Council Orientation and Education Workshop

3:58All right, good evening everyone. It is Wednesday, June 12th, 2024. It's six o'clock and this is our Council orientation education workshop meeting.

4:08We will be going through the annual strategic plan performance reporting.

4:14And before we kick off completely, make sure we stand if you're able to recognize our national anthem.

4:23Great. Thank you. And now just a moment of silent reflection before we continue.

5:54Thank you now for our territorial acknowledgement as we gather, let us take time to reflect on our privilege to live and work in Guelph, a city that's built over rich indigenous histories.

6:15We're guests here. We should reflect upon the responsibility to care for this land, the people who live here today and the generations to come.

6:22If our actions today can move us towards reconciliation, we should take pause and make those decisions with intention and gratitude.

6:29This place we call Guelph is served as traditional lands and a place of refuge for many peoples over time, but more specifically the Anahuanarok and the Hone Nishoni.

6:38This land is held as the treaty lands and territory with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

6:43Guelph lies directly adjacent to the Haldeman track and is part of a long established traditional hunting grounds for the six nations of the Grand River.

6:51Many First Nations, Inuit and Métis people who have come from across Turtle Island call Guelph home today.

6:59And with that, is there any disclosure of pecuniary interest or any general nature thereof for the workshop in front of us?

7:06Hearing and seeing none, I did get official regrets from a counselor or a work.

7:15I don't know if anyone else has yet, maybe into the clerks, that's all I'm aware of.

7:21So I think we're planned to try to be here as our normal kind of timeframe, you know, a couple hours tops and we'll start with introduction from our CAO, Scott Stewart, and then we'll get into all the presentations of everything Guelph.

7:40So here we go.

7:43Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Good evening. Today I'm joined by members of the executive team and staff to mark a milestone in our corporate performance maturity and present the final Guelph future ready progress report.

7:57As 2023, 2023 represents the final year of the Guelph future ready strategic plan. It's an opportunity to review not only the 2023 results but also reflect on the progress made since 2019.

8:12Reporting on progress is one way we lead with accountability, which is one of the actions in our current strategic plan.

8:20The report highlights many accomplishments of the past four years. It also speaks to areas where we need to continue to improve on as a city, and we recognize that balanced reporting is critical as we move towards being more data driven as an organization.

8:37We continue to work hard to improve the way we are collecting and reporting on progress. This works, this work includes improving the quality of KPIs and enhancing data availability and ensuring we communicate progress in a clear and transparent manner.

8:52And tonight marks the first year where we will share not only our city data but also our local boards and shared services to present on their progress.

9:04And I'd like to thank them for joining us this evening as well. Thank you to all of you.

9:09So to get us started, I'll hand this over to Jody Sales, our general manager of strategic initiatives and Intergovernmental Services.

9:16Jody.

9:18Thanks. So our focus for tonight for the city's portion of the agenda will be on the accomplishments of the 2019 to 2023 Guelph Future Ready Plan.

9:28Our executive team members will highlight the progress on strategic initiatives and provide you with an update on some key performance indicators.

9:35We know that the current strategic plan future Guelph is also top of mind for you. So we will also provide you with some early highlights on the first six months of implementation.

9:44Over the past four years, we've worked hard to make some improvements to our performance reporting. And to that end, we'll walk you through a brief demonstration of the 2023 performance reporting website to show you the work underway and how we're going to continue to build and improve on this important work.

9:59We'll then pause to answer any questions related to the city data before turning it over to our local boards and shared services for their presentations and any questions you may have of them.

10:09So let's get started with the Guelph Future Ready highlights.

10:13Our future ready journey started in 2019 with an ambitious set of initiatives and targets. What the future ready plan did not account for was a global pandemic to hit us in March of 2020, causing us to shift gears and respond to an entirely new set of challenges.

10:28But we adapted and despite those added challenges implementation of the strategic plan continued. Now as we look back on the past five years, there's a lot to celebrate.

10:3879% of our initiatives were completed or have achieved significant progress by the end of 2023. We'll highlight some of these throughout the presentation.

10:4858% of all of our KPIs reported data in 2023 with an additional 13% listed as data collection in progress.

10:57We expect this number to significantly increase with the new strategic plan as we've improved data availability and KPIs that are being measured.

11:05Each year we've made incremental improvements in the way data has been reported and presented, improving our ability to be a data driven organization.

11:13I'm proud of how far we've come. We are out front of the municipal sector in this space and I want to recognize Guelph's collective leadership.

11:22I'll now turn it back over to CAO Stuart who will talk about our first pillar, Powering Our Future.

11:27Thank you Miss Sales.

11:33The focus of this pillar is on supporting a strong local economy, developing partnerships and creating a shared prosperity for everyone in Guelph.

11:42And I'm proud to say that the vast majority of the initiatives under Powering Our Future are complete.

11:48I want to highlight a couple of real success stories from those lists.

11:52The economic development and tourism strategy was developed in 2021, focusing on both retaining and supporting existing businesses.

12:00While seeking to attract new business and tourism opportunities.

12:05Through the City of Guelph's employment survey, 3,505 businesses were able to be categorized or cataloged rather, adding to the development of a comprehensive business database for economic development.

12:19We celebrated over 200 million in investment commitments into our local economy in 2023.

12:27In February of 2022, Council voted to implement the municipal accommodation tax, the MAT tax.

12:33This tax provided a new income stream that allows us to invest more in making Guelph, not only a great place to live, but also a destination to visit.

12:42In 2023, the City collected $950,000 in MAT revenues, which is about $150,000 more than what was projected.

12:52These funds are already being put to work. For example, in 2023, the City sent 20 food and beverage business representatives to the Feast on the Farm Industry Day as a learning and networking opportunity to help continue to grow this sector.

13:08And of the two KPIs associated with this pillar, I'll draw your attention to the first one.

13:16There were 277 new circular businesses in collaborations in 2023, a significant achievement which is part of the legacy of Guelph's Smart Cities work.

13:26I will now pass it over to DCEO Holmes for our next two pillars.

13:30Jane.

13:32Thank you, CAO Stewart.

13:34So, sustaining our future focuses on caring for the local government, responding to climate change and preparing Guelph for a net zero carbon future.

13:44Some of the key accomplishments in this pillar include the implementation of the ISO 50,001 Corporate Energy Management System, which assists in setting clear energy performance objectives and targets.

13:56The ISO 50,001 target ensures that the City will follow global best practices to manage and improve how we use energy.

14:04This initiative has already led to a 4% decrease in overall emissions year over year and a 7% overall reduction from the 2018 baseline.

14:15We are the first municipality in Canada to achieve this Corporate-wide certification.

14:22Also, the Guelph Climate Adaptation Plan was completed in 2023.

14:26This comprehensive strategy outlines how the City will implement actions to manage and reduce the risk of climate change.

14:34The sustaining our future KPIs highlight where some progress has been made and tells us that more work is needed for us to meet our long term targets.

14:44The year over year changes have been influenced by the reopening of many institutions after COVID, as the community data is based in 2022, which is the latest data available.

14:54It still shows that more reductions are needed across our community to meet the 2050 race to zero targets.

15:01We continue to increase our use of renewable energy towards 100% renewable energy targets.

15:07Facility related emissions have been reduced significantly with less consumption of natural gas due to heat recovery, conservation, and the switch to heat pumps.

15:17EV transition is just starting to take hold and we are expecting to see a decrease in these emissions going forward if we stay the course with this transition.

15:26Continued investment across the organization is required to meet our targets as well as engagement with the community to help fight climate change.

15:35I would also encourage you to check out the newly released Environmental Sustainability Report for more detailed KPIs related to our environmental performance and this can be found on our annual reports page.

15:48I'm also pleased to provide you with an update about navigating our future. This pillar speaks to how our community moves, whether that's through trails, paths, roads, or other forms of transportation.

16:00The Transportation Master Plan was approved in 2022 and will guide the development of a sustainable and resilient transportation network over the next 30 years.

16:09In 2023, the implementation of the TMP included the completion of the downtown parking master plan, the approval of Guelph Transit's future ready action plan, the preliminary design studies for 15 kilometers of the cycling spine network,

16:26continued work to electrify city fleet by purchasing 11 electric buses of which four were added into active service on the road.

16:35Under the KPIs, I wanted to highlight that the reduction in collision severity continues to trend positively.

16:41This has been supported by the implementation of the Community Road Safety Strategy, which included the installation and operation of red light cameras and automated speed enforcement devices in support of Vision Zero efforts.

16:55As was recently reported, the initial usage of ASC cameras has shown that drivers in areas where the cameras were present were three times more likely to drive under the posted speed limit.

17:06With that, I'll turn it over to DCO Lee.

17:15Thank you, DCO Holmes. Today I'll walk us through working together for our future.

17:19This pillar speaks to how city staff work together to support an effective, fiscally responsible, entrusted local government.

17:26While these initiatives are still in progress, there were several significant accomplishments within each initiative over the past four years.

17:33In 2021, the city's new communications and engagement strategy, One City, One Voice, shared purpose, was completed.

17:41The plan guides city employees as we serve and engage with our community and improve access to government through individual accountability and collective responsibility.

17:51The City of Guelph has been named one of Waterloo's top employers by Canada's top 100 employers for the third year in a row.

18:00Designations like this prove that we stand out in a competitive labour market and continue to attract and retain high quality talent.

18:09The city's maternity and parental leave and retirement planning assistance services and our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion were among the reasons for our designation.

18:20The digital services team project was cancelled as it was determined through the initial stages of this project that there were alternate ways to improve digital service delivery options,

18:29and those are reflected in our new strategic plan, Future Guelph.

18:34Our financial KPIs continue to meet our targets. The city's credit rating increased in 2022 from AA plus to AAA, the highest credit rating available.

18:45Given the economic uncertainty and inflationary pressures we've all experienced over the past few years, this is a great achievement.

18:52The city's total tax burden fell from 5.1 to 4.9 as a percentage of household income, representing a continued focus on affordability.

19:02I also want to share that in the coming weeks and months that you will continue to receive additional data and reporting.

19:09On June 21st we'll publish an information report with the results of our recent satisfaction survey.

19:15We've also launched the employee engagement survey internally, which happens to actually close today, which will provide us with data for the employee engagement index measure.

19:25And it will also give us very other important insights about our workforce.

19:30Now over to you DCO Clark Bush.

19:36Thank you Trevor. I'm happy to walk us through the final priority area, Building Our Future.

19:41This pillar speaks to investing in our community to support well-being, safety and belonging.

19:48Two major infrastructure projects in progress that I want to highlight are the South End Community Center and Baker Street Development.

19:56The South End Community Center project broke ground in 2023.

20:02The completed 160,000 square foot facility will include two ice rinks, an aquatic center, double gymnasium, walking track and multi-purpose rooms.

20:13Elements are also being included in the construction that support the city's net zero carbon energy goals.

20:19It is expected to be a hub for community activity once completed, which is scheduled for late 2026.

20:27The Baker District Redevelopment Project also broke ground in 2023.

20:31When complete, this redevelopment, which began as a former municipal parking lot, will create a renewed area of activity and will help revitalize downtown Guelph.

20:42It will include the new central library, a public parking garage located under the library, public squares, commercial and retail spaces and residential towers.

20:53The main feature will be the new 88,000 square foot central library, which will be a zero carbon building.

21:00The central library is scheduled to be completed in 2026.

21:05There are a significant number of KPIs under Building Our Future, so we've split them across two slides.

21:11On this slide, I want to draw your attention to measures 15 and 16.

21:17The Paramedic Response Times have seen continuous improvement over the future Guelph plan, where those that fall under Scale 1 are now meeting targets and those under Scale 2 are progressing towards the target.

21:29This can be attributed to the improvement in offload delays at hospitals and investments such as those made to the Community Paramedicine Program and additional frontline paramedic shifts.

21:41Continued investments will allow for us to maintain and improve these measures.

21:47While we recognize that there is a significant amount of work to be done to increase the availability of affordable housing in the city, we are happy to see some positive progress made in affordable residential units.

21:59Our 2023 report shows that 10% of secondary rental units meet the affordability targets.

22:06I know our new future Guelph strategic plan includes several initiatives and measures related to housing that we will continue to track moving forward.

22:14I will now pass it over to Erin Brittnall, Manager Corporate Performance and Strategy to walk us through the new performance website.

22:21Thank you DCAO Clackbush, and I'm just going to pull up our new reporting website here so that we can do a little tour of it.

22:37So this live today and what you are going to see is we've tried to make this easier to read.

