Town of Aylmer has the…

Town of Aylmer has the following comments:

The Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act, 2025 permits the Minister of Municipal Affairs to issue transfer orders for assets without requiring the consent of local municipalities. As a result, it is important for Aylmer to clearly articulate its concerns to ensure that local interests are not overlooked should broader structural changes be considered. The Town has concerns that applying this legislation locally would introduce significant and unnecessary bureaucracy, increase costs, and result in a loss of local control over critical infrastructure.

Town staff believe that the risks associated with including Aylmer in a public wastewater corporation outweigh the anticipated advantages. In particular:
• Geographic constraints and associated costs make it unlikely that Aylmer’s wastewater system will ever be interconnected with other systems; it will continue to function as an independent system.
• Including an independent wastewater system within a broader public corporation would introduce unnecessary bureaucracy, additional approvals, and administrative complexity.
• Inclusion in a public corporation is likely to result in significant delays to tendering processes and would eliminate the competitive advantage Aylmer currently realizes through early tendering of capital projects.
• Aylmer has been highly effective in negotiating agreements with the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA) for lagoon system management and in containing operational costs. Inclusion in a public corporation is anticipated to significantly increase operating costs without providing additional benefits to users.
• Aylmer has dedicated staff managing major capital projects related to the lagoon system. These staff will continue to be required for large-scale road reconstruction and other infrastructure projects. Removing wastewater oversight from their responsibilities and transferring it to a public corporation would duplicate expertise and is not a cost-effective approach.
• Localized response to water and wastewater issues is critical for timely identification and resolution. Centralizing these responsibilities outside of Aylmer would likely negatively impact response times and service outcomes.
• Aylmer has a sufficient user base to fund the future development of a wastewater treatment facility, even in the absence of current record levels of provincial grant funding.
• Existing agreements related to the lagoon system allow for growth in neighbouring municipalities and form part of ongoing boundary adjustment negotiations.
• A loss of local decision-making authority over the wastewater system is anticipated to hinder or delay growth in Aylmer and negatively affect local economic development.