Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods
Communities Count. Civic Matters.
Toronto residents are invited to an online Public Information Session to learn about the City’s Heritage Register Review project. The purpose of the meeting is to share information about the project and answer questions.
Date: Monday, February 26
Time: 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Location: Virtual Meeting
FUN recognizes the significant fiscal challenges facing the Government of Ontario, some representing continuing impacts of the COVID pandemic. We also believe that investing in and maintaining physical, social health and environmental infrastructure, all the while addressing the Climate Emergency are critical to the future wellbeing of all Ontario residents.
However, we are choosing to focus at this time on four matters: the growing Housing Market and Housing Affordability issue, Growing Protected Areas, Save Ontario Place, and Save the Ontario Science Centre.
Two years ago, hundreds of Peel residents descended on regional council to voice their opposition to a massive urban boundary expansion that would pave the way for 11,000 acres of prime agricultural land and greenspace to be bulldozed for future development.
This summer, those same residents, along with millions across the province, learned the startling truth behind what happened. Doug Ford’s PC government had worked secretly with developers to force urban boundary expansions throughout southern Ontario, compelling towns and cities to bend to their profit-driven policies.
OPINION: Shedding light on government finances is never a bad idea. Here’s hoping audits will spur a necessary discussion about how Ontario cities raise revenue and from whom.
Over the summer, the Ford government announced the selection of a third-party auditor to investigate the finances of six municipalities — including Toronto — with an eye to clarifying the impacts of its recent housing legislation on city finances.
Update – December 13, 2023 – Ontario cancels municipal audits launched to understand impacts of its housing laws
The PC government says it will no longer be dissolving the Region of Peel, an abrupt shift from legislation that has created anxiety among residents and frontline staff at the upper level of municipal government.
It puts an end, for now, to the intense politicking that pitted Mississauga and Brampton council members against one another.
PCs make another move to greenlight environmentally disastrous highway
After an October Supreme Court ruling found parts of the federal Impact Assessment Act to be unconstitutional, the PC government is doubling down and asking the courts to free its Highway 413 project from having to undergo the rigid environmental assessment the Act requires.
Ontario won’t submit Highway 413 assessment to feds until late 2023
TheFord government is closing in on making the case for its signature Highway 413 project — frozen for more than two years — as it prepares to send Ottawa new justifications for the route.
Last week Ford accused the federal Liberal government of stepping on the toes of provinces and municipalities by bringing forward the national Housing Accelerator Fund which allows Ottawa to work directly with municipalities on housing starts—3.5 million of which are needed across the country by 2030 according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation—and has already seen some success since its conception earlier this year.
ust weeks after revelations of impropriety forced the Ontario government to reverse its imposition of corrupt settlement boundary expansions on unwilling City and Regional governments, a leaked letter from Municipal Affairs Minister Paul Calandra, dated November 2, 2023, suggests that the Premier and Cabinet ministers are doubling down and trying to make the mayors of lower-tier municipalities accomplices to the scandal by having them rubber-stamp the government’s forced farm, forest and wetland eating boundary expansions.
The events of the past few years in Ontario reinforce the critical role of residents associations at the local level, and federations of residents associations, at the regional and provincial level, to address policy issues and advocate. The mantra “municipalities are a creature of the province” is regularly demonstrated in decisions, and legislation introduced and passed by the provincial government, some positive, but many with long term negative implications for such areas as greenbelt protection, cultural heritage, urban sprawl, and the climate crisis. Of course we are now seeing reversal of some of these changes, but many more remain. And changes are ongoing, that need to be analysed and understood.
We invite all interested members of community resident organizations to attend the Annual General Meeting and the Roundtable event. Any number of representatives from your organization may attend these events.
NOTICE is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of the Members of the Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods (Ontario) is called for and will be held virtually on the 18th day of November, 2023, at 2:00 pm for the following purposes: