Stiles commits to allyship with municipalities and First Nations as Ford sidelines them

LONDON — As the 2023 AMO Conference closes, Official Opposition NDP Leader Marit Stiles is committing to strong allyship with municipalities and First Nations.

“Three days of meetings with municipal and First Nations leaders have made it very clear: Local leaders are unhappy with the Ford Conservatives’ bullying, ignoring and sidelining them - whether it’s bulldozing the Greenbelt to make a select few Conservative donors richer or slapping municipalities with a bill that's caused them to lose a billion dollars a year.”

Over three days, Stiles held 26 meetings with municipal delegations. She was joined at AMO by 13 NDP MPPs, all of whom spent the conference in productive meetings with municipal and First Nations delegations, in addition to attending a packed Ontario NDP social with delegates.

In her keynote speech, Stiles outlined her vision to restore trust, transparency and accountability at the provincial level; ensure open communication between municipalities and the province; and implement expert-led solutions to address Ontario’s housing crisis.

Stiles drew sustained cheers from the audience when she declared, “Ontario’s Greenbelt is an environmental goldmine for this province… we are not going to let them destroy it.”

Ontario Regional Chief Glen Hare echoed Stiles’s call for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to resign and the Premier to return the land parcels his government has ripped from the Greenbelt.

“I want to build a collaborative relationship with municipalities where the communication channel is always open,” Stiles said. “As our communities evolve, as people’s needs change, and as the climate crisis becomes all the more real, we can have proper dialogue and act accordingly.”