind of saying like that might probably set us up and for terms of readiness for the advis uh for the community liaison group. So when the new members kind of get get into it, there's a larger diversity of people because that's really one of the key goals of the committee is really bringing diverse stakeholders into the collective effort on this one. This is not a an endeavor that the city of Hamilton can achieve alone. This is a collective community effort and that was one of the goals. there's still so much work to be able to be done um to be able to integrate a whole bunch of uh uh stakeholders who are moving forward on this but creating that co cohesive network or web of individuals and groups working together is part of that goal and I think will be a really important effort of the community leazison group as well where I think it'll be a little bit easier to hopefully engage the uh various stakeholders in a more informal format that. But one of the issues that did come up from the committee is the desire for still being able to somehow in some mechanism the community um the citizens committee report was one mechanism for the committee to speak to council and there's not a clear yet identification of what that mechanism will be for the community lison group. What mechanism will there be for them to provide input into the committee? There's possibly deputations that could take place as one kind of mechanism for that. But that was definitely took a lot of conversations within the committee for figuring out what not wanting to lose that mechanism for a communication between the community leaison group and council. Yeah, thanks for mentioning that last point. That's really helpful. I I think I'll also just say because I I was one of the folks consulted for the terms of reference before it was formed. Um I'm I'm a familiar with the city of Toronto pays independent residents like they compensate them for sitting on committees. If if um for example the Toronto's I don't know what they actually call it the climate change basically what we have their CCAC if someone's there on behalf of an organization they're not compensated but if someone's there as an independent resident they don't have an affiliation then they are compensated. um it never really became an issue for our committee, but there was I think a recognition amongst most of the members that there probably was some people who didn't apply because this was going to be a volunteer position. So, it I think that factored into a little bit too where everyone was sort of like, yeah, we're we're all volunteering here. We're doing this out of passion. Um but there was sort of a recognition that like, yeah, we're all volunteering our time here. probably would have been a lot a lot a lot more easy for some folks if they were compensated to attend these meetings and participate and provide their expertise and lived experience. Thanks for answering that question. Yeah, and thanks for highlighting your ability to be here. I think that honestly as the former chair of a advisory committee, it was difficult to get here through that CCR. So maybe it'll be easier just doing it straight up like delegations in the future. Thank you. Okay, thank you councelor Crutch. We're moving on next to Councelor Rob Cooper, please. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for coming for your presentation today. Um, very comprehensive, lots going on. Just so I'm clear, you're both volunteers, correct? Okay. Is it your understanding that what we're doing here is all towards the idea of addressing our climate change emergency? Would that be the way we kind of capture where activities are directing us? Because, as you probably know, we do have a climate change emergency in the city declared by previous councils. And so when I see the list of activities that's going on there, I'm saying, okay, what what's our focus? What are we working towards? What's our strategic objective? Is it to address our climate change emergency or where where are we headed with it all? Um, part of the goal is absolutely to address the climate emergency and follow through on the commitments that the city of Hamilton made and that are that are needed for all entities to make in order to move us towards our climate change imperative and addressing our climate risks that we face. So, City of Hamilton has set a target for net zero emissions for 2050. What's it going to take to actually be able to make progress towards that target? And as you can imagine, there's a lot of systemic challenges that we face in terms of our energy system as a whole. Moving our energy system from one that is based on fossil fuels towards one that is based on non non-carbon emmitting sources will be a challenging endeavor to take. So this is really is geared towards achieving that goal. However, I will say that part of the desire on this one is not to just be so siloed in the way we're trying to solve our uh climate change imperative. It's also identifying where do we where do we have opportunities for multi-solving on a number of key policy issues. I'm thinking of it from an affordable housing perspective. Advancing affordable housing is absolutely critical goal that we all have but advancing them in ways that reduce emissions associated with running um those buildings is also an endeavor that we have to achieve as well. So how do these work together on that front? Um I will give example in terms of equity implications. I always remember one of the transportation emissions from New York City saying that if you want to improve people's lives, improve their transportation options and that's really really critical to providing people with a lot of variety in terms of how they can move to and from outside of the single occupancy vehicle. So that's an equity goal, that's a transportation goal, that's an efficiency goal because if we all try and get around and in single occupancy vehicles, we're going to have it congestion issues are going to only get worse and worse and worse. So it is about the climate imperative. It is the collective goal that we all have to be able to respond to this emergency. But it's also about identifying and um and pursuing those goals to multi-solve on key policy issues that we have identified as imperative and critical for moving our city forward. Thank you. And a couple questions come out of that. Where would I find these policy initiatives that you're working on? Because I always thought we're working towards, as you said, net zero in 2050. And so I haven't seen those other goals necessarily broken out and stated. And so where would I find that? Sometimes people reference websites. I check it. I can never find it. Yeah, it's definitely in the climate change action plan. That's for the se for the for the city of Hamilton. It might not be clearly laid out that this is all about, but it is clearly laid out that the goal on this is to put an equity lens to climate actions as well. That it's not just being solely narrowly focused on the GHG emissions associated with it, but identifying how it can achieve numerous goals that we all have. So, it is in the climate change action plan. it is advanced in terms of the climate justice work that is taking place both at the OCCI as well as in the kind of in the an advisory committee. Um it it may not be quite as like laid out that this is not only like it might be titled climate change action plan on that but it necessarily only about climate change. Thank you for that. Um the other question I had coming out of it so as you mentioned you know goal is net zero 2050 we're beginning 2026. Are we on track for net zero for 2050? No one's on track for 2050 net zero right now. What are we on track for? Oh, I uh I I there's no way that Hamilton acting alone can achieve net zero for 2050. This is a collective effort and Hamilton has to be and it has to be done at the federal government level. It has to be done at the provincial level. Hamilton doesn't run the electricity system for the pro province of Ontario. The province of Ontario does. However, energy efficiency is something that Hamilton could admit uh a sub uh advance on its on its own endeavor, its own buildings, it's on its green development standards, if that is still going to be allowed in terms of provincial regulations moving forward. We're facing a lot of challenges on this front and it cannot be only city of Hamilton moving this forward in order to achieve that 2050 target. It absolutely has to be all le all levels of government all working together towards that goal. Thank you. And so when I think about this, so we're not going to get to 2050 with other other partners, so we're not going to hit our goal. Um, do we have a sense of what we've saved? Like how much carbon have we saved in terms of what we've done? I know when I was at McMaster and I was leading this, we knew we saved 30 million kilograms of carbon. We knew we saved $10 million. We knew what we were doing. Um, where would I find that information in terms of what we've saved so far? It would be in the progress report that the OCCI office provided. They would do their annual inventory of energy use and emissions associated with both the corporation of the municipality of the city of Hamilton as well as the community at large. Now the city of Hamilton has absolutely direct authority and control over its own energy use and emissions for its building and its fleets. It influences and um the community emissions and the role it plays. the Better Homes Hamilton helping residents um undertake decarbonization and energy efficiency of their buildings is an example of the role the city of Hamilton plays in influencing and supporting carbon reductions at other levels of of the city um in its own buildings. It's you know working towards identifying what is the state of good repair associated with all of our assets. what is going to be required in a like forl like replacement and what does that cost and then what is going to be required in order for us to decarbonize our buildings and facilities and looking at it both from upfront capital cost as well as long-term operational costs and identifying what the is the kind of cost of decarbonization not just on upfront capital costs which will never come out positive on that but it can come out positive if you look at it and integrate into your asset management schedule and identify what state of repair and what's your actual decarbonization costs? Thank you, Gabby. One one final question. I'll just hop in just to to add. Gabby, just want to be I want to set the stage that you've got one final question. We're well over our aotted time and I do want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity for uh an exchange. So, go ahead and finish off there, Ian. Yeah, I was just going to quickly say I think this is also why like the carbon and budgeting framework is so important and and yeah, the climate emergency declaration was in 2019. Um, the formation of the OCI office wasn't really complete until 2023. I I think it's really important to keep in mind like everything the city of Hamilton is doing right now should have been done 20 years ago. We're we're playing catchup and so in a lot of ways the the work that OCCI is doing right now that we've been advising on um we've been trying acceleration is that number one talk that number one conversation. Yes. you know, corporate city of Hamilton corporate emissions are important, but at the same time, we have the single largest greenhouse gas emission source, single source emission in the province here in in Hamilton as well. And so that's been part of the conversation as well as factoring that in um as we have our ongoing conversations. Okay, final question, Rob Cooper. Thank you for that and thank you for chair for allowing me one more question. How much have we spent so far to get us to where we are? Where do I find that number? You would probably find that in the progress report from the OCCI office. Okay. Do you know what it is? I do not know what it is. Fair enough. Thank you. I thank you for answering my questions. Thank you for your presentation. Like I said, very comprehensive. Uh you're doing a lot of work. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Cooper. Moving on next to Councelor Alex Wilson, please. Thank you uh through you, Chair. I think both of you have been engaged in this work prior to the formation of this strategy and then within this committee as well. hopes, dreams, you know, there was how where do we want to be in 2025? I think some of the strategies were spoken about we have a CIS, we have a seep. I'm just wondering if after three and a half kind of years of doing this work on the inside or more formally, uh if as we're doing a transition to a CLG, if you could both maybe share a highlight and a low light, um something that you thought worked well and was effective as well as something you're maybe concerned about or think deserves some attention um in the next four years based on some of the kind of work you've done. Um I would say some of the highlights of it has been that integration across the OCCI teams, the different departments within the municipality and the committee as a whole. That kind of breaking down the silos across municipal government has been one of the real highlights of being part of the committee for me. Um personally I think in terms of the challenges it really was probably just more the kind of uh disruption from moving from the conversations of the advisory committee role to the committee lison group. What that means the conversations that had taken place and because of that transition the um the uh the inability to do recruitment to the committee itself um um because of this transition stage. And so it did mean that we had to kind of recalibrate to try and figure out how do we get that diverse stakeholder input um but not being able to recruit them as part of the committee and then relying on working groups to be able to do that. Agreed with Gabby. So I think just to differentiate from Gabby cuz you stole my answers. Um allowing regular citizens to ask city staff questions I thought was really rewarding. um being able to sit down and have layman ask experts and consultants like questions like detailed questions that were not afforded usually unless there's like a workshop or something like that I thought was a real highlight. Um and then I think in terms of of of challenges I I would agree with Gabby. You know we we went into this not fully knowing will the advisory committee continue existing. Um I think you know through the very public live stream conversations we've been having over the last few months that the working group is going in a direction that I I think at least we feel good about. Um but that has certainly complicated things further where um you know folks have been watching live streams and then reaching out being like what what's going on with this and it's taken up a lot of time but at the same time I the silver lining is that those conversations have been out in the public for the public to consume and I think that's also been very positive. That's all. Okay, perfect. Wasn't sure if there's anything further. Uh, moving on next to Councelor Brad Clark, please. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Um, I'm trying to understand how we are able to explain and justify to the public the office of climate change and what their actual accomplishments are respectfully all the meetings is not an accomplishment and an accomplishment is actually a reduction in greenhouse gas somewhere in the city. So how do we track that? It's tracked annually through an inventory of looking at all of the energy use for both the corporation as well as for the community as a whole. That is the ultimate identification of our progress towards our collective commitment target. I would have to say that it absolutely is imperative if on if if Hamilton like leadership government leadership on climate change is the only way we're going to move forward on our climate change imperative. We cannot throw this to say to individuals which is a collective energy system that we all participate in to solve and change that individually. That is not a possible way of doing this. This is going to be required and that absolutely all municipalities in Ontario have a responsibility, a moral responsibility and a fiscal responsibility to understand exactly what climate change means to their own operations. So, how will climate change affect our service delivery? How will it affect the infrastructure that we put in? And how will it actually how can we use our resources as efficiently as possible? All of the work that the OCCI is doing that the city of Hamilton is investing in is towards those goals. So it really does highlight the fact that we cannot just throw all of our identification of whether success is making is occurring just on GHD emissions associated with an inventory. It's projects that are helping to in change the energy system, the way people consider their energy use within their homes. Better Homes Hamilton providing financing to individuals in the city in the city to undertake their retrofits and addressing that upfront cost barrier which is a huge barrier for people to invest in their buildings. Looking at kind of advancing green development standards that's addressing this policy that looks at not only considering upfront capital cost associated with buildings but also the operational costs and the energy affordability of those running those buildings over time. All of these are geared towards using our efficient resources as efficiently as possible and fulfilling our obligation to be able to act on this climate change imperative in order to protect not only Hamiltonians but all society for it from those climate change impacts. Thank you. I think it's also just worth noting the the city of Hamilton has public health department, forestry department. We have stated goals that we have not been meeting for a variety of different metrics that I don't think we would respectfully don't go there. The city has been meeting the goals that they set for their own department. We have increased the electrification of our vehicles. We have changed our facilities. We've been doing a great deal. And a matter of fact, since 2006, the city of Hamilton reduced greenhouse gas by 30%. They did that. Oh, no. I'm not dis debating that, councelor. Just to be very clear, I just want to make sure that we don't delve into debating on the floor here. So, we'll ask for opinions of the presenters and then we'll we'll offer those responses back and we just want to keep the meeting moving in a productive manner. Mayor, deputy mayor, I'm still trying to understand. I'm looking at chart for Hamilton's communitywide greenhouse gas emissions 2006 to 2023. 36% reduction in greenhouse gas across the city. change in the carbon footprint. But when you look at all of the individual items in the the the system, the vast majority are industry and the steel industry and then followed by transportation. If you look at what commercial is, it has not changed. And if you look at residential, it has not changed. So I understand the work in terms of of the meetings, in terms of doing the studies, what the residents are saying, show me the results. Show me where this is making a difference because the province is doing similar things. The feds are most certainly doing the same things. So how do we ensure that there's no redundancy in the program? If I can Oh, sorry. We'll wait until the uh the question is finished. Please proceed, counselor. So it's a question for me of being able to say here are the results. Not that we had this many meetings, not that we reviewed that. All of that is work. I get that and it's wonderful that you're doing it. the city. We're already accomplishing so much. Several millions of dollars have been spent to electrify our fleets to change our facilities to to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas. The city has been doing this on a regular basis. Um councelor or deputy mayor uh Bey um moved the motion to to get the diesel buses and the diesel vehicles off of our facility. So those are things that are truly improving air quality as well as reducing greenhouse gas as well as reducing our carbon footprint. But we have very little impact other than being a bully pulpit on the industry and the steel industry. We can't even get to respect their responsibilities to the city when it comes to the pollution that is coming out of their stack. Yep. So the question for me again, show me where the accomplishments are. Um, I'll give an example. I mean, I wouldn't look at it when you're trying to change a system, I wouldn't look at accomplishment just as GHD inventories. What I would look at is looking at an example of the better homes Hamilton project. So there are um there was the greener homes project that the federal government was launching. There's demand side management that the province is providing in terms of um energy efficiency. Hamilton identified the better homes project as helping to address gaps in the market. So there was no customer supports for helping people navigate this complicated retrofit world. That's where Hamilton came in and identified a gap in the market that he could help to address. It could also help to a gap in the market which is the financing upfront capital costs. So then Hamilton came in with the better homes program to provide financing for homeowners. This is really about identifying where is the opportunities across all levels of government and then identifying where Hamilton can play a role. Hamilton influences the energy used AC uses across the across the community. It controls its own emissions but that's only like 5% of the total community greenhouse gas emissions. So based on that it has influenced that. That's how it's identified its role in the better homes Hamilton to address gaps in this retrofit market and what it could do to help support scale up. An example on green building standards is okay municip the Ontario building code looks at energy efficiency associated with new buildings but it doesn't look at energy use for from where fossil fuels. So it brings in that g greenhouse gas and climate lens into new developments and advancing green development standards. So that is considered as part of the um construction and design stage. So those are examples of where you I would if you really want to identify the the impact Hamilton is having, you're looking at the programs that Hamilton is delivering to its residents and stakeholders in order to help them undertake um energy efficiency and clim climate change and actions. Thank you. Just to clarify, we were giving a update on what the commit the advisory committee was accomplishing. We aren't here to explain OCI staff accomplishments or anything like that. We're we're providing an update on what the advisory committee did. Um I wasn't under I wasn't in the understanding that I was coming up here to defend OCI budget, what the city of Hamilton has done or anything. The the reason why we've presented to you all these meetings is because that's what we do. who were an advisory committee and we're not going to be an advisory committee after this year as well. So that's the update that we have for you as council is this is what we were appointed to do. We we I think we met our goals that we were appointed to do, but what you're asking us isn't what our responsibility was and it wasn't part of what you as council appointed us to accomplish. We were there to advise staff. Okay. So before the response is given, I think I've allowed a lot of latitude in terms of questions, answers. We've had some very robust conversation. I think that the counselor was asking for an opinion on what your thoughts are on the accomplishments. That's why I allowed the question. If I've misinterpreted that, councelor Clark, uh, that was the question. Okay. So I do want to uh ask you sir if you are getting to the end of your questioning or if you need to go on for a second time because we do have some other people's on the speakers list that would like to participate. Uh thank you very much. I'll pass. Okay. Thank you. What I'm going to do now is go to councelor Mark Tatison please. Hey How uh I appreciate your answers to our questions. I enjoyed your presentation today. Um, I also felt that I did think that councelor clerk was asking some very appropriate questions and I just wanted to try and bridge that gap. Um, in my mind when I attend provincial workshops or conferences, I've heard our provincial minister for energy say energy policy is economic policy. So that helps me put climate change in perspective and and and it makes me think how do we get our population, how do we get our city, how do we get our politicians who make decisions to understand that climate change policy is economic policy. That's a very good question and I'm not sure I have an answer for you on that one, but I'll use an example. I could say that you know we uh we always used uh Canada has an economy of about 30 million people and the United States has an economy of 330 million people. So we've always kind of identified that in order for us to Canada to remain competitive we have to you know kind of be able to adjust and accommodate with the um with the United States. I would say that under these circumstances in terms of our changing political climate and economic climate associated with it, Canada is looking to new markets. Canada is looking to the EU as a key competitive economic partner. Um they're they have environmental and climate change policies that are very different from what we have here in Canada. And if we are going to compete in this global environment and Asia is going like going like accelerating and leaprogging over what we're doing here in North America. If we want to compete in this global market, then we need to ensure that we're following through and keeping pace with where other governments and civil and societies are going on the climate change front and looking at our GHD emissions associated with our products that we're trying to move overseas will be a critical factor for Canada's economic competitiveness moving forward. Okay, Gabby. Councelor Tatison, followup. I I was just going to say it's only a matter of time before we have another climate event that massively, you know, disrupts everything, whether it's wildfire, flood, what have you. Um, and as those continue with uh frequency, it's only going to disrupt business. Thanks. And that and that's kind of where I was going because like, you know, if we do preventative measures, it's a lot more cost-effective. So, I appreciate your presentation. I appreciate the work you do. