Haldimand County councilors raised eyebrows when they barred independent MPP Bobbi Ann Brady from meetings with provincial cabinet ministers at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in Ottawa last week.
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In June, council voted to exclude Brady, who represents Haldimand-Norfolk, from the annual conference over fears her presence would anger Premier Doug Ford — with whom she has publicly sparred at Queen’s Park — and hurt the municipality’s chances of getting provincial dollars.
But Brady went to AMO anyway, and was soon in the thick of things alongside Haldimand Mayor Shelley Ann Bentley.
“In the first five minutes we were at AMO, we ran into Prabmeet Sarkaria, the minister of transportation,” Brady told The Spectator.
“We went right up to him and had a 10-minute chat about Caledonia bridge reconstruction (and) creating a safer situation at Haldibrook Road and Highway 6.”
The county’s request for a formal meeting with the transportation ministry to discuss replacing the long-delayed Argyle Street bridge and addressing the collision-prone intersection — along with the need for a Highway 6 bypass to alleviate traffic congestion in Hagersville — had been denied prior to the conference, which ran Aug. 18 to 21.
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But Bentley hopes the “impromptu” hallway chat with the minister will spur action.
“He told me that he would be getting back to me, (and) we will follow up with him this week,” Bentley said in an interview on Monday.
Brady, who attended many AMO conferences as executive assistant to former Conservative MPP Toby Barrett, said sideline meetings are often where the real work is done.
“Delegations are just one part of AMO,” Brady said. “It’s the other conversations that are actually really vital.”
During a delegation with the Ministry of Health, ministry officials confirmed the county’s community paramedic program will continue to receive provincial funding.
The program, which launched in 2021, sees paramedics visit patients to check vital signs and manage medications, keeping residents out of the hospital for routine issues that can be taken care of more comfortably — and much more affordably — at home.
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“That leaves people in their homes longer. They can age in place,” Bentley said.
The Ministry of Long-Term Care turned down a meeting to talk about the planned 64-bed expansion of Edgewater Gardens, a municipally-run long-term care home in Dunnville, but officials are open to future discussions, Haldimand CAO Cathy Case told The Spectator in an email.
Haldimand agreed to cancel a previously granted delegation with the Ministry of Infrastructure since Minister Kinga Surma toured the Nanticoke water treatment plant in late July, where she learned about the county’s $132-million plan to upgrade the plant to meet future development needs and pipe water to Norfolk and Six Nations.
“It is a big ask,” said Bentley, who is banking on financial support from Queen’s Park and Ottawa for the tripartite water project.
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“The province wants to develop, so they’re going to have to come through with some funding if they want more development in Norfolk.”
As for Brady, she remains disappointed at being snubbed at AMO over sniping between her and the first during Question Period.
“Nobody was going to keep me from going,” Brady said.
“If (Haldimand councilors) don’t understand that question period is separate from the work (MPPs) do behind the scenes every single day, then they need to do a little more research, or come to Queen’s Park and really find out what goes we.”
JP Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
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