Facing 300% tax hike, northern Ont. community to cease operations Aug. 1

Playing null of undefined

Northern township to cease operations

Anger as northern town faces financial crisis

Fauquier-Strickland mayor joins CTV Your Morning to talk financial hardships

Heavily in debt and looking at a 300 per cent tax increase, the Township of Fauquier-Strickland has instead voted to end all municipal operations and layoff all staff effective Aug. 1.

The community, which is northwest of Timmins and has just more than 400 residents, has accumulated more than $2.5 million in operating debt in the last decade, with all reserve funds depleted.

In a letter to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Mayor Madeleine Tremblay said her community “faces complete financial collapse within weeks.”

If that happens, Tremblay said residents would be left “without essential services and creating an emergency that will inevitably require far more costly provincial intervention.” The letter, addressed to Minister Robert Flack, said addressing the deficit would have meant a 300 per cent tax increase, “an impossible burden for our residents to bear.”

Couldn’t get a bank loan

The township applied for a $2 million bank loan and made deep budget cuts to allow it to reduce the property tax hike to 26 per cent.

But the bank is requiring further information before approving the loan, Tremblay said, including data that won’t be available until 2026.

“This creates an impossible bureaucratic trap entirely beyond our control,” she said.

“We cannot access the financing we desperately need because we cannot provide documentation that will not exist for another year, yet we are expected to continue operating essential services without any means of funding them without the implementation of an exorbitant and unprecedented tax increase.”

Tremblay said they have been seeking help from the Ministry since 2021, without success.

“The only response received was that MMAH would not be able to provide assistance until our 2024 audited financial statements and FIR are submitted,” she said.

“This circular bureaucratic reasoning has left our council, administration, and community trapped in an impossible situation while time runs out.”

The township employs three part-time and five full-time employees, making it the largest employer in the area, and the only one offering summer student employment.

But this year, they couldn’t apply for summer student grants because they didn’t have the money to pay their share. And in mid-June, all part-time staff and one full-time administrative staff were laid off.

More layoffs coming

More layoffs are pending, Tremblay added.

“Our residents rely on road maintenance, snow plowing, water and wastewater systems, waste management and fire protection services,” she wrote.

“The discontinuation of these services will create serious public health and safety risks that will result in expensive emergency provincial intervention, far exceeding the cost of supporting us through this crisis now.”

Tremblay is asking Flack to appoint a municipal supervisor to help them and provide emergency funding “to prevent service collapse while long-term solutions are developed.”

In response to a request for comment from CTV News on the situation in Fauquier-Strickland, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing sent us this statement:

“(Infrastructure) Minister Kinga Surma recently met with several northeastern municipalities, including Fauquier-Strickland, to discuss local priorities.”

“Our government is continuing to explore the best way to support the township with municipal infrastructure -- including building on the $315,000 we have invested in the township through the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund over the last three years.”

And on Wednesday afternoon, Alexandra Sanita, a spokesperson for Flack, sent another statement:

“The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is actively engaging with the Township of Fauquier-Strickland on their local challenges.”

After voting to dissolve as of Aug. 1, council in the community also considered selling its snowplow. It needs costly repairs that it can’t afford, so the motion would put it up for sale for “scrap value.”

-- With files from Ian Campbell