THUNDER BAY – Rising police costs, highway safety and health care are some of the priorities the Thunder Bay District Municipal League (TBDML) is advocating with upper levels of government.
Leaders from 17 municipalities gathered at the Prince Arthur Hotel for the two-day TBDML annual general meeting on Thursday and Friday to discuss some of the common issues in their communities.
“We wanted to make sure that they bring any issues to us directly. We can all be advocates together. We want to make sure we have the same messaging so that we're not overriding each other and making sure that the government hears the concerns that we have on those issues,” Rick Dumas, president of the TBDML told Newswatch.
Dumas said that some common issues in each municipality like health care and highway safety have been long-standing issues the league has brought to the province’s attention in addition to municipality-unique issues like the idling of the Terrace Bay Mill and establishing a port authority in Marathon.
Wendy Landry, president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA), said that downloaded costs onto municipalities to fund the Ontario Provincial Police and District Social Services Boards have become unsustainable for taxpayers.
“The OPP costs continue to rise astronomically. They're just not sustainable for our small communities,” said Landry.
As an example, she said the City of Kenora would have paid nearly $9 million to the OPP in 2025. Because of the unstainable cost on taxpayers, the province gave them a one-time funding allowance to bring their OPP bill down to $6 million.
Greenstone also has the same issues with high police costs, said Landry.
She also noted the town of O'Connor paid more than $100,000 to the Thunder Bay District Health Unit to serve a population of 600 people.
Municipalities “only have one way of generating revenue and that's through taxes and the property taxpayers are paying for those costs,” said Landry.
“We could talk about all of our areas that have these high OPP costs that are out of our control as a municipality. We can't control that. What we're saying is that we need to work with the government to look at how we can sustain our budgets in the way that we're funded.”
“We're funded through the provincial government. We are an arm of the provincial government and people fail to realize or they don't realize, not any fault of their own, that our tax base is the only ability for us to pay for costs in running our municipalities," said Landry. “When you have external costs like policing, DDSABs, EMS that are out of our control, that's an unpredictable amount for our budgets and makes it difficult. The only way that we can cover those costs or those levies is through our taxes and our assessments.”
Landry stated a person who purchased a home for $50,000 more than two decades ago could find out the market value of their home has quadrupled. Now their home is worth $400,000. The new assessed value of the home will be adjusted by the municipality to a higher property tax bracket.
She pointed out that the new assessment does not reflect what the property owner can pay.
“There are all of these levies that come to the municipalities that we have no control over and they are provincially mandated. So, we're saying to the government they're provincially mandated, you take care of them. We can't sustain this,” said Landry.
Dumas said the TBDML continues to work through its strategic plan, which he described as a living document of the municipal priorities they want to address with higher levels of government.
The TBDML keeps in close contact with NOMA and together travel to Toronto to advocate Northern Ontario issues with the government.
“We're all volunteers, but we put an extra amount of time in to make sure that the people are heard. The issues are heard in Toronto as they are affecting Northwestern Ontario specifically for the Thunder Bay District,” said Dumas.