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm looking around the chamber to see if there are any further questions. I don't see anyone on the speakers list or on the screen. So, thank you very much for being here today. I'd like to get a mover and seconder to put sorry, I needed a mover and seconder to put receipt of the presentation on the floor and I did not get that. Seeing councelor Casar, councelor Cretch, uh we've already had the discussion. If we could get now a show of hand vote all in favor of receiving this presentation that is unanimously carried. Thank you very much colleagues. Okay. I need now if uh we could consolidate number 7.2 and 7.3 which is the climate change advisory committee minutes meeting from December 9th along with the transit area rating review subcommittee meeting from March 2nd. Uh combining those a mover in a second to put those on the floor. Seeing councelor Alex Wilson and councelor Esther Paul's. Thank you. Uh any discussion on these items? I have councelor Tom Jackson up first. Uh please indicate which of the two that you'd like to discuss first. Councelor Jackson. Sure. And good morning, Deputy Mayor Bey. My apologies to my colleagues was at a medical appointment this morning. 7.3. I'm only going to make an editorial comment. uh past councils had difficulty dealing with transit area rated uh studies and trying to come to a decision. I can see that uh this subcommittee is having similar problems. Uh didn't get quorum. Uh I understand some everybody gets busy but it seems this term of council is going to pretty well come and go without a decision and a solution to transit area rating u uh matter. and it uh doesn't surprise me given how sensitive it would be to the suburban communities to add additional cost uh to their taxpayers. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Bey. Okay, looking around the chamber to see if there are any further conversation with regards to item 7.2 7.3. We have a show of hands to receive these both at the same time. All in favor? And that is unanimous. Thank you, colleagues. We're moving on. We have next item 7.4 HSC26022 with which is the health impacts to of exposure to elevated total reduced sulfur compounds in ward 9. We've got um our paramedic chief Russell Crocker who will provide committee with an overview of the report. Um and if I could have a mover and secondary to put the item on the floor to get things started. I see councelor Clark and Mayor Horvath. Thank you for that. I'll now go up to where did Oh, you're right there. Second ago, you're up there. You're teleported. Uh go ahead, Chief Crocker. Please begin the overview of the report. Thank you. Perfect. Uh thank you chair and through yourself and uh to members of committee. Thank you. Um prior to introducing uh my colleagues in public health, I just want to provide a brief uh clarification, procedural clarification. Um as people are aware uh this uh report was prepared by public health and subsequently uh recommended and approved by myself. The reason for this is that the motion for this report was originally conducted at general issues committee uh back in August and at that time public health uh as everybody knows uh was still part of the healthy and safe communities department. So after consultation with the city clerk's office uh it was deemed appropriate that that report should be brought back through GIC and not the board of health and subsequently we were here and then in consultation with my public health colleagues we thought it was appropriate to move the report quickly forward forward as opposed to going through some procedural changes and bringing it back to the board. So uh that's why we're here. Uh with that, I just want to welcome my colleagues from City of Hamilton Public Health um whose analytic expertise uh were invaluable in composing this report. Uh first behind me, I have Dr. Bart Harvey who's our associate medical officer of health, Kevin McDonald, director of healthy environments, Matt Lawson or Matthew Lawson, manager of healthy environments, and finally Katherine Holtz, manager of epidemiology and evaluation. So thank you to them. Um just a brief background on this report and then I'll pass it over to to Director McDonald. Um this report has been submitted in response to approved minutes at the August 6, 2025 city of Hamilton council meeting. Uh this included an approved motion from the general issues committee on July 30th, 2025 as it referenced the following. The Hamilton Air Monitoring Port on Green Life Environmental Incorporated Lagoon reported that over 10 hours on July 3rd, 2025, there were total reduced sulfur compound numbers exceeding the 1 hour Ontario criteria of 10 parts per billion with numbers hitting 51.2 2 parts per billion at uh 11 or sorry 12 a.m. 45 parts per billion at 2 a.m. 63.3 parts per billion at 3:00 a.m. 28.1 parts per billion at 4:00 a.m. 112.9 parts per billion at 5:00 a.m. 177.6 parts per billion at 6 a.m. and 85.2 2 parts per billion at 7 a.m. Based on these events, staff were directed to the following. Number one, report back to the general issues committee by the end of Q4 2025 on the impacts to public health of public exposure to these total reduced sulfur compound numbers exceeding the provincial 1 hour criteria of 10 parts per billion. and number two, report back to the general issues committee by the end of Q3 2025 on the paramedic dispatch analysis of W 9 for respiratory distress whereby we had 265 calls in 2019, 247 calls in 2020, and subsequently 304 calls in 2021, 438 calls in 2022, 408 calls in 2023, and 384 calls in 2024. This with an increase in respiratory stress that correlates to the exposure of strong hydrogen sulfide odors. So based off that, I'll pass it back to my colleague then of public health, Director McDonald, to provide us a little bit more insight. Okay, we're going up to the top of the gallery. Go ahead, Kevin. Please introduce yourself and proceed. Uh through the chair. Thank you very much. And thank you, Chief Crocker, for the opening remarks. Uh good morning, chair and committee members. Kevin McDonald, director of healthy environments division with Hamilton Public Health. Uh, as the report before you is highly technical in its focus, pardon me, I'm pleased to provide a a brief highle overview of the report at this time. As Chief Crocker uh indicated, in collaboration with our Hamilton Paramedic Services colleagues, Hamilton public health staff prepared the report and adjoining appendices uh before you in response to councelor Clark's earlier motion that was approved by city council respecting the health impacts of exposure to elevated total reduced sulfur compounds associated with the Green for Life Stony Creek Regional Facility located in Ward 9. The report details uh the data points uh and methodology that were utilized in conducting the analysis necessary to respond to the motion. The analysises uh uh analysis performed uh included um data uh from the Hamilton Air Monitoring Network Industrial Air Quality Monitoring Program System. uh Ontario Ontario's Ministry of Environment Conservation and Parks wind direction data for the periods reported on acute care enhanced surveillance data uh which is hospital emergency department data uh and Hamilton uh paramedic service dispatch data as is stated in the report. Emissions from landfills are regulated by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment Conservation and Parks. The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks has a number of criteria that are used to evaluate the emissions from a regulated facility such as the Green for Life Stony Creek Regional Facility situated in W 9. Ambient air quality criteria are used as guideline concentrations that are protective against adverse health and environmental impacts uh from pollutant emissions. It is important to note uh that the ambient air quality criteria are not regulatory values nor thresholds. To restate and summarize the report's conclusion, the review of the data cited uh for July 3rd, 2025, which was the uh genesis for the motion, and for the period of 7 days prior and post exposure found no association between ambient air quality criteria exceeded of total reduced sulfur compounds and emergency department visits for the community of W 9. While the number and percentage of par paramedic dispatch responses associated with breathing problems in W 9 increased between 2019 and 2024 as the chief cited, these changes are consistent with the increases seen uh for the city of Hamilton as a whole for that same period. Research has found that exposure to total reduced sulfur comp compounds have shown to irritate the respiratory system. Additionally, long and repeated exposure to total reduced sulfur compounds can cause nausea, fatigue, dizziness, and headaches. It is reasonable to believe that some residents in Ward 9 uh throughout that community may have experienced symptoms associated with total reduced sulfur compound exposure during the July 3rd, 2025 period of interest. However, paramedic and emergency department services were not used and therefore not captured in the paramedic nor acute uh care enhanced surveillance databases. In closing, it is recognized that since 2023, there have been significant number of community raised concerns and complaints regarding odors emanating from the green forlife Stony Creek regional facility. The data that was analyzed to inform this report shows that emissions of total reduced sulfur compounds impacted W 9 residents the most. Hence a community of over 36,000 people. Some may have been uh may have experienced, pardon me, the loss of enjoyment of property, overall stress impacting uh their overall quality of life as a result. As Chief Crocker has noted in his opening remarks, we're joined this morning by uh our colleagues who contributed to and prepared this report. Should there be any questions, we're happy to take them at this time. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Director McDonald. We do have a speaker on the list in councelor Brad Clark. Please proceed. Counselor. Thank you. Before I begin, Deputy Mayor, I do want to thank Mayor Horvath for all of her support and help u with the ongoing advocacy and bringing the attention of this matter to uh those at Queens Park who actually are decision makers on this file. I also want to thank our staff. They've done a remarkable job on some very complicated issues. Um, can I just go back at at one point I heard something about an ambient air quality um is not an actual threshold. So the hourly samples that were taken, it's not a standard or a threshold that is is regulated. Do I have that correct? Okay, I think that's going back up to director McDonald through the chair. That is correct. Counselor, uh, if you'd like a an expanded answer, I'll call upon Matt Lawson, uh, manager of the health hazards and vectorbor disease team. I think it's important that we have the expanded answer for the public to understand that these these things are not being regulated by the province. Certainly, Matt, if you don't mind introducing yourself and then proceed. Uh, good morning, Chair. Matthew Lawson, manager of the health hazards and vectorbor diseases program within Hamilton public health healthy environments division. Uh through the chair to councelor Clark the he's correct that it it is a threshold but it is not a regulated threshold. Um, so the the distinction between the ambient air quality criteria, those are values that are typically viewed as if you find it in the community, it is a good gauge of whether or not there is too much of something happening. Um, and a regulated value would be measured at the property line or modeled at the property line. That is the distinction between the ambient air quality criteria and a value that you would find in what's called schedule three of Ontario regulation 419 which is the local air pollution regulation under the environmental protection act of Ontario. And the regulated number is much higher than the hourly um number that is um reported by the ministry. Uh through the chair to the counselor if could you please repeat the question? So to enforce EPA rules with regards to the size of the value in the parameters for example total reduced sulfide um that number is much higher than what they are saying on an hourly sample for example. So at the property line the standards are different than what the public is seeing. through the chair to the counselor. The the the schedule 3 value for um the total reduced sulfur concentration is the is the same as it is for the ambient air quality criteria. However, the value for a regulated limit would be noted within the environmental compliance approval that is issued by the Ministry of the Environment Conservation and Parks. And so that's a a permit, if you will, to allow them to emit pollution. And their process is not supposed to go above that value. Um, and I do not believe that part of the ECA for um, GFL includes TRS as part of that. You're correct on that. Um, one of the interesting things I learned in doing all of this work is that the air sampling that is done by the company on their property cannot be used as a enforcement evidence tool by um the IEB investigation enforcement branch. So, in order for us to actually have GFL um finded, if you will, it has to be air samples that are off their property, which is remarkable. So, the province requires them to do the air sampling on their property, but it's not allowed to be used for enforcement. Can we get back to the total reduced sulfur compound and the impact on the respiratory system of a human? Um I understand that the values that were looked at during that period of time uh did not exceed um the threshold in terms of where it would really be impacting people as a public health risk. But the long-term and repeated exposure of the same compounds from April 28th of 2023 to today, how would that impact health and psychosocial um parameters? Throw it back up to the top of the gallery, please. through the chair to councelor clerk. Um long-term exposure to total reduced sulfur compounds typically in the literature you find evidence related to occupational health exposures. Those are usually the best type of cohort to study because of their exposure to higher concentrations and where the evidence is determined. um within those studies it is been observed and determined that long-term exposure to TRS can result in reduced lung function um chronic bronchitis increased sensitivity to sulfurbased compounds. um with respect to I would I would again focus that those are mainly on the occupational cohorts but for a in the in the context of this um situation we're discussing in the residents of W9 being exposed adjacent to these smells um definitely there would be long-term um health symptoms of fatigue and irritability and headaches and nausea and um the respiratory uh irritations that have been reported by the uh community there. There it's it's definitely not surprising to hear the uh community uh raise those concerns and report those symptoms because of the exposure to elevated levels of TRS. Thank you. Um, one of the samples showed 177. Um, and public health is saying that there was no public health risk with that number. Could you explain that through the chair to the to councelor clerk? If one of the captured data points was 177 parts per billion reported, um what that is is an instantaneous reading. That is a capture of a 1 second, 1 millisecond in time of we found this level. What is important to consider and understand is an averaged exposure value over time. So with respect to let's go back to the ambient air quality criteria values uh that are again non-regulatory but they're they're established because there is evidence that associates you know with a 24-hour exposure value it it it associates potential health impacts and with a 10-minute exposure value it associates um aesthetic if you will or also just we've noticed that there's a persistent an odor. And so, um, within TRS, um, the exposure timing matters for the 10-minute average. So, even though it measured a 100 and I'm sorry, I can't reference the number, counselor, but the number that you referenced that was an instantaneous read. Mhm. that likely was the high data point or could have been one of the high data points within all of the data points that would need to be averaged over a 10-minute exposure to an individual to come up with a a different number. So, I guess what I'm saying is that would be maybe the high end where once it gets averaged, it would likely be a lower value. Thank you. I'll finish up with just some really quick comments. Um, again, I want to thank the staff. They did they did a marvelous job. Um I want to thank them for not gaslighting the residents. It is unbelievable that the Ministry of of Environment and uh GFL how they gaslight residents and almost make the residents feel like they've kind of lost their mind. This doesn't make sense. You don't you know this is really what's happening here. And we've heard things where the inspectors or the the folks who come out to investigate odor complaints say, "No, that smells like fish. That's someone's garbage on the street. It's garbage day. That's the smell." Um uh someone's cooking something that is off. Those are the types of examples where when people are complaining about a horrific hydrogen sulfide odor, they get gas lit. You it's your no something with your nose is off. Um, and it bothers me immensely and it upsets the residents to no end and and the cumulative impact in terms of the psychosocial impacts of knowing that you're leaving in the morning and you can smell this horrific smell and when you're coming home in the evening, the smell is still there and knowing that your children have been breathing it 24 hours, 7 days a week and your wife and spouse. All of those things really um impact the personal condition of each resident. Um this information I will be referring um and sharing this report uh with the group stand stony creek uh residents stand for Stony Creek um that they can share this information with their lawyers um as they work through a process in terms of holding GFL uh to account. Um and the last thing I want to say I am still in discussions with um Dr. Richardson about a um retrospective cohort health study. So the residents have asked for a health study. you know this um Deputy Mayor Bey from 1995 they've been asking for this um and it was denied and so now we have this situation and um we are looking at something where we can actually do a retrospective cohort select group of people compared to another select group of people who are not experiencing the same thing. Uh it is something that has been done in Europe uh several times. Um, so we continue this process. Um, once I meet with Dr. Richardson, I will be asking that question um, Chair Cretch at the public health um, committee um, to get their input on it. Um, because I really think this is something that we've we just have to put a stake in the ground and say enough. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. And as the second representative on the community liaison committee with you, um I can say that I've also heard from your community very strongly and continually uh at every CLC meeting uh continuing and ongoing concerns. Moving now to councelor Tepic Makin, please. Thanks uh deputy mayor and u thank you councelor Clark for your stick tuitiveness on this issue. It's u I uh you're you're you inspire um confidence that we're at least trying to move forward. Although I'm very perplexed uh with your your reference and it's almost incomp incomprehensible to me that that studies done on site uh that information cannot be used. Uh, is that a is that a just for my own identification, is that a a legal issue? Is that something that is specifically prohibited? Uh, and if so, by by whom? Councelor Clark, if you're able to elaborate. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I don't believe it is a legal issue. I believe it is a policy issue um from the Ministry of Environment. Okay. Councelor McMaken. So, so in order to correct that, we should be making some u um delegation or some some uh sharing of concern with the uh with the ministry. And um I suspect because it just it just defies um any semblance of credibility to on the one hand be saying yes, you share the concern, but on the other hand, you have a ministry that has that responsibility that specifically prohibits it being used. So at some point, counselor, I'd be delighted to I think it'd be appropriate if if you you share that concern, and I'm sure you do. You made a motion. And I'd be pleased to, as I'm sure anybody around this horseshoe would be, to second it and in fact do some of that case to cause advocacy that is is clearly needed here. Okay. Duly noted. Thank you, councelor McMahon. Moving on next to councelor Crutch, please. Thanks. And just very briefly, just want to thank councelor Clark for bringing this attention to the board of health. There's been a number of other issues related to odors and the health impacts of odors specifically around rail lines in the north end in W 2 and W 3. There's a group of residents who are working right now on bringing some more information forward there so we can have some advocacy done because right now what I'm hearing from ministries of environment for folks at the federal level is that this is intolerance. This is acceptable. These levels are fine. Meanwhile, people are, you know, at home in their kitchens, feeling sick, feeling nauseous, having all other kinds of issues happen to them, headaches, you name it. So, this is something that we require more advocacy on with respect to odors and the health impacts of odors because it's not just a smell. It can really have a harmful impact on someone's life, whether those odors are short-term or long-term. So, thanks for that. I'll be following up with you and Dr. Richardson and Councelor Nan to make sure we get these issues to the board of health as well. Thank you, councelor. I see no further questions of the report. Um, the original seconder, Mayor Horvath, had to leave for some city business. So, I have added myself as your seconder, councelor Clark, appropriate as we're both CLC members. So, I'll look around to uh see now if we could raise our hands in favor of receiving this report. And that is unanimous. Thank you very much. Colleagues, we're moving on now to 7.5, which is peed26035, the draft waterfall destination master plan. I'm going to ask director Abbott uh from tourism culture to introduce your team and the presentation in just a moment. Hi there. Good morning. Good morning, deputy mayor and members of council. I'm Lisa Abbott, director of tourism and culture. I'm joined today by um project manager Hildigard Snellgrove and manager of tourism events Ryan McHugh. and we are very delighted to welcome Drew Wensley and Tara McCarthy of MT Planners here today. We're really excited to bring this draft strategy forward. It is informed not only by conservation, stewardship, and tourism best practices, but also from the voices of residents who have been most impacted by increased traffic, garbage, debris, parking chaos, and damage to landscape and trails that has been caused by an over tourism problem with our waterfalls. We are presenting a draft today. This will allow for an opportunity for further discussion and input. This master plan is meant to be a road providing guidance and recommendation for actions not just by the city but by our partners who are at the table with us including the Bruce Trail Conservancy, Hamilton Conservation Authority, Conservation Halton RBG, and the Hamilton Halton Branch Tourism Organization. I'm happy to turn this over to Tara and Drew to walk you through the draft plan. Thank you. Oh, now we're ready. Okay. Thanks everyone and thanks for your time this morning um to run through the uh draft report that we've assembled uh to let you know what we've been doing over the past few months. Um I'm Tara McCarthy from MT Planners. This is Drew Wensley, our CEO from MT Planners. Um this report and this uh full program is also um supported by our subconsultant team members including resonance who specializes in destination and tourism planning as well as trophic design who is our indigenous um uh facilitators, landscape architects and designers and as well as a small touch by Arcadus for transportation uh facilitation. Um, the waterfalls destination master plan critically addresses key opportunities and challenges related to a Hamiltonwide significant natural asset. The opportunity here is identifying that the waterfalls um are securing Hamilton's identity as a city in nature. Uh the waterfall assets have become very popular not only from the local community members but also for regional visitors and tourists alike. The challenge here though is that some of these waterfall sites are experiencing over visitation. The impacts there and negative impacts are to property owners, adjacent residents um including uh neighborhood uh folks, people who have homes adjacent or interfacing these waterfall sites. Um concerns such as increased traffic, parking, garbage and debris, um impacts to the environment, damage, emergency incidents, um etc. Sorry, there we go. Uh the picture of this looks like this. The draw of the Hamiltons is Hamilton waterfalls is clear. It trails, its natural beauty. There was uh over 154 