Brantford council seeks ‘informed consent’ on health unit merger

Brantford city council wants more information before taking a position on the proposed merger of the Brant County and Haldimand-Norfolk health units.

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Councilors voted Tuesday in favor of an amendment insisting the proposed merger “not proceed without the informed consent” of the city. They also want the proposed merger to be deferred until important questions are answered.

Moreover, if the merger moves forward without the city’s informed consent, the city will withdraw from the merged health units. It will also consider whether to suspend its financial contribution.

Councilors also voted in favor of the main resolution which calls on city staff to determine how the Brant health unit could become a department or part of the city’s existing administration.

Plans call for the city to make Brantford-Brant MPP Will Bouma, Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Bobbi-Ann Brady, Norfolk Mayor Amy Martin, Ontario’s health minister Sylvia Jones and Premier Doug Ford aware of the city’s concerns.

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“We have received a high-level overview from the (Brant County) health unit about what they hope to accomplish with the merger,” Mayor Kevin Davis, who brought the amendment forward, said Tuesday. “However, it does not address the three major concerns that I have.”

Davis is concerned about representation, the status of Brant health unit assets and the city’s future costs.

While the province contributes funding to health units there is a local cost. Davis figures the city could end up paying up to half the local cost for a merged Brant, Haldimand, Norfolk health unit.

“I think it’s critically important that we have representation on the proposed merged board that is proportional to what we’re paying,” Davis said. “If all we have is one representative and if Haldimand, Brant and Norfolk all have one representative each, that is not going to provide us with effective representation based on what we’re paying.”

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The city ought to know what will happen to the health unit building on Terrace Hill Street prior to the proposed merger, Davis said.

Speaking to future budgets, the mayor said the populations of Haldimand and Norfolk are spread out over a large geographic area making it harder and more expensive to serve people.

“My concern is that it (the proposed merger) will likely lead to an increased bureaucracy, it will likely lead to services being more expensive to serve a much larger area,” Davis said. “There is a risk that we’ll be paying much more for services that are less focused on Brantford and more focused on areas outside of Brantford.

“We don’t have those answers and until we have them, I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to either support or not support the proposed merger.”

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The two health boards, in a joint statement, at the end of April announced plans to sign a letter of intent to merge as a way to enhance public health capacity, improve service delivery and align with a shared network of community-based partners.

The boards said the proposed merger seeks to avoid an imposed merger by the province and to take advantage of offered funding.

Discussions about a merger have been ongoing since the province announced in 2019 of its plans to reduce to 10 from 35 the number of health units across Ontario.

The proposed merger would be similar to that of the two school boards and children’s aid services, which now cover Brantford and the counties of Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk.

At present, health unit mergers are voluntary but municipalities have been told regionalization of public health is a provincial priority.

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