Committee of the Whole

7:41basically turn on. Green is on. So Councillor Alton and Kate and we're just about to start but

19:22we are pretty kind of close to the line on on quorum so if we could just make sure your cameras

19:28are on for for us that we'd appreciate that. Oh we got a couple more that I've walked in here which

19:33is perfect and actually it is two o'clock on the dot so I will call our committee the whole meeting

19:39together. It's Tuesday December the 2nd 2025 and so thank you everyone for joining us. I did

19:47receive regrets from two Councillor Chu, Councillor Gibson, Councillor Richardson

19:55and so those three for sure should be noted in the minutes as having not having not being able

20:03to attend today but with that please stand if you are able and join us as we recognize

20:10our national anthem. Alright thanks everyone as we continue just a moment of silent reflection.

21:54Okay thank you everybody and we have our territorial acknowledgement as well as we

21:58start today so as we gather let us take time to reflect on the privilege to live and work here

22:03in Guelph a city built over rich indigenous histories as guests here we should reflect upon

22:09the responsibility to care for this land and the people who live here today and the generations to

22:15come. For actions today can move us towards reconciliation which should take pause and make

22:20those decisions with intention and gratitude. This place we call Guelph is served as traditional lands

22:26and a place of refuge for many peoples over time but more specifically the Aniwana Rock and the

22:31Hone Neshoni. This land is held as the treaty lands and territory with the Mississaugas of

22:36the Credit First Nation. Guelph lies directly adjacent to the Hullamond track and is part of a

22:42long established traditional hunting grounds for the six nations of the Grand River. Many First

22:47Nations Inuit and Métis people who have come from across Turtle Island call Guelph home today.

22:53And with that is there any disclosure of pecuniary interest any general nature thereof for the items

22:59in front of us the long list of items on this agenda no okay not hearing and seeing anybody

23:07we are going to kick off with some staff recognitions which is always fun we got three

23:14and so I'm going to turn it over to both Chair Caron and Chair Downer and we're going to start

23:22with Chair Caron. Fantastic thank you Mr. Mayor and I am I am so privileged to be able to recognize

23:29these two outstanding achievements and the first one is Adam Fisher who is our general

23:35information of information technology and who has completed the Rotman School Chief Information

23:41Officer Canada Executive Leadership Program certification. So on behalf of City Council

23:47it is my pleasure to recognize Adam Fisher who has successfully earned the prestigious CIOD

23:54designation a significant milestone that reflects his dedication to leadership and excellence

24:01in the IT field. The CIOD designation which is awarded by the CIO Association of Canada CIOCAN

24:10is the national standard of excellence for senior IT leaders and it signifies not only deep

24:16expertise in technology and digital strategy but also the ability to lead transformational change

24:23contribute to executive decision-making and drive innovation across the organization. To earn

24:29this designation Adam completed the CIO Executive Leadership Program offered by the Rotman School

24:34of Management at the University of Toronto in partnership with CIOCAN. This intensive program

24:41includes strategic planning in IT governance, financial acumen, vendor management and digital

24:46transformation. Upon completion Adam passed the CIOCAN designation exam and is now officially

24:53recognized as a certified CIO by the CIO Association of Canada. This achievement not only affirms Adam's

25:00leadership and strategic capabilities but also positions him to continue shaping the future

25:06of technology in our organization here at the City of Guelph and beyond. Congratulations Adam,

25:12this is a significant feather in your cap and we are so proud of you here at the City of Guelph.

25:21There he is, he was scanning the gallery thing, I know he's here somewhere there, thanks.

25:30Our second recognition is for our very own City Clerk and the General Manager of our City

25:37Clerk's office Dylan McMahon and so congratulations Dylan and colleagues please join me as well in

25:46recognizing Dylan for his outstanding service and contributions to the Association of Municipal

25:51Managers, Clerks and Treasures of Ontario. I hope I always get that acronym right, it's Ampt Co.

25:58And Dylan has been an active member of Ampt Co since 2017 serving as the Zone 2 board director

26:04and representing colleagues from Bruce, Dufferin, Gray, Huron, Perth, Simcoe, Wellington

26:10Counties and the City of Guelph on the Ampt Co. Board. That's a huge part of our Ontario geography,

26:17it's a big jurisdiction. During this tenure Dylan played a key role in recruiting the

26:22current executive director guiding the organization through the challenges of COVID-19

26:27and positioning Ampt Co. to deliver, to continue delivering meaningful opportunities for its members.