waterfalls in the database. Um they all fall over the escarment. The escarment is the linear system that secures these waterfalls across all of Hamilton. The reality, the picture, the reality there, um including those safety incidents, misadventure, uh environmental damage and impacts as well as traffic, parking, etc. Sorry, click's not working. Um, Hamilton waterfalls are globally significant natural asset deeply rooted in the city's identity. They're are ecological sanctuaries, cultural landmarks, tourism drivers, and community spaces that are critically important to the city of Hamilton. Uh, we've gone through three phases or we are doing a three-phase approach to this project. Phase one had us analyzing the site from a multiple levels and interfaces. Um, we've talked to the multiple property owners, managers, and operators of all these different sites because the waterfall sites aren't single owner. It's not single management. Um, and that's a critical piece to the puzzle. Um, we've spoken to so many different stakeholders. We've looked at the economic de economic development opportunities, partnerships, and collaboration opportunities. We've looked at this from the tourism and attraction lens. What is it that's bringing people here to these waterfall sites? We've stripped down the layers of ecology, environment, climate, um, geomorphology. These all relate to some of the stories and narratives that are embedded within the visitation of these sites and why people are attracted to them in the in the first place. We've looked at planning and land use. We've looked at the climate resilience program. We've looked at community programs and services. Transportation and connectivity is an integral piece of this puzzle. How do you get to these waterfall sites? How do community members get to these waterfall sites? Uh and that includes parking and enforcement. As well as this being a critical system and an incredible connected system across Hamilton that is part of your parks and open space program. Phase two has been an intensive uh process of consultation and this is across all of Hamilton's cross-section. In blue, you see all of the members of the city who've participated. And that's through our core uh team members from all the different departments with the city as well as our steering team, some of the leadership that has uh been involved in helping us understand the waterfalls and the critical uh impacts, challenges, and opportunities that exist. We've met with some of you counselors as well on a one-on-one basis, which was a really important part of this process. You as the voice of your residential community. In green you see the external stakeholders and that includes all of those additional property owners, managers and operators uh at the table. Those were covered by Lisa um as well as our indigenous uh treaty rights holders and traditional occupants as critical inputs. In pink you see everybody who represents the public and that through came through um a system of public survey um individual sort of anecdotal conversations on the trail as we spent our time on the trails at the waterfall sites. um included time with the counselors um and it included two town halls so far. We've also had roundt sessions with some of the community interest groups including mountain bikers, hikers, um nature nature interest groups as well. Our consultation process resulted in over I think we're up to 39 40 individual um uh meeting uh moments. Um and that consultation has been comprehensive and ongoing and it's continuing. Uh it was supposed to be just a three-month process, but we're moving this all the way through. We're now at six months of consultation and work with all the different stakeholders and especially the public. We've heard really really key points of priority as well as the challenges and I think unanimously across the board environmental protection is the primary priority is number one. So we need to look at this um plan through the stewardship lens first. So it's ecology, environment and climate first before we invite any more tourists to the sites. We need a coordinated visitor management and communication platform. Infrastructure and amenities needs are are definitely there. So, small interventions all the way to um transportation solutions that maybe are easy and ready to to be prioritized right away. Um reducing parking pressure, information, education, and awareness is hard to find. Uh community impacts and quality of life and assistant based governance funding and sustainable funding for these projects moving forward. This is what that picture looks like. This is a summary of what we heard basically. So that communication platform, we need a clear official comprehensive platform for information. Right now when somebody comes to the uh waterfalls of Hamilton, they look it up on the web and the information is all over the place and fragmented and from sources that are unofficial. So sometimes that picture of coming to the waterfalls shows somebody at the bottom or somebody standing in their bathing suit in the middle of the waterfall and then somebody else says boy do I ever want that picture too and then they come and then more come and more come. Um and that creates a real management challenge. Ecology first managed access not unlimited access. So that's distributing the capacity across priority sites that can handle that visitorship and then taking some of that uh burden off of sites that can't handle it as well as uh transferring some of that capacity across to other destinations and places within Hamilton connectivity over fragmentation equitable access education awareness and stewardship data driven management and that it's communitydriven first as uh in terms of Hamilton with the waterfalls Hamilton becomes a model for stewardship tourism. So at the broadest level, this is a city within a biosphere and strategic positioning wise, Hamilton waterfalls destination master plan is a defining moment for Hamilton. As we weave ecology, culture and storytelling by connecting the indigenous knowledge, mobility planning, and trail interpretation, Hamilton can demonstrate the tourism is not separate from stewardship. It is one of its most powerful expressions. And this plan can speak everywhere from a global model. We already recognize an aggressment through global initiatives, UNESCO, world heritage, man in the biosphere all the way to this being a really really critical community asset uh connecting to local programs even your Saturday day uh you know what you do with your family. Moving from the master plan when we deliver the master plan this needs to remain a dynamic and active program and plan. So, Waterfall's uh destination plan and program moving forward um is a dynamic ongoing tourism cross-dep departmental and multi-partner program advancing destination management and ecological stewardship of Hamilton's waterfall system citywide. So, that includes all of the folks that we've met with. It includes the alignment of the advisory team especially as well as the core team steering team, all the city departments that are involved in order to um action this program. Sorry. The emerging vision is critically important. This is what is driving the plan and the program. Hamilton waterfalls destination plan and program will protect what makes our waterfalls exceptional while transforming how residents and visitors experience them. The waterfalls of Hamilton are jewels in a connected, ecologically resilient and sustainably accessed system that reflects the pride and identity of our system. Establishing a strong mission for the plan and program. The Hamilton Waterfalls destination plan and program is a commitment to the Niagara Escarment and all its relations to be leaders in sustainable destination stewardship in the management of one of the city Hamilton's most defining natural assets, the waterfalls. The mission of the plan and the program balances key priorities that environmental protection first with visitor experience and equitable access, community well-being at its heart, and a clear and uh clear and efficient economic plan. Pardon me. This is secured by uh strong guiding principles. Oh, are we that? Yeah. Okay. That lead us to a legacy of environmental, social, and economic resilience for generations. Part of that this program is uh bringing that 154 sites down to priority sites. We've got 40 priority sites. These are the sites can handle the visitorship that already have the amenities and facilities to support it. A clear program to address those priority sites and classifying them as primary, secondary, and tertiary in terms of what kind of visitorship they have. what kind of amenities and facilities will support each of those priority sites. All of this is delivered in strategic drivers deliver in a phased approach with a very very clear implementation horizon from those immediate actions that we can do tomorrow to the long-term legacy with built-in structure for the critical dependencies, key approvals and funding. Um this is just a strong point to suggest or to tell or to uh reassert that this does not rely on city funding and is not tax based. So this program looks at all the different ways that we can support these programs and all these different projects that are going to be placed on the road map through alternative revenue structures. A robust risk and mitigation plan. Keep going. It's okay. Okay. It's really hard to do this one in 10 minutes. There's a couple. Oh yeah. A risk and it's only like two more slides. So thanks. No problem. Uh risk and mitigation plan. So this is adaptive management. Ensuring that all of our collaborators and partners um are being held accountable throughout the long-term vision of this plan. And that's actively responding and mitigating those key risks including the financing and funding, climate, environment, market and economy, implementation, delivery, partnerships and collaborators. The approval ultimately in our final plan enables the secure governance structure, advances feasibility, sight specific planning, detailed design, secures those funding strategies and programs, launches the partnerships, begins our priority works and ensures that legacy projection. And I just want to leave you guys with our emerging uh visitor pledge and this is part of those external communications that we're starting to develop so that when that invitation is made to visitors coming to Hamilton waterfall sites that they're coming here with already that respect and that uh sort of code of behavior that honor stewardship first um but also asks us to be lovely to our neighbors and to share this beautiful story. Thank you for your time and thank you for the extra time. Oh not a problem at all Tamara. Thank you so much for the presentation. We have a number of speakers. We're going to begin now with councelor Alex Wilson, please. Thank you. A couple of questions from me, but first just a little bit of I think maybe I'll frame this as a from when I first heard this project being talked about, heard it a lot in terms of kind of that promotional. We have a really great asset. How do we make sure that we're doing it sustainably? But a lot of promotion piece. uh the language and I think the tone of the conversation has not shifted away from that but I hear really put front and center how it was introduced today how it's been introduced at more recent town halls has been also saying yes that is the ultimate goal but we understand we're in a context right now of some over tourism we're in a context right now of some harms that are happening whether it's trampling whether it's people going off trail and if we don't solve those harms first before doing the promotional step is that always going to be the case was there learnings that you did I'm I am noticing like a really big narrative difference in this project from kind of week one, week two, week three to once those first kind of public meetings started happening. Um, some of these other points have been more stressed. I had consultations with conversations with folks and sometimes it was yeah, we're always going to get there. No, is it kind of got on ground and like this is the context we do need to do some sharing up of these assets to make them sustainable. Is that what you found? Is it what you heard from community? Was there a change in your opinion? Just trying to understand if there was a change and why. Yeah, great. Thank thank you for the the question, counselor. Um I think we're aware going in about the nature of the overcrowding and the damage that was being done. So I don't think it was a complete change but as as Tara pointed out the engagement process really opened our eyes to the severity of some of these challenges um both in terms of you know environmental but also the social aspects of it. So, I think it's been a a constant theme and I have to say that through all the engagement we've done, it's been really effective listening and hearing people's challenges and addressing them through this process. And I think we've made headway because we've had follow-up engagements with many of uh citizens that were the most vocal and wow did they come around to really understand. Everybody's super proud obviously of the of the asset, of the waterfalls, the environment. They have concerns about their front door obviously. Um but through the process, we've heard overwhelmingly that they're gaining traction and they're seeing results of some of the initiatives that have done parking enforcement related issues. So, it's getting better and we have a long way to go, but ultimately we're going to get there with the actionable plan. This isn't a plan that sits on a shelf. It's it's an actionable plan that will take triage moments and then long-term care as a overarching sort of vision. Thank you. Uh through you, Chair, I have two other questions. One's for our own staff, so I'll let you advise me when that happens best, but my other question for the consulting team on the presentation um is no apologies. Both my questions are for staff about the implementation side of things. Just really really appreciate it. uh the one-stop shop kind of where do we go as opposed to letting people find out about blogto like kudos for that. I think there's been a lot of listening here. I do have some questions about implementation but I I think there's been some listening done. Thank you. Okay. Thank you councelor Alex Wilson. So, we will do the staff questions after we've completed this round of the presenters. And I did uh error in a small procedural fashion that we should have received the uh report and I'm know that you'd be happy to do that and I'll put maybe councelor Rob Cooper as the seconder and then we can continue with the line of questioning. Uh so we'll hold staff questions till after we've asked questions of the presenters. Moving now to councelor Tom Jackson, please. Thank you, uh, Deputy Mayor Bey. And I want to thank business development consultant Snellgrove along with the consultants Drew Winsley and Tara McCarthy. I felt we had a a wonderful uh 90minute uh virtual chat before Christmas uh zeroing in primarily on the Albian Falls site and it was uh beneficial to me and hopefully was to the consultants as well. And before I get to my question, Deputy Mayor, I'll just say what a nice problem for our community to have with the increase uh popularity of our waterfalls locations and we have to get ahead of the challenges before in my humble opinion. I'm speaking for my area alone with Albian Falls, but as a former HCA board member, I cared a lot about the twos, Webster, Sherman, Tiffany Falls areas as well. And I remember we had to shut down. I think it was a stairway, was it at Websters or Tiffany that the board finally had to shut down because of the popularity that overwhelmed the area and the liabilities it caused? So with that preamble through you, were you consultants, were you able to delineate between visitors beyond our borders and locals that attend our falls? Yes. Through you uh deputy mayor, please. Thank you chairman to the counselor. Um yes, we were actually one of the uh critical pieces of data that we actively engaged in um in partnership with Bruce Trail Conservancy. It was amazing. We set up geo fences around some of these more critical um highly visited water sites. Um and that allowed us to actually see the visitor patterns over the entire year of 2024. So it allows us and we've got part of that in the report that you've seen and then there's more um a deep deeper more sort of display of the data within the overall reports. Um and we can see exactly where people are coming from and so we can see the visitation from within Hamilton but then interestingly we can also see what that regional visitation is and whi which waterfalls they were coming to. Um and we could even see like in a day somebody from London Ontario came uh to four of these crit these critical sort of you know big waterfall sites. So um we've actually got a map in our extended report that you can see that shows those catchments of where people are coming from. So like 2 hours driving distance, 3 hours driving distance and you can see the number of people and the number of waterfalls that they're coming to visit. So you can actually see that opportunity number one and also the challenge, right? So people come for the full day. How are they actually getting around to the waterfalls? And that's part of the story, right? Is giving them clear communication um how to visit these sites and how to move around from one site to the other. And as you sort of uh spoke about the difference between say visiting a site that is managed by Hamilton Conservation Authority versus one that is managed by the city. Um and so that is a really really critical piece of the data. Yeah. Consultant McCarthy you do homework and your research extraordinarily well. And the reason depra be to my colleagues if you're wondering why I even asked because a tourist is a tourist enjoying our fabulous natural areas is because over the years I learned again with Albian Falls before I asked my next question was so many visitors from Scar Bro Vaughn and Cambridge they came to the Albian Falls area not having a clue where to go unlike the locals who knew where to go where to traverse how to be respectful of the environmental areas the natural sensitive areas But those from beyond the borders were just happy to arrive and heard all the exciting things and often they were the ones that slip and fell unfortunately and uh had some tragedies unfortunately. So in that line of uh comment through you deputy mayor. How about liabilities to the city consultants um as we're preparing a roadmap for the future? Were you also able to check in with our legal department to see exactly part of the challenges uh liabilities to the city because some of the areas traversed um were if you will accessible but maybe not the safest areas through you deputy mayor bey please through the chair to the counselor thank you for your question yes absolutely the uh the liability and the exposure uh certainly was the teams were engaged all the way through the process so we understood the numbers of incidents that were happening uh over the last several years and that they're on the decline, but they still happen. To your point about informing and educating, they there's no doubt it's a region regional draw, right? We see tourism and that's what Terara's numbers really uh announced to us. They're coming in big numbers. So the need for that education, awareness, informing and enforcement are all pieces of the puzzle to minimize the risk and liability to the city and those that are coming to these uh these natural places that we want to celebrate, but they're they're challenging. So part of it also is the observations of bad behavior. Uh people not knowing what to wear or how to uh to arrive at the site, hiking shoes, etc., high heels. No. Um, but we've seen all sorts of things. So, that's part of the educational process. Thank you, Consultant Winsley. Councelor Jackson, I just want to ask one more question. Multiple questions. Where are we? Because I do want to How about I'll just wrap up there and if you have time for speeches after the consultants are finished. Happy to do that. How's that? Sounds good to me. Thank you. Sounds good to me. We're moving on next to Councelor Ted McMin, please. Yes. Thanks, Deputy Mayor. I I won't make a speech. uh other than to say um the waterfalls from u the perspective of the people I'm privileged to represent uh are are probably the most precious asset u uh the number of people who hike. I have three daughters who and a spouse who are hiking two days a week opted to a waterfalls and uh that when we talk about valuing our uh our conservation assets uh uh this would be right at the top of the list. So I I just want to say that um pe how many what what percentage of people u uh who visit the waterfalls um particularly from not locals but others are coming specifically for that. And uh given that tourism has now become our third most important industry um after healthcare and the steel um you know are there some collateral benefits to people coming in uh in addition to their being able to experience the beauty of our waterfalls and to see the posters that are up everywhere from winterfall winterfalls to summerfalls. You bet uh through the through the chair to the counselor. Thank you uh for that that question. I think uh throughout the the process we've been aware of the regional draw and those coming in. Part of it is also not just about taking the one Instagram shot and and doing the small hike. We want to integrate local businesses into this equation because this is a tremendous opportunity for economic gain within the communities that are, you know, around the waterfalls themselves. So, we as we as we said, we've got a really great uh series of of maps and analysis of who's coming from how far and for how long. But we notice that they're not spending and integrating maybe into the craft brewery or the great coffee shops or the local businesses. Part of this plan really wants to make that connective tissue happen within the businesses that are that are then going to support this tourism offering. So that economic lift, why wouldn't we, you know, leverage that? And that's part of the process that we've been engaged in. And if I might add, that comes through building itineraries and that communication platform. So um it's about saying, hey, you're you're interested in this image. Here's the waterfalls. Make a day of it. Come and visit, you know, Stony Creek. Come and visit Ancaster and Dundas and all these incredible little businesses that are in there. And in our uh our report, our full report, we have a series of maps that plot out all the community centers. So for that community level of engagement and you know connectivity to programs and sort of that weekend what you do in day in the life um all the way to some of the bigger destinations and attractions within the city of Hamilton, right? And being able to sort of suggest these things really cleanly and really clearly if you come in on the go train uh from Toronto, here's how you might visit four of the waterfall sites and also catch dinner downtown Hamilton in a show or something. So, um there's all these opportunities to um connect and network with all of the the local businesses. Absolutely. Thank you, Council McMe follow-up question. We're going to So, just to structure this folks, questions of the presenter, questions of staff will follow and then we'll conclude with comments and uh proceed as that just one just one final sentence. I don't think there's anything keener, cleaner, greener than our precious waterfalls. I thank you for your work and your report. Uh really impressive and uh unlimited potential. Unlimited. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, councelor. Moving next to councelor Craig Casar, please. Thanks, chair, and good to see you again, Taran Drew. Um thanks for the presentation and I know Terry, you were kind of going through there very quickly because the clock was on your back there. So I wanted to go back to slide 14 if we could and it' be if it would be possible to put that back on the screen to speak to. It was just around priority sites and the focused implementation program and on there maybe while we're getting up it had primary, secondary, tertiary sites and I think you spent about maybe four or five seconds on it but I think it'd be helpful just to explain a little more on there is a lot of information. I think that's a big part of what's important is how the sites be managed. 