FCM 2019 Conference Review

Photo from Samuel Tessler / FCM Website

A week has gone by since our visit to Quebec City for the annual FCM Conference and I realized I haven’t posted an update of any kind.

Last week myself along with a number of my fellow town and regional councillors attended the annual FCM (Federation of Canadian Municipalities) conference. FCM is an advocacy body that is made up of muni’s from across the country and they advocate for important issues we all face, plus focus in on regional items that don’t quite get the press they should.

These conferences can be both exhausting and invigorating at the same time. Packed days of workshops, meetings, seminars and informal gatherings can lead to sore feet and the occasional cat nap in the afternoon. What CAN come out of these sessions is a good idea if we’re on the right track when it comes to how we’re building our community.

I will say there were a number of sessions that before hand I was quite excited about attending, like one on asset management & flood mitigation (I’m sure I am the first person to say the words “excited” and “flood mitigation” in the same sentence.) but was a bit let down as it was more of a “here is what happened” as opposed to “what can be done to solve it.”

There were other sessions that let to some disappointment including the session on “engaging youth through social media” where for the first 15 minutes we did not hear the word “youth” once and when they did talk about engagement they brought up Facebook. As we all know Facebook is not where youth are engaging themselves…its Instagram or SnapChat but it is NOT Facebook.

That is what the feedback function from the conference is about. Some were just not up to what was advertised as myself and many of my Milton and Halton colleagues were looking forward to.

There were some informative sessions on public transit, modernizing the fiscal toolbox, cannabis retail implementation and others, so it was worthwhile. Many of the speeches throughout the week focused on important items like the future of 5G, rural broadband internet, affordable housing and economic development.

This being an election year brought out all the major party leaders for their chance to woo municipal leaders and let them know what they would do if elected or re-elected to office. All the leaders did a good job essentially with the standard “we will listen to you municipal leaders” if elected lines “you are the front line leaders of our communities” etc.

All in all it was a productive few days with sadly not enough time to see Old Quebec the way it should be experienced but that’s an addition to the bucket list for another time.

My colleagues Clr Sameera Ali & Rick Di Lorenzo did a video of their experience at FCM with a little more detail on sessions and the schedule plus their thoughts on speeches. You can find that link here (self plug – Psst there’s a special guest at the end.)

To say the next conference we attend this year will be important is an understatement. The Associations of Municipalities of Ontario conference is coming up this August and will be filled with announcements and probably will have the most impact on us here in the GTHA. I’ll do a post soon on what we can expect with regional government review, upcoming 2020 municipal budgets and how the provinces decisions will be affecting what services you will or won’t be getting plus more.

I’ll see you at the doors.