Grey County’s Deputy Warden says 2025 was a year for working together.
Brian Milne, who is also the Mayor of Southgate tells Bayshore Broadcasting News, “Continued collaboration seems to be the theme word there about how the lower tiers, or our member municipalities collaborate together to advance the issues for the County.”
Milne says at a recent meeting, County Council approved a memorandum of understanding with the lower tiers to work together as ‘Team Grey.’
“We recognize and I think, we’re starting to put into practice that if we work together we’re stronger together and I think that’s very important, because if one municipality gains some economic development project, it’s better for the region as well,” says Milne.
He explains, “That has been a real nice piece to see come to fruition. A really good example of that is the agreement between West Grey and Hanover to expand the physical footprint of the Town of Hanover out into West Grey. That has been a long time coming, that agreement. It’s really nice to see that happen. The rest of the County I think, understands that if Hanover and West Grey prosper through this deal, the rest of us are going to prosper as well.”
Milne says, “We recognize that we’re growing here in Grey County and we’re also aging, and so the mix of services are slowly changing and increasing at the same time. An example of that is our paramedic services. We had an overarching review of our paramedic services done a number of years ago and we are following that plan as best we can. Recognizing that things change along the path, but we’ve got a new paramedic base in Durham and this coming year, 2026 we’ll be building a new one in Feversham and another new one in Dundalk to accommodate that growth and to fill in the gaps, so to speak in service. Not to suggest that there are any serious gaps, our paramedic folks do a great job. Kevin McNab and his team, they do a tremendous job for us but things can always be better and we’re working hard to make that happen.”
Milne says transit is another area of focus for council. “We’re working on it collaboratively with Bruce County, Dufferin and Smart Transit north of Hanover in Solway (North of Walkerton). We all are working together to do a survey of how we can do regional transit, and that has been a bit of a bugaboo for a lot of years. A lot of different regions have tried different things. the biggest problem is not a lot of population and too much geography. That’s a common challenge with a lot of services but with regional transit that’s a real challenge so we think that by working together with those different counties and regions we can come up with something that will serve our residents that need transit at a reasonable cost. That will be an interesting project to come to fruition as well.”
The County continues to work to provide services to those experiencing homelessness. Milne says, “Our Supportive Outreach Services program continues to do really well. It continues to be very well regarded in our community. Folks that need that help are getting that help and that’s not just the paramedic services in Grey County, it’s OSHaRE, it’s United Way, Brightshores, many other organizations are all coming together to help folks in our community that are a little bit disadvantaged.”
Milne says, “I think it is well worth mentioning– and it ties into the economics of our region, homelessness, affordable housing– those issues are omnipresent and I don’t think the County does necessarily a good enough job or at least people don’t recognize the good job that the County is doing to help out our local folks. An example of that is Grey County is supporting over 13,000 individual nights of emergency accommodation,” says Milne, noting last year the County bought a former motel in Owen Sound. ”
“There was a lot of debate about– is that something we need to do or should be doing? and in fact, it has turned out to be a remarkable success story,” says Milne.
“It’s less expensive for the County to provide that housing in a facility like the remodelled motel than it is to purchase motel rooms from established businesses. The big advantage of running the facility ourselves is that once people are housed, once the immediate emergency is over, in fact the family has a place to stay for the night, literally– now we can say ‘okay, do you have any needs otherwise?’ and we have support staff there that can address food challenges, addiction challenges, clothing challenges– -this list goes on and on.
By housing people on an emergency basis in our own facility, we’re able to say, ‘do we have any other needs that we can help you with?”
Milne says, “It has tuned out really well and very successful. It’ll never be enough but I think the County does a really good job of helping people out in an emergency situation.”
Meanwhile construction continues on the County’s Rockwood Terrace Long-Term Care Home in Durham. “The project is on time and on budget, so the plan is still to move our folks over to the new Rockwood Terrace, I believe in January of 2027,” says Milne.
Milne notes there is an affordable housing project in Dundalk he’s hoping will also move ahead this year.
On a different note, he says, “One of the challenges that is top of mind right now is the consolidation of the conservation authorities to go from 36 across the province and they want to squeezer that down to seven,” says Milne, adding, “That is a bit concerning because boots on the ground and people that are familiar with what’s going on locally, I think serve the residents of the area a lot better than putting another layer of bureaucracy in and trying to serve a local watershed from a distance, i.e. Queen’s park. That is very concerning in my mind, because conservation authorities have a mandate to look after the quantity and quality of our water. Very few things are more important than the quality and quantity of water that we need in our communities.”
Milne says the County has asked for a delegation at the upcoming Rural Ontario Municipality Association Conference (ROMA) to speak about that.