100%. I think that's we're just waiting for that to come back up. I'm just uh letting those online know what we're up to here in the gallery. that slide and the previous slide if you're able to. Yeah, that and that one in the previous slide there I can see on your screen and could you just go to the previous slide as well? So important part of this program was looking at the original database that we received had 154 uh waterfalls uh stated on that and I think everybody has their own opinion uh if you hike the trails about um whether that is accurate or or not. Um it was really important for us to spend a lot of time with our feet on the ground number one and also looking at a lot of different data, a lot of different mapping layers. Um as well as understanding the visitor patterns to the current sites to understand which sites and this was a a really full-bodied um analysis to understand which sites were experiencing the most challenges. Um we looked at safety incidents over the past decade or so on these waterfall sites to find out um where the most were happening. We looked at residential complaints. We looked at the special enforcement areas and the uh you know sort of the impacts of positive impacts of those programs. Um and we looked at um all of the sort of social media and all of the different sort of media that is promoting the waterfalls to see which ones were being most popularly sort of promoted. Um this all helped us to sort of narrow this down to the sites that um need to be addressed because they have experienced the most impacts. Also have the most sort of uh visitor amenities and facilities available currently that potentially maybe need a little bit of enhancement or a little bit of update um to them in order to support the visitorship that is there currently. Uh we're looking at these sites at at individual basis to say well can it handle that capacity in the first place? Yeah. And when we talk about carrying capacity, we're not talking about say is the parking lot big enough. We're talking about whether that waterfall site can handle this from an environmental perspective first and then we say okay can we expand the parking a little bit because it can handle it or no way now we have to look at a different way um to manage and to control people and we know that HCA has done that through the reservation system with Webster and twos and that's been very very effective um in terms of controlling. So if we go to the next slide, that's what the next slide is a little bit about, right? It's a little bit about looking at and summarizing um when we've looked at each of these sites individually, we've classified them into primary, secondary, and tertiary sites. And that's not to say one is more important than the other, but the primary sites really are the big the big ticket guys. Those are the ones that the most visitors are coming for for. And so those are the ones that need um the sort of intensification of amenities and facilities to support visitation also needs the special attention to the programs that support it and the management systems that support them and distribution. And distribution. Exactly. And those secondary and tertiary sites are maybe more community- based maybe connected just to a trail head but also offer opportunity to look at clustering. So if we look at a full trail loop instead of just coming to Albian Falls, you can come to Albian say and a beautiful place to visit and with a little 4 kmter loop you can visit Buttermilk Falls then you can hike down into the Red Valley creek and then back up and it's a really beautiful journey. So it just sort of spreads people out around and this allows us to look at it from all those different levels, organize it um and help us to prioritize the projects moving forward. Yeah. Thank you for that. Okay, thank you councelor and going next to councelor Brad Clark, please. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I'm looking at it's appendix A to to the overall report and it's page 12 of 41. It's a list of waterfalls. It then has 2,24 total visits. Um, Albian Falls, for example, 101,764 total visits. How did you calculate those numbers? Those are the Oh, sorry. Chairman counselor. Those are the numbers they came from our geoence study. Um so there the Can you explain what that is? Yeah, absolutely. Totally. Um so it's setting up a boundary line through uh GIS basically. Um and it's tapping into uh information coming from people's phones. So your phone is in your pocket. Um and so there's uh services that have access to all that data. So it can track, you know, any year, this year, couple years before, whatever it is, can track the patterns of people as long as your location services are on on your phone. So, this is it doesn't collect any personal data, but it just collects where the phone is from or going. No, I I find the data very interesting. I I work with the Hamilton Conservation Authority and and so um I know we've had a million visitors to our conservation areas in a year and we've been exceeding that ever since co actually. Y absolutely. Um, so when I'm looking at these numbers, if a family of six were going and two adults had two phones, it would record the two phones but not the four kids. Correct. Correct. Correct. Okay. So that's that's really helpful. And then the next one, you have estimated unique visitors. How did you come to that calculation? Is that a car? No. So similarly uh the data is able to filter out if you visit um your favorite waterfall site on your daily hike every morning um it's able to say okay you visit every day but you are a unique visitor only one time and so it filters that out so there's number of visits in total and then there's number of unique visitors which is a smaller number so it's one-time visits correct got it thank you very much um and then local and non-local visitors I'm assuming you use the same system with the phones to figure out. Correct. Now, I guess the little bit challenge we I found, I can't speak for the rest of my colleagues, residents who have moved to Hamilton keep their phone. Yeah. So, I have a resident who I have to dial 519. And I know that's not local, but um so this would be an estimation, correct? Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's based on the assumptions of the the available data and and uh but it's a very very good picture at this scale. Uh I I'm in very impressed with that particular um data set. U it's incredibly helpful. Yeah. Um I want to thank you for working with uh our Hamilton Conservation Authority staff and including them in on this process. As you know, we have several um waterfalls on conservation authority land and all of them are in the watershed. So, one of the things that we've been concerned about is an expectation of visitors as to what the waterfall is going to be like. And the reason I raise that is from time to time um we hear from people that um it was a really rough terrain. It's we call that a hike. Um it's not a walk, it's a hike. Um and and I guess that goes to a part of the next step. How do we educate the public as to what the amenities would be like at each waterfall? Some of them absolutely I think of the Aramosa carsten if you have someone in a wheelchair you can go through that hiking trail no problem at all. We put pressure um aggregate down that's small and and no problem getting a wheelchair through no problem with bikes. Um, but Tiffany Falls and and and Devil's Punch Bowl, um, some of them you're going to walk over very tall grass. Some of them you're going to walk quite a long distance in on a trail and then walk out again. Um, so on top of that is the safety concern. I hope in the next phase that we try to work on how we can keep people safe. You what's the old expression? You can't educate stupid. But it's ego. It's all about that that phone and getting a picture of me hanging off the cliff. Look at me. Um and the next thing you know they're at the bottom and and a tragedy. And so we need to not only deal with what the condition of the site is, but also how to keep you and your visitors safe. So those would be my my brief comments. Thank you uh through the chair to the counselor. Thanks for those comments. I think that uh education, awareness, and anticipation is part of it's not a silver bullet, but it will help. So making sure that the communication strategy is the most dominant thing when somebody regionally is coming that they're informed about the conditions that they're f going to face and not only that but the amenities as you pointed out what's close by what's on offer and maybe what's not there so that they can pack their own lunch and then take their garbage away etc. So, thanks for those. Yeah, I think the worst case, Deputy Mayor, of of a safety risk was the day we got a picture of a gentleman who decided to climb the cross at Devil's Punch Bowl and stand on the very top without holding anything on. Very windy area to begin with. Um, we have to try to protect people from that type of behavior. Thank you for the report. I look forward to the next phase. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much. So, um, I'm going to very quickly also say thank you. I enjoyed thoroughly our conversation back in December. Uh, 11 waterfalls identified in W 10 primarily in the Winona area, which is almost as much as Dundas, although we don't have the same parking issues as you do because most of them are very inaccessible. So, thank you very much for your report and your presentation. Um, at this time, we are going to take some questions to staff. So, we are going to let you sit down. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm going to go to councelor Alex Wilson to lead off the questions for staff, please. Thank you. Through you, chair. There's about 80ish actions listed in the report and that was kind of the outcome of this strategy was to get that action list. Um, we've also heard that there's not really a funding source for those actions because partly um we're trying to find funding. We've had grant funding from the federal government to get this far in the strategy. So, I guess I'm wondering I've heard the strategy is not intended to sit on the shelf. It's meant to be really active. I'm also trying to understand if it's like is it funded? Is it staffed? Are there people identified to work on these 80 outcomes? For example, um I could believe that for some of these, yep, we have communication resources in house. I can understand there might be a link there, but for some of the things where there's clearly not an in-house resource or there's clearly going to need to be an investment to achieve say a six-month action, when does that ask come forward? How do we achieve that? I'm just trying to understand how do we actually implement the these actions here. Okay, I think we're starting with director Abbott for the response. Thank you for the question through the chair to respond to the councelor. Um we have um engineered the project in such a way that we really want to focus on quick wins that can be done uh lowanging fruit fruit with existing resources. And there's a lot that you'll find in the action items that are like that. When we go to um other uh other actions that are going to require investment, we're looking at things like tourism reinvestment mechanisms, digital funding uh through advertising and app partners, provincial and federal grants, uh corporate and philanthropic partnerships, um public private partnerships. Uh there are also environmental and climate climate change funding streams. So all of these um combined uh sort of fit the requirement that we had going in that this was not to rely on city funding and was not going to be tax-based. I say that with a caveat that if there are city uh lands that are involved that do require capital investment that would be a separate conversation that would come through the normal budget process. Thank you. Thank you through you chair just to maybe pick one specific outcome to nail dive into that. So, is it going to be the city staff and tourism that will be hosting a kind of Hamilton waterfalls master website? So, it'll either redirect to the conservation authorities bookings or other places. But, we talked about that website I think was one of the either six month or one year. So, for example, there's going to be either tourism um communication staffers in the city creating that asset, maintaining that asset, promoting that asset. Um that's one of the ways this would be implemented. Is that a fair understanding, director? Thank you. I'm going to pass it over to Hildigard Snellgrove who can give a more in-depth um answer. Thank you, Hildigard, if you wouldn't mind giving a quick introduction. Oh, we got to turn on your I'm canceling it out. There we go. Thank you so much. Uh Hildigard Snellgrove, business development consultant for tourism and culture and also project lead for the waterfall destination master plan from the city side. Thank you through the chair to the counselor that I think it's important to remember that yes, the city does own certain assets and has a big role to play and at the same time we do not own all of the assets. And so just like we're presenting this master plan to council in draft today to get feedback. We are hoping to do the same um with the conservation authority with burst trail conservancy with royal botanical gardens with um Hamilton conservation authority and whether it lives with the city whether it lives with someone else yes this is an action that we will make sure as we are leading the project that happens who owns that we don't want to make that decision without other folks input so that's an answer and not an answer um and then if I could also just add um to the previous uh question as well a little bit more depth is part of this plan as you so well said it's not meant to sit on a shelf and so part of the plan was to say we would like a prioritized capital plan and again some of those will be city assets some of them will not likely majority of them will not be city assets but we will have a role to play instead of saying we need to fund this entire plan to say here are the priority sites what does that funding look like and then be able to put that forward as an individual project um which is a lot easier for folks to get behind to fund to understand. So share just a final one for me. Yeah, I think it would be a lot easier if once these recommendations get that feedback from understanding their draft right now but once they leave the draft status um if the biodiversity action plan could be used as a city strategy where there's a corresponding city department that's named as as the owner of the action um I read a lot of these actions as outcome statements. they don't they're missing the how piece of how we're going to get there. And so we have a timeline of saying in six to 12 months this is where we're going to be at but I'm not nec and some they vary. There's 80 some of them are really really clear. I want to be say that but for some of them I'm not necessarily sure about who's going to own what actions to get us to that outcome by that timeline. Um so understanding this is draft right now the the thing I'd love to see if when this gets solidified as a clear owner um as well as if if some of these actions don't have a how piece of how we're going to get there that how piece listed. Otherwise really excited about that progress. just want to make sure we're setting community expectations. Um, so we're walking with community and we're not saying we're going to do something that then we don't do or we don't do as fast as we say we're going to do. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you, councelor. And no further questions for staff that I see. So we'll move on to comments starting with councelor Tom Jackson, please. Thank you, uh, Deputy Mayor Bey. Um, I want to read again off one of the consultants pages challenges. Some waterfall sites are suffering from over tourism resulting in negative impacts to property owners, managers, surrounding communities with concerns such as increased traffic, garbage, debris, parking issues, emergency incidents, and damage to the waterfall sites and trails. Period. I know our waterfalls and the natural sensitive areas are paramount to preserve and protect. But we cannot forget and it cannot be lost the abuing neighborhoods that experience the overflow often of traffic and visitors to these glorious sites. Just a quick recap from an Albian Falls neighborhood standpoint. Up to 2016, there was uh no protective fencing. Uh locals knew where to go and where not to go at the Albian Falls area, where to traverse, uh where to uh where to travel into and not to. But more and more visitors that came beyond our borders up to 2016, Deputy Mayor Bey had finally peaked. We had 30 rope rescues that summer in 2016. All because of careless, reckless, and sometimes disoriented traveling by visitors to the Albian Falls area. And many of the 100 home neighborhood of Elbian Falls Corinthian Drive experienced spillover uh parking, garbage, debris on their front lawns, driveway approaches blocked, uh constant um problems and nuisances that just uh led to a backlash. So by 2017 with past council support $75,000 later out of my budget we put up the perimeter fencing put more directional signage and obviously then it curtailed uh the number of visitors to the area. I was saddened that we had to lead to that draconian measure, but in order to mitigate the liabilities and lawsuits that were happening against the city, uh the measure had to be taken. And I had a multitude of departments that uh um that uh that helped me uh with uh with coming up with that measure and what to do for the future. Um, fast forwarding, Deputy Mayor Bey, I set up an Albian Falls task force of about 10 members from the community. Uh, we're active. We're continuously meeting from time to time. Uh, I want to say that although I've been supportive of a conceptual design for a platform stairway uh from Mountain Brow Boulevard down Elbian Falls to leading into a cantaliever that will come in front of the beautiful, gorgeous Albian Falls main area, there is no way, as long as I'm fortunate enough to be the ward counselor for the East Mound area, there's no way I I will proceed if these issues proactively that I just read off are not dealt with in advance. I don't want a Greensville area. I don't want an area in other parts of Dundas Lancaster that through the conservation authorities had to take more restrictive measures. It's a saddened state of affairs to restrict tourists and locals from wanting to enjoy areas that are so beautiful that we are proud of here in Hamilton. We're a mini Niagara Falls, I call it, with our waterfalls areas. But we have to be respectful of neighboring communities and in my humble opinion we can't I can't move forward until these these issues are addressed proactively. Thank you for allowing me a historical recap. Deputy Mayor Bey. Thank you councelor Jackson. Moving on now to councelor Brad Clark. Thank you Deputy Mayor and I completely concur with councelor Jackson. um he's done yolan's work uh at Albian Falls and there there were some horrific tragedies there and through the efforts of the good counselor it has cretailed um the amount of people who are trying to climb down the face of the escarpment. So um well done. Um, I just want to stress how important it is that the city continue to work with not just the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority. Um, but with the Bruce Trail folks and any other of the groups that are involved in this thing. Um, Chris um, Ekkan, I think was is how you pronounce the name. He was the guy that was promoting Hamilton as the city of waterfalls before I think the city was promoting themselves as the city of waterfalls. The waterfall bus. Yes. and um um people like that should be included in in the next phase of the consultation. It's important that we come up with a way of ensuring that we don't have explosive growth in visitors that do not stick to the trails and walk all over the side of the escarpant face and other areas. um the ecological damage when people go off trail, they don't think anything of it, but there is significant ecological damage. Um there are plants that are very unique to Hamilton and the Niagara escarpant and they need to ensure that they're protected and they continue to grow. Um not to mention all the the unique wildlife that we have in the area. Um the conservation authority has moved forward with some very unique projects. Um not just with the reservation system but with um the usage of phones. When you're on a hike, if you go to the Aramosa cars now, you can click on a a QR code and it'll tell you as you walk along the trails, stop here, look here, this is what you will see. Um which is really quite remarkable. And we're doing more work with signage as well as an as an I guess an attempt to educate the public and to make sure that they again don't go off trail. Uh so I think this is excellent. Uh I I look forward to the final draft and it'll be very interesting to see how we can grow in some areas while maintaining and not exceeding the amount of of visitors in others. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Clark. This has been duly moved and seconded. All I need now is a show of hands to accept what we have been presented. And seeing that that is unanimous, thank you. Colleagues are moving on now to 7.6. And I will make note that this is page six of 16 in my road map. We still have a considerable amount of business before us. So, uh, with that said, FCS26014, which is the 2025 assessment growth report, general manager Mike Sigaric, if you would uh like to provide us with an overview, but maybe I'll I'll look around to committee to make sure that we're asking for the overview of this if there is significant interest. I do see a question from councelor Clark. Counselor, are you asking for an overview or do you have a specific question? Okay. So then um before we begin with that I just want to ensure do we need an overview or can we simply proceed to questions on the report. Okay we are not going to do the overview. So we are going to move to questions starting with councelor Brad Clark please. Uh thank you deputy mayor. Just a couple of quick questions. Um, so I'm looking at page three of eight in the report. It's a a really good chart showing a summary of assessment growth by property class for 2025. It shows a CVA decrease in 2025, grand total of 499,997. Um, can you explain what caused that CVA decrease? Thank you, councelor. Uh, I promote you all the time, general manager or demote you, I don't know. Kindly introduce yourself and proceed with an answer. Sure. Uh, through the chair GM of finance corporate services, Mike Ziger, motion to recess. No, just joking. Um, the uh the column that's titled decreases includes uh impacts of a number of factors and one it includes shifts. Uh and so where impact has changed uh and assessed a property and made a change to the property class. You'll see uh in this chart and through the subsequent uh charts where properties were previously classified for example as uh commercial and are now classified as industrial. And so that contributes to some of the shifts. If there is a request for assessment from a property owner where they are challenging their assessment, that is captured in the uh decrease in assessment. If uh there are examples uh where properties were previously commercially assessed and are now property tax exempt, uh those examples are more specific to uh the McMaster Innovation Park. approximately $17 million in previously commercial where commercial space is now vacant and as part of a extension of McMaster they are now considered exempt. Those are some of the examples that would capture the decreases and CPA council clerk. Thank you. So when I'm looking at the grand total figure at the very bottom um it shows uh the estimate impact on the tax levy um 11,757. So the average impact is 92%. That's the amount of increase in assessment that we had in 2025. Yeah. To the chair that's correct. Just note these numbers are in thousands of dollars and so that would be uh 11.757 or approximately 11.8 million. Yes, that makes sense cuz the 1% is around 12 million. Um has this gone down from the previous year? Through the chair it has. uh last year was uh just short of 1.7%. Uh and in previous uh for budgeting purpose, we've assumed three-year averages. And so this is lower than the previous three-year average, lower than 2024. Uh and so while there are some classes that we've seen a bit of a rebound, industrial being one of those classes, uh we are seeing lower assessment growth across other classes relative to 2024. Um thank you. The last question I have is the future um residential multi-residential growth. We're hearing regularly uh from the homebuilders association uh representatives that there have been significant layoffs in the city. I know that to be true in my own ward. I've heard about it. Construction workers being laid off um and that new housing is not coming on stream. So what's the expectation given the economic conditions that we're facing for next year and and perhaps even the year after through the chair. Uh in terms of budgeting, we do reference in the report that staff intend to move off of the traditional budgeting approach which was based on historical information and to look forward base 2027 based on our best estimate as to what will transpire in 2026. Uh for a number of reasons. Uh councelor Clark made reference to the challenge uh challenging residential development sector but we see challenges across a number of sectors. Um we see challenges in the commercial and shopping center sector. We noted some decreases there are decreases that are reflected in these numbers as it relates to the shopping center uh class. And if one visits a large retail uh commercial retail center, you'll see a lot of vacant space. And so uh going forward, we will work with our colleagues and planning economic development impact. And I do expect we will uh deviate from in fact we're committed to deviate off of the historic information and try to establish a forecast for uh the 2027 budget that better reflects what we're experiencing in in the city of Hamilton uh going forward rather than past experience. Thank you. I I fully support that that change. I think it's really important. Uh I am alarmed um because if the assessment growth continues to drop that's going to make it very challenging with our budget and that means more pressure on uh local homeowners with property tax increases if we don't find the savings to offset that $12 million that might be lost. Thank you. Thank you councelor Clark. Councelor Clark, would you mind being the mover of the receipt of this and on the floor? Thank you. Looking for a seconder. Councelor Jackson. Thank you. And now I'll just see if there are any further questions with regards to this report. Seeing none, a show of hands, please. All in favor? That is unanimous. Thank you, colleagues. We are now moving on to item 7.7 HSC26023. Now colleagues, we are pretty good for time, although we do have a lengthy agenda, but I do want to remind that we are up against a hard stop at 2:30. If we haven't already broken for lunch, I will be obligated to recess the meeting at 2:30 legislatively to ensure that we have proper lunch break. Um, I think there's plenty of time to accomplish that within the next two hours, but I do want to remind folks uh that that