26:34Which number 2300 plus municipal staff across this province, the largest volunteer municipal

26:41association in Ontario. Beyond his leadership on the board Dylan contributed in many ways

26:47participating in committees and working groups, mentoring through Ampt Co mentorship program

26:53and instructing several education programs. His dedication and professionalism have consistently

26:58reflected well on both himself and the City of Guelph so please join me in congratulating Dylan

27:04on this well deserved recognition and for his significant contributions to Ampt Co and the broader

27:09municipal sector. And Mr. Mayor while he was doing all of this volunteer work for this organization

27:15he was also here at council meetings supporting us as council becoming a new dad and he has consistently

27:23taken on new leadership opportunities within our organization so when you wrap that all up in one

27:28package we should be so proud of Dylan and his accomplishments so congratulations.

27:42Okay so the next one the next staff recognition is for Brittany Castle. Now can you give us a

27:47wave Brittany? You're hiding behind the screen there for me. I want everybody else to be able to see

27:53you. So Brittany was born in Mississauga and lived in Markham before moving with her family to Guelph.

27:58She attended Centennial Collegiate and was introduced to rugby by her friends. She also played for the

28:06University of Guelph Griffins women's team and today she is the assistant coach at the University

28:11of Guelph and vice president of a local rugby club. Brittany began her firefighting career that

28:17brings us to the staff recognition with the City of Guelph Fire Department on March 18, 2019 and

28:24continues to be a proud member. Brittany made her international debut for Canada in 2017 at the

28:32CAMM series and she was subsequently selected for their World Cup squad that year. She competed

28:40for Canada in the 2021 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and in 2023 she was named to Canada squad

28:48for their test against Springbok women and for the Pacific Four series. She started in Canada's

28:5666 to 7th Rashing of South Africa in Madrid, Spain. She was selected for Canada squad for the 2025

29:06Pacific Four series and on July 24, 2025 she was named to the Canadian team for the Rugby

29:14Rugby World Cup. Wow. Isn't that cool? Yeah. The Canadian rugby team reached the finals in the

29:21World Cup despite operating on a budget nearly 10 times smaller than professional programs.

29:28So on behalf of the City of Guelph congratulations to you and your Canadian teammates on winning the

29:33silver at the Rugby World Cup final and we are so very proud of your achievements in rugby,

29:39your commitment and dedication to sport are truly inspiring and many Canadians are proud of your

29:45accomplishments and those of your teammates and we're so proud that you work for us in Guelph.

30:01Here, I saw a picture of that picture.

30:41Well thank you and congratulations to everyone again. Thank you to the chairs for reading that

33:26and recognizing them. That's wonderful. Look we only have two items on of our agenda today

33:33and I'm just wondering to my colleagues and I'm sorry if I didn't ask this in advance but

33:38to you Guller and to Karan, do you want to like switch chairs and everything or did you want

33:43to just do it from where you're sitting? Are you okay with that? I know, I know. So is that okay

33:52with you Councillor Goller? Thurks are you okay with that? Yeah okay so thank you. I'll just turn

33:57over to you to help with the presentation fulfilling that one item okay? Go ahead.

34:04Thank you. We'll now go on to agenda item 4.1, the 2025 external audit plan. We have a presentation

34:13from our KPMG presenter Brendan Hall and I'll turn it over to you. Perfect, thank you very much.

34:26Again my name is Brendan Hall. I'm an audit partner with KPMG based out of Kitchener

34:30and today really our purpose is to walk through with the committee our plan for the Fiscal 2025

34:36audit. Happy to stop along the way if there are any questions or if there are questions at the end,

34:41happy to take those as well. So our first section really of the report that that we'll speak to in

34:59detail is materiality. So every audit under Canadian audit standards is required to to set a level of

35:06materiality which will guide the performance of the audit procedures that we execute to ensure

35:10that the financial statements that are issued, the consolidated City of Guelph financial statements

35:15are free for material misstatement. So for a public sector entity we're typically looking at

35:21revenue as a benchmark. Again not a profit focused or oriented entity so that would typically default

35:28to a profit based metric but for a city and other municipalities we're typically looking at that

35:33revenue figure as a benchmark and so we've set materiality based off of the previous years

35:39consolidated revenues which results in a materiality level of 10 million dollars. That approximates 1.5%