22:55It's more streamlined and easier to find the information. So we'll take a look through here. So you see on our homepage, what the homepage now does is it has our quick quote that speaks to some highlights of what's in the plan.

23:10You can scroll through the scroll bar to see some of the highlights from our pillars, as well as a link directly to this meeting so individuals can go on and read more about the progress report.

23:23Being the page simple allows people to easily find information under each of these pillars, which highlight at the top. So I'll give you an example we'll walk through the powering our future.

23:33So when you go under powering your future, the first thing you see this time around is the highlights. And these are ones that our CAO and DCAOs have been speaking to today.

23:46But we wanted to first highlight the great work that has happened under the strategic plan. So you see there are stories and you can click on each story and it gives you more information about these initiatives.

23:58Following that, you see the information on the initiatives. So new this year, you don't actually have to click on every single initiative to see the scope, schedule and budget.

24:09We've brought that right up to the homepage to make it easier for individuals to find how things are going under each of them. You can quickly see, fortunately, under powering your future, everything is looking great and green.

24:22You can still see more information. So if you want to see the historic trends, so say I wanted to click on this first one here, you could still work through the dashboard.

24:31And it'll show you the historic so you can see where we were able to write the ship some notes and a link as well to more information so individuals can find lots of information on each of these initiatives.

24:43At the bottom of the page, we have included our key performance indicators in a similar template. What you can see is the indicators and whether they've met our target, made progress are collecting data.

24:56Similarly, though, you can see historic information. So if you want to see more information on the specific data behind it, you can click through.

25:05And what it does is actually provide you the trends over each of the years, notes on the KPI, as well as a link where you can find more information.

25:14We've tried to make this easy for people to navigate, easy for people to find information and dig further into, trying to make improvements on how we display our information going forward.

25:24So now I'm going to turn it back over to Miss Sales who's going to continue the presentation.

25:31You'll bear with us for a moment while we switch the technology back to the slideshow.

25:40But while the focus of tonight's presentation has really been on the 2019 to 2023 Guelph Future Ready strategic plan, we did want to give you a quick update on the progress on our new strategic plan, Future Guelph, which runs from 2024 to 2027.

25:542024 is the baseline year for Future Guelph and for many measures. So in the KPI reporting, you will see notes that talk about baseline year and data collection and progress.

26:05For tonight, we focused on the Future Guelph highlights specific to the strategic initiatives within that plan.

26:11Under the foundations focus area, we've begun work on an inventory of city owned assets that will allow us to maximize our strategic real estate.

26:20This helps us understand where opportunities exist to better utilize some of those assets for other purposes, including housing.

26:26And I know that this item is before council on the calendar in the coming weeks.

26:30Under our new city building focus area, work continues on our housing pledge.

26:34The city met 98% of its housing target in 2023 with 1287 new units.

26:40This resulted in the city receiving $4.68 million from the building faster fund.

26:45But as you're aware, the city doesn't actually build housing and recent media reports about housing starts across Ontario are showing signs of slowing.

26:53So we continue to work collaboratively with all levels of government to find funding opportunities and collaborate with community and development partners to find solutions for barriers associated with housing.

27:03And while there's been a focus on increasing housing units available in Guelph, we've also been working to make homes more energy, more efficient connected to the focus area of the environment.

27:14The Guelph-Greener Homes program, for example, is underway with over 50 energy retrofit projects completed to date and another 96 in progress.

27:22And finally, focusing on people and economy, the downtown renewal project planning phase continues, and the project is on track to commence construction in 2026.

27:32Since 2019, we've made great strides as a data driven organization from approval of our very first set of KPIs to the creation of an interactive performance report card published annually.

27:45The first strategic plan cycle saw significant progress with regard to performance measurement.

27:53But we are not stopping here. In addition to the improvements with our future Guelph reporting, we're also ensuring that data reporting initiatives across the entire organization are better connected and telling more of a complete story for our residents.

28:06On the new landing page that you see on the screen, the corporate performance reporting page directs readers not only to the strategic plan reports, but also a lot of other great reports such as the environmental sustainability report that you heard about earlier, which is live right now.

28:22And departmental annual reports and financial reports and a lot more.

28:27I'll now pause to take questions and on any city data before we move to our local boards and shared services.

28:35Is there anything as a follow up for Miss sales or.

28:39Okay, Councillor Guller.

28:41Thank you for your worship to to staff.

28:49I think that particularly would be our target for 100% renewable energy. I'm a little confused when when I looked at that dashboard. It looked like it had gone down, but the wording it said that it had increased by percent so.

29:08So, through the mayor to the councillor, we were looking at in a year over year admissions, the emissions did increase 8% but in a long term trend, they are decreasing.

29:31So, sometimes in a in year increase, you see whether it's the reopening of facilities after COVID, for example, you have more emissions being used in the city.

29:42You have more emissions being used than were typical. So, you see these individually your trends, but the overall trend is still decreasing of emissions.

29:52Okay, okay. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification and I'll follow up with this to understand it better, but it's good to hear that.

30:01That we are we're doing well, even though there was a one year increase. I appreciate that.

30:09Great. Nothing further so we can move to the outside boards, which is great and I see many of them here and we're we're starting with the downtown Guelph Business Association.

30:21Good chair. Chuck, I think is in the front row there. So, come on down. Chuck and counselor downer and I were and and class and as well actually we were at their AGM just a couple of days ago.

30:39So, some of this might be a little bit of a repeat for now council in the community after their AGM, but it was it was a counselor downer and cost was pretty positive night. So, looking forward to this.

30:52So, right over to you, Chuck. Thank you a little too high for it.

31:06Thank you for having me.

31:10This is similar as our AGM. I'm just going to report on some of our highlights over the last year year and a half since we did have a completely new board transition into the DGB.

31:23Some of those financial highlights from 2023 versus 2022.

31:29Our revenue was up about half a million dollars that was particularly as a result of receiving a federal grant.

31:37Which we implemented in which I think most everybody in this room is probably seen the benefit of that as we lit up five buildings downtown.

31:47That are themed throughout the year to different events and different holidays of the year.

31:54Our total revenue was 1.24 million up from almost 0.8 million as I mentioned, and expenses were significantly degree decreased.

32:06We've increased large in part to savings on staff and us cutting out a lot of surplus expenses and things that didn't really benefit the DGB in the past, which put us in a net surplus for the year of about 100 and 25,000 dollars.

32:25According to our account, who's been there 15 plus years, we are in a much stronger financial position than we've ever been in the last decade and a half.

32:36So we're pleased about that.

32:39Other things we accomplished last year, this was our old website that had been around for quite a few years.

32:45We updated that website and modernized it, made it a lot more functional.

32:54And if you go to it, you will be able to see a picture like and similar to what you see here with every storefront that is in the DGB or within the BIA with link with website.

33:08You can call right from their phone number right from the website and you can also see where it is on a map within the DGA.

33:14So we had a lot of functionality and modernized our whole online presence.

33:21Social marketing update. One example was the exotic car show. We've really strengthened the presence of our social marketing.

33:33The exotic car show had 290,000 likes and over 10,000 shares through social media.

33:43And I don't know if anybody got a chance to attend it, but even in climate weather with rain all day, we had over 10,000 attend.

33:53In the last 16 months, we've had over 300,000 engagements in social media, 9.1 million views.

34:01We've reached 3.1 million viewers and we've increased the followers by 16, over 16,000 people, which is averaging about 1,000 new followers a month.

34:14Another benchmark comparison. The before we started the social media program, the average previous 10 reels had 3,000 views.

34:27The most recent 10, 10 reels have averaged almost 90,000 views, which is almost a 2,900% increase or improvement over what we were doing previously.

34:41Just some miscellaneous notes. We've recently hired a membership coordinator, Alex Tujon.

34:50She is working on a lot of engagement pieces to improve those within the DGB with the membership.

34:57She's updating the database, creating a new CRM for better communication.

35:04She's improved and updated our standard operating procedure manual.

35:11She's also updated our welcome package, which is ready to go to print and improve that.

35:18In collaboration with other staff and with the board.

35:22In 2023, we also updated, strengthened and improved our bylaws.

35:29I mentioned already our standard operating procedures. That was done, the welcome package.

35:40And the lighting, including the poles. Some of you, we had lots of comments on lighting up the poles.

35:46The poles, we didn't light up. We're the ones that aren't functional.

35:50So hence the need for the infrastructure program that's going to be coming up to improve that.

35:55But if we could have lit them all up, we would have, but we only lit up the ones that were functional.

36:01I think that was about 28 of them that we lit up.

36:04When that's done, we will, we do have intentions to really improve that.

36:10We also added a benefits program.

36:13A lot of small businesses that either are what we might call a one or two person husband and wife operation,

36:20or that maybe only have a couple employees are unable to get benefits because they don't meet that minimum require.

36:27So we implemented a benefits program for them.

36:30So that even if you're just a one man band, so to speak, you can get benefits.

36:37Programming and events, we added some programming last year. That was a priority for us.

36:42We added some events like the dog promenade.

36:45And we also improved and changed some of the programs, most notably the Christmas parade and the spirit of season and or Christmas market.

36:55Many of you, I think, attended and saw that two day event.

36:59We took it from the third weekend in November to the first weekend in December.

37:05And we changed it from a Sunday afternoon parade to a Saturday evening parade.

37:11The response was incredible, not only from the attendees and the number of attendees, but we were thoroughly impressed and.

37:20Elated with the quality of the floats and the lit floats that came through and that were were the community came and brought and we're looking at.

37:31I'm excited to see what comes in the coming years is particular this year. This year, the event is going from a two day event to a six day event over two weekends.

37:41Saturday and Sunday starting the first weekend in December.

37:47There will be additional programming.

37:50We've added we're adding six new huts last year. We had 18 huts. We're adding another six.

37:57And going forward for 2025, we will be adding more events and more programming to downtown.

38:04That is the board's goal is to really take the heart and municipal act and the two tenants that we are supposed to be following in that municipal act of promoting the downtown and beautifying it.

38:17So that has really been our focus and our intent and plans to go forward.

38:23That's it for me.

38:27Okay, Chuck. Thank you so much for the update and some of those those data points comparison. So thank you very much.

38:35Any questions as a follow up for the DGB a no good job. Thank you. Thank you very much.

38:42Next up is the Elliott community work. Come on up. Thank you very much.

38:51And yet your presentation is up go right ahead.

38:54Good evening. For those of you I haven't met my name is Michelle Parker. I'm the CEO.

39:03That's okay. Not a problem. Good evening.

39:07So I'm here this evening to provide a brief overview of the Elliott the strategic metrics for 2023 and our plans moving forward.

39:17And just for your knowledge that is the original Elliott on the front of the screen.

39:22George Elliott's original home and it's sort of a reminder of where we've come from as we continue to move forward.

39:29So just a quick recap. We're a local board in the designated long term care home for the city of Guelph.

39:41We offer four levels of care within our community.

39:44We have 290 staff and just over 51 volunteers who contributed 1,915 hours to our home in 2023.

39:57As a quick sort of recap. The impact of the pandemic met the board of trustees along with the senior leadership team created a shorter time frame around our strategic plan.

40:09This allowed us to be nimble as well as react to any given situation on the front line while continuing to plan and move forward during a time of uncertainty.

40:25This plan had four strategic imperatives and this is the work that guided us in 2023.

40:31The first on the screen was expanded strengthened long term care facilities.

40:36We had three areas of focus for 2023.

40:39One achieve the Ministry of long term care directed four hours of care milestone to expand our long term care beds and three begin our butterfly philosophy of care journey.

40:51I'm proud to say we achieved the four hours of care one and a half years ahead of the provincial schedule.

40:57We are required to have four hours of care by March 31st 2025.

41:03We are currently at 4.12 hours of care ahead of schedule. So we're pretty proud of that milestone.

41:10With the support of the city, we secured approval for and the capital funding required to build 29 new long term care spaces.

41:19And we began construction in the fall of 2023.

41:23Finally, we began our butterfly journey to become the first long term care home in Guam to be accredited as a butterfly home with the goal of achieving full accreditation in the spring of 2025.

41:37Our second strategic imperative was to be a sector leader in health human resources.

41:42The health system is in a health human resource crisis.

41:46Retention of staff is critical. And perhaps more importantly, the health and well being of our staff is critical to that retention.

41:56Supporting staff as they recovered post pandemic to ensure we managed burnout workplace and life stressors was key to developing the programs listed on this slide.

42:09Further, the team at the Elliott has partnered with staff to ensure they feel accepted, comfortable and supported in their work environment.

