The Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) is applauding the province’s decision to extend the pilot program for the spring bear hunt for an additional five years.
In a Feb. 24 news release, FONOM said the extension of the hunt and its expansion to all wildlife management units, to include non-resident hunters, “has been called for from across the North.”
“The extension and expansion will address public safety concerns as well as bring much needed economic activity to the region,” said Mayor Alan Spacek of Kapuskasing and president of FONOM.
“We are hopeful that the data generated from the pilot will result in the permanent reinstatement of the program.”
The announcement of investments into two infrastructure funding programs from Premier Kathleen Wynne during the 2016 Ontario Good Roads Association/Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference in Toronto was also welcomed.
The funding is being allocated for a $15-billion infrastructure commitment for anyplace outside of the Greater Toronto Area.
The Connecting Links program will be doubled to $30 million a year by 2018-2019, while the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF) would be expanded to $300 million a year by 2018-2019 from the current $100 million.
The program will also be more flexible as municipalities will now be able to bank funding for up to five years.
“An important aspect of the OCIF funding that FONOM has requested from the province was for the formula based portion of the funding to be increased so that municipalities would have greater predictable funding,” said Spacek. “This announcement captured that by committing $200 million towards formula based and $100 million towards application based.”
FONOM said it looks forward to seeing the infrastructure projects that Northern municipalities will be able to undertake as a result of this funding.
