THUNDER BAY — The fate of the city's shelter village project remains uncertain.
City council did not debate whether to undo their previous decision to build the facility at the Hillyard site, during Tuesday's meeting.
Instead, Red River ward Coun. Michael Zussino's motion to drop Hillyard and look for a new site will be debated at the next city council meeting, on Sept.16.
That is in line with standard procedure; however, Zussino had also proposed suspending the rules and debating the motion right away.
The vote to suspend the rules required a two-thirds majority but fell far short. It failed in a tie.
Zussino, as well as Couns. Trevor Giertuga, Shelby Ch'ng, Brian Hamilton, Andrew Foulds, and Kristen Oliver voted to suspend the rules, while Greg Johnsen, Mark Bentz, Dominic Pasqualino, Albert Aiello, Rajni Agarwal and Kasey Etreni voted against.
Mayor Ken Boshcoff was absent from the meeting.
Ch'ng asked city staff whether delaying the vote to rescind the Hillyard site decision would jeopardize a $2.8 million funding commitment from the province.
“We have been pursuing or exploring whether or not another extension on the funding of the $2.8 million would be possible from the province, because just the act of pressing pause on all this has put that timeline very much at risk,” said city manager John Collin.
Collin said that both Thunder Bay–Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland and Minister of Municipal Housing Rob Flack told him that if the city has a “compelling argument” for an extension of funding, the city will likely receive an extension.
“We are out of time is no longer necessarily germane. Now, I'm sure there's a limit to what they would define as a reasonable extension, but we did receive that confirmation approximately two hours ago.”
The province had already given the city an extension for the funding, after the Miles Street location was voted down in July, giving the city until March 31, 2026 to complete the project, with 40 units operational by Dec. 15, 2025.
Collin also said there were other timeline factors council needed to consider, such as that further delay could put construction at risk of being put on pause until the spring.
“We have, for all intents and purposes, pressed pause on all of our actions associated with the temporary village,” Collin said.
He said this includes all RFP’s associated with the project.
Hamilton also said he came “ready to debate the notice of motion.”
“One thing I know as a business owner or any stakeholder is that there are high levels of anxiety with this file. The community wants to see black or white where we are, and I think two weeks more is just two weeks more of anxiety.”
Foulds said that he would vote to suspend the rule due to the “extraordinary circumstances when there is a sense of urgency to change the rules.”
“We are dealing with people's lives. That's the sense of urgency. I don't believe I'm using hyperbole here. But how many more tent fires are we going to withstand. Because we know individuals who are living rough are using whatever mechanisms they can,” Foulds said.
“Timelines do matter. There are a number of us who came tonight ready to have the debate. There are people in the gallery who I understand were here a couple of weeks ago who are interested in a decision, and if we decide to change our minds, then we need to change our minds, and then we've got to be in a hurry. And we've got to be in a hurry because there are people on the street in danger, in crisis, and we have a responsibility to our citizens.”
Johnsen said, “I will not vote to rescind the rules primarily for two reasons. I guess my concern is that this might become a practice with this council. This might be the third time that I can recall in six months.”
Johnsen’s second reason for voting against the suspension of the procedural rules is that council’s “vote matters.”
“We all put forward a lot of time and effort asking questions, gaining information, listening to emails and phone calls to make decisions for people. Certainly, the meeting in July was, I think, four hours with that particular topic, it came around 10 o'clock. Other decisions we make are later than that, but I think our vote matters,” Johnsen said.
Bentz said he was also concerned that suspending the rules would send a “strong signal to the community.”
“The rules are there to protect notice to the public. As well as decision makers around this table, so they can make arrangements to be here to take part in a debate, particularly when it involves reversing a ratified decision,” Bentz said.
“I'm fine with the notice of motion. Let's talk about it. But it can't come out a few days before the meeting. Our head of council is not even present with us tonight to take part in this, and there is no solid reason why we should suspend the rules. We can discuss this in two weeks, rationally.”