is uh the course that we'll be going down. So, with that uh I will now call Director Michelle Baird to bring the report. Oh, starting with general manager Mater. My apologies. That's okay. Through the chair, Grace Mater, general manager, healthy and safe communities. I'll do a bit of the stall while the uh first act comes comes in. Um thanks very much for the opportunity to uh speak to this report. Um January presented for us a perfect storm. It had a we had a very long duration of extremely cold weather. While the city has a winter response plan in place, we know that the our unsheltered homeless numbers are increasing and we also know how important it is for for us to respond to that that urgent need. We utilized our emergency social services operations plan as our mechanism to immediately open a warming center. It's it has a concrete plan with a staffing plan attached to it and can be immediately activated. We wanted to ensure that the city provided that very important safety net for our citizens. As mentioned, the approach to this service needed many supports in order to provide the warming space. Police, paramedics, and fire were all notified of the plan. The center did accomplish what we'd hoped. No one died on the city streets as a result of the weather. We wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the complexities of opening the warming center and that's why this report is before you today. We also wanted to raise the awareness of the current state that our community and across the province are are experiencing on the level of need, the level of drug use and the challenges that our community partners are also facing. So with that, I will turn it over to Director Baird as she's now joined us. Thank you. Thank you, Director Baird. if you wouldn't mind a quick introduction and then proceed through the chair. Michelle Bear, director of housing services division. So the report before you outlines uh our response with respect to the warming center that was set up at Benetto. Um as you heard from the delegate and as we present it in the report, it very much was set up as a warming center. We've done this uh work before. It's certainly not the preference that the city does this work and instead we rely on uh service agencies that do this type of work when we set up the warming center. Unfortunately, it was not what we expected. However, it very much reflects what's been happening with partners across the city before that time and now subsequent to that time. The um incidence of substance use within Benetto reflects what other agencies have been reporting to us. In fact, since Benetto open uh since Benetto closed, we've heard from other warming centers across the city as well as shelter providers and social housing providers that they are struggling tremendously with the increase in the amount of drug use within um all of these settings as well as the behaviors that go along with that. In fact, what our staff encountered at Benetto with respect to behaviors is seeing elsewhere and and it is a different situation than it was previously. The situation is worsening across the city and beyond. Um we hear from our shelter providers for example that at this point in time they are operating in a way that is simply keeping keeping people alive rather than supporting people through their housing journey and that this is a significant change. um and and causes trauma for their staff of course who are rep responding to these incidents on a daily basis. We didn't anticipate this when we set up the shelter the warming center. It truly was a moment of need. Our unsheltered numbers in Hamilton were continuing to increase and we uh needed to respond to that urgent need. However, the situation that was in front of us and is now the situation that we've heard from our library colleagues, for example, uh that we see in different areas of the downtown, for example, and beyond and the ex the experiences within shelter is very much uh mirroring that same experience. Thank you for that overview. Um GM Mater, any further information to add? Nope. Okay. So, we have uh some folks lined up for for questions. If there's nothing further from staff, I will recognize councelor Crutch. Thanks. And I'll make some comments at the end if it's okay. Just questions for now. So, I'm appreciative of the fact that as you said at the outset of this, general manager made sure that no one died. The purpose of setting up this emergency winter warming shelter was to prevent that from happening. We had temperatures I think up to -30 with the wind chill and we know some people were affected by this. So I understand that's the reason why we did this. But can you talk about why we chose Bonetto specifically as a location? Uh through the chair as I mentioned we utilized our emergency social services operation approach to this and that we designate um recreation centers for that response. It also provides an area with some controlled space. It also provides access to washrooms and showers. It has um the mechanism set up in it for for as far as um extra rooms for staff and those types of activities. Um we also chose Benetto due to the proximity. This is where the individuals are in the downtown core in order for us to operate and to provide the services. If we opened it, we wanted to make sure that people came and that was those were the rationale behind it. Thank you. And so I think what you're saying is places like Dr. Davyy and the Bezy Community Center, Central Memorial Recreation Center and other places in War 2 weren't suitable for those reasons because you're saying they needed more you needed more space essentially if I understand what you're saying through the chair. Yes, that's correct. When I've been speaking to folks offering shelter spaces, other individuals, including the folks at Cathedral Cafe who are operating the warming center until March 31st, what I'm hearing from them is that the experiences they're having with people who have nowhere to go are different than even a year ago. Can you unpack that a bit? Because what I'm hearing is that the situations are far more challenging and that I'm hearing that it's very different in terms of I'll just say this because I think it makes sense and it's what I've heard. The kinds of street drugs that are out there that are unsafe are different. They're changing rapidly and in the last year we've seen quite a dramatic shift. That's what I'm hearing from frontline shelter providers. So, if you can comment on that, I'd appreciate it through the chair. I'll start and then I'll pass it to Michelle because you're absolutely correct. Uh counselor, it's a conversation that I've been having with Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, our medical officer of health with um Chief Crocker as well um that there are different through January February the um paramedics responded I had the stat in front of me Russ had it um had far outnumbered in previous years the number of of calls they're receiving. It is also to the level of acuity of those calls as well and um there is seems to be an increase in the level of the fentanyl component that is now available on the street. So those are some of the reasons why and I'll turn it over to Michelle through the chair. Yes, counselor. Thank you for that question. So that is the same thing that we're hearing and not just within shelters but within drop-ins within we've had social housing providers reach out with these concerns and significant change noted really coming into this year so through starting in January and then moving onward from that. We are hearing that there are numerous uh paramedic calls and Chief Crocker can speak to that as well uh for all of these sites, but not just paramedic calls, but dealing with incidents and behaviors on a daily basis. We've heard from shelter providers who are long-standing providers in the community with long tenur staff who are saying things like, "We've not seen something like this before. We've not had this experience before." And they're they're struggling to manage. In fact, when we closed Benetto, we transitioned that service to another uh warming center within the city that's provided uh that was provided by an agency that uh carries out warming centers on a day-to-day basis and within the first day of uh operation reached out to us to express how challenging and difficult and that something was different and different than they'd experienced previously. And so we were able to um put Hamilton police in place very quickly in order to support that operation. But that's not something that routinely would happen. We would not expect to see that level of response required. Thanks. And if my colleagues will indulge me as the word counselor, I have a few more questions to ask. So what I heard you say was that police were informed. People knew it was going on. But also what I'm hearing you say and what I'm understanding from the community is that this was set up quickly. And so what we have, if I understand correctly, and if you could parse this out for me, is we put a call out at some point asking for people to help us provide services for warming in the winter period. But it seems like something fell through, something didn't happen. We had to kind of scramble a little quickly, more quickly to set this up than perhaps otherwise. Otherwise, I think we would have had services available like garbage services, other kinds of things. So why are we kind of scrambling quickly? And then I'll follow up about garbage services in a moment through the chair. It was as an emergency response. That was the the protocol that we went with. And so we have a process for that. So there's not always that opportunity for all of those pre- items. We're also scrambling to find a provider to give food for the individual. So we were able to provide that. We were um looking for pro provision of CS for somewhere for some people to rest on. So all of those components are part of it. Um so I our winter response has been in place and had been addressing the need but due to the level of the the weather and it was like you as you indicated it was minus 30 and that went on for 10 10 consecutive days you know we could not we were not able to close the center it would have been putting people in harm's way from by doing that so those were the rationale behind it. Thank you. So the emergency response meant that took a little while longer to coordinate some of the services, but everyone was let know it was happening as soon as possible. That's helpful. I guess where I don't understand or it's harder for me to understand is I know that we've had these kinds of temperatures in our city and emergency responses for a long time. And second, we have an emergency heat response with climate change. We know we're getting more emergency heat responses. We usually have an emergency cold response every winter. And so as much as it's an emergency, it's also something we can predict is going to happen. So, that's where I think residents get confused and want to ask questions about, well, why aren't we planning a little bit? I have notice on the motion coming up later today that addresses that specifically, but I'm just giving you the opportunity to respond to that because I think that's where people are confused. U we know this is coming every year with this cold weather. So, how come we don't have another layer there in between? Through the chair, we'd had them um through St. Matthews House, we'd had an additional location opened up, but their numbers were being far exceeded. And so their capacity could not address the need that we were finding. And so we felt that if we didn't do something immediately, then we were going to be putting some of our citizens at risk. So if I understand what you're saying is we had a place, it wasn't didn't have capacity for what we expected to have. It was over capacity and that's what created the emergency situation as well because of the demand. Okay, I see. I'll be quiet because I think that the uh I think that director Baird may have some additional comment. Yes, through the chair uh to the counselor. In addition, um I think when we step back and look at uh warming response, winter response, what have you, a decision was made when we did shelter expansion that we were going to move away from a seasonal response per se with the understanding that we were uh expanding shelter beds tremendously across the system. And in addition that it's really hard to define when the winter months are and we know that we need response during the heat in the summer as well. And so there was a decision to put um dropin centers in place that operated on a year- round basis with some expansion in the winter but not to the extent we had previously. Um the other thing that happened in this particular situation that was a bit different. So we did have dropins uh operating. there were some challenges with respect to single men in particular. The other challenge that happened and why this was an emergency response is because on that particular weekend um not only did we have cold weather and we had a pending storm that occurred that evening. We had already been advised by one of our shelter providers that they were without electricity because there were hydro hydro outages happening downtown because we knew that the men's system was already pressured and we had individuals who were unsheltered. It was sort of, for lack of a better expression, it was the perfect storm of things that were happening that were coming together to mean that we quickly needed to um address the risk for individuals who were unsheltered in the city. Thanks. My last question is just about city hall because I know that came up in the discussion and wanted to have an ask of that on other cities have used their city hall and the city hall properties for this type of activity in an emergency situation. I happen to have been to some of those city halls and so I know they're different in layout, but is there a reason why we couldn't have used Hamilton City Hall for this emergency use? Through the chair, we felt that a rec center offered a better environment because of the access for multiple washrooms and for um a controlled space. The concern was the kind of layout for our city hall would have been challenging because of the with the limitations of the kind of openness it has. Thanks very much. I'll save uh my comments for after questions have been asked. Thank you. Okay. Um, would you mind moving this to put it on the floor? I neglected to do that originally. I could look for a seconder to get this on the floor so that we can have proper conversation. Councelor Pauls. Thank you. Moving next, we have councelor Tom Jackson up. Please proceed. Thanks, uh, Deputy Mayor Bey. Uh, this reminds me so much of the encampment protocol and what's been happening lately at Central Li Library. All attention, efforts, energy on the homeless. Can I ask through you deputy mayor Bey to general manager Mater uh exactly after opening this warming center exactly what happened with our city staff? What did they endure please? Uh through the chair I'll start and then I'll pass it on to Director Baird. Um our city our staff has always responded um whenever we have these calls for emergency. They always are. They know it's part of their job description. They're always willing to step up. We quickly had to convene staff on um three shifts of for 24 hours. Um also unsure at that point in time of the duration we knew it was going to be at least for several days. Um and as we indicated, you know, things started out on being in a very controlled and measured way and quickly quickly changed along the way and we had to look at changing our staffing components. the kinds of situations that staff were met with where overdoses were inappropriate behavior by some of the residents that were coming into the program. Um they were put in situations, you know, regrettably um that uh fell outside of their comfort level. That's why as as director Barrett indicated, we quickly can called in more resources. We called in more um uh police officers. Even some of the comments from Hamilton police were that it was beyond some of the things that they had seen in the past. Um, so yeah, it was very challenging. So I've reached a point of uncontrollability is what I'm hearing. General Manager Mater, can I ask if if you can say for public knowledge? If you can't, I'll respect that. Are our city staff that endured this unfortunately overall are they okay? Is there short-term, midterm, long-term effects through you, Deputy Mayor Bey, to general manager Mater? Okay, general manager. through the chair to the counselor. We worked very closely with um human resources and um to ensure that hearing from the staff. We met with the staff. We provided our crisis response group. We also provided our our provider Homewood Health any uh supports needed for staff through that. We um met with each of the staff, some of those that had had more direct um challenges. We met with them individually. We've um provided them a survey to hear from them to find out what worked, what didn't, how we can improve, how we could be better prepared. Um so we felt though that we did everything we could and then also by ensuring that they had increased resources and available on site to them as well. Thanks for that reassurance as general manager Mater to staff just tell them that we're at six so much appreciates them and let's not forget them. Thanks Deputy Mayor Bey. Thank you councelor Jackson. Uh at this time colleagues I have to inform you as chair that I made an error in a calculation. Um in we can recover from it. Um we are under the opuspicious of the employment standards act which does require a hard stop at a particular time and I had informed you that it was 2:30 that was based on an incorrect calculation and I take responsibility for that. The correct time is 1. So we will be proceeding until 1:00. We are obliged to recess at 100 p.m. for half hour lunch break. Um I'm hoping that we'll get at least first round questions done. I do apologize. I apologize to the gallery. I apologize to staff and those watching online as well. Uh we will proceed, but keep that in mind that unfortunately I I am obliged to have a hard recess at 1 pm. Coming up next, we have councelor Esther Pauls. Please. Thank you. Yeah, I want to apologize to Kelly. He's been here all morning. Uh but anyways, I I just want to get a a clear sense what's going on here. What is the difference between an emergency warning uh warming center and the shelter? Just what's I'm sending that up to Director Bar. Uh through the chair. Thank you, counselor. Uh so when an emergency warming center is opened through that emergency response process, no different than this individ this uh site. In fact, the intention is it's for anyone in the community who needs to have a place uh to to get warm. In this case, we knew that the weather was cold. We also had that there was possibility of hydro outages. So so it would have been open to the entire community. In fact, what happened was it became a site to serve those that were experiencing homelessness. And um so when opening Benetto, for example, a recreation center is a great location uh to provide people with opportunity for warming. In this case, the needs of the individuals who came uh far expanded beyond their need for warming. So let let me be clear. We do a warming center for people that experience outages and need it to be warm. But where would the homeless go then? It's common sense if you have that that the homeless people uh need to get warm so they would go there. You you would have known that, wouldn't you? It's not just for people because an outage. I don't understand. Because it was outages we wanted to warming center for who? for the community. Who is the community? The homeless people. Am I correct? I I there's a I don't I've been reading this over and over. I don't understand. Okay, we're sending it up to director B. Through the chair, you are correct that in fact uh it would be expected that individuals experiencing homelessness would have been one of the populations that needed to um get inside out of the cold. Exactly. And but when I read it, it says it turned into a shelter. So, uh, it was supposed to be a warming, but in turn into a shelter. Um, and then, uh, I'm I also read when I'm reading that there was no clear and enforcable process, no rules and no regulation for the clients. So, we just opened, there's no rules. You just come in, do whatever you like. Why? as we know that we're going to provide shelter for the homeless people. Why did we not look at it and say there are rules? Why was that missed? I I'm just reading the report. Okay, we'll turn that over again to director Verda through the chair. So when we open an emergency warming center, the idea is that people will come in, get warm. Um it's often that it's short term in duration as well because the time period is short in duration. In this particular case, we um to your point, there's no rules. The issue is a warming center, a drop in overall should be low barrier where there aren't barriers to people coming inside. The idea is you can come in and get warm. In this instance, unfortunately, what happened is that uh the level of substance use was unmanageable within the setting and that contributed to the behavioral issues that were being experienced and uh that was happening inside Benetto and challenging for the individuals that were there. Okay, counselor. Yeah, thank you for that. And I don't mean to be critical. I just not understanding uh about the warming center. If I live near Benetto and my house, I had no hydro and I needed somewhere to go, I would go in the warming center. So, I would be mixed with the homeless people taking drugs because it's low barrier. So, there's a misunderstanding here that I really don't understand. My next question is, how many warming center do we have in Hamilton? Who am I looking to on this? Director Bard uh through the chair Rob Master Andy manager homelessness system operations. Uh so we don't necessarily have uh other designated warming spaces. What we what we do have on a regular basis is our is dropins for unhoused individuals, shelters. Um, most some of our other city facilities during uh extreme weather uh such as rec centers, libraries do open for uh like warming spaces for individuals to come in for brief periods of time. So that could be things just coming in for a little bit of warmth, charging a cell phone, uh grabbing a drink, that kind of thing. So those are the services that would be available on a regular basis. Okay, councelor F, we're at the end of the first round. We got one more question. Yeah, I have multiple questions. multiple questions and you're going to be on for a second time. Okay, we're moving on now to councelor Narender Nan please. Thank you uh through you deputy mayor. Thank you staff for the report um being reported in multiple cities across Ontario. Uh you already mentioned that it's spilling over. It's not specific to the Benetto experience. This is happening uh across sector across social service agencies uh shelter services our libraries uh hospitals of course overwhelmed in terms of emergency room use as well. um heard specifically from colleagues in Ottawa um during previous FCM board meeting uh that they're seeing this rise and they're correlating it to the loss of their safe consumption sites and the move towards recovery centers which absolutely serve their purpose right but what they've documented as Ottawa Public Health is that the uh impact has resulted in the the movement of people to use unsafeely in unsafe conditions. So, no longer having a safe place with the supports that are needed um to be to be monitored and cared for with medical support. Um so, I would just say that anecdotally for my colleagues who may not have the benefit of talking to colleagues in other municipalities who have gone through the same experience that we've gone through in Hamilton, we've lost our safe consumption site as well. uh they're definitely seeing an extreme in uptake in public use uh spilling over into their service agencies as well. Um in the report there's conversation about uh planning for next winter. When will we have a winter warming strategy in place for 2026 and 2027? What's the anticipated timeline given what we need to be prepared for? Through the chair, I'll start. Um so councelor I think many of you are aware that uh we're looking at bringing back an an overall strategy when it comes to our shelter system. We have a number of you know the Bart and Tiffany as a temporary location. We're looking at how we may um pivot away from that in in you know the next uh you know year and a half. We're also looking at you know how we're ensuring that we have the right level of supports. Part of all of that will be included in um we'll address the winter response within that as well. um either looking at as uh director Barrett had indicated either looking at we're having 24 or um 12 month services as opposed to just a a surge in the wintertime but we'll be including all of that. Anything else? Sorry, just so I'm clear through you deputy mayor the timeline for that report back will be coming back you know probably in Q3. Q3. Thank you. Um and then in terms of documentation of this experience, um is there any requirement on the part of the municipality to report this information to the Ministry of Health or is there an opportunity to do so through the chair? I'm un I'm sure of that, but that's something we can absolutely investigate and we can do it between through paramedic services and public health services. we can investigate that and report back. I think that would be useful. I think it's really important as municipalities facing the crisis that we're facing. I know the incredible work that the Association of Municipalities of Ontario has been doing to document the experiences of other municipalities and bring that directly to the provincial government. I think we need to be proactive as a municipality. This is it's clear. Uh so now we need to have that information available so that we can provide that evidence to the ministry and continue our advocacy on that level as well. Um and yes absolutely coordinated with public health and paramedic services as well. Um and then final question I have is around the level of toxicity and the combination of fentanyl mix. This may be a better question for public health deputy mayor as I'm kind of contemplating it. Um, but I do want to know if there has been any coord like what has that co coordination looked like in terms of the tables that we have via public health through the chair. That's a conversation that we've started with along with public health and also along with the greater Hamilton Health Networks. We also want to include the um the findings and information and experiences that are with the the emergency rooms as well. Thank you. Those are my questions. Thank you. Okay. Uh, I've got a first-time speaker and councelor Brad Clark up next. Thank you. I'm just curious. So, the province has made changes in terms of uh safe consumption to I think they call them heart hubs. Uh, they indicated that there would be additional money available. Has the city received any additional money from any ministry in the province of Ontario to assist us with the substance abuse issues that we're dealing with and the homelessness issues? We're sending that to the general manager. Okay. Through the chair, to councelor Clark. No, we haven't. Sorry. One more time. No, we have received no additional funding as a result of the closure of the safe consumption site. It's important to note that uh deputy mayor because a lot of the challenges that we experienced occurred after the province made the decision. And it's interesting that property taxpayers are the ones that are paying for the causes and the outcomes of those decisions and we're not getting additional funding from the province. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to do a quick poll for additional firsttime speakers and I don't see any. It strikes me as this is an opportune time. We have six minutes before we have to have a hard recess. We have some second time speakers identified. So, what I'm going to do is use this opportunity to call the recess now for our 30-minute lunch break. We'll resume here at 12:24 and continue with second round of comments and questions. Yeah, I guess we can't go back in time, can we? Let's go. 124. Thank you. And we're back. We are now going to continue with the second half of our meeting. We are still on item 7.7 which is HSC26023. This is a report on the emergency warming center operation at Benetto Community Center. We have uh exhausted our first time speakers. We're moving now to second time speakers beginning with Cam uh councelor Cameron Crush please. I know that councelor Pauls was going to ask more questions, but since she's not here, I guess I'll just carry on with my comments. Is that okay? Absolutely. Thanks. Want to start by saying again, I'm grateful that we were able to prevent deaths from happening by having an emergency warming center open at all. I know it was a difficult decision to make and there are lots of things I think we can learn from this. But also, these conditions were not created by the city of Hamilton. We've seen, as a chair of the board of health, I can say I've seen reports from public health staff telling us that there's a huge increase in paramedics calls and overdoses, especially in the downtown community as a result of the provincial decision to shut the places that people could use. They don't have a place to go anymore. Uh we have a city set up right now where literally there is a group of individuals who don't have anywhere to be. They're not permitted to be on public property, not permitted to be on private property, and we don't have any indoor facilities for them because we can't afford a lot of the expenses that are related to them or because the province has literally banned them from existing. And I know it's easy to say, well, you know, the encampment protocol is part of this and that it's contributed somehow to this. I have a very keen memory of 2020 before we had any encampment rules of any kind, having the largest encampment in the city's history on Ferguson Avenue North. I know it because I was there for four full days as a legal observer watching what was happening and trying to get an understanding what was going on in our community. So, this isn't a new issue. This isn't about the encampment protocol. This is about a long-standing problem in our community that's being shoveled from place to place to place. And what the residents here experienced was unacceptable. What they saw was chaos in their neighborhood. They saw an inability to access the services that they relied on for recreation. And I'm hoping that with the notes of motion I've got here and some collaboration around the table, we can find a way to make a plan for next year that's going to fill that gap. That's maybe going to find us a place we can do some of these things in different spaces because I get why people are upset about this and why it's hard. What I will say also is that when you see this happening in your own neighborhood, maybe across the street or maybe in a place where you're not expecting it to happen, it can be confusing for people. But for six plus years now, we've seen in the downtown core, it just keeps moving from place to place. And that is what's causing a lot of instability for folks. So in the last term of council, the primary places we were seeing encampments set up in parks were not in the north end. They were in Beasley, Durand, Corktown, and the central neighborhood. And then when folks were asked to leave those spaces, they had to go somewhere else. And so every part of WI has been touched by this at this point. And when people say that, you know, disproportionately these things are happening in the north end, that's simply not true. The majority of the services for people who are struggling with housing, struggling with addiction, folks who are using drugs and everyone else are happening in the Beasley, Central and Duran neighborhoods, and those services have been established there for a very long time. Occasionally, yes, absolutely. There have been situations in the north end where people have been in encampments or people we've had to use recreation centers in the north end, but predominantly this has been faced by the core of the city, right downtown where residents also live. So, I just want to make sure that's clear. Doesn't mean it's acceptable. Doesn't mean it's okay for neighbors to experience this. I'm just saying that those are the facts and that's where the predominant amount of this is happening. also in W 3 I want to say so there's some stuff happening in W 2 but a lot of this is happening in W three in terms of the concentration of places where people can go and have access to services so this is not predominantly happening in W 2's north end last thing I'll say about this is that we do have under our control as a city the ability to plan to figure out where we can have these services set up in in future years and that's under our control. We're not in control of the provincial levers and the federal levers levels that levers, pardon me, that create the conditions for the situation, but we can't change the way we plan and how we do this. So, I've noticed a motion on the agenda. I'll leave it at that for now. That'll be coming forward in April. I'll work with staff and other counselors here to add wording to it, to improve it, to make it better, so that next year we have a different response and neighbors can feel confident that the impacts won't be the same. Thank you. Thank you, Cameron. Uh, we're moving on next to Councelor Esther Paul's second line of questioning, please. Thank you. I rushed here. I thought I was a little bit late, so taking my breath now. Um, thank you. Um, I just wanted to know, uh, we we chose Banetto because of the proximity it said. Um, and it was between two schools. Were there any other facility closer to that that we could have chosen? through the chair to the councelor. We reviewed all of the options in the downtown area and chose Benetto due to the reasons that I had cited earlier. We looked at Central Memorial, we looked at Dr. Davey, we looked at uh some of the other options in that and Benetto was the the um best option for us. And can you tell me uh again the one reason why it was best option especially when it was between two schools because it provided us that it provided us with the amount of space that we would need. It provided us with a controlled space. It provided us with um washrooms and showers. Okay. So uh so we looked at a place we thought it was a warming center. So, we anticipated that this was going to happen that we were going to get people to come in and use drugs and all that. We anticipated it. It wasn't that it was all of a sudden, no, it's it's not just a warming center, but it's, you know, low barrier because on the report it says you we were prepared for low barrier. And low barrier to me sounds like you come as you are. And uh which you know what I love helping people but sometimes we need rules I I believe. But anyways uh another question the cost it was eight days 8 days cost us over a 100,000. Is that am I correct or am I reading it wrong? General manager, we're confirming and we're going up to the manager. Uh through the chair. Yes, that is correct. I believe it was nine days. Um but the cost is accurate, I believe. And roughly a 100,000. Is that right? Through the chair. Yes, that's correct. Sometimes I think boy, that's it. And you know what? Money shouldn't be an issue when we're helping people. I want to be clear, but a 100,000 for 9 days, we really have to uh look at what we're doing. Uh second of all, I I wanted to um uh ask when we sent them to uh St. Matthews, are they at shelter and who pays for that cost for them? Sending that to director Baird through the chair. So St. Matthews House operates at Cathedral Cafe on James Street North. It is not a shelter, but rather a drop-in space for people that are experiencing homelessness. It's one of the city funded operations in the city. Okay. So, it's the same. It's sort of like a warming center as well. Am I correct, director? Through the chair. Um, it's a bit different. And I know that this sounds like we're just saying there's a difference, but there is in that Cathedral Cafe is operating with the intended purpose of providing services to those individuals who are experiencing homelessness. There are staff on site with uh skill sets. their their purpose for being really is to connect people to other services to connect them with the homeless serving sector if they're not already if they have medical needs to connect them into the medical community. So it's much broader in scope I would suggest than a warming center alone although people can come there to get inside uh you know have a cup of coffee what have you but it really is a broader uh set of operations. So my question is if we close Benettal and then we sent them to um we sent them to St. Matthews why we we do that in the first place director through the chair. So originally uh St. Matthews was operating out of a different location, much smaller, and wasn't meeting the needs of the individuals that needed the service. When we moved them moved from Benetto to uh the Cathedral Cafe location, um originally there wasn't we weren't able St. Matthews was not able to operate out of that location overnight. They had permission to operate uh during the daytime hours only. It wasn't until we went through the Benetto uh situation and we were looking for a larger scale operation with more space than their original site offered that they were able to uh make the transition to operate out of Cathedral Cafe overnight and that will continue until March 31st. I appreciate all and and I don't mean to be I hope you guys know that I do it from my heart and I want to understand and uh to me it seems like we knew that was going to fail the warming center. We knew that they were going to be people coming in taking drugs. Uh but I won't ask any more question but can I state my comment? Uh oh apologies. I'm going to hear the point of order first and offer a ruling. Thank you. One moment. Thank you, chair. Point of order is um the member continues to use the language that we knew that this was going to fail. Uh and I think that is implying that staff had prior knowledge that the crisis was going to unfold the way that it did. And we've heard from staff on multiple occasions during the overview of the report and response to other counselor's questions that that wasn't the case. Well, if you read No, I'm not going to retry. Order, please. Order, please. Apologies, councelor Nan. Thank you. Appreciate the order. Um, so, you know, it's up to you to consider this, Deputy Mayor, in terms of uh it's your chairing procedure. Happy to go with your ruling, but I think the record needs to be stated correctly, and I don't think that those comments should be inferred to staff. Okay. And the member should apologize. So, I'm going to consider the point of order now. And I think what the member from WI 3 is saying is that the comments are structured in a way that perhaps implies that staff knew that this would not be successful as they were planning for it. And I think we've heard that that is not the case. I don't think that they would intentionally plan for a failure. And I that may not be your intent, but that's what was heard. So, if I could just get clarification that that is not your intent and maybe to change your words in terms of how you'd like to proceed. I appreciate that, chair, but I always say uh you know when I respect the staff all the time. I've never thrown them under the bus. Never. And I never do that. I want to say something to finish the point of order. It is not your intent that staff knew that there was going to be a failure. If you look at just to be clear, just to be clear, you're going to change your wording on Yes. that you knew that it was going to that we collective we knew that it was going to fit. That is not your intent. You're withdrawing that statement. Of course, I would never say they intentionally knew. But if you look at the report, it says that they were providing low barrier. And it's common sense that when it's cold out there, people that are homeless are going to go there. So that's what I'm just relating if you don't see that I see it very clearly but there so I just want you intention of course thank you of course that's been clarified if you can go on to your next question okay it's not a question I just want to wrap it up because uh I just want to say that uh I heard one of the counselor uh say that because we close safe in uh in conception site I just want to know that we have Kelly sitting up there Kelly came and spoke at our police Lord and she was telling us I you all know that I'm not in this world of drugs. I really it's really I've been sheltered and I'm not don't know much about it. But when Shelly uh Kelly came and spoke, she opened my eyes. She said something. We have clean supply and the government gives clean supply to people that are on federal. They get I think 20 to 40 or to 60 pills and these pills they sell them to other people. So what I want to make sure is that we're sticking to the report on the bonetto in relation to the report on bonetto. They're called dillies I guess. So I'm learning more about it but I don't think it's because we close uh because it was said in council because we close consumption site we have more drug. I think it probably is the opposite. But anyways, I would love Kelly if she's here next time she could register and talk about it because she was fabulous at the police board and we learned so much. I learned so much and uh I just want to thank her again for coming to talk about this because she lives it. She's right there 200 meters from the Benetto and all the people that uh want to use it for rec center. I think it's important to be to all people to look at both sides. So, I want to thank you, chair, and again, staff. I would never never insinuate that you know something and you're doing the opposite. So, take my apology if you felt like that, but I would never do that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Councelor Pauls. We're moving on next to second time speaker. Are you second time speaker, first time speaker? We're going next to councelor Brad Clark. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayer. first to correct the record and I know it was well intentioned by councelor Paul's um the province of Ontario does not provide clean supply. No, it's the Vancouver, the British Columbia government that sought uh permission from the federal government to provide a clean supply which means there would be no no charges under the criminal code and they provided um what were um the pills are delotted which is a nar a narcotic and it became known as dillies and they were selling them for a buck or to a pill and getting that money and going to a drug dealer and buying the stronger medication and then overdosing. So that's not in Ontario. Um that's in in Vancouver specific BC was the first one to do it. Correct. Councelor Jackson. Um just on this particular um incident um it's important that the general public understand um the complexities of the issues that we're facing with homelessness and and substance abuse. Uh Hamilton is the regional center for forensic psychiatric hospital. So frequently people are discharged from the psychiatric hospital without a referral and with no place to go and so they go to shelters and then they look for help from the social agencies. We see that all the time. Um the change that the province did do in terms of eliminating the safe consumption sites, although many of us had concerns about those sites, there is no doubt that the public are now seeing more people taking drugs, injecting themselves on the streets because that safe consumption site is gone. They used to do it in that building and then leave that building once there was no overdose. So that's why you're seeing more of it on the street and it will continue. Um when we're talking about chronic homelessness, there are individuals uh who struggle in an apartment setting who struggle with rules and therefore find themselves on the street. So um many of them don't want to go to shelters because they don't want to follow the rules. Um and there are issues that way. Then the province of course went back in time a little bit here. They eliminated rent control. Now the goal was to have more purpose-built rental property. Didn't happen. What happened was landlords started finding a way to get their tenants out because once they were out of the building, the rent could go up dramatically, in some cases 100% or more. That also caused a significant portion of homelessness. And the challenge, Deputy Mayor, and to our staff, is we're faced with trying to deal with it on the ground. with taxes that are brought in from property taxpayer. We spent last year close to $128 million on homelessness um and housing and the province gave us 28.5 million. That's it. So, in order for us to build more affordable housing, build more supportive housing, we need the province's support. We need the Fed's support. We cannot do it alone. The property taxpayers cannot afford it. And so it's important that when we're tackling these issues, it's not just the city trying to fix it. We need to ensure that the province and the feds are at the table. They say lots of positive things, but I don't see the positive money coming in to help us with the crisis that we have before us. So, I just wanted to put it on there out there and correct the record. Um, I think our staff did the best that they could in the situation, but with all those things, all those variables uh ganging up. Um, it it was an incredible challenge for our staff and it's the residents who suffered. They lost their their their community center for a time and it's not fair. Um, so we do have to keep all those things in mind. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you for that, Councelor Clark. Uh I do see we've got a third time speaker in the ward counselor. Um and I I'll get to that, but first we're going to go to an additional second time speaker, which is councelor Tom Jackson, please. Thanks, Deputy Mayor Bey. were seem to be meandering into policies. Um I think uh this uh conversation and what happened at Benedto and at Central Library and with this term of council by majorities enabling the loss of neighborhood parks with the encampment protocol um and literally enabling unfortunately an increase in criminality in public spaces. Um I think the time is getting right. Councelor Moren Wilson about a year ago moved the motion. and I seconded it to have a redisussion about institutions. And we know the provincial government 25 years ago under Harris shut down the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital and all those mentally uh addicted patients, individuals with severe uh mental issues uh poured into the community without proper supports. And we're seeing um unfortunately the consequences of that today. And so I think somewhere somehow and someday if not this term of council hopefully in the near future that discussion about uh reinvigorating and reestablishing institutions where those with severe mental narcotics addictions can get 24/7 aroundthe-clock wraparound support is most necessary in this community. I know what I'm hearing in my community. My community has never seen our city in such a state of affairs as they have these last two or three years. Thanks, Deputy Mayor Bey. Thank you, Councelor Jackson. We're going to finish up now with third time speaker Councelor Crutch, please. Thanks to Councelor Clark for trying to set the record straight there. I think it's important that if anyone's reaching out for comments about this from the media or anybody else interested in the facts to talk to our professional staff who can talk to them about the programs that exist in our city, what we do here and what the province does here because they understand that and know it because they live it every day. What I will say is that I understand that some counselors want to paint this as a city issue. I'm not sure if you leave Hamilton often, but I do. And I can tell you this is going on across our province. I've seen it firsthand. And the continued idea that the province didn't create these conditions, that somehow the city is ultimately responsible for that goes both ways. I'm not here saying that in the last term of council people enabled the largest encampment to happen on Ferguson Avenue North. I'm not saying that that's what happened because it's not what happened. Just like this council didn't enable it to continue happening. We are doing the best we can to grapple with resources that we have. Uh people are going to continue to use drugs in our community. That's not something that's going to change. It's been happening for thousands of years globally. People have been using drugs in their communities. What's changed is the province has said that that there's no longer a place people can use drugs. And the city has said there's no longer a p place people can be outside. Well, people are going to continue to exist no matter what we say here. Until we find a way to manage the situation the best we can as a city and work with the province and the federal government to actually put in some legislation and get some funding to the table to solve these problems. We're going to keep having these conversations in circle after circle after circle. But I don't understand why anyone here would try and say that the city is the one causing these issues to happen. Um are you s you know every city across Ontario a major city of any kind? I sit with a group of Ontario downtown counselors from 28 municipalities across the city. And I can tell you unequivocally, this is not a Hamilton issue. It is a provincial issue. So, I want to state that because I think it keeps getting diluted for I think political reasons, frankly. Um, you know, and I I'm the Warto counselor and I hear people's opinions about these issues are important, but what I'm hearing is kind of this continued discussion about what's happening in our communities, not necessarily what's happening in your own about these issues. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Crutch. This has been duly moved and seconded and exhaustively discussed. Uh, so we are then going to vote to receive this information item. All in favor by a show of hands please. I am seeing what looks like an unan unanimity which is not an easy word to say that is carried. We also now need to go to 77A which is the correspondence respecting report HSC26023. Uh if I could have a mover and secondary to put receipt of the correspondence on the floor. Seeing councelor councelor Nan councelor cretch thank you if I could have a show of hands all in favor of receiving the correspondence and I'm seeing seeing agreement on that as well that motion is carried therefore colleagues we are now on page seven of 16 which is items for consideration starting with item 8.1 the business improvement areas 2026 budget and schedule of payments If I could have a mover and seconder to put 8.1A on the floor. Sorry, 8.1A to 81 C. Apologies. Uh, and I'm seeing I think it was councelor Nan, councelor Cretch to put those items on. And then I have a speaker in councelor crretch, please. Could I suggest we add to that just to make this more efficient? 