42:18Meaningful diversity and inclusive conversations as well as training have begun in earnest as we can continue to evolve as an organization.

42:27I won't read this slide, but this is a small sample of the things we've done in the last year that meets this critical metrics and the objectives of this strategic imperative.

42:42The third strategic imperative was to widen our reach into the community.

42:50This slide lists a small sample of who we are partnering with in the community and the grants that we received in 2023 that helped to support many of our programs.

43:00This slide highlights some of the critical partnerships that have helped pave the way for our future health care professionals.

43:10The impact of those partnerships is being measured in 2024.

43:15For example, the percentage of co-op placements that translate into permanent and or substantial roles at the Elliott.

43:23These partnerships reduce recruitment costs, positively match people to jobs and is an enriching experience for both the student and the Elliott.

43:34Our fourth metric, strengthen the financial well-being and sustainability of the Elliott community.

43:44These imperatives key metrics in 2023 included increasing our donations to support our charitable articles,

43:53measured the investment in technology that increased not only efficiency but supported better care of our residents and enhanced compliance with our various legislative requirements.

44:05Further, we continue to actively partner and engage in our local health and social system via the Guelph-Follington OHT.

44:12In late 2023, the Elliott Board of Trustees and the senior leadership team updated our strategic imperatives,

44:22which now align with the city's budget and planning cycle.

44:26This work focused on being future ready, building upon the strong foundation of work that was completed over the past couple of years.

44:34Our new strategic imperatives for the 2024 to 2027 time period are

44:39Enhance the Elliott community resident experience,

44:43Bring up the best in everyone,

44:46Create community partnerships with purpose and focus on financial sustainability.

44:52I will leave you with these final thoughts this evening.

44:59The Elliott has had many successes during 2023 and I have only highlighted a small number of them this evening.

45:06While our home will continue to manage outbreaks, including COVID,

45:11we are optimistic and more confident than we were a year ago that the pandemic has finally turned a corner and is behind us.

45:20The impact of the last four years continues to impact our organization,

45:25and as a leader I am still humbled by the resiliency of our residents, their families and our staff.

45:32The supports we continue to put in place will ensure our team is prepared for the years to come.

45:38We look forward to celebrating the opening of 29 new long-term care spaces in our home.

45:43While small in numbers, this will have a positive impact on our community for many years.

45:49This would not be happening without the commitment and the support of council and city staff.

45:55We have so much to look forward to and on behalf of the Board of Trustees and our senior leadership team,

46:01I appreciate your ongoing support as we pave a path forward,

46:05ensuring the Elliott is not only future ready, but serves as a model of what care can be now and into the future.

46:11Thank you.

46:13Great, thank you very much for your presentation and update. Any questions at all?

46:19Seeing none. You're great. Thank you so much.

46:23Who is next? Grand River Conservation is here. I think it's Samantha coming up.

46:30How are you?

46:39I'm great. Thank you.

46:40We don't often have you come here. You're just doing your work.

46:45Thank you very much for coming and giving us an update. I'll turn it over to you.

46:50Thank you very much and thank you, council, for having us tonight.

46:53My name is Samantha Lawson. I'm the CAO for the Grand River Conservation Authority.

46:58Today I have a presentation that's going to highlight some of the programs and services that we have

47:03and give you some metrics in terms of how we're meeting our strategic goals.

47:08Green? Big one or a little big one?

47:14Nope. Yep. Okay. Sorry about that.

47:17The Grand River Conservation Authority is one of 36 conservation authorities in Ontario.

47:22As a local watershed management agency, we deliver programs and services to protect and manage impacts on water

47:29and other natural resources in partnerships with all levels of government, landowners, and other groups.

47:36We are an organization that's based at a watershed scale.

47:41The drainage area of the watershed provides a natural boundary for the managing of human and environmental interactions.

47:47Upstream uses affect downstream neighbors regardless of municipal boundaries.

47:52The integrated watershed management approach helps us to address issues related to watershed health, providing benefits to us all.

48:00The Grand River Watershed is one of the largest in southern Ontario.

48:05The prosperity of the Grand River Watershed has been linked to the health of the river and the natural environment.

48:11The GRCA's water management plan identified three main challenges as we move into the next decades.

48:17So the first one is population growth.

48:20The second one is balancing the future needs for extensive agriculture coupled with watershed demands.

48:26And of course, to nobody's surprise, climate change.

48:29With the pressure of increasing population, warmer air and water temperatures,

48:36we have frequent and extreme weather events and intensive agricultural practices.

48:41A holistic watershed-wide approach to managing water resources and natural hazards is needed to ensure that our communities thrive and continue to grow and balance with the natural environment.

48:56Our programs balance human, environmental, and economic needs so that we can deliver on our vision of a healthy watershed now and for future generations.

49:07Our strategic mandate is to develop and implement watershed-based programs that protect people and property from flooding and erosion,

49:14improve the health of the watershed, connect people to the environment, and manage our land holdings in a responsible and sustainable manner.

49:23In 2022, we updated our strategic plan to include two additional priorities to ensure compliance with amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act

49:31and to enhance indigenous awareness and understanding while strengthening our relationship with the First Nation partners within the watershed.

49:39This year, we're actually also embarking on a new strategic plan and process.

49:44The GRCA owns and operates seven large multi-purpose dams and reservoirs including Guelph Dam, which is actively operated year-round to manage river flows.

49:57The GRCA's reservoirs reduce flood peaks by 50% or more and help maintain minimum flows during the dry summer and early fall to support operations of municipal drinking water and wastewater treatment plants for residents.

50:11As part of the requirements under the recent Updates the Conservation Authorities Act, GRCA is completing an asset management plan for the major dams and dikes, which includes the Guelph Dam.

50:22This plan will document the current conditions of the water control infrastructure, risk assessments, and projected capital expenditures to 2044.

50:31Regular maintenance and capital improvements are completed regularly as part of the GRCA's Dam Safety Management Program.

50:39And in 2024, planned work at Guelph Dam includes gate break replacements, painting of mechanical hoist equipments, service gate inspections, and repairs.

50:50Another aspect of mitigating flood damages is our role in planning and development.

50:59For as long as development exists and people live in floodplains, we must actively work to protect their lives and property.

51:06GRCA staff undertake review and comment on planning act applications, planning documents such as official plans and area plans for natural hazard matters including flooding and erosion, wetlands, and storm water quantity control.

51:22On April 1st, 2024, a new minister's regulation, Ontario Regulation 4124, the prohibited acts, exemptions, and permits under the Conservation Authorities Act came into effect.

51:34So this regulation replaces our previous development regulation, which was Ontario 1506.

51:40Much of GRCA's regulatory process will remain the same.

51:45The GRCA continues to require permit applications for development activities in regulated areas, and will continue to provide mandatory Category 1 programs and services related to the reviewing and commenting on applications and other matters as applicable under existing legislation.

52:01In 2023, the GRCA issued 27 permits in the City of Guelph, and in the first quarter of 2024, we've issued 11 permits.

52:14As part of our role in supporting water quality, the GRCA provides monitoring, wastewater optimization, conservation services, and drinking water source protection programs.

52:24The GRCA monitors water quality in the speed and aramosa rivers upstream, within, and downstream of the city.

52:31This information helps us and the city understand the health of the speed river.

52:36The GRCA also maintains two continuous water quality stations on the speed river with real-time data that is available to the public on the GRCA website.

52:46The GRCA also collects monthly samples from sites on the speed river and aramosa river up and downstream of the city as part of the Provincial Water Quality Monitoring Network, and this program collects information on chlorides, nutrients, and metals.

53:01The GRCA's Watershed-Wide Wastewater Optimization Program promotes database decision-making and operational practices to achieve performance targets that go beyond compliance.

53:14This allows the city to better understand the capacity and capability of its facilities and get the most out of these important assets.

53:22The city's wastewater treatment plant is an active participant in the program, contributing data to annual reporting that helps track how municipalities are working to achieve voluntary effluent targets that go above and beyond provincial requirements that improve the health of the speed and grand river.

53:39The primary objective of the source water protection program is protecting drinking water sources from contamination and depletion.

53:49This program supports the updating and implementation of policies to protect the city's drinking water sources in wide geographic areas that extend beyond the city's limits known as well-head protection areas.

54:02In 2023, the GRCA coordinated submissions and engagement of the Ministry of Environment Conservation and Parks, as well as the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry in the review of the draft policies to protect well-drinking water sources from overuse due to activities under the Permit to Take Water Program and the Aggregate Resources Act.

54:24As mentioned, GRCA's reporting for some of these programs extends beyond the city's municipal boundaries into the well-head protection areas for the city's drinking water wells, as well as the catchment areas upstream of the city, which extended to neighboring municipalities.

54:43Working in these areas directly benefits the city of Guelph through protecting its drinking water sources and improving the water quality of the speed and aramosa rivers as they flow through the city.

54:54The GRCA's Rural Water Quality Program helps farmers undertake projects with cost share grants from Wellington County and other federal sources to protect and improve water quality, include tree planting, cover crops, erosion control, nutrient management planning, manure storage, and well projects.

55:12Over the last five years in the city's well-head protection areas and the speed and aramosa watersheds above the city, we have supported 227 projects with 416,000 grants and funding for a total investment by landowners the county and the federal programs of 680,000.

55:35We all know that spending time in nature has a positive effect on people's physical and mental health at the GRCA. We connect people with the natural environment by providing environmental education and access to outdoor spaces.

55:48A vital part of the watersheds recreational infrastructure, our conservation areas host approximately 2 million visitors a year and are important part of the local economy by paying property taxes, hiring local staff, and supporting the vibrant tourism industry in our communities.

56:04Guelph Lake Conservation Area is known for its trails, plantations and deciduous forests, and two large beaches. It has about 300 campsites and hosts to many large events, including Hillside Festival and several triathlons.

56:20The conservation area is open year round offering swimming, sailing, as well as fishing, hiking, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and in 2023 we had over 65,000 people that visited the conservation area.

56:34The GRCA also provides outdoor education to about 30,000 students a year. Over the past years, more than 600,000 students from the city of Guelph and Wellington County have benefited from outdoor environmental education programs at the current Guelph Lake Nature Center.

56:52We're happy to say that we have a new nature center, which is now under construction and it's located within the Guelph Lake Conservation Area. The redesign of this new facility maintains an emphasis on accessible outdoor spaces and incorporates the importance of evolving trends in outdoor education.

57:09But none of this would have been possible without the generous contributions of our donors and the strong support for outdoor education in Guelph and Wellington County.

57:21The GRCA owns approximately 48,000 acres of conservation lands, which includes 11 active fee for use conservation areas, Luther Marsh Wildlife Management Area, five nature centers, cottage lots, we own a lot.

57:36Some of the key initiatives that are underway to meet the requirements of the mandatory programs regulation, we are developing a conservation area strategy, which will establish objectives that will inform GRCA's decision making as it relates to the lands it owns and controls.

57:52We're also currently developing a land inventory, which will compile certain property information, as well as identifying lands as a new requirement under bill 23 identify conservation authority lands that could support housing development.

58:09So for the last two strategic priorities.

58:12We are basically at the tail end of implementing all the changes through the Conservation Authorities Act and the various regulations.

58:19The province has and just wanted to thank your staff as well for the support and yeah patients that they gave us as we were working our way through those mo you agreements and some of the other hiccups we've had with some of the regulations so thank you very much.

58:37And finally enhancing the indigenous awareness understanding so we are working with our First Nation partners to facilitate mutual learning and sharing of information and overall building stronger relationships.

58:52So through ongoing collaboration the GRCA promotes the value of integrated watershed management.

58:58Our region is celebrated for its natural assets including the Grand River, a Canadian heritage river, and its high quality of life.

59:06Like our municipal partners including the city of Guelph we value the health of our community and the environment and our economic vitality.

59:14By continuing to work together we can ensure our shared values and your for future generations and that we can achieve our shared vision of a healthy watershed where we live, work, play and prosper in balance with the natural environment.

59:27And that concludes my presentation.

59:31Thank you very much. Is there any questions at all the GRCA?

59:38Okay, Councillor Chu.

59:41Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor. Sam good to see you again. Just a quick question. When do we expect the land inventory to be completed roughly by staff.

59:52So through you Mayor, it's actually on the agenda for the board meeting at the end of the month. So we'll be presenting it to the board at that time.

1:00:00Okay, thank you.

1:00:03And I just have one. You showed the number for permits issued. Is that how does that as a comparison is that normal? Is that

1:00:12That's it's pretty good.

