A small town that quickly regretted hiring a Ford government-connected lobbying firm to help secure funding it desperately needs to upgrade its wastewater treatment was not one of the grant’s 50-plus first-round recipients.
Although Brighton’s municipality is “disappointed” by the decision, as its mayor said, it plans to continue its efforts to try carving out a slice of the fund's newly announced $250-million second round.
“On Wednesday this past week, we learned that Brighton’s funding application for the construction of our new wastewater treatment facility through the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund was not granted,” Mayor Brian Ostrander said at Brighton’s council meeting on Monday. “To say that council, staff, and I are disappointed is an understatement.”
Premier Doug Ford and Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma held a news conference last Wednesday to announce the province would be granting $970 million toward 54 projects across 60 municipalities to upgrade their water systems. These Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund (HEWSF) grants are considered its “first round of investments,” the premier said.
The province will now open a second application round for HEWSF program funding, Ford also announced last Wednesday.
“In response to the high demand for funding, the government is also allocating an additional $250 million for a second round of applications starting on August 14,” a news release from the premier’s office a week ago said.
At Brighton's council meeting on Monday, its mayor said, “We know that (Brighton’s) $41-million infrastructure upgrade is simply not a feasible project without the assistance of the province and/or the federal government.”
“We were assured that Brighton did not need the assistance of a strategic communications team to help guarantee success,” Ostrander continued.
Upgrading Brighton’s wastewater treatment system is a top priority for its council. The town has grappled with potentially harmful high ammonia levels in its water for years. The upgrade project’s latest estimated costs total more than the town’s entire annual budget, meaning financial support from elsewhere will almost definitely be necessary to complete it.
'Backroom' backtrack
Shortly after the Ford government announced in March that it would be massively increasing the amount of funding it would distribute through the HEWSF, senior Municipality of Brighton staff hatched a plan: they’d find a lobbying firm to try to win the province’s favour.
Brighton records The Trillium obtained and reported on in June show that in early April the municipality’s senior staff narrowed the firms they were considering to a few with well-known connections to Ford and his Progressive Conservatives. Soon after, staff chose a firm recommended by the town’s planning director’s wife — who herself serves on the board of a police association that works closely with the Ford government.
The company, Atlas Strategic Advisors, run by a longtime top aide of Ford’s, helped Brighton staff fine tune its HEWSF application, which the municipality submitted on the April 19 deadline.
Two and a half weeks later, the Brighton-Atlas agreement was brought before the town’s council for approval. During a 15-minute-long debate, council members suggested they were hiring the firm “to work the backroom,” and “not… for their technical expertise,” and because “this (provincial) government sometimes talks to its friends more than other folks.” Brighton’s council members then voted five-to-one, with one abstention, in favour of the up-to-six-month $60,000 agreement with Atlas.
The next day, May 7, the Brighton Community Gazette first reported on the agreement and council members’ comments at the previous evening’s meeting. The newsletter’s coverage ignited a firestorm on a community Facebook group, attracting the attention of Mayor Ostrander, who criticized its reporting, referring to it as the “Brighton Gaz.-lighter.”
Behind the scenes, Brighton’s council members were already debating whether or not to revisit the town’s agreement with the lobbying company.
Early the following evening, after The Trillium began contacting several people involved, Atlas principal Amin Massoudi emailed a pair of the municipality’s top staff, pulling the plug on their agreement.
“Unfortunately, it seems as though some councillors have misrepresented our engagement, likely due to a misunderstanding of the nature of the work we do … as a result of the comments that have been made publicly, I no longer feel that we are in a position to deliver on this mandate,” Massoudi wrote to two of Brighton’s top staff.
The controversy grew into a headache for Ford’s PCs the next day, with NDP and official Opposition Leader Marit Stiles raising it in question period, asking at one point, “Is the premier really okay with his government’s reputation of catering to insiders in the backroom?”
Municipal Affairs Minister Paul Calandra abdicated responsibility for what transpired in Brighton. “Frankly, I don’t know where a town or any community in this province of Ontario would think that it would ever be a good idea to hire an outside lobbyist to try to connect with the government or members of this legislature,” he said in the legislature.
Labour Minister David Piccini — the PC MPP for Northumberland—Peterborough South, the riding including Brighton — called what unfolded, “disappointing.” He’d express similar thoughts to its council in a letter a few days later.
“We continue to put our trust in Minister Piccini to send the messages to his caucus and cabinet colleagues about this critical infrastructure project and the need for funding,” Ostrander, the town’s mayor, said at its council meeting on Monday.
Ostrander added that he hoped Piccini would help Brighton secure a meeting with Surma, the province’s infrastructure minister, at the upcoming Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Ottawa.
“We will announce further advocacy and communication measures after next week’s conference when we have a better understanding of how Brighton can position itself to succeed in the next round of funding,” the mayor said.
Brighton's down bad, but not out
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Infrastructure received 208 applications for HEWSF funding, The Trillium learned in response to a freedom-of-information request. Of the 54 applications receiving funding through the program’s first round, 20 are in western Ontario, 19 are in the province’s central region, 11 are in the east, and four are in northern parts of the province, according to a ministry spokesperson.
Of the $970 million in funding the province announced last week, $456 million will support 30 projects in small, rural and northern communities, the premier’s office said in its news release.
“Any municipalities that were not successful or did not apply under the first intake may apply for funding through the second intake,” an Infrastructure Ministry spokesperson said in an email last week.
As the funding program’s name implies, the province's HEWSF aims to support water infrastructure projects to allow more homes to be built. First-round funding recipients’ projects will “support over 500,000 new housing units,” according to the Infrastructure Ministry’s spokesperson.
A main priority of the Ford government’s is to facilitate the construction of 1.5 million new homes in Ontario from 2022 to 2031 to improve housing affordability. The likelihood of the government reaching its target hasn't looked promising.
In a message to The Trillium on Tuesday, Brighton Coun. Jeff Wheeldon said “By the stated goals of the (HEWSF) grant program we should be getting funding.”
“We have up to 1,000 units of housing on deck, most of which cannot be built without wastewater system upgrades that will cost more than we are legally allowed to borrow,” Wheeldon said. “Our current system is polluting Lake Ontario at a level that has caused the provincial government to fine us for non-compliance with environmental regulations, a problem that would also be fixed by these upgrades.”
The councillor said he, like Ostrander, is “disappointed” Brighton didn’t receive funding through the HEWSF’s just-announced round of funding.
“It’s a big blow to our local economic and environmental sustainability, and leaves us with low hopes and hard choices,” Wheeldon said.
