(Image provided by Bruce County)
Bruce County and Bruce Power have agreed to a four-year, $2 million funding agreement.
The Capacity Funding Agreement for the Regional Infrastructure & Community Readiness Assessment follows the announcement from the Province of Ontario on May 7th that it would help to progress Canada’s first large-scale nuclear build in 30 years.
“The work supported through this agreement will help prepare our communities to support the proposed Bruce C Project,” explained Bruce County’s Project Coordinator for Nuclear Energy Lauren Dillon. “Under the agreement, the county is required to submit an annual work plan outlining assessment activities for each funding period.”
The 2026 work plan was developed by the Community Development office, and focuses on early-stage assessments to support a strategic approach to long-term capital planning, decision-making, and advocacy, according to Dillon.
Over the next four years, Bruce County will be taking part in pre-development activities with the help of community partners.
Bruce Power will be providing the county with $500,000 per year over the next four years, to allow Bruce County to carry out assessment impacts that the proposed Bruce C expansion would have on county infrastructure and service delivery.
In particular, the first year will focus on transportation and housing, as those are two areas that require more lead time. Transportation requires collaboration with other jurisdictions in order to ensure that a transportation network can accommodate an increase in population from new employees moving to the region, and increased travel on local roads and highways.
Housing readiness is also dependent on collaboration between the County, municipalities, and non-profit organizations, as well as builders in order to ensure that there is a stable and affordable supply of housing across the housing spectrum.
“Looking ahead to future years, I anticipate that there will be some additional study work in other areas of service, such as child care impacts, human services impacts, and how it may impact services such as library delivery and emergency services,” said Commissioner of Community Development Claire Dodds.
Dodds added that at this stage, staff felt that it was important to focus on transportation and housing first, but council will be able to discuss and select what the next phase should include at future county council meetings.
Council will be receiving regular updates from a working group while assessments are being completed, which is made up of senior staff from all eight lower-tier municipalities.
On May 14th, the Municipality of Kincardine entered into a 4-year, $2.2 million agreement with Bruce Power for Infrastructure and Community Readiness, and it’s expected Saugeen Shores will sign its own agreement with the nuclear energy producer on May 25th.
Bruce Power is also providing application-based funding to municipalities across Bruce, Grey, and Huron Counties to support community readiness and infrastructure planning.