1:00:13For 30% of what was last year.

1:00:17I think we're ahead of where we were last.

1:00:19I think we saw 2022 and 2023. I think it was 27. I think last year and you're, I forget what it was, but yeah, we're about 11.

1:00:28But historically beyond 22 and 23. Is that sort of static because a pretty normal number.

1:00:33I think it's a pretty normal number with the new regulation that came out our regulation limit actually got reduced by 25%.

1:00:40So you may see the numbers falling a little bit, which is not indicative of the projects happening. It's just our regulation limit trunk.

1:00:48Yeah, but pretty much on target.

1:00:53Okay. And councillor Donner.

1:00:55Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor. So you may have to get back to me on this.

1:00:59But in my board, there's the Wellington street dam.

1:01:03And, you know, it's useful for the public to use because people can kayak and canoe and from May to October. So it's not in a great repair.

1:01:15Now there was talk, I remember years ago about getting rid of that dam or and that seems to be going back and forth, but it is not in the great shape.

1:01:24So can other plans for this or for the dam?

1:01:28Yeah, so through through you, Mary, in terms of the Wellington Street Dam, it's actually in pretty good shape. It just requires a few refurbishing.

1:01:37I think the concrete needs to be repainted and there's some concrete work that has to happen. So cosmetic.

1:01:45Yes and no, it will.

1:01:48The longevity of the dam, it's required for the longevity of the dam.

1:01:53And that all being said, it's not a small dollar amount. So I think throughout probably the last 10 or 15 years, there being conversations back and forth with the authority and the city just in terms of what the next steps are with that, with that dam,

1:02:10because it is an important community asset. We get many of your constituents calling in and telling us that so we're aware of that and we know that it certainly be a conversation with the city as well.

1:02:22So we want to step outside of what we've got planned for it.

1:02:28Great. That's it. Thank you again. Thank you. Appreciate it.

1:02:32All right. Our public health board, Dr. Jenin bomb is coming up here.

1:02:38Or the presentation from Wellington Dufferin, Gulf public health. Welcome. Good seeing you again. Thank you for being here.

1:02:45Thank you very much. Thank you for being part of this meeting. I'm Dr. Mackie 10 and bomb for those who I haven't had a chance to work with before.

1:02:53And I appreciate the chance to speak with you this evening about some of our work in 2023 as well speaking a little bit about where we're going to be going and how we're approaching our measurement of our impact in future years.

1:03:02Thank you.

1:03:09There we go.

1:03:10So I know that many people in this room, some of you have been on our public health board other currently are in the past and others. We have worked with you as part of our city response to COVID-19.

1:03:19But for many people in our community, I understand their familiarity with us is about our leadership and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We became the COVID-19 agency.

1:03:30And that was a response that we led locally in coordination with yourselves at the city of Guelph and other partners to make sure we had a coordinated and effective health and social system response to this once in a generation event.

1:03:41As part of that response, we became known as the vaccine people in our community between January of 2021 and December of 2023. We delivered over 300,000 vaccine doses, approximately one dose for every single person in our community.

1:03:55And we continue to deliver those vaccines today. Additionally, we took on a leadership role in terms of the broader response, the policy measures that came into place. And as you probably know, the BDG was the first jurisdiction in Ontario to implement a mask mandate.

1:04:09And we did leave the way in terms of the non-pharmacological interventions to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

1:04:14However, I'm here to tell you that we are not just an agency that's about public health emergencies or about immunizations. We have a broader mandate than this.

1:04:22And we do a lot more than doing those things. The focus of our work is really on promoting the health of the entire population.

1:04:29And public health does that by looking at various programs and services that are broadly distributed across our community that focus on improving the quality and length of health people in our community, reducing disease and premature death, as well as reducing health inequities,

1:04:43reducing these unfair or unjust differences in health outcomes, putting people in our community.

1:04:48And you'll see later in the presentation that we deliver many different kinds of programs and services to meet this need, to meet this mandate, but they are all organized around this principle of improving health and improving equity around health.

1:04:59As you probably know, our funding comes from a mix of provincial and municipal sources. About 60% of our budget comes as a grant from the Ministry of Health and the remainder is funded through our municipalities.

1:05:11About half of that is from the city of Guelph, with the remainder coming from the counties of Duffer and in Wellington.

1:05:17In 2023, on a budget of about $30.3 million, the city of Guelph funded about $4.7 million, about 15%.

1:05:24And we do appreciate that as a meaningful, sizable contribution that enables us to be effective and deliver impact for our community.

1:05:31And we do think it's important that you understand what that money gets you and for the people of Guelph.

1:05:35As well as it's important for us that you see the value in the work that we do delivering on that investment.

1:05:46For this investment, we deliver a broad spectrum of services and programs across our community that address various needs as we've identified them through our work.

1:05:53This work is organized across a number of program areas and aligns with the Ontario Public Health Standards, which are set by the Ministry of Health,

1:05:59but we also tailor our work wherever we can to meet the needs and demands and priorities that exist within our community.

1:06:06I know you're interested in particular in hearing about WorkUFUN 2023,

1:06:10and on this slide, in the one that follow, you'll see examples of various ways that we have impacted our community across different program areas.

1:06:17The key organizing principles that tie our work together are that we do work that protects people from threats to their health,

1:06:23for example, responses to outbreaks, communicable diseases, responses to health hazards.

1:06:28We do work that prevents people from becoming ill or injured, so thinking about, for example, distributing harm reduction supplies or delivering immunizations to individuals.

1:06:36And finally, we promote and develop environments where people can develop and mature safely, grow into their fullest potential.

1:06:43That includes work we do around early childhood development, as well as things like our substance use prevention work.

1:06:48And so on this slide, and the one that follows, you'll see examples from across a number of our program areas of work that we do, year on year, with data from 2023.

1:06:57Now, I know I only have a brief period of time with you, so I want to speak in a bit more depth about a particular set of examples,

1:07:03three examples of where we served the community of Guelph in 2023.

1:07:07The first example I want to talk about is the work we do in our inspection domain.

1:07:13So we have over 1,000 food premises across our health unit.

1:07:17And when you add in childcare settings, salons, tattoo parlors, public pools, and other settings that we inspect, there are over 2,500 places that we inspect routinely and in response to complaints from the public.

1:07:28We do this to make sure these settings are operating safely and in compliance with the best practices for public health, to make sure that it protects people's health.

1:07:36But we also recognize that when people and organizations comply with these practices, not only does it protect health, but it promotes confidence in these establishments in our community.

1:07:44So when someone decides to dine out, for example, we know that they ought to be able to know before they make their choice that the restaurant they're looking at going to is following the appropriate practices to reduce the risk of foodborne illness.

1:07:57We also know that when someone decides, for example, to go out and get a body piercing, it's reasonable that they would expect that the place they go to isn't going to put them at risk of developing hepatitis or HIV or other bloodborne infection.

1:08:08In addition to inspecting these settings and following up based upon the findings that we have with them, we do post information for the public on our website at www.checkbeforeyoutrues.ca.

1:08:17Having this information in public serves a couple of functions.

1:08:20Number one, businesses know that their customers will be able to find that their practices aren't up to snuff.

1:08:25And this enables the public as well to be able to have confidence when they're making their choices about where to go for their food, their personal services, etc.

1:08:33And they can have confidence that those places are not putting them at risk.

1:08:37In 2023 specifically, we revamped our Check Before You Choose system, revamped our website to be more user-friendly, and took a mobile-friendly approach to make sure that people who are accessing information on their mobile devices

1:08:48are able to sort through the information, find what they want to find quickly and easily, because we know that most people nowadays are increasingly accessing public health information on mobile devices.

1:08:57Second area I want to focus on is oral health work.

1:09:02And oral health is something that's very easy to take for granted.

1:09:05If you are someone who has access to a dentist or a hygienist and you have access to that kind of care, I think you'd worry about affording it because of your ability to pay for it or insurance coverage that you have.

1:09:14But for too many people in our community, that is a concern and is a barrier, and those essential services are out of reach because of reasons around cost.

1:09:22And we know this is particularly the issue for people at the extremes of age, those who are very young and those who are older in our community.

1:09:28So we deliver several programs that address this need.

1:09:31First off, we actually have our dental team go into all the schools across our community to do screenings and assessments for children to see whether or not they have any identified issues,

1:09:41any identified dental problems that require follow up and care.

1:09:44So we connect them with services that are appropriate for them.

1:09:47In 2023, that was the 2022-2023 school year was the first school year following the COVID-19 pandemic response that we did get around to going to every single school.

1:09:57And as a consequence of that, we were able to screen nearly 15,000 kids across multiple grades.

1:10:02We also deliver oral health services through the Health in Smiles Ontario program.

1:10:06This is a program that addresses the needs of kids under 18 years of age who meet certain income criteria to make sure that they're getting preventative care like cleaning and other services to maintain a good state of oral health when they can't access that health otherwise.

1:10:20In 2023, we, as you can see, did, you know, serve well over 700 kids and a number of those identified as having urgent needs that we were glad to have flags that we could refer them on to care in the community.

1:10:33Finally, we also deliver services to older adults with the Ontario Seniors Dental Care program, which provides preventive and restorative services to low income seniors who don't otherwise have access to the services to benefits.

1:10:43Now, this is a newer program and we are continually expanding our services that we offer based upon capacity in the community, but we are looking for ways to partner to enhance our impact.

1:10:52In 2023, we actually onboarded four additional dental practices and one dentist to become part of the program as a service provider to make sure that we're able to pull in as many assets in our community as possible to maximize the number of clients we can serve.

1:11:06These programs form part of our ongoing work year on year.

1:11:10And with the recent announcement of the federal Canadian dental care program, we are exploring how we can leverage that announcement and that program to enhance our impact and make sure that as many people across our community are accessing the care they need for their, for their mouth and dental needs.

1:11:25Finally, the third example I want to highlight is about the Our Free Future Initiative, which as I'm sure everyone here knows, launched in 2020 with the goal of creating a circular food system in Guelph-Walington.

1:11:38Now, one of the pillars of this initiative was about improving food access, specifically improving access to nutritious foods.

1:11:44And that's been a pretty salient issue in our community over recent years as the cost of living has gone up and in particular the cost of food has become a very hot issue.

1:11:52We know that in our community about one family in five is food insecure.

1:11:56This includes families that, for example, are visiting food banks when they never used to visit food banks in the past, families that are selling possessions or borrowing money to be able to afford food for their family,

1:12:06as well as families where parents are actually cutting back on their own food intake so that they can have as much confidence as possible they can get their children the food they need.

1:12:15These are very difficult stories, but they reflect the challenges that many people in our community face, too many people, too many families, and it speaks the need for an initiative like this around access to nutritious food.

1:12:27Now, in public health, we worked and led the nutritious foods work stream as part of this Smart Cities Initiative.

1:12:36And that's an initiative that brought together various health and social organizations, municipal partners, academic researchers, and other community groups with the overall goal of increasing access to affordable and nutritious food by 50% by the year 2025.

1:12:50This work stream over the course of its work allocated over $415,000 to 40 different community initiatives that helps improve food access across Gwelfam, Wellington.

1:12:59In 2023 specifically, we released the Gwelfam, Wellington Food Security Action Plan, what established ongoing priorities for various community led action tables to help build and maintain the momentum that was started as part of this initiative.

1:13:11And by the end of 2023 in December, as part of our final report, we were able to report back that the work stream had achieved its two main KPIs.

1:13:19It had increased programming in 80% of the priority areas, with the target being 50%, and it had found that more than 50% of program participants agreed that it had improved access to affordable and nutritious food, which was our goal.

1:13:33Now, I'll speak briefly looking forward.

1:13:39So we as an organization have an accountability agreement with the Ministry of Health in response to the funding that we get as part of our mandate, and we routinely report back to them on indicators that they need to receive from us that allows us to demonstrate to them that we're responsible stewards of the resources they give us.

1:13:55However, we as an organization based upon our philosophy and approach have always wanted to go beyond this, what we call bare minimum reporting.

1:14:03And we really want to think thoughtfully about how we can show not just the responsible stewards of resources, whether those resources come from the municipalities or the province, but that we're truly being able to link programs we deliver to outcomes in the community and impacts for various population groups that we need to be impacting.

1:14:20And so as a consequence, we have developed a set of tools which we're calling our quality and performance framework, which touches on all of our program areas.

1:14:28Essentially, the way this framework works is we are going systematically through our organization, every program area, and asking, what is the need for the program service we're delivering?

1:14:37What are we actually doing based upon that need?

