Brockton is planning on making several delegations to provincial officials this week at the annual Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) Conference.
Council discussed the delegations it’s planning to make at the conference, which is running from Jan. 18 to the 20 in Toronto, during a meeting last week.
The conference allows municipalities across Ontario to speak directly to the province to address local issues.
Between representing Brockton and Bruce County, Mayor Chris Peabody says he will be participating in nine delegations.
One delegation is with the county in speaking to the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Ministry of the Solicitor General about the Walkerton Court House.
“We are looking for a new court house, it’s a very old court house, it’s quite decrepit and it’s causing lots of extra security costs that are passed on to the county and to Brockton. We would like to see a new court house built,” says Peabody. “We are looking for some increased funding for prisoner security, court and transportation, which is with the Solicitor General.”
Additionally, Peabody says they will also be speaking with Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Sylvia Jones twice.
“They are both on funding for equipment in the hospitals. Right now it is left to the communities to fundraise for CAT scans, x-ray machines in the community and I believe that puts an undue burden on fundraising in our small towns. Other organizations that might depend on fundraising, they might get left out and I don’t think that buying an x-ray machine should be a municipal responsibility,” says Peabody.
They mayor also plans to meet with Minister of Energy and Mines Stephen Lecce about including the municipality in the third phase of funding for expanding access to natural gas.
“Brockton was successful four years ago in getting $20 million, but as it turned out, that was not enough to bring natural gas to our rural residents, we need another $6 million. Both Bruce County and Brockton are gong to by lobbying to get that money to bring natural gas to the rural residents of Brockton and especially our farmers,” says Peabody.
Several other municipalities in the region are planning on attending the conference as well.