35:46of revenue. The typical thresholds for a gross benchmark would be around the 1 to 3% realm so

35:54you can see that we're kind of well within the materiality thresholds and guidance. We are required

36:02to communicate with this group where there are areas of the audit where we rely on experts or other

36:09individuals that help support numbers within the financial statements. So in terms of the employee

36:15benefits that the City of Guelph has the City uses an actuarial firm to help model what those

36:22liabilities are modeled and estimated to be. We confirm with that party directly to ensure

36:28the information is consistent with what's been presented in the financial statements. We also

36:32perform substantive testing on our end to validate the inputs that are going into that actuarial's

36:38model which headcount age of employees and things like that. The other area where we do

36:46rely on individuals with specialized skills would be with respect to asset retirement obligations

36:53or the contaminated sites and again performing substantive audit procedures on changes that

36:58have occurred during the year. When we refer to the consolidated City of Guelph statements it's

37:05important to take that step back and just understand the various components that do come into the

37:10consolidated statements. So within the consolidated financial statements that we report on we have

37:15the Elliott, we have the Downtown Guelph Business Association, we have the City's proportionate

37:21share of the health unit and we also have Guelph municipal holdings and Guelph Junction Railway

37:26Limited. All of these entities have their own standalone audits that are performed and the

37:33results of those financial statements get consolidated in to the City of Guelph's consolidated

37:38financial statements that this engagement team ultimately provides an opinion on. We're going

37:46to walk through some of our core areas in terms of risk assessment where we spend significant

37:53portions of our time and discuss some of the procedures that we perform to get the evidence

37:58that we need to put an opinion on those financial statements. One area of significant risk which

38:06is common across all audits that are performed in Canada is we're required to presume that there

38:12is a risk of management override within the financial statements. This is relevant if you're

38:16working on a large publicly traded company, it's relevant if you're working on a municipality,

38:20it's relevant if you're working on a small owner managed business. There are certain procedures

38:25we're required to perform to address that risk which typically is around journal entry review. So in

38:31addition to the substantive testing that we do over the financial statement captions, we also do

38:36some work on journal entries to identify if there's any indication that there has been

38:41inappropriate journal entries reported throughout the fiscal year. We will report to this group if

38:46there's any results from those procedures in our findings report. The next section that we're going

38:53to go through is touching on some of our core areas and the procedures that we perform to get

38:58comfortable that the figures are free from material misstatement. So with post-employment

39:04benefits, you know, I indicated we do work with with the city's consultants that helped to model

39:11those actuarial figures and we perform testing on the inputs that that group uses to model the

39:16actuarial assumptions. Pertangible capital assets, a very material figure for the city of Guelph.

39:22The city has, you know, in excess of 1.4 billion in capital assets, significant additions occur

39:30each year so the city constructs assets, acquires assets. Our team performs sampling on those capital

39:37asset additions to ensure that things that are being capitalized do have indicators of a multi-year

39:43benefit for the city and should not have been expensed through the statement of operations.

39:47We also perform work on an inverse direction looking at things that the city has expensed

39:53to ensure that those are appropriate and not indicative of something that should have been

39:56capitalized. For obligatory reserve fund revenue and other deferred revenue balances,

40:03our focus is really in two different two different elements. So in terms of being comfortable with

40:08the completeness of that deferred revenue or obligatory reserve balance, our team is doing

40:13work on the DC collections which would increase the obligatory reserve balance. We also perform

40:19substantive testing on the revenue that's realized that would draw that that obligatory reserve

40:25fund down. So again two very different tests that we're doing but for the purpose to get

40:30to get comfortable on the ending obligatory reserve balance. Asset retirement obligations was

40:38a very large, you know, discussion point in the past couple years was a new accounting standard.

40:44No longer a new accounting standard but there is requirements to update those estimates,

40:50accrete those liabilities and to the extent any of those asset retirement obligations have been

40:54settled during the year, there may be adjustments that that our team has to test and substantiate.

41:00So again not not expected to be a significant portion but this was a much larger topic in previous

41:06years. Cash and investments, very sizable balances for the city of Guelph. Cash and investments both

41:15both very material numbers. We confirm and interact directly with the city's banks and financial

41:21institutions that hold balances to ensure that what the city of Guelph has recorded in their general

41:26ledger is consistent with what we're what we're seeing with those third parties. We're also

41:32testing any reconciling items. So in cash there are typically reconciling items in terms of timing

41:36differences to ensure that those are accurately reflected. To the extent there are derivatives

41:42we would also be doing work on the fair value of those those derivative assets.

