NDP MPPs Jeff Burch (Niagara Centre), who is the Official Opposition Municipal Affairs critic, and NDP House Leader Gilles Bisson (Timmins), have urged Doug Ford to commit to providing emergency operating funding right away for municipalities so they can continue to run day cares, transit systems, public health units, water treatment facilities and so much more, after the pandemic has left municipal budgets on the brink.<\/p>\n
\u201cCities and towns across this province are passing motions, sending letters and pleading for emergency operating funding to help them weather this storm,\u201d said Burch on Wednesday at the Ontario legislature during question period.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom Niagara to Sudbury to Toronto, local governments are bleeding cash and facing shortfalls in the millions yet this government refuses to act \u2013 and it\u2019s cities, towns and everyday Ontarians who will pay the price with tax increases and cuts to services. Will the Premier commit to supporting municipalities by providing emergency operating funding now?,\u201d asked Burch.<\/p>\n
Burch and Bisson reminded the Premier that municipalities are at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic, with growing pressure on services such as public health, ambulance and bylaw enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Premier and Minister Clark should be doing something, not just talking to the federal government. That\u2019s the long and the short of the story,\u201d said Bisson. \u201cWill you please help our municipalities? They can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NDP MPPs Jeff Burch (Niagara Centre), who is the Official Opposition Municipal Affairs critic, and NDP House Leader Gilles Bisson (Timmins), have urged Doug Ford to commit to providing emergency …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 10:14:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32390,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32389\/revisions\/32390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}