8.3, 8.5, and 8.6 6 and 8.10 as those are all minutes. So again just 8.1 8.3 8.5 8.6 and uh sorry 8.9 and 8.10 10 as those are all minutes. Yeah, that's why I'm moving we do I am willing to accept that and I see willingness from the movers and seconders just to reaffirm as councelor Nan councelor Crretch if that's the order these were minutes from various reports. So then to be clear, we are looking at 81, 83. Apologies as I follow along here, 85, 86, 810, 89, and 810. That's to receive. This will be to receive. No, pardon me. recommend the deputy mayor there recommendation that's why they're placed where they are. So there's recommendations in all of those things. Aha. have uh committee members had sufficient time to understand what we are looking at and I'll read this out into the public record with the titles just so that we are clear what's been suggested is the business improvement areas 2026 budget as well the downtown subcommittee minutes from March 2nd as well the schoolboard properties subcommittee minutes from March 9 as well the business improvement area subcommittee minutes from March 10 as Well, expanding housing and support services for women, non-binary, and transgendered community subcommittee minutes from March 12th, as well the accessibility committee for persons with disability minutes from March 10, and all of the recommendations contained there within that is what we have a motion on the floor to accept in one lump sum. Do I have any questions of what's been presented? Councelor Jackson, please. Yes, Deputy Mayor BD. Just on 8.2, the downtown subcommittee minutes. Lots of recommendations in there. Sounds like a worthy projects, right? That's 83. You're talking of 83. My apologies. 83. A lot of worthy projects uh for the uh primarily for the lower city. And just wondering if there would be any budget pressures to 2026 of what we've already what the mayor's directive already approved and or will there be alternate sources of funding if the projects come to fruition from uh ward area rated funds or discretionary funds which I would have no problem with whatsoever. So just maybe a clarity from staff or whoever wants to certainly give me that or to to the chair of the downtown subcommittee. Yeah, we've had fine. We've had the offer from the chair of the downtown subcommittee to answer the question and if we need additional information, we'll go to staff. So, I'm going to go to councelor Cam Crush, please. These are all information reports or recommendation reports that came back with no specific cost implications at this point. I know we have a meeting on April the 9th, another one on June 11th where some may be coming forward, but as far as I'm aware, there's nothing in here has a direct cost implication as yet. Most of this is information reports that we're getting back and we're slowly getting more information back in order to make those kinds of decisions because we haven't gotten there yet. I thank Chair Crutch and Councelor Crutch for the answers. I'm satisfied with that, Deputy Mayor. I don't need to hear from staff. Thank you. Okay, so uh to review, I absolutely want to make sure that we are clear on what we're doing here. 8.1 business improvement areas 2026 budget. 8.3 downtown subcommittee minutes. 8.5 School Board Property Subcommittee Minutes. 8.6 Business Improvement Area Subcommittee Minutes. 8.9 Expanding Housing and Support Services for Women, Non-Binary, and Transgender Community Subcommittee Minutes. 8.10 Accessibility Committee for Persons with Disability Minutes. All as one lump sum. Seeing no further questions, we require an electronic vote on all of these items. Please indicate your vote now. and that carries 120. Thank you for your efficiency and for the suggestion from the two counselors, the mover and seconder. We're moving on now to 8.4, four which is peed 26015 and that is apologies winding it back to 8.2 I got my notes mixed up okay peed 201139A environmental remediation and site enhancement redevelopment grant application ERG1808 and this is at 115 and 121 Vance Mart Avenue in ward 4. If I could have a mover and seconder to put this on the floor. Seeing councelor Tammy Huang and councelor Narendra Nan. Thank you. Any discussion on the item? Okay, seeing that there is no discussion, if I could have an electronic vote, please indicate your vote now. And that carries 120. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on back to where I thought I was at 8.4 peed 26015, climate change advisory committee's transition to a community liaison group. This is citywide. Um, we have another presentation. We're welcoming back to the podium Beatric Eoko, project manager of climate change initiatives. Whenever you're ready, Beatus, nice to see you again. I hope you had a nice lunch. I did. Thank you. Please proceed. Okay, so um Beatric Soko, project manager, office of climate change initi initiatives and uh staff layers on for the community um climate change advisory committee. So right now I'm here to present report PEED26015 and this report responds to the direction given through report CM 23025B with respect to the climate change advisory committee and its replacement by a community layers group. Trying to remember what you told me to do here. Let's see. Takes a second rain. Ah, here we go. Great. So, this morning you did hear a little bit about some background and mandate of the climate change advisory committee. It was created in 202 I would say because February the the 20 2024 was the first meeting was approved following the uh approval of Hamilton's climate action strategy and that's a key governance structure cord on by community members. We heard a little bit about the original terms of of reference approved January 2023 and that was following the citywide pause and review of advisory committees at so this was happening at the same time that the climate change advisory committee was setting up and included a mandate and list of objectives on the prioritization and implementation and monitoring of Hamilton's climate action strategy and this committee includes residents resident experts some who lived exper living experience and counselors. And this morning you saw an overview of the five working groups that are advancing key areas. So we have the buildings, community engagement and climate justice, naturebased solutions, technical and governance and transportation. So you heard a little bit had a bit of an update this morning about the different groups what they're working on. I'm going to change to the next slide. So let's turn to consultation for this community transition to sorry the transition to community lesson group the office of climate change initiated we had completed four engagement discussions with the climate change advisory committee and this took place throughout the year of 2025. Um and we really focused a lot on discussions exploring the values, what was valued, what was appreciated um with the advisory committee model as well as the CLG model. What was calls for concern or want in need of more clarification in in that transition to the new model. These discussions resulted in a detailed review and updated the terms of reference which is in your packages to really align with the CLG model. Although we kept a lot of what is in the advisory terms of reference right now um because that was very much appreciated and then internally we had engagement with the uh community four community of practice sessions with community leaderships. And this is part of the city manager's office. Two office two uh meetings with the office of the clerk, city clerk. And then we also had an email correspondence with the indigenous relations team to identify an over in if there's any overlap with the indigenous advisory committee concerning opportunities for alignment and including traditional e ecological knowledge in climate related work. So some of the outcomes of the consultations concerning these outcomes, the climate change advisory committee expressed preference to remain an advisory committee until the end of term of this current term of council and the reasons given include the desire to maintain the continuity of what is already in progress. So to avoid changing governance structure with only six seven months left of this term of council. A second reason is wanting to keep the existing transparency and reporting structures as the new reporting structures are further evolved because there was some hesitancy and unknowns that still needed to be worked out and and just better understood. There's also expressed support for the completion of both climate office and the advisory committee's 2026 work plans including some items such as advising on the developing of a public facing climate report card. So we've heard a lot about that this morning which is currently underway and is also in alignment with annual reporting requirements at the office of climate change initiatives as well. the community engagement and uh climate justice working group they have their whole this another example of why we want to continue they they expressed that need to continue in this model they have an event coming up in April and and many other um plans moving forward so the advisory committee members suggested that any of their remaining work be transitioned over to the community layers group at the new term of council for consideration and continuity. The advisory committee supports the idea that the future community layers on group continue with a again that diverse volunteer membership residents from all sectors and living experience a community focused engagement to recruit volunteers. Um at the start of the new council term, the idea would be to the advisory committee members will assist staff in doing that recruitment and outreach for the new participants to engage in this community layers on group via a flexible and open application process. And the out outreach process will be further refined, we're hoping with input from the existing um advisory committee members right now and a volunteer application review working group to help assist us with that. Um and and the idea is to help review these applications and select community layers on group volunteers to ensure equity, diversity, accessibility, and inclusion principles are upheld. And as well, the call out for volunteers will be shared through CD communication channels, websites, as well as outreach through community partners, current advisory committee members, their networks, and other potential avenues for broad public awareness. And finally the annual report into general issues committee will continue via the staff laser. And so we come to the recommendations. A that the climate change advisory committee continue to meet and operate according to their established terms of reference as a volunteer advisory committee until the last meeting in September 2026 in alignment with this current term of council be approved and B that the transition of the climate change advisory committee to the climate change community layers on group be effective October the 1st 2026 be approved and that brings me to the end of the presentation and I'm happy to take questions okay thank Thank you. Thank you for that, Beatric. I do need a mover and secretary to place this on the floor so we can begin to have some questions on it. So, I'm looking to councelor Casar, councelor Nan. Thank you. And I have councelor Brad Clark up first as the first speaker. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I appreciate the presentation. I also appreciate the terms of reference that have been proed provided um with your report. Um so what's the real difference then based on this term of reference from an advisory committee to a community leazison committee? So for the chair, that's a good question. Very much very much would keeping the same a lot of the same membership structure and the I know that the the idea is to avoid using member the terms member. So I would say volunteers, but it's going to make it more um from what I understand more flexible to do that recruitment. For example, um you heard earlier today where with resignations, we're not able to recruit new members because of the the pause on on the on the um advisory committee. So, we can't go through that process of the u an interview subcommittee. So, therefore, with this model, it' be easier to get more people involved. Um that's that that's the whole point of this transition as as I understand it. There are some challenges as as in like we're still trying to figure out how best reporting to council or even having that connection how that can continue. Um there are some there was a memo that was mentioned through uh community initiatives and the clerk's office to understand that um there are methods like delegations or there's a I think it's called a citizen committee. No, that's not right. That's the old one. But some report reporting kind of template that they'll members will be able to use um as well as invitations to councilors if if they can if they would like to be involved in in in a project or or have some if councilors would like to also find out a bit more about what is going on. So that all that still needs to be ironed out. As far as the differences between CLG and the way we're approaching it, not that much difference to be to be fair. Thank you. Thank you. And that and I I appreciate that because when we began this discussion of creating community leazison on committees instead of advisory committees. Um there were problems and concerns that I had and some other colleagues had about that community leaders on committee being not transparent meeting with staff um not meeting in public um and then not being able to contact and and speak with with council directly. So um this very much is kind of a merger of the two. So, there's still going to be transparency. There are still going to be public meetings. People can see it online. Um, and you continue to do the work that you're doing, coming up with recommendations and then presenting them in the format that's approved by the clerk to the the general issues committee. Yes. Through through the chair, that's exactly what we're hoping to achieve as this pilot goes forward. Um many of the the issues that you just expressed were the exact concerns that the committee members had like what about the transparency? How can we address like can we have um somewhere to have public notes and meeting notes um and and just have that kind of connectivity with with with um council. My gratitude and congratulations to you and the committee. The terms of reference I think is excellent. Oh, thank you. I think you're covering off all of the things that we some of us had concerns about um while still maintaining um the work that has to be done. So they're wanting just to stay on as the advisory committee u for the end of this in essence of this term and and then the new council will do the appointing after that. Is that correct? So through the chair I believe um they want to finish the so there's three more meetings left to the end term of council. So the desire is to complete that the term of council their work plans and then in October when there's a new council there won't be an appointment. I don't think that I think that that that's the whole point that this system is not this model is not going to be about appointing. So it will be up to staff to do that that outreach and recruiting. So that hasn't changed. I mean unfortunately that part is still on the staff to do. So let me clarify then in the past staff would receive applications for consideration to sit on committees. They would bring that to the selection committee. We had some excellent chairs and vice chairs on the selection committee. and then there they would be selecting after interviews who would be sitting on this committee. Is that process going to continue or so you're now saying staff are doing the appointing period? Yeah, through the chair, we're not going to have, as I understand it, unless there's somebody here in the chamber or um from the city clerk perhaps that could respond to this, the the way I'm understanding it is that there will not be an interview subcommittee for for appointing because we're moving away from that board model. We're moving to this CLG model that does not include the um appointment of so it's not official board anymore. And that is that's the the issue. Okay. Well, I appreciate the report, but I'm not supporting it based on that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, counselor. I see no further questions. This has been duly moved and seconded. Thank you, Beatric. Thank you very much. Um, I'm now going to look for this is a show of hands to receive. Sorry, my apologies. Has been put on the floor. We do need an electronic vote on this. recommendations. There we go. We're doing both at once. Receive the recommendations and the presentation. Oh, I am on my toes. Yes. Thank you. Okay, we have already approved. Councelor Crutch, apologies. And that is carried uh 11 to one. We have already dealt with 8.5 which is the school board property subcommittee. We have already dealt with 8.6 which is the business improvement area subcommittee minutes. We are now moving on to 8.7 which is peed26070 revitalizing Hamilton tax incremental grant application RHTIG0324 and downtown and Barton Kennallorth Housing Opportunities Program application DBK H0224 for 299 Main Street East in Hamilton Ward 3. If I could have a mover and seconder to put it on the floor. Seeing the word counselor. Looking for a seconder. And councelor Tammy Hang. Thank you. Any discussion on this item? And seeing none, then we are moving to an electronic vote. Please indicate your vote now. And that carries 120. Thank you. Colleagues, we're moving on now to 8.8, which is HSC 26016, the removal of certain consents for part 7.1, housing providers. We heard a delegation earlier this morning on that. As a refresher, we'll have director Baird who's up in the balcony there bringing a overview of this report and then we'll put it on the floor for discussion after that. Please proceed, director Baird. Thank Thank you through the chair. So, the housing services act was updated in 2022 and this created a new framework for how we deal with our housing providers when they come to the end of their mortgage. Under this model, we negotiate new service agreements, as you know, to keep the projects within the community housing system and within our portfolio. The legislation allows for flexibility. However, Hamilton's current agreements maintain maintain the same consent requirements that have always been in place, particularly around encumbrances, redevelopment, and sale of assets. Recently, some of our housing providers have asked for more autonomy in these areas so they can move faster with redevelopment and growth opportunities. We've been working with our housing providers and our objective with this report and through the work really is to balance um our need as a service manager and as a municipality to maintain the supply of affordable and deeply affordable units in the city while also providing opportunities where possible to encourage redevelopment and affordable housing growth. Our partners, the social housing providers, share the same goals and values we do, and we want to find ways to provide the autonomy and approach where feasible. It's critical that we work with them as partners when they come to the end of mortgage, for example, they do have the ability that eventually they can exit the system, something we don't want to see happen. This report outlines when and how the city could support removing certain consent requirements. It sets clear criteria that pro the providers would need to meet in order to proceed without city approval and it introduces new safeguards within the service agreement to manage risk. There will always be some level of risk and this remains true even with the agreements that currently we require our service managers to sign and require the consent process. However, we believe that this new made in Hamilton approach is a balanced approach to mitigate risk while also offering more flexibility where possible and protecting the stability of our community housing portfolio. Sorry about your tone of voice. I thought you were gonna keep going. I apologize. I was waiting for the period. Apologies, Director Baird. Okay, I'm looking to committee to see if there are questions on that report. And I'm seeing that there is uh a first-time speaker on here. I do require a mover and seconder to receive. I see councelor Tom Jackson. Councelor Krakasar is mover and seconder. Thank you, gentlemen. We're now going to go to councelor Brad Clark. Thank you. So, Deputy Mayor, as you know, because we work with Stony Creek Community Homes, um, and there were challenges in trying to get an agreement so that they could utilize the equity that was in, um, their properties after their mortgages concluded in order to build an additional multi-residential development on Mistywood Drive. So what has changed in this process from the process that they were struggling with director through the chair. So thank you for the question counselor and Stony Creek Community Homes is one of the providers that came to our attention with respect to the challenges that they were having uh with respect to how the process uh was operating or not operating in their favor. Um, so what has changed since that point in time? One of the concerns they brought forward is that when they came to the end of mortgage that all of the requirements of the housing services act and the stringency attached to that was still in place despite being at the end of mortgage and that our agreement um and our requirements were challenging and very much um weighted in in favor of the city I would suggest and perhaps uh more tedious than needed to be. And so through this process, a couple of things have happened. First of all, we're taking this risk-based approach. So what would happen going forward for providers that are at uh within that top level, the lowrisk providers, if you will. Previously, you'll recall that we would come before you on a regular basis looking for service manager consent to encumber a pro a property. Perhaps they're looking for a CHC loan, for example. And that process is um can be lengthy and it takes time and so that slows down their abilities to move forward. Going forward some of those consents would be removed. The other piece is we've uh made the agreements um less tedious, less wordy so that they're a bit more balanced and have looked at places where we can perhaps assume some greater risk knowing that the organization is a stable organization is not is not likely to change in any way and so it's more of an approach to partnership where we are uh more partners I would suggest. So Stony Creek Community Homes is one of the providers. There's just a couple that end up in that very lowrisk category. Uh but we can work with all of our providers on how they're going to get there. Counselor, thank you. That's uh music to my ears and I'm sure everyone is is very supportive. So thank you very much for that. Those changes will make a huge difference for housing providers who are trying to quickly move forward with agreements for additional or new housing on their lands and it's important that they get those agreements in place as quickly as possible to secure interest rates. So, thank you. Thank you, Councelor Clark. We're moving on now to Councelor Casar. Thanks, Deputy Mayor, and through you. Very happy to see this. I think this is another great example of the city evaluating process and finding better ways to do things. There's risk in everything we do. Um walking out the door, stepping onto the road, um managing housing, there's risks in everything. Uh and I think the evaluation matrix is is how the risk is being managed. So I really appreciate that. So, a couple questions about that and I think maybe director bear to answer my first question which I'll just ask it again to be sure is um do we expect in the short term any other organizations that will satisfy the criteria here in order to take advantage of what's being offered through you chair. Okay, director Baird through the chair. Yes, we anticipate at the outset that there's likely three or four providers that will meet that lowest risk category, but we would also anticipate, as I said, that we can certainly work with providers to get them to that place if that's where they're wanting to uh be. Yeah, counselor. Yeah. Excellent. And just to build on that, um so there's a lot in that evaluation matrix on different categories. just if the director could speak to uh input and feedback from providers on determining um what those categories are and I guess acceptance that they are reasonable just making sure that stakeholders are aligned and that they see a path forward and being able to achieve this if they want. Okay. Director through the chair. Um yes counselors. So, we've been working with providers at what I would say all levels through this matrix. Um, people do see a path forward and a way to move through the matrix if that's their choice to do so. It also uh providers are able to see and certainly appreciate why the city also needs to make sure that there are safeguards in place and that we need to protect supply as well. Um I would also say that this is an approach. We are the first community to be moving in this direction. We've consulted with our uh partners at the ministry with respect to what we are doing because we need to unlock the ability for development. But yes, we've been working with all of the social housing providers. Uh as you can imagine that there are some including Victoria Park who were here earlier today that are quite satisfied with this approach. And so we look forward to seeing if this does open up some opportunities. Yeah, great. Really appreciate that. I'm happy to hear Hamilton's leading. Uh we're being fact-based and managing risk and I think it's excellent. So very very supportive. Thank you, counselor. I see no further speakers on the list and so this has been duly moved and seconded. I've now asked for your electronic vote. Please vote in the affirmative or negative. And that carries 12-0. Thank you. Colleagues, we're moving on. Uh we have already dealt with items 9 and 10. So, we're moving directly to item 8.11, which is FCS26024, the 2026 tax policy and area rating. If I could have a mover and seconder to put the item on the floor. Seeing councelor and enthusiastic counselor Tom Jackson and councelor Esther Pauls as mover and seconder. Are there questions on this? I see councelor Brad Clark up first. Thanks for saying thank you. Let me just find out where I am on page eight of 16. I believe it's the report average residential impact analysis. Couple of questions. Average CVA. Now, historically, the city has said the average CVA when we're doing our budget is 386,000 somewhere around there. There seems to be a variation on the average CVA. Can someone speak to that? Okay, I'm looking over to the bench and we're starting off with general manager Zagar, please. Thank you. Uh through the chair, the uh average across the city is 387,080. Uh and uh as previously requested by committee, staff have provided the averages for each of the boards and those are contained in table two uh on page uh 8 of 16. Thank you. So when I'm looking at W 9 in that table under average CVA and this is 421,645. That's the average CVA for homes in in Ward 9 only. Correct. That's correct. And then the financial analysis built off of that applying the tax rate against that average CPA. Thank you. And so the average total tax levy again of $5,868. That's the average for the entire ward. Now the next column is that area rating through the chair. The um the last column is a combination of two factors. It is the budget increase of the average of the 3.87 and any area rating impacts. So, uh, as we continue to refer to to board 9, uh, the, um, average increase is 4.16%. And so, the difference of the 4.16 relative to the 3.87 87 would be the combination of area rating impacts relating to transit uh principally transit potentially fire and then if there are any grandfathered um park planned acquisitions. Thank you. This is very helpful. This is makes it a lot easier to explain to residents in in my ward. I appreciate that. Thank you. Councelor Clark going next to councelor Craig Casar, please. