It was looking like a pretty laid back Committee of the Whole meeting for this November, and then, of all things, people got excited to talk about contractual matters between the City of Guelph and a major utility. People turned out to talk about their concerns about the City signing up for another 20-year hitch with Enbridge without any considerations about the future. Let’s see what happened via the following recap…
Committee of the Whole Meeting – November 5, 2024
There were only two matters for the November Committee of the Whole meeting agenda, but only one generated any real debate.
The topic was the Municipal Franchise Agreement with Enbridge. The staff recommendation asked committee to essentially approve a new agreement with some administrative changes, but Councillor Leanne Caron had an alternative idea about pushing Enbridge to create a new agreement that would charge fees for using public property while ensuring that the City of Guelph is not liable for the relocation of gas infrastructure.
More on that in a minute. First, there were several delegates who all liked the second option and wanted to see committee run that down. The delegates included climate activists, high school students, and eMERGE’s Evan Ferrari who said that he appreciates that it’s staff’s job to be risk adverse, but now is the time for bold action to stop climate change, and it’s always been on the people to ask for it *before* the government takes action.
When it was committee’s turn, they separate out a motion to receive the report for information, and then tackled the other three recommendations. There were some questions about the role of the Ontario Energy Board as a regulator and who they represent, questions that staff felt they weren’t equipped to answer. There were also questions about the 20-year timeframe of the contract and whether there would be any way to change it once passed if, say, the Green Party’s private members’ bill called the “No Free Ride for Fossil Fuels” Act was approved.
The original staff recommendations eventually got shot down with only Mayor Cam Guthrie, and Councillors Dan Gibson and Christine Billings voting in favour. While most councillors felt that the length of the new contract wasn’t realistic given the rapid pace of technological change, the three pro votes were concerned about the potential impact on natural gas customers and/or sending staff on a while goose chase to make a deal with Enbridge for terms they would never accept.
After that, Caron’s motion was put on the floor. She started working with staff in June knowing that this was coming, and that both Toronto and Ottawa have already passed something like this. Caron called this obsolete policy that needs to change, and Enbridge was never going to undertake those efforts on their own. Our underground real estate has value, there’s the climate change questions to consider, and yes, this is about redistributing revenue too.
Caron says that this is a long game, if they do nothing now, they will get nothing so let’s do something.
Staff asked for a definition of “negotiate” in the motion, and Caron said that he was her hope that they would try to get the three conditions included in a new agreement: Charge fees for the use of public property, ensure no liability for the City when moving gas infrastructure, and ensure that future charges to the use of municipal property are not passed on to customers. If the City doesn’t get these things, then Caron said that they should let the OEB order the status quo to continue, but Guelph shouldn’t choose the status quo.
There was some wordsmithing on a couple of matters, but not everyone seemed satisfied. Gibson snidely said that council was again throwing out a staff recommendation and then writing one of their own, and then said that he thinks this motion will hurt people in the end by increasing their gas bill, but that was not the majority opinion. Most councillors thought it was worth the gamble instead of signing what’s basically the same agreement for another 20-year hitch.
The new recommendation was approved 11-2 with only Gibson and Billings voting against.
The only other item on the agenda was the Blue Box Transition Update. Staff explained how 2025 was going to be a transition year where people shouldn’t see too many changes in how their recyclables are collected, although there will be a 30 per cent increase in the number of items that the new contractor will be able to collect. Cameron Walsh, Division Manager of Solid Waste Resources, said that communications will be a challenge, but they’re trying to hit as many channels as possible as we count down to the new year, and then they will readjust in January.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 