1:14:40Are we making a difference?

1:14:41Are we seeing evidence of being able to deliver on that need?

1:14:44And finally, how can we do better?

1:14:46How can we improve our processes, improve our scope or focus to be able to maximize the impact we're having in that program area based upon the needs we're seeing and based upon the resources we have available?

1:14:55We know there are challenges when it comes to measuring impact on public health.

1:14:58When it comes to prevention, it's harder to measure things that don't happen.

1:15:01It can take a long time for results to appear.

1:15:04And it can be difficult to measure specific impacts of programs when they exist in complex environments with multiple other factors that are on the side of our control.

1:15:11However, we are as an organization challenging ourselves to be really critical and to scrutinize our work so that we can, wherever possible, demonstrate that the work that we're delivering is having an impact, so that we can tell our story better and share with yourselves and others what you are getting for the investment in public health.

1:15:29Finally, looking forward, we're also orienting our measurement around our new strategic plan, which we launched this year, which extends to the year 2028.

1:15:40It's organized around five key pillars, improving health outcomes, focusing on students' health, building strong partnerships, innovating in our programs and services, and leading the way towards a more sustainable system.

1:15:51Through this plan, we want to leverage our strengths around partnership, innovation and sustainability, while being thoughtful about where we can most effectively and sustainably change health outcomes in our community.

1:16:01And we do know that our community is actually going quite quickly. Right now, we have a population of about 330,000, based upon Ministry of Finance estimates. By the year 2040, we're seeing a projected population of over 450,000 across Wellington, Dufferin and Guelph.

1:16:16And we know that we need to scale our services we deliver to meet that need. And it's not just about doing more of what we're currently doing, but it is about innovating, being thoughtful, thinking about new service delivery mechanisms, thinking about how we can really show the value of those changes.

1:16:30And we are looking forward to being able to engage with ourselves and our funders about how we're going to make that transition as the demand for our services increases over the coming years.

1:16:40We are thinking always about how to be thoughtful, efficient, effective, and innovative in how we deliver our programs and services so that we can maximize our impact.

1:16:51That does bring me to the end of the conversation. I do appreciate the chance to speak with all of you this evening. And I will just mention that there is more information about some of our work across the 2023 year.

1:16:59If you go to our website, you can find our 2023 community report, which highlights some of the examples I've shared this evening, as well as other examples about our previous year's work.

1:17:06Thank you very much. I'm happy to take any questions you have.

1:17:08Well, thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Is there any follow up questions on this particular update?

1:17:17Seeing none. Run away. You're good to go.

1:17:21Thank you.

1:17:22Thank you.

1:17:24Dan, Dan, you're here.

1:17:27Our acting CEO of the Guelph Public Library. So the Guelph Public Library presentation is up next.

1:17:39Good to see you, Dan. Thanks for coming. Welcome.

1:17:42Good evening, Mayor Guthrie and members of council. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about some of the great things happening at the Guelph Public Library.

1:17:55This presentation will focus on the Guelph Public Library strategic pillars, which align with the city's future Guelph themes.

1:18:04Our goal is to grow and care for our community spaces and places.

1:18:08We plan to modernize Guelph's library service by constructing a new library with versatile indoor and outdoor public spaces to meet the needs of our expanding community.

1:18:19Our aim is to make Guelph a vibrant, inclusive place for everyone.

1:18:24We will foster a thriving, competitive and safe city by collaborating with our community partners.

1:18:31Furthermore, we are committed to supporting community well-being by partnering to address systemic gaps and opportunities related to homelessness, mental health, and substance use within our community.

1:18:47Outreach initiatives provide the Guelph Public Library with the opportunity to connect directly within our community.

1:18:54During these events, community members can interact with library staff, discover the resources and tools the GPL offers, and often receive a library card on the spot.

1:19:06In 2023, well-public library staff engaged with over 3,000 community members of all ages and backgrounds through various outreach events.

1:19:16These opportunities range from large-scale festivals and events such as the annual multicultural festival, hillside, pride in the park, art on the street, to more intimate settings like Love Your Bike Festival, George Stock, annual community, picnic,

1:19:34immigrant services, welcoming week, and local community resource fairs.

1:19:40Partnerships with local school boards have allowed the GPL staff to connect with families at school events and engage with students during classroom visits.

1:19:50These outreach events allow GPL staff to engage with non-users and demonstrate how the library supports the entire community.

1:19:58Whether through traditional resources, programming, free internet access, or simply providing a welcoming space, the GPL fosters a sense of belonging for everyone it connects with.

1:20:11Under the umbrella of the Guelph Community Health Center, we collaborate with welcoming streets and Stonehenge.

1:20:19Additionally, we work with the Royal City Mission, Hope House, the City of Guelph Bylaw, and the Guelph Police Downtown Liaison Officer.

1:20:28The Guelph Public Library actively invites Stonehenge Peer Support Workers to connect with community members in our space.

1:20:36These workers provide one-on-one support to individuals living with addiction.

1:20:42We have regular conversations with Hope House's ongoing support worker to enable the Guelph Public Library to assist community members with system navigation and to provide ongoing support.

1:20:55The Guelph Public Library is at the forefront of progress, evident by a remarkable 2023 key performance indicators.

1:21:03In the past year, we welcomed nearly 8,500 new members, marking a notable 16% increase from the previous year.

1:21:1174,000 Guelphites are card-holding members of the Guelph Public Library.

1:21:18In 2023, the Guelph Public Library introduced a digital access card available to all Guelph residents, regardless of whether they have a permanent address or not.

1:21:29This card allows users to borrow up to two items at a time, download e-books and audiobooks, access library Wi-Fi, and use in library computers.

1:21:41Moreover, our facilities hosted over 800,000 in-person visits, with a main branch alone receiving 325,000 visits.

1:21:52These indicators not only demonstrate our community's growing enthusiasm for literacy and learning, but also underscores the GPL's pivotal role as a hub for knowledge, connectivity, and enrichment.

1:22:05In fact, the Guelph Public Library sees enough foot traffic to fill the Sleeman Center 3.6 times per week for 52 weeks of the year.

1:22:14Partnerships enable the Guelph Public Library to expand its initiatives without adding stress to its current staffing levels, ensuring the GPL meets the growing community needs and interest post-pandemic.

1:22:28Through partnerships with EarlyOn, the Guelph Public Library offers early childhood education programs with a qualified ECE, weekly at the main library, the Westminster Square branch, and the East Side branch.

1:22:42A newly developed partnership with the Nightingale Center for grieving children and families has transformed the East Side branch into a haven for people to process their grief with qualified experts during our monthly conversation cafes.

1:22:57Collaboration with Immigrant Services has enabled the Guelph Public Library to double its English conversation circles, offering a safe space to practice English weekly at the main library, the Westminster Square branch, and virtually.

1:23:14The GPL has also connected with the Guelph General Hospital and Family Midwifery Care Guelph to ensure that every child born in Guelph receives a born-to-read book bag.

1:23:25Partnerships with organizations such as Ontario Caregivers, the WOM, Guelph Neighborhood Support Coalition, Guelph CHC, Guelph Tua Library, Creative Encounters, and many others allow the Guelph Public Library to continue developing innovative programs that reflect the community's evolving needs.

1:23:46By collaborating with experts outside the library field, the library can offer free equitable programs to its customers. The Guelph Public Library continuously evaluates ongoing partnerships and seeks to establish new connections within the city.

1:24:03In 2023, almost 26,000 people attended library programs offered at all six library locations, both in person and virtually. Over the year, almost 1,300 programs were offered, averaging almost 110 programs per month.

1:24:22All Guelph Public Library programs are free of charge and open to all community members. Half of these programs focus on early literacy development, while others cover social and community connections, educational activities, and health and wellness.

1:24:37Special initiatives such as the Born-to-Read program, 1,000 books before grade one, and the Summer Reading Club ensure every Guelph child has access to support. Research indicates that students can lose almost three months of grade-level equivalency in math and reading over the summer, creating a gap of two to five years by high school.

1:24:58This summer slide particularly affects low-income children, causing a significant achievement gap and requiring teachers to spend four to six weeks re-teaching old material each September.

1:25:12To combat this, the Programming Department at the Library emphasizes school-age children's literacy programs during the summer, offering free programs to keep them engaged in learning and reading. These programs include creative play, reading challenges, arts and crafts, music, goal setting, and ensuring no child is left behind during the summer months.

1:25:35Community members often return to enjoy more programs, with some patrons attending story times as children now bringing their own children.

1:25:43Young parents who attended family programs are now participating in adult programs, and teens who attended teen programs are now returning as adults with their children.

1:25:53These programs provide a safe space for sharing ideas, creating, collaborating, and fostering a sense of belonging.

1:26:01Library eResources encompasses a wide range of digital materials and services designed to support research, learning, and educational enrichment.

1:26:14Accessible online, often through the library website, these resources typically require library membership for full access.

1:26:22Among our most popular offerings are digital streaming services, which include film, documentaries, music, and educational videos.

1:26:31Additionally, we also provide digital newspapers from around the world in hundreds of different languages.

1:26:39Finally in 2023, the library experienced a staggering 150,000 instances of technology use encompassing computer usage and Wi-Fi sessions.

1:26:51That translates to over 400 instances of computer use and Wi-Fi usage every single day.

1:26:59Moreover, our makerspace at the Westminster Square Branch saw over 3,000 individuals engaging in hands-on exploration, experimentation, and creation.

1:27:11These figures vividly illustrate the pivotal role technology and innovation play in our community, providing not just access, but also opportunities for creativity, skills development, and personal growth.

1:27:25In 2023, our patrons enthusiastically explored our extensive collections, borrowing over 2.2 million print and digital items, an average of approximately 6,300 items per day.

1:27:40Noteworthy is that 39% of all items borrowed were tailored to nurturing early literacy development, underscoring our steadfast dedication to building strong educational foundations for young learners.

1:27:55These statistics not only reflect the quantity, but also the quality of our collections, emphasizing the library's pivotal role as a vibrant centre for community engagement and lifelong learning.

1:28:09For almost 140 years, the Guelph Public Library has been a much-loved resource for our community.

1:28:15We will continue to loan the best-selling novels to our avid readers and non-fiction resources to those seeking information for personal, academic, or professional purposes.

1:28:30And to prepare for the next generation of customers, we will explore emergent technologies including more wearables, augmented reality, immersive experiences, interdisciplinary digital arts, continued advancements in audio production, and cloud-based services.

1:28:48We will always offer traditional story times for children, but we will also offer English conversation circles, coding clinics, technology assistants, lecture series, photography workshops, whatever our community needs.

1:29:03We are confident in our ability to continue to promote literacy and create a gathering space and to build a sense of community.

1:29:11To be a part of our community's success, however, we must be flexible.

1:29:20Public libraries have always been community-focused, but now they are also community-driven.

1:29:27A public library's strength lies in its ability to connect different segments of the community.

1:29:33Its mission is to provide equal access and opportunities for everyone.

1:29:38What other institution can assist a small business owner, students, educators, newcomers, seniors, children, teens, and so many others all at the same time?

1:29:50Through specialized collections, unique programming, and by investing in our staff to develop and expand their skills, the library continuously responds and adapts to community need.

1:30:01Where else can you find a teen, a senior, a young mother, a university student gathered around a table learning to speak French together?

1:30:10Where else can you go when you can't speak English, but you want to learn how and also find literature in your native tongue?

1:30:17Where else offers a space for families to engage with their children outside of the home when they can't afford extracurricular activities?

1:30:26Who will help you when you don't know how to use the tablets your grandchildren gave you?

1:30:31Who will help you connect with the resources you need when you find yourself without a place to sleep at night?

1:30:37Who will assist you when you are visually impaired, without a computer, and you need to fill out a government form online?

1:30:44Library and its staff are dedicated to being a resource and support system for all community members. Thank you.

1:30:53Thank you, Dan. Is there any follow-up questions on this data?

1:30:57No. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

1:31:02Our friends at the county are here. It's been such a long time.

1:31:07Those not knowing, we had a three hour meeting like an hour ago.

1:31:13So thank you for coming our way.

1:31:24And we will turn it over to your team whenever you're ready.

1:31:28Louisa, I guess you're coming to the mic. You go right ahead.

1:31:33Is it on? Yes. Okay.

1:31:35Thank you. We're very pleased to be here tonight to spend more time with you today and share the 2023 social services indicators.

1:31:47We do not have a slide deck. However, we do have the report and we ask you to follow along on that report.

1:31:54So my name is Louisa Artuso. I'm the social services administrator at the county of Wellington.