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Question on page two and it's section C. It's just around the following tax reductions for the 2026 taxation year to be approved. Uh the first two items on there are farmland awaiting development first subclass and second subclass. One of them has a discount, one of them does not. Um just a general explanation on first what that means. Farmland awaiting development. I mean I understand literally what it means but how was that determined and why the discount and not for one and for not the other if that's possible. Thank you. So through the chair we may uh require to provide additional information uh to this qu question. Farmland awaiting development is farmland that has been acquired for development and is no longer being farmed and is in that stage of uh leading up to development. And uh so again this is intended to recognize that it's no longer actively being farmed. I'll make an assumption that there's no longer registry with agric and there isn't a tenant farmer and a farm owner and so for that purpose uh it would continue to be treated in tax purposes similar to farmland pending the future development of those lands. Okay. Thank you. And maybe I should asked from the beginning here is the 25% discount from what starting number? through the chair. Uh it's all relative to the residential at one. Okay. So then basically the rate would be 75. Through the chair it would be 0.25 of the one 1%. So residential being let's say one. Yes. Uh the farmland would be 0.25. Oh okay. Just it reads as following tax reduction. So Oh sorry. Uh I'm going to ask contractor uh Weaver. We'll go to the source. Okay. Through the chair, Kirk Weaver, acting director of financial planning, administration, and policy. Uh the council is correct. It is a 25% reduction off of the residential ratio of of one. Okay. And that's visav the farm rate, which is.17 or over an 80 83% reduction to the one for residential just to put in. So it's tax more than active farmland is what I'm saying, right? Is that a correct interpretation through the chair? Yes. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to actually ask a question. I'm just going to ask um Councelor Moren Wilson to take over the chair for a moment so I can ask the question. And so I think I'm not I'm not an expert in any of these, but I did a little bit of um curious asking and research. Um is it a true statement that new multi-res that we have a one ratio on under the act we could do as high as a 1.1 ratio? Is that something that would be possible legally under current provincial regulations through the chair? I'll I'll confirm, but I think that's accurate as it relates to the province's uh fairness thresholds. It may be in our reports. Uh if not, we can take that away and confirm. Um but I believe that's accurate under the provincial fairness thresholds. Okay. And if u this council wanted to change our ratio to align with provincial thresholds, what would the mechanism be for that through the chair? It would be through this report uh or a similar report in the future whereby that particular tax ratio would be amended. Okay. If you could if I could follow up with you offline just to confirm um what what those numbers look like. Um obviously we're not going to make changes here on the fly. that wouldn't be sound, but I'm curious by it. So, I'll follow up with you offline later. Thank you. Thank you, Moren, for taking that over. I see no further questions. So, this has been duly moved and seconded, which means we are going to an electronic vote. Please indicate your vote now. And that carries 120. Thank you, colleagues. We've made it out of the woods sort of. We are now moving on to I spoke too soon. I'm sorry. Uh motions, which is item nine. Uh councelor Tatison has withdrawn 9.1. that will be coming forward at a later time frame which means we are moving on to item number 9.2 which is a review of housing related service governance and reporting structures. Councelor Jackson if you would introduce your motion and your seconder please. Oh I should allow you to speak. There you are. Thank you deputy mayor BD. Moved by myself seconded by war nine counselor Bradley Clark. review of housing related services, governance and reporting structures. Whereas the city of Hamilton delivers housing related services programs and strategic oversight through two separate entities, the housing secretariat and the housing services division. Where's the housing secretariat was created in April of 23 when council adopted the housing sustainability and investment roadmap with an explicit mandate of leading the implementation of the road map and coordinating cross departmental affordable housing endeavors throughout the city. Whereas the original rationale of the housing secretariat remains important and is desirable to focus on mandate clarity, governance, alignment, and organizational effectiveness within the city of Hamilton's programs and services. Whereas municipalities serve as housing service managers responsible for administering social housing programs, meeting housing related legislative requirements and stewarding housing resources within their service areas, a mandate which is already being fulfilled by the housing services division. And whereas both the housing secretariat and the housing services division work with residents and community partners on housing programs and initiatives and review of governance alignment and reporting structure will provide clarity. Therefore be resolved that the city manager be requested to review housing related services and report back to GIC on the following. A assess role differentiation, accountability, and reporting relationships between the secretariat and housing services. B evaluate options to optimize strategic and operational alignment. C. Review the financial operational implications of any potential structural adjustments. D. Assess the opportunities and risks associated with structural change, including impacts on residents, community partners, and service continuity. and D prioritize service continuity and community stability. If I might, uh, Deputy Mayor uh, Bey, if colleagues will recall, uh, end of January, uh, healthy and safe uh, communities departmental budget presentation was upon us by general ma manager Grace Mater. And after that under Q&As's uh in public session, it just seemed to me from a layman's standpoint and following Mayor Horvath's direction of 2026 where affordability was top of mind and under affordability is top of mind. looking at duplication, redundancies, potential overlaps. I asked questions about what seemed to me of possible potential overlap within housing and what the general manager's response was. She gave her professional response at that time in public session, basically outlining what both portfolios do. But I still thought Deputy Mayor Bey again with the mayor's strong direction of getting to the final 3.8 87% increase in 2026. I still thought I wanted to pursue this. And for my colleagues, if you'll recall, I wanted to put this during the budget session, but I was ruled it was inadmissible by the city clerk and budget chair Moren Wilson for one reason only. It was because I didn't have a defined amount in my motion. I didn't hear from anyone that the theme or essence of what I wanted to pursue and place on this table was out of order. I heard it was only because of I didn't have a specific amount for the 2026 budget session that would impact this year's budget. So, um I I thought, okay, that's fine. I will fast forward to a general issues committee meeting. Here it is today before us. Um, I feel the timing is ripe and um, normally I would direct this as my original draft version was to the general manager of healthy and safe communities who has uh, jurisdiction over all the housing in her department. However, the city manager um, requested and put in place that she would like this directed to herself, city manager Klucky. I was actually delighted that the top bureaucrat, if I have enough support, would want to take this under her umbrella. Um, I don't know if there's a possibility of a of a wider um corporate overview that may be in place or forthcoming or even being considered. I don't know. But uh I was pleased and delighted that the top bureaucrat wanted the uh therefore be resolved amended to say that it would be directed to her and obviously if approved I would hope that it would result in consultation with the general manager of healthy and safe communities. So, Deputy Mayor Bey to wrap up and conclude this was again in essence and in a theme part and parcel of looking at redundancies, duplications, overlaps across our corporation under the umbrella, under the theme, under the paramount priority of affordability. And so, I think this is hopefully worthy of support. send it to the city manager and whether it comes back in time before this year is over or not if approved and whatever comes back may or may not be potentially helpful for the council of next term in their budget deliberations of 2027. Thank you deputy mayor Bey seconded by councelor Clark. Okay, thank you very much for that councelor Jackson. We're now moving on to the speakers list starting with councelor Moren Wilson please. Thank you. I'm going to exercise some discipline and not slip into my previous roles as uh the chair of the budget. Uh but in order to uphold trust and confidence in that process, I do feel the need to say u budgeting is not a guesstimate. And so, uh, when we're going to provide and finalize and approve a budget, it needs to be definitive in its amount. Um, hence why the motion in its original state was ruled out of order. Um, my query uh is one of uh something in which the the mover referenced u in his delight that city manager was taking ownership of this. I'm just seeking clarification of why that probably was the case. um through the chair. Okay, we'll ask the city manager for I I have a thesis and I'm just looking for uh some uh affirmation or not. Um it goes something like this. the strong mayor under the strong mayor regulations. Uh that is the authority to direct and hire um and to do organizational change was delegated from the mayor to the chief uh administrative officer slashcity manager. And so any organizational redesign in fact uh that city manager would in half have have to in fact delegate it herself. So I'm just seeking confirmation that that is why um perhaps you came forward. I don't want to speak for you obviously, but I think some clarity on roles and responsibilities is important. Thank you through the chair. Absolutely. Apologies that I I cut into your speaking there and I'll turn it now to the city manager for the confirmation of the thesis through you Mr. Chair. It's twofold. So I can confirm that you're accurate in your statements that it is delegated to me and so I would take that um seriously that responsibility and that is part of it. The other part of it is that uh currently undergoing an organizational structure review uh at um the senior level and intend to come back to council with that information. So it makes sense that those two things would come in concert um so that they're reviewed at the same time. And just to give asurances that responsibility does not mean I will operate in isolation. I have and will continue to collaborate with the general managers um and others to make sure that we bring forward the the best um recommendations we can. Thank you. Turn it back to councelor Marine Wilson. Thank you. I I appreciate that. Um my second question is certainly not to suggest that no one around this table is not interested in um effective and efficient um uh public structure in the administration of uh duty. But I am interested in having this city manager comment on so that I best understand um I'm looking particularly at clause E prior prioritize service continuity and community stability. Those are not words that we I don't think are referenced in the housing sustainability and investment road map under the oposes of the housing secretariat. Housing Secretariat is to be uh the head of the ship but to ensure that the entire organization from real estate to finance to land use planning um to legal are all rowing in the same direction and an effort to identify and capture and support all of community is the phrase we've used in the realization of improving our housing outcomes where along the continuum those housing outcomes will will be dependent on the need and the opportunity. And so I guess what I'm looking for is that that that is not captured explicitly in the motion. And I certainly don't want that um role that the municipality is now deemed to be a leader in exercising to be lost in this review. So um I'd like to put that out for your comment on how that would be guiding your assessment because it's not explicit. it's probably inherent in uh because there is reference to the housing secretariat and that role and the sort of sub question of that is in November of last year uh we received and supported a direction or a promised forthcoming direction that there was going to be a corporate housing policy and that I understood this to be sort from the housing secretariat services ex combined. So I'm trying to understand that activity and that output and then this through the chair. Okay, city manager through you Mr. Chair and I'll I'll pass the second portion of that over to the GM in a moment. But uh so given the mandate and the previous direction of council and the housing secretariat, I believe that that's inherently understood and that that would form part of that analysis. So it wouldn't be lost. It would just um be integrated with the motion as written. As to the second portion, I'll pass it to the general manager uh through the chair to councelor Wilson. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we made commitments. Um we made that collectively. It was not just any one individual or any one area. We made that commitment to all of council and so we will be maintaining that. We are looking at coming back with a housing master plan. We've got some support. We're moving ahead with that. And so we will be undertaking that. Okay. And before I go back to you, just understanding that we're at the exhaustion of your speaking time. If you've got an additional quick question or comment, happy to entertain that or put you on for a second time, whichever is your preference. Uh I don't need to go on for a second time but I am what I heard was the stated original goals uh the genesis of the housing secretariat in terms of being an active community player and partner on the production of attainable and accessible supportive units will not be lost or forgotten um in the city manager's guidance of this work. Secondly, the housing master plan, the work on that will continue. Um, in addition to Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Councelor Marine Wilson. We're moving on next to Councelor Narendra Nan, please. Uh, I'm actually going to take myself off the list because that was my priority in terms of getting clarity that uh nothing in this motion would take away any council approved direction as it relates to the strategic priorities of the housing secretary. I've already heard the response, so I'm good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. We're moving on now to councelor Craig Casar, please. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh, just one question. I think it's um I'll preface it with saying that it's good organizational discipline to review u operations and the city manager is already undertaking that. Um but particularly with a new structure like the housing secretary act couple years in it's good to look at it and at the same time also to make sure that it's worthwhile and there's some value in the work to be done. So my question through you to Jim Mater is um is there feedback or observations from staff from clients from you know community any other stakeholders that yeah we need to take a look at this um we need there's some review that needs to be done and we could do things better in the interaction between housing services and housing secretariat that's what I would just need to understand to ensure we're not um giving additional work that may not produce value. Okay. Thank you, councelor. Looking to GM Mater, please. Uh through the chair to the counselor. The when when the secretary was created a couple of years ago, almost three years ago, it was done in a theoretical mold. And since that time, we've now operationalized it. So, it seems to make perfect sense that now is the opportunity to look at where we're hitting the mark. Oftent times when jobs are are originally created and the roles are created, things get morphed along the way. we want to make sure we're maintaining that consistency um to it. So, I think it makes great sense to have this opportunity to look at who does what, what are we doing, are we attaining and achieving those things. Also to listen to our our partners in the community, you know, are we hitting the mark on what their expectations are? Talk to the colleagues across the corporation from with planning, with housing services, with real estate to make sure that we are all rowing in that same way as was described. I think the the other is that uh you know just to go back to the um the earlier question is that you know all of the commitments that we have made um we will be maintaining those that work will continue on this will run in parallel to that okay thank you GM just a closing comment I'm happy to hear that I think it's normal like I said things to be put into place and then you figure out how it's working or not uh so yeah I'm fully supportive of this it sounds like there's going to be good value and it's is good continuous improvement activity. Thanks. Okay, I see no further speakers on the list which means we are now at the point where we would be indicating our vote electronically. Please, the vote is up. And that carries 12-0. Congratulations, Councelor Jackson. Moving on now to item 10, which is notices of motions. Uh, Council Crunch, if you would like to introduce your notices, please. Oh, whenever you're ready. Okay, so we'll just do them one at a time. 10.1 is the review of contract work by the city of Hamilton. As a refresher, this was building on the work that councelor Tatis and I did with reviewing consultants, but recognize that these are different when talking to human resources staff that contractors are not the same as consultants. So, bringing forward a specific report on that and that's going to stay as a notice and I'll see you on April 15th with that one. Second one is a winter response for people living on shelter in the city of Hamilton. That's largely based on the discussion we had today and discussions I've been having with staff for a while about how do we improve that and make the plan better. So, that'll be coming forward in April 15th. And the last one's on a municipal price index. You may recall this from the budget process. This is something that Milton has in place. Other cities have investigated and staff are going to bring something back in Q3 2026 for the city of Hamilton. Those are my notices. They're going to stay as notices. See April 15th. Fantastic. Thank you. Moving on now. Uh we have a number of private and confidential agenda items. I believe we're going to begin by adopting the confidential minutes. uh from the GIC 260004 which is February 25th, 2026. These are the close session minutes. If I could have a mover and seconder for the adoption and acceptance of those confidential minutes and I'm looking I see councelor Tatterson, councelor Kretch. Thank you. All in favor of a show of hands, please. And that is unanimous. There are a couple, I think, of interesting things that um are on the confidential agenda. So, I'm going to assume that we want to go into close session. And I will need a motion to go into close session now for items 112, 113, and 114. Moved by councelor Clark, seconded by councelor Tom Jackson. And I will be asking for an electronic vote in a moment. But before we do that, I do have to read out that pursuant to section 9.3 subsections B, C, E, and F of the city's procedural bylaw 21-21021 as amended and section 2392 subsections B, C, E, and F of the Ontario Municipal Act 2001 as amended. As the subject matter pertains to a personal matter about identifiable individuals, including city or local board members, a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land for a city or local board purpose, litigation or potential litigation, including matters before administrative tribunals affecting the city or local board. uh and for receiving the advice that is subject to uh client solicitor privilege including communication necessary for that purpose. So with that said, I'm going to ask for your electronic vote to go into closed. Please indicate your vote now. And that carries 120. Thank you, colleagues. Members of the public are advised that during the close session portion of the meeting, the live stream will broadcast a close session in progress screen. The broadcast will resume when the close session portion of the meeting is complete. As we are now moving into close session, I would ask that all members of the public, delegates and external participants, please now exit the WebEx meeting and gallery. As well, any staff that are not directly related to the in camera items, we ask to exit the WebEx meeting and gallery as well. We remind all members of council that as per section 8.7 of the procedural bylaw, the use of personal electronic devices during closed meetings is strictly prohibited. However, the use of city electronic devices during closed meetings are limited to text communication only and the city's electronic devices are not to be used as a telephone recording device or camera. Staff from the office of the city clerk exempted from subsection 8.7c when using electronic devices for recordkeeping purposes. And we will we will frost over the windows in just a few minutes. and we will catch you. I'm going to suggest in about 5 minutes we'll start in camera. We're good. All right, we're back in live session, open session. We're going to begin with uh item 11.2, which is PED141A, which is the acquisition of land in W 15. if I could have a mover and seconder on the following. I believe it will be councelor um what's your name again? Ted, it's getting late in the day. Uh councelor Ted McMe and a seconder I think councelor Mark Tatterson was up for this. Thank you councelor Tatison. uh the following that the directions provided to staff in close session respecting PEED 14 sorry 1 19141A acquisition of land in W 15 be approved and remain confidential unless made public as the city's position before the Ontario Land Tribunal as necess as necessary to secure the claimants's withdrawal pursuant to the minutes of settlement and that the balance of the report of the acquisition of land in W1 15 and all appendies remain confidential. will require an electronic vote. Please indicate your vote now. And that carries 120. Thank you colleagues. Moving on to 11.3 LS25015A and that is the GFL legal strategy update for W 9. I have a mover and councelor Clark myself as the seconder. Uh and this is the following. That the report LS25015A respecting the GFL legal strategy update in W 9 be received and remain confidential and B that staff proceed as directed respecting the GFL legal strategy. We will require an electronic vote. Please indicate your vote now. And that carries 120. Thank you, colleagues. And finally, item 11.4, which is H HSC26024, the emergency warming center health and safety implications for city staff. Looking for a mover and seconder. Seeing councelor Tom Jackson, councelor Esther Pauls. Thank you. And that is for the following. That the confidential report HSC26024 emergency warming center health and safety implications for city staff be received and remain confidential. This will also require an electronic vote. Please indicate your vote now. And that carries 120. Be it that there is no further business, this meeting is adjourned at 4:10.

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