41:48Government contributions, another area where substantive testing is performed to ensure that

41:53the revenues that the city is recording are accurate and supported. So I won't plan to go

42:04through the appendices that are in this report but if there are questions or comments I would be

42:10happy to take those at this point in time. Well thank you very much for that presentation.

42:17We have our recommendations so perhaps I'll look to one of my colleagues to move the recommendation

42:22and we'll see if we have any questions. Moved by Councillor Cussin that KPMG LOP 2025's external

42:29audit plan be received for information and seconded by Mayor Guthrie. Do we have any questions for

42:37other KPMG? Yes. Go ahead Councillor Allt. Thank you very much Chair Gulliver. One quick question

42:47primarily for the public. Asset retirement balance. I was wondering if you could give

42:54some examples of that. I'm going to give one that I don't think is part of the retirement

42:59balance but some might ask and that's the current library which will be you know essentially is

43:08surplus as of next year but is surplus to the Guelph Public Library Board. Are there other

43:13examples and how small do those assets get? I assume that operating equipment is not capital asset.

43:25So in terms of other examples of asset retirement obligations you know quite common one of the

43:32one of the largest ones for municipality tends to relate to older buildings that may have materials

43:38that were used. Again I'm not a building expert. I'm not going to pretend to know all my years

43:43exactly but pre kind of the mid 1980s asbestos was very commonly used. You have grout materials. I've

43:51learned too much about asbestos to be honest in the past two years with Aero but many buildings have

43:57elements that are going to need specific remediation when those assets reach the end of their useful

44:03life. That would be one where you see probably many municipalities having an element of that.

44:13Thank you very much that's perfect. Thank you Councillor Oldt. Any other questions from

44:21St. Nonne? Well thank you very much for the presentation. I'll call the vote all in favour

44:26of approving the recommendation. Oh sorry do you want to we'll keep it that way?

44:33Okay okay we'll take that back. Anyone against the motion on the floor? St. Nonne that passes

44:42unanimously. Thank you very much for your presentation and that is it for this agenda item. I will

44:49turn things back to Mira Guthrie. Great thanks Chair Goller and now I'll turn it over to Chair

44:56Caron please for corporate services. Thank you Mr. Mayor we only have one consent agenda item

45:01today on corporate services and that is our 2025 third quarter budget monitoring report

45:06and the recommendation on the floor is that the capital project budget adjustments in attachment

45:11to funding adjustments in table four be approved so if I could have a mover and a seconder.

45:16Councillor Pousatil, Mayor Guthrie are there any questions of staff on this consent item?

45:22Oh we have Councillor Kate over to you. Thank you it's not a question more of a comment I just

45:31want to say especially after this large budget season thank you very very much to our staff

45:37in corporate services. I know you do a lot of unseen work and we appreciate you. We ask you a

45:43lot of questions and you answered them all so thanks. Did you on that? Are there any

45:52opposed? Anyone against the recommendation? Seeing none that motion is carried. DCAO O'Brien did you

45:59have any staff announcements for corporate services? Through you Madam Chair no and I don't I'll look

46:06to the CO as well if there's any from service right now. Okay back over. Thank you Chair Caron.

46:15Seeing nothing further I am going to ask for a motion to adjourn for our committee of the whole

46:22meeting. I'm sorry Councillor Cossin did you okay I I I guess I do have a quick announcement

46:33so the council and mayors tree lighting will be on Friday I believe it's at 6 30 but gathering a

46:41little bit earlier than that is always great. Live Band the flamingos, Guelph Band the flamingos are

46:48playing and also there is an ask for people to bring newly new wrapping paper new Christmas

46:59wrapping paper for the Children's Foundation to to bring to them if you can and then of course on

47:07the next day it is the Santa Claus parade and so we hope that everybody comes down and enjoys that

47:15as well you might see some crazy elves running all over the place giving out some candy and

47:21high fives so lots of floats and fun for the downtown and especially as spirit of the season

47:28starts as well so please support local and come on down and support the downtown and everything

47:34that our community is doing to pull together for that. With that Councillor Cossin you go to move

47:40adjournment thank you. Councillor Billings I know you love maybe the second that perfect

47:47I'll call the vote is anyone against adjournment. Nobody so thank you so much everyone have a great

47:53rest of the day.