1:31:59And with me, I have Krista Card, who is the director of Ontario Works, Mandy Koroniak, who's the director of the Children's Early Years Division,

1:32:08and Mark Post, who is the director of housing services. And together, the three divisions combine, you know, the Department of Social Services.

1:32:17This report that we submitted includes information on the role of the county of Wellington as a designated consolidated municipal service manager for social services by the province of Ontario.

1:32:28A description of the Wellington service delivery area is included in the report as well as performance measures set for us by the province and social services indicators achieved within 2023.

1:32:42The provincial performance targets are set by the province and the social services indicators represent the service activity each division was able to achieve with the with the provided 2023 budget allocation.

1:32:57As the report indicates, the county of Wellington is the consolidated service manager for the three divisions. We provide services on behalf of the province of Ontario to the residents of the city of Guelph as well as the seven municipalities across the county of Wellington.

1:33:12Each division reports to a different municipality. The Children's Early Years Division reports to the Ministry of Education, Housing Services reports to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing as well as some federal ministries.

1:33:26Ontario Works reports to the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services.

1:33:31The department is accountable to both provincial and federal governments, the joint land ambulance and social services committee that was newly formed as of April 2023 and County Council to ensure that the funding and delivery of these services are carried out in accordance with contractual agreements to the county holds with various ministries.

1:33:52The agreements are occupied by the Ministry Directives, Guidelines and Funding from all three levels of government.

1:33:58This year we separated the targets that are set by the province. You will see on page four that the Children's Early Years has service targets to create new spaces under the Canada Early Learning and Child Care Agreement.

1:34:15These targets are noted in yellow as they are in progress because the targets have been set for us to achieve by 2026 so we're in the middle of that.

1:34:24On page seven you will see that the provincial targets that we are set for the number of subsidized housing units and you will see that we are over the target that's set for us by the province of Ontario.

1:34:37And then again on page 10 these are the targets that the province sets for us for Ontario Works which identifies the percentage of Ontario Works caseloads, the monthly average employment earnings, percentage of cases,

1:34:53terminating that are exiting to employment and percentage of Ontario Works cases that are exiting the monthly average and then those that are exiting to employment.

1:35:04So you can see that we are meeting all of the service targets that the province has set forward for us to achieve.

1:35:12The subsequent service indicators that are described in the report is basically outlines how we leveraged our annual funding allocations to meet the legislative requirements guidelines that are provided to us by the provincial and federal government and that's shared in the report under each division.

1:35:31Links are also provided to our community plans which we are all of all three divisions are required to set out and there's a lot more data that is on our website that's available to anybody that wishes to to look at more data.

1:35:47While we meet our service targets and we've maximized our annual allocations, we need to note that by far remains significant gaps in being able to meet our community needs that are identified in our plans.

1:36:00For example, in Ontario Works a significant gap is the lack of benefits that our Ontario Works recipients receive.

1:36:10The allocations that a recipient receives from the maximum amount that we are able to provide to recipients drives poverty. It drives increasing homelessness.

1:36:25It drives the inability for people to be able to participate in the employment and other educational opportunities for them.

1:36:36So that is I would believe is one of the most significant gaps in social services.

1:36:42The second one obviously as we all know is the lack of deeply affordable housing, social housing and and appropriate shelter for those that are experiencing homelessness.

1:36:53The other gap that we have in our division is the lack of licensed childcare spaces.

1:36:59So without licensed childcare adequate licensed childcare spaces in our community people are unable to feel confident in carrying the care that their children are receiving and many people are opting that to stay home to look after their children because they cannot find childcare.

1:37:18And in some cases if they find the childcare they cannot afford it.

1:37:23So this is why we want to highlight this is why we continually work and collaborate and build partnerships with many community agencies in our in our area our service providers, and we will continue to support community led projects to help fill the gaps that we can't

1:37:41provide within our mandates and our funding allocations.

1:37:46I don't want to take up too much more time because I would like to offer the directors an opportunity to answer your questions on any of the responsibilities that are noted in the report, as well as any of the data that's shared within their divisions in the report.

1:38:03Thank you.

1:38:04Thank you so much. Are there any questions the there is like a several page report that's going attached to tonight.

1:38:14Is there any follow up at all.

1:38:17No.

1:38:19Thank you county.

1:38:21Thank you. Thank you for coming down and sitting that was great.

1:38:27All right, our.

1:38:28Yes, yes.

1:38:31Well, police services is coming up here and we have Gord Colby of course our chief Steve Gill or one of our deputies and Andrea goodie or neighbor with services field support.

1:38:47So the chief might be coming up right now.

1:38:56Welcome chief and thank you for coming. I'll turn it over to you whenever you're ready there the the mic is on.

1:39:02Thank you so much. I know the mayor is getting nervous because I have a big binder with me.

1:39:12Yeah, just give me a second here.

1:39:21I come prepared Scott, I come prepared.

1:39:39Perfect. So I haven't run this before the big green button and the backwards button is the little one probably beside it.

1:39:47Okay.

1:39:49Evening folks.

1:39:52I'd like to do today is be relatively brief. I'm mindful that I'm last on the agenda and I'm generally first. So like I'm going to try to be uncharacteristically brief and spend some time.

1:40:06I'd really appreciate the opportunity if anyone has any questions. Steve Andrew and I would love to answer questions and receive some because we often don't get a chance to have this discussion outside of budget things and stuff.

1:40:20So please feel free in the slide deck.

1:40:26So we recently we've worked really hard in the last couple of years to try to really evolve and take a much more sophisticated approach to engaging our community.

1:40:35And I'm mindful of time so what I'm not going to visit 12 minute video.

1:40:41I'm not going to play it but I really encourage everybody.

1:40:44This is on our Guelph police services YouTube page.

1:40:48And it is a professionally produced video to introduce our community and council to what our members do but perhaps even more importantly, introduce them to who our members are.

1:41:01And I really think there's value in that.

1:41:04I'd encourage everybody to take a look at it. I know some some folks have already seen it.

1:41:09And and when you watch that it'll give you an idea of where we're at now and I think it's really important to understand where we're at now to look back a little not too far ago to realize where we were five years ago.

1:41:20So if we can imagine five years ago.

1:41:23We had just gone over a very brief period of time from being the first so the safest of the census 35 census metropolitan areas in Canada to the 19th safest.

1:41:36We did that in about four to five years.

1:41:38We were also have we had record high response times record high call volumes and and we literally had employees who were coming to work and they would check the weather on their way to work.

1:41:51But these were inside employees because we were still in the middle of a six year renovation where literally folks had to deal with inclement weather inside the building for a long time.

1:42:02So that's where we were five years ago.

1:42:04We've come a very long way and the video will give you a snapshot of that.

1:42:07I'm going to touch on a few of the things but we're oh this video thinks we were going to play that.

1:42:14Obviously all the work we do is aligned with our mission vision and values.

1:42:19We're in the process right now of updating our strategic plan and we really have worked hard to try to find alignment where possible with the city's strategic plan because the reality is we while we're technically a separate entity.

1:42:35We are collective with our community and our citizens and we want to find alignment where possible in everything we do.

1:42:43Last year.

1:42:44So if we talk about 2023 we had with record growth.

1:42:49We had record service demands and community safety needs.

1:42:52So we had 80 over 84,000 calls for service last year to put that in perspective in 2019 that was around 75,000.

1:43:01So that's about 10,000 more calls for service over those few years.

1:43:05Last year we also had four homicides.

1:43:10So to give you some perspective on that in 2022 we had two homicides on average over the last 10 years we probably average one between 2023 and the early part of 2024.

1:43:23Our members investigated five homicides to attempted homicides and our identity unit attended to over 100 sudden death investigations.

1:43:32So that is a volume of work that we had not encountered before and that's the volume of work that when those types of files come to the service.

1:43:42A lot of other work has to stop to support those investigations so we are not built to investigate for homicides here.

1:43:49So that's that's I'll get to some of that stuff in a moment but that we had record high demands for service.

1:43:57We also continue to see an alarming number of illegal weapons and things like that in our community so we're on average a rough average our members are now seizing probably a firearm a week.

1:44:10That was unheard of even five years ago.

1:44:13And so that you really changed a lot of the this the severity and the complexity of the crimes our members are investigating.

1:44:23The prevalence of drugs in our community I'm going to touch more on human trafficking for another slide but the prevalence of drugs in our community since 2020 between 20 since 2020 our members have seized eight and a half million dollars with illegal drugs just so far in 2024.

1:44:41It's 5.2 million dollars.

1:44:42These were unheard of numbers years ago so it's it's a testament to the work being done in these investigations.

1:44:49It's also a testament to the work that has to be done with respect to the crimes that are impacting our citizens.

1:44:57A very concerning prevalence of human trafficking and cyber enabled crimes in our city.

1:45:02We've talked as council has appropriately talked a lot about the impacts of IPV and the devastating impacts that has on citizens and the community.

1:45:11So I'm going to touch on that in more detail moving forward key accomplishments.

1:45:19So what I'm very happy to share with council and the community that not only did 2023 see a record number of service service needs service demands for our members but we also saw a record number of proactive engagements with our citizens and to kind of give you a frame of reference in

1:45:382019 we had approximately 100 incidents documented that were positive proactive engagements with our citizens in 2023 that number was 1353 so well over 10 times more kind of positive proactive community engagements in a year that we had a record demand for service.

1:45:59So we've worked really really hard not only to have much more proactive engagement with our citizens but to make sure we're documenting that so we can appropriately tell that story to both you and our citizens.

1:46:12Some of the key initiatives that I want to some of you aware of them but not not everyone is our citizens police academy is something that we did in 2023 so what that is is essentially.

1:46:26four to eight week sessions where a community group or just community members can engage with our members and over six eight weeks they learn about different aspects of our service in 2023 over 70 participants both adult and youth over three sessions took part in that we just finished a session a graduation session for approximately 40 participants last week and we're going to continue to do that.

1:46:51A really really important aspect. Many people have heard me say this before but for youth are approximately 20% of the population, but they are 100% of the future and and the age of those of us in this room right now.

1:47:06I think if we as adults listen, we can often learn more from the youth than the other way around. So we've worked really really hard to try to increase that engagement.

1:47:17Sorry.

1:47:22So we had record participation from our youth in our community for our youth engagement program.

1:47:28Some other really key things last year are downtown supplemental staffing initiative. So with yourselves the support of yourselves and the board.

1:47:36We had a project pilot last year where we had an increase in members who were their sole job was to have positive proactive relationships and interactions in the downtown.

1:47:47Obviously sometimes those can lead to enforcement but the primary goal was support and education and engagement.

1:47:55Just in the 151 days that program happened. There were 894 positive interactions with our community in the downtown.

1:48:06So I could talk at length about the surveys done but both our businesses and community members indicated they noticed increased police visibility.

1:48:15And a number of surveys that we continue to do police visibility police patrols come as two of the most popular feedback we get from our citizens on what makes them feel safe in their community.

1:48:28Downset town what also happened last year was the board made the decision to support dedicated impact support.

1:48:38So as of this year we now have a dedicated mental health worker, a CMHA, properly trained mental health worker who work with our members in the downtown.

1:48:48And that has been a game changer I would suggest both for our members, our citizens and some of our most vulnerable in the downtown.

1:48:55Mark has returned to Marco Connell who is probably the most, Mark probably that name is probably known more than any, more people know of Marco Connell than Gord Coby.

1:49:07I'm pretty certain of that in the city of Guelph. So now we've gone from five years ago we had one dedicated officer in the downtown.

1:49:15Now most of these we probably have four or five. We have full time Mark to the downtown, full time Connor, full time Kim.

1:49:21Every platoon has a dedicated officer to the downtown and then our city is split up into several zones, which could have up to four to six people every day in the downtown.

1:49:35Exponential more support for the downtown than we've ever had before.

1:49:38I was recently asked at a board meeting actually if the downtown was receiving a preferential amount of service and I think it's really important to say the downtown is not getting a preferential amount of service.

1:49:53They are getting any essential amount of service. We're very mindful of the dynamics and the importance the downtown is to our community.

1:49:59And so we will continue to leverage that support. What the downtown has showed us is what's possible when we invest in those resources.

1:50:10We've also implemented a number of important initiatives to support our own members.

1:50:16Numerous health related support related initiatives internally for our members.

1:50:21Probably the key one of the most significant thing where our board and our service is taking a leadership role is last year the board has recognized that we need to ensure that we are living up to our WSIB responsibilities.

1:50:36And we've implemented what's called a supportive staffing program.

