Hamilton Summit 2018 highlights key issues ahead of June provincial election
HAMILTON, ON - Central to today’s Hamilton Summit event was a commitment to continuing to work with upper levels of government to address downloading, health equity, affordable housing, infrastructure maintenance and renewal, and improvements to municipal financial tools to better support Hamilton residents, now and in the future.
“I extend my sincere appreciation to our panellists, nominated candidates and members of our community for participating in today’s Summit. Today provided a great opportunity not only to address key priorities that impact our city, but allowed comment from community stakeholders and residents on these priority areas.”
City of Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger
The goal of the event, which took place in Hamilton City Hall Council Chambers, was to give the public, politicians and City staff an opportunity to highlight and discuss key issues that impact the long-term health, wellbeing and prosperity of our city, ahead of the June 7 provincial election.
Expert panels, MPP’s and nominated candidates for the upcoming provincial election, community stakeholders and residents discussed the need to:
- improve health equity and continue to focus on education and preventative efforts to address poverty and healthcare issues
- preserve and increase the City’s supply of social and affordable housing through increased and ongoing funding from all levels of government
- increase financial support for existing and new infrastructure including permanent, stable and predictable funding programs for maintenance and renewal of municipal assets
- leverage the expertise of academia, industry and all levels of government to create partnerships and find innovative solutions to address infrastructure challenges
- make changes to municipal financial tools such as taxation and provide more support for provincially-shared programs, including a suite of financial tools that the City can leverage to address infrastructure needs
Expert Panellists
- Tom Cooper, Director, Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction
- Dr. Margaret Denton, Professor Emeritus Health, Aging & Society and Sociology and Senior Social Scientist in Residence (McMaster University)
- Dr. Moataz Mohamed, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, McMaster University
- Steve Watzeck, Chairman of the Board and Chief Commercialization Officer of Fibracast Inc.
- Professor Harry Kitchen, Professor Emeritus Trent University, Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Municipal Finance (Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto)
- Dr. Aaron Moore, Associate Professor University of Winnipeg, Fellow at the Institute for Municipal Finance (Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto)
- Betty Matthews-Malone, Director, Roads and Traffic, City of Hamilton
- Mike Zegarac, General Manager, Finance and Corporate Services, City of Hamilton
- Paul Johnson, General Manager, Healthy and Safe Communities, City of Hamilton
Moderators for the day were Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Hamilton’s Medical Officer of Health, and Roberto Rossini, retired City of Toronto Deputy City Manager & Chief Financial Officer.
Also in attendance were representatives from the Green Party of Ontario, New Democratic Party of Ontario, None of The Above Direct Democracy Party, Ontario Liberal Party, Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and the Trillium Party of Ontario who provided their perspectives on the issues.
“The purpose of the Hamilton Summit was to bring all stakeholders together to advance an understanding that nearly 50 per cent of our operating budget is not entirely in control of City Council, but rather through mandated provincial services and boards and agencies. The objective of the Summit is to affect change to upload the download by making the democratic deficit known as downloading an election issue on June 7.”
City of Hamilton Ward 4 Councillor, Sam Merulla
A report will be presented at an upcoming General Issues Committee meeting summarizing the outcomes from the Summit and recommendations for next steps.
Additional Resources
For more information about the Hamilton Summit and to view the livestream recording, visit www.hamilton.ca/HamiltonSummit2018.