1:50:38So if a member is away from work on a long term leave for a WSIB a work related type of injury after a year after a long term leave with no prognosis we can fill that support fill that position to ensure members who are away have the support they need after enduring years of trauma so they can have that support but also the members who are at work and our citizens have the support to

1:51:08make sure they can still carry out their duties in a safe and sustainable way. So that's a real leadership that our service and our board and our community has taken to recognize the impact that our members at all first responders incur in service to their citizens.

1:51:25And we'll also we had a very successful as we grow we need a plan. And so after what is probably several years of work working with KPMG we developed a long term plan so that we can start to we can we can finally have a smooth growth curve when it comes to responding to the growth of the city.

1:51:48That took a long time to build but that's something that is really part of the plan moving forward. There's a leg on this slide thing. Scott it's not working.

1:52:12So with all that so the service demands accomplishments some realities and risks moving forward that I think it's really really important that Council is aware of.

1:52:30We our investigators have told us that on any on any given day or perhaps more accurately virtually every single day human trafficking is occurring in our community. And if we don't acknowledge that we can't respond to it.

1:52:46So obviously I know Council talked a great deal about this human trafficking IPV are incredibly serious situations. Part of our long term plan is to put into place the specialized resources to improve kind of the proactive education the proactive support and the proactive

1:53:07enforcement that has to happen in relation to that. So that is a reality of risk that you need to know as our community leaders. You should assume that virtually every day or every day human trafficking is occurring in our community.

1:53:24Cyber enabled crimes is another area. So right now whether that be child pornography ransomware frauds related to cryptocurrency internet related scams and frauds. That is an area where we continue to do our best. We are nowhere near where we need to be.

1:53:40If you know someone who has been the victim of an internet related crime or a cyber enabled crime. They are probably the key cue for us to get to those. It's not an acceptable queue right now the time is just not acceptable. So that is a risk and that's a reality.

1:53:59And ensuring proactive engagement education enforcement in several priority areas. So as part of our plan long term plan is to increase some of these specialized areas. I'm looking at folks in this room who get a lot of calls about speed enforcement noise enforcement.

1:54:16I could almost have a blank and then followed by enforcement. People get a lot of calls. These are the areas that we want to moving forward kind of show we the downtown is shown what's possible. We want to start to improve in all neighborhoods to give a more robust level of service and a proactive level of service speed enforcement noise enforcement.

1:54:40They are not right now like we do our best to respond to areas of my concern. There are many more areas of concern and calls requesting us to do that. Then we can go to in any realistic day opportunities moving forward.

1:54:58Our success will be founded upon our support of an engaged community. We are very very fortunate we've done a number of surveys in the last little bit. We enjoy a tremendous amount of support from our citizens.

1:55:11We have a system now where if a member calls the calls us and call for service. Many of them now they'll get an automatic survey back asking about the survey and it's extremely favorable like from one to five often like satisfaction with the service they received would be

1:55:304.3 4.5 is probably the average so really really good support from our community. Dedication and experience of our members. I know you've heard me say this many times our members they are citizens of our community.

1:55:46There are coaches their mums and dads their volunteers. I don't need to name many different specific initiatives but they are very very committed and involved.

1:55:57They they will leveraging the relationship and support of our community with the dedication of our members. We are very confident that the vision and the plan the work done with KPMG we are well positioned to start to get better to start to be more proactive in a safe and sustainable way.

1:56:16I think that balance is affordability. Our strategic priorities moving forward. Everybody's seen these so I'm going to I won't read them all out but obviously the foundational priorities that we've had for a few years.

1:56:35There's one investigative excellence will be a priority that people haven't seen before. We're still in the drafting stages of our final strat plan but with the board support I anticipate that to be finalized quite soon.

1:56:46quite soon. Service quality indicators. So five years ago we had a big budget

1:56:58presentation there were a number of things that I told Council that we

1:57:02should always be mindful of. I believe you should demand from us an ROI on your

1:57:07investment and timely metrics and meaningful metrics with respect to that

1:57:12investment. So citizens perception of safety, crime severity, response times,

1:57:17overtime. These are all key things that we need to be mindful of. If we look at

1:57:22some of those on the list, our citizens continue to feel they tell us they

1:57:26continue to feel safe in their residents and the neighborhoods. Um, they feel a

1:57:31little bit less safe, for example, in our downtown than they did a few years ago.

1:57:36Our citizens have told us that their priorities for us are drug enforcement,

1:57:42road safety,

1:57:43followed by other things. They we are here time and time again, the drug

1:57:47enforcement and road safety and some of those things are important. When we look

1:57:51at crime rates, crime severity, we have seen a significant, a favorable trend

1:57:57from five years ago. So five years ago we were at 19th out of 35. We've now

1:58:01leveled off at 12. Our goal is to get back to number one. Um, but that that's

1:58:06where we're at right now. Um, overtime. Um, we're hoping with the plan moving

1:58:11forward, we can start to reduce that last year. We had approximately 41,000.

1:58:1843,000 hours of overtime. So if you look at that overall, um, that's

1:58:25approximately 131 hours of overtime per member in the Guafe Police Service. So

1:58:30if you think 160 hours is a week, that's if you get four weeks, holidays here,

1:58:35you didn't get any of that year because you were working overtime. So that's

1:58:38not sustainable. And that's part of the long term plan is to mitigate that

1:58:41moving forward. And finally, um, I could go into a plethora of data, which I'm

1:58:49not going to do. Um, our annual report will become public in the next week or

1:58:56two. I would really, really encourage, uh, council, uh, to review that, to share

1:59:02that with our citizens. We have so much data that's transparent and readily

1:59:07available for our citizens. Um, very robust reporting both at our meetings

1:59:12and our annual report, um, which is one of the reasons that I'm very happy to

1:59:17come and have discussions like this. I'm more than happy to do this. I think we

1:59:20should do this every year so that we can update you and you can update our

1:59:25citizens with respect to the work that we are doing on there and your behalf.

1:59:32And with that, I welcome any questions. Great. Thanks, chief. Uh, I, uh,

1:59:39I have just one quick one myself, but, uh, councillor Alt is going to go first.

1:59:45Thank you, Mayor Guthrie. I hope that you can hear me. Okay. Um, chief Kobe,

1:59:49thank you very much for presenting. Uh, I actually have three of them. Um, but

1:59:53the first one is fairly simple, I think many of our residents and I think even,

1:59:57uh, perhaps members of council aren't clear on the difference between impact

2:00:02and the welcoming streets initiative. I was wondering if you could outline for

2:00:06us how they differ and how they interact as well. Sure. So I would say, um,

2:00:12our welcoming streets initiative has, uh, it's an important initiative that's

2:00:16been sponsored by the city for many years and our community health center. Um,

2:00:20they are folks with lived experience who can support some of our most vulnerable

2:00:27in times of need. They can also support our businesses, support our citizens in

2:00:32the downtown. Our impact team. So we were one of the first to have an impact

2:00:37team. Our impact worker is a dedicated, um, mental health worker, a professional

2:00:43mental health clinician that is teamed up with our members. They are employees of

2:00:48CMHC, uh, but they are embedded with our members and they actually work in our

2:00:53building. So, um, I would say both provide a very important service. The they both

2:00:58work together, um, to help people when they need to help to find some proper

2:01:03care paths and engage stakeholders. Um, I guess the key difference impact our

2:01:08CMHC mental health clinicians who work for CMHC directly with us and embedded

2:01:14in our building.

2:01:18You're, uh, you're muted, councillor alt. There we go. Um, you mentioned that the

2:01:23multi year budget, uh, process has actually helped it smooth out the peaks and

2:01:28troughs. I was wondering if you just go into a little bit of detail about, uh,

2:01:32it sounds like you think that's an advantage and what the advantages might

2:01:36be just a little bit. Sure. Now, uh, through you, Mr. Mayor to councillor

2:01:40alt, you know, when you ask me a question, I think that I could talk for a long

2:01:43time, right? But I'm not going to. I don't want that. Um, very long story short. Um,

2:01:49we worked for, uh, Colleen is looking at me because she doesn't want me to start

2:01:52talking. Um, the, uh, what the, so I think the community deserves a smooth

2:02:00growth curve. By that, what I mean, we need to have a plan. I think it's well

2:02:04established that we're going to continue to grow. Um, if I was to give a kind of

2:02:08a, an example to give an understanding to the community, our FTE growth with the

2:02:15current growth plan is at about 2% 2.2%. So if we think that the growth of the

2:02:21community, the growth, uh, service demands, if we were an organization of a

2:02:25hundred people next year, we're going to be 102.2. And the year after that, we're

2:02:31going to be 104.4. Now we're 350, but I'm trying to give an example that our

2:02:38citizens, it's, it's the numbers are a little bit easier. So it's a long term

2:02:42plan to respond to known anticipated growth in a safe and sustainable way that

2:02:49we can implement some of these specialized services that we do not have now,

2:02:53like I referenced already, but in a way that balances affordability.

2:02:58Thank you. The next question deals with, I think perhaps the most uncomfortable

2:03:03concern for me, and that's human trafficking. Uh, when we put a face on

2:03:07it, what are we talking about in terms of numbers and in terms of prevalence

2:03:12and wealth? Um, I would say, as I said, virtually every day, we should, we

2:03:19need to acknowledge that human trafficking is, is most likely occurring in

2:03:23our city. I had one of our investigators, um, paint a picture for me. And what she

2:03:30told me is say, for example, um, if we have people who are in our city, um, for

2:03:37a hockey tournament, a soccer tournament, whatever, um, and this is the example

2:03:41that was given to me, children may be playing mini sticks in the hall in

2:03:45between hockey games or whatever, but very possibly the human trafficking

2:03:49going on in those rooms that people don't know. So, um, that I can't do that

2:03:55justice with, with a, so I want to, I can't do it justice, but I can say it

2:04:01is very prevalent and we are not well positioned to proactively educate,

2:04:05support and enforce. Yeah, I hear you saying it's ubiquitous then. All right.

2:04:10Last question you made reference to the downtown and neighborhoods and, and I've

2:04:14heard this before from people in the community. What can our experience with

2:04:18enhancing the downtown bring to, uh, enhancing neighborhood, uh, support?

2:04:26Um, well, I think what we've learned from the downtown is, uh, um, when we

2:04:33demonstrate a commitment, um, we can indicate an interest or demonstrate a

2:04:37commitment. When we demonstrate a commitment, we can have a very real

2:04:41impact on the neighborhoods we serve. Um, the plan over the course of the

2:04:45multi-year budget is to start to be able to have that commitment to more of

2:04:50our neighborhoods. I'm trying to be concise through Mr. Mayor to Councillor

2:04:54all because I don't, I could talk for a long time on this. No, that's fine. I'm

2:04:59glad that you didn't mention any neighborhoods. Uh, that's it for me,

2:05:02Mayor Guthrie. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you, Councillor Katelyn.

2:05:09Mayor, um, so I've been in the unfortunate circumstance of having to

2:05:14contact the equity team a couple of times, and I don't think that a lot of,

2:05:18uh, the city knows that that even exists. I was wondering if you could outline

2:05:23some of the equity practices that the police force is doing internally with

2:05:28hiring and also externally with the community. Perfect. Thank you so much

2:05:33for that question. Um, so we've worked very, very hard to have a, uh, not only

2:05:38community policing focus, but, um, a diversity and inclusion focus. So one

2:05:45of the key pillars that is going to be part of our next strategic plan is that

2:05:51our, our business plan, our broader strategic plan will involve the

2:05:55development of a, of a proper diversity, inclusion, cultural competency,

2:06:00strat plan for our service as well so that we can have an identified plan

2:06:05engaging our members and our citizens so that we have measurables metrics and

2:06:10a plan moving forward. We try to do whatever we can to have positive,

2:06:15proactive engagements with our citizens. Um, one thing that I say often,

2:06:21if there is ever a time where people are not sure if they should call us,

2:06:25we need them to call us. And that is so, I think most people, um, they don't

2:06:31call us because they're worried that maybe it's not an important enough

2:06:34concern. If it is a concern for our citizens, it is a concern for us. And I

2:06:39think a lot of people find that when they do make that call, um, our members

2:06:43can really, really provide support and the best support is support that is

2:06:47provided in the moment, very timely and associated rather than an email later

2:06:53or even sometimes we get, uh, concerns raised through us through counselors and

2:06:58things like that and a big delay of the time. So the key is engage us early and

2:07:04give us a chance to offer the support that we need. Thank you very much.

2:07:12Great. And it looks like I just have one. Okay. Councillor Billings.

2:07:19To you, Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to ask the chief again, going back to your

2:07:24realities and risks and the cyber crimes. So I guess my question is, is, is, um,

2:07:32within the multi your budget and you have the new hires, whether officers or

2:07:36civilian positions, you feel that's enough to address this issue? Um, short

2:07:46answer, no, but we've always been trying to balance affordability, the realistic

2:07:52affordability with what's needed. Um, short answer is no, if we were to really

2:07:58have a more proactive impact, no, we would the multi your budget that's over

2:08:04four year planned. I and I believe I said this a few months ago. I believe

2:08:08that should be a two to three year plan. Like we are going to have kind of the

2:08:11average of our comparator universe in 2027. We're going to have the average of

2:08:162023. So we're constantly playing catch up. If we wanted to have a much more

2:08:21significant impact on those areas, um, that growth plan would have to be

2:08:26quicker. But then okay, so true you, your worship. Um, so still on cyber crimes

2:08:33and I'm just asking you because you would, you would get the calls. However,

2:08:39because it's cyber, whether it's, um, provincial or federal, because it's a

2:08:43global issue. Is it not better that cyber crimes maybe get forwarded to

2:08:49another entity? Because I could be reporting someone from kitchen or

2:08:54could be reporting so on and so forth, but you're investigating the same

2:08:58crime. So and so I don't know behind the scenes how you're investigating, but

2:09:04I'm just asking you. Is there something another entity out there, whether it's

2:09:09provincial or federal? Um, that's that's doing the investigating or is the

2:09:15onus truly on every single municipality?

2:09:19I would say it's a combination of both and Steve or Andrew, if you have any

2:09:23feedback there, you're welcome to share that. So come on down if you want. Um, I

2:09:27would say it's a combination of both. But at the end of the day, um, we have the

2:09:31responsibility to investigate those crimes in every community is navigating a

2:09:36similar situation like these, the pace and growth of those of those crimes are

2:09:43matching most folks, most other services. But you have any more back on that

2:09:48through you, Mr Mayor? I'll give you a very quick example. So what the chief was

2:09:52saying is totally correct. We partnered with the OPP very often on more

2:09:58significant cases. So like ransomware, we're not equipped to deal with that on

2:10:04smaller matters. Uh, uh, for example, grandparents scams, whether they're

2:10:10scammed over the phone via computer, whatever it is, we will deal with that

2:10:15locally. So it does depend on the scale of the actual crime. So then through your

2:10:21worship, doing our own local investigation, can that fall more with a

2:10:27civilian position rather than does it have to be a police officer during the

2:10:31investigation? I'm not talking about dealing with the call, the initial call.

2:10:36I'm talking working on the investigation later.

2:10:41And I would say great question and that's a combination. Um, for example, like

2:10:45the our multi year budget sees us hiring more professionally trained

2:10:49intelligence analysts. So that that's built into this. Um, but it's a

2:10:54combination. There's certain things that absolutely properly trained

2:10:57civilians can do. Others, um, uh, sworn police officers required in this for

2:11:03the synergy of bringing those two together that I think is the best recipe.

2:11:07Okay. And then last question, um, through you, Mr Mayor. Um, so the annual

2:11:14report is coming out soon. It's always an exciting read. However, I wanted to

2:11:20ask with the line items usually in the report that shows increased decrease,

2:11:25for example, theft. What did we see last year for 2023? Is is theft significantly

2:11:36on the rise or where we at? Um, so I'm mindful of because the board hasn't seen

2:11:42it. I'm mindful to go too far down. I want to kind of be respectful to the

2:11:46board. Um, if you're okay with that, like the trend, and I don't want to speak

2:11:50to the trend without having the number, um, counselor, all and the board and the

2:11:55Mr. Mayor, they'll see that next week, I believe. Okay. So I'd rather out of

2:12:01respect to the board have that granularity at that point. Okay. So through

2:12:05your worship, I'll tell you why I'm asking because it was on the news the

2:12:08other night, and there was a delivery person dropping off a package because

2:12:13more and more people, of course, as you know, are getting home deliveries and

2:12:17the delivery person rang the bell, put the package down and a person came up

2:12:22from behind, stole the package and ran off and it's caught on the doorbell

2:12:27camera. And what I couldn't believe was the the the brazen behavior of this

2:12:35individual. So I guess I was asking, like, are we seeing that same behavior? Are

2:12:40we seeing thefts go up? Not just porch pirates, but elsewhere? Like, is this a

2:12:46and that's why I asked you about the trend. But I respect the fact that the

2:12:50board hasn't seen it. So but I just wanted to know, is this something because I

2:12:55was shocked. I couldn't believe the fact you do it right in front of another

2:12:59person. And it didn't make a difference. So I was just wondering if you could

2:13:03comment on that aspect.

2:13:07Difficult for me to comment. So I I'd like to wait. So I how about I will

2:13:11comment on that directly when we release it to the board next week, they'll see

2:13:15it. And in addition, a month or so from now, the crime severity index numbers

2:13:22will come out. So that will give both a local and a national reporting of

2:13:27increases or decreases in violent crime and nonviolent crime. So then we can

2:13:31kind of calibrate where we are at relative to the to the country and the

2:13:35other CMAs. Okay. And and I'm sorry, Mr. Man, because I was just scrolling

2:13:42through the presentation. One more. Because you know, I always had an issue

2:13:47for for the number of calls and how the how it's been increasing, like

2:13:51drastically increasing. So the calls that you have before us, I think it's 84,000

2:13:57someone. So does that is that just the 911? No, those are called those are the

2:14:06calls that come into our dispatch that resulted in the currents being made. So

2:14:11it can even include someone wanting like a bylaw officer.

2:14:15Why if an occurrence is generated, so so you see 84,000 and change calls, our

2:14:21dispatch Andrew probably gets 150,000 calls. So so our dispatch gets many more

2:14:28calls that they receive. This represents the occurrences generated

2:14:34occurrence generated. So for example, when we used to see the calls for service,

2:14:39the non urgent were there like the pocket dials, for example. So is that still

2:14:45included in the 84,000? And are we doing better with that line item?

2:14:49We'll take that. Yes, through you, Mayor to Councillor Billings. That's correct.

2:14:56The 84,000 would be all of our calls for service. So that would include some of

2:15:00even the proactive calls that we spoke about earlier and our 911 calls. We are

2:15:05seeing without getting into specifics of the numbers, a bit of a trend in better

2:15:09with our 911 and our drop 911 calls. But that 84,000 does include all of those.

2:15:14Okay. Thank you, Chief. Great. Thank you. So this my question that I was going to

2:15:22ask there, I'm wanting to ask actually segues beautifully from Councillor

2:15:27Billings. And maybe it's not a question. Maybe it's a little bit of a takeaway.

2:15:31But the point of this moment for council and for our entire community is KPIs,

2:15:38data comparisons year over year, graphs charts up, down. So maybe as a takeaway

2:15:44between you and the executive team, Jody and staff about this moment is to try

2:15:52to see if we can plan it for next year, where we have that annual report with

2:15:57the data that's maybe already released so that we can have that year over year

2:16:02trending data and metrics that we can actually look and talk about. It's I

2:16:08think it's just really, really important. In fact, I didn't know that the the CMA,

2:16:14the crime crime severity index, I'm sorry, comes out in a couple of weeks.

2:16:19I believe so the annual report will come out next week at the board. Yeah.

2:16:22The MA I believe is July, but that's that's Canada who releases that. So I'm

2:16:26not positive on that one. Yeah. But even like as a takeaway to both staff and

2:16:31yourself, like that's a that's a huge data dump and metrics that would be very

2:16:37interesting to know about. So like the question then is should we wait till

2:16:42July and when then you're covered off and we get all we get the annual report,

2:16:47we get the crime severity index and we get every the GRCA and we get all of

2:16:53our stuff. And maybe it's it's one presentation just like tonight, but the

2:16:57data is there instead of not having it. So just as a takeaway to maybe both,

2:17:02maybe just talk about that for next year. I'm sure I'm hopeful that everyone

2:17:06would be willing to wait a month and have all the data then to be like one week

2:17:11off with your respect to the governance and the flow of information to the board,

2:17:17which I totally understand. Okay. That is that is it. Thank you very much,

2:17:23chief and to everyone. Can indulge me. Yeah, go ahead. I believe this is going to

2:17:29be the last time that I have an opportunity to be in the meeting with Scott.

2:17:33And since I'm last, I know you know this. I know the Council knows this, but

2:17:40you have a brilliant executive team and they have navigated a lot of things in

2:17:46the last five years and Scott, my friend, it has been an absolute pleasure. You

2:17:52have a unique style and sometimes uniquely direct method, but you have

2:17:56shepherded us through an incredible five years. I'm sure when Scott got the job,

2:18:00he didn't know what was going to happen a few months after. So on behalf of our

2:18:04members, our community and me personally, I just want to thank you for

2:18:07everything and wish you the very best. Thank you very much. All right. And

2:18:16that's it folks. Great. Thank you. I thought you're going to ask him to

2:18:21stand up and turn around, put the handcuffs on.

2:18:25Yeah. And since I'm last, follow me to the car. Okay. Is there any wrap up from

2:18:34our executive team and staff? Thank you. I will turn it over to our CAO.

2:18:41Great. Thank you very much. Look, I would just say, holy mackerel, that's a lot of

2:18:45information. And yes, you picked up on, there's a small nuance that you could

2:18:51always get it so that you can get these things timed out differently. But I

2:18:56would just say, how can you not love what you had in front of you here tonight?

2:19:00And for me, that information, Mr. Mayor, just as you said, it was embedded in

2:19:05KPIs. It's linked to the North Star here, our strategic plan. You heard how that

2:19:10percolates through all the boards and shared agencies. And these are the nights

2:19:14that, you know, as I look back, you know, wouldn't it be brilliant if this gallery

2:19:19was just full of citizens and business owners? This is what they need to hear.

2:19:24And, you know, it's fabulous work that we got from everybody. And so I'm going to

2:19:28ask, and I think some of the folks that the presenters tonight said, if you have

2:19:33the ability to link what's on our website or what they've connected to you and

2:19:37the information tonight, please do that on your social media platforms. You know,

2:19:41these things are so important to the community because you hear it off in a

2:19:46budget time. Why are you not doing or are you doing? And look at the, you are so

2:19:50data rich from sort of the conversation that Matt brought you from Public

2:19:54Health to Gordon, GPS, everything in between, all the great work that you

2:19:59heard that's led by Jody and Aaron on behalf of the city team. Fabulous

2:20:05amount of data. We have come such a long way from where we were. And that was a

2:20:09theme tonight. What were we doing in 2019? How did we manage to get through?

2:20:14And here we are. You're going to make decisions based on data and it's these

2:20:17evenings that you can rely on. You haven't got the pressure of making any

2:20:20decisions other than who's going to, you know, pass the adjournment. But I'd say

2:20:25thank you very much for listening and participating. And thank you very much for

2:20:29setting the leadership moment that puts these things afloat. If you don't do the

2:20:33work early through our strap playing, you're never getting to this evening and

2:20:37you'll just be, you know, guessing all the time. So thank you very much to all

2:20:40the presenters, including the city staff. And thank you for listening and thank

2:20:43you for your leadership.

2:20:45Well, thank you very much. And if you just, if you can give me 20 seconds, I'll

2:20:49just say there's been only, it's only been a couple of times, but I have spoken

2:20:53to other other mayors and talked to them about this, this moment, but what we,

2:20:58what we have. And many of them are like, what? You do, you do what? And I can take

2:21:06them to the website and I can show them. I'm like, yeah, look at, look at this. And

2:21:10they're like, what? And then they call their staff over and they're like, we

2:21:14should be doing this. And so it has helped anyways with me and maybe all of us a

2:21:21moment with trying to explain some things to our residents about how things are

2:21:25going. But it is interesting for me to see other cities and other mayors that I've

2:21:29been talking to when I've showed it a couple of times to them that they're like,

2:21:33we are, as Jodi, I think said in her presentation at the beginning, like we

2:21:38are, we are well ahead a leader in this transparent data gathering and promoting

2:21:44it. So yeah, so just echo the kudos that you gave to staff and to everyone here

2:21:50that's doing this work. It's being noticed. All right, with that, I will look

2:21:56for that little decision tonight, which is an adjournment. Richardson and Chiu are

2:22:03going to do that. Is anyone against it? Nobody. All right. That's unanimous.

2:22:08Have a great night. Thanks, everyone.