Cathy Dobson/The Independent

Rural Ontario has been all but forgotten by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government, says Enniskillen Mayor Kevin Marriott.

Marriott – who is also the warden of Lambton County – says funding reductions in how much the province provides to smaller Ontario municipalities for infrastructure are having a dire impact.

In Enniskillen, cutbacks to the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF) have created a $1 million shortfall, even with some increases to the OMPF in the last two years.

The OMPF traditionally assisted smaller municipalities with infrastructure maintenance. Without it, Enniskillen has received no provincial funding for roads or bridges since 2018, said Marriott in a speech at the State of Lambton Business Breakfast Thursday.

Consequently, Enniskillen ratepayers have had an average tax increase of eight to 10 per cent each of the last six years, Marriott said. His municipality is struggling to avoid a double-digit increase this year.

“As painful as this has been, we were getting by until the inflation of the last five years.”

That’s bumped road-building materials up 50 per cent and made it difficult to upgrade roads and replace bridges, he said.

Without money for new bridges, Enniskillen Township council made the rare decision to close portions of Gypsy Flats Road and Plowing Match Road in recent years.  

This year, the municipality is trying to find the money to replace a bridge on Marthaville Road, which is well-used and can’t be shut down, Marriott said.

Estimates two years ago to replace the Marthaville Road bridge were $1 million. It was put off in the hope that provincial money would become available but now the replacement estimate has more than doubled and there are still no provincial dollars in sight, said Marriott.

“The only way we could do it is to take out a loan and we’d be in debt.”

“We actually have another eight bridges that are soon to be condemned,” he said.

He blamed the federal and provincial governments for high inflation.

“They are both ignoring the needs of rural Ontario and small municipalities like ours, and only seem to help the GTA with their roads and transportation upgrades.”

MPP Bob Bailey said he hopes his government’s March 26 budget will contain more funds for rural communities.

“I don’t know if there will be anything in there about it but (the government) has certainly heard about it,” Bailey said.  “Myself and other rural members like myself have been advocating with the premier and the finance minister to come out with some other type of funding to help pay for things (rural municipalities) don’t have money for.”

Enniskillen would have been better off building the Marthaville Road bridge several years ago rather than waiting, Bailey added.  “It never gets any cheaper.”

Marriott echoed the concerns of several of the other mayors at Thursday’s breakfast who said Sarnia-Lambton is not immune to the precarious economic times currently experienced across the rest of the world.

“I think things will have a lot worse outcome, especially with what’s going on in the Middle East,” said Marriott.  “So I think we should be buckling down.”

He made his remarks at a State of Lambton business breakfast hosted by the Sarnia Lambton Chamber of Commerce Thursday. Marriott is Lambton County’s warden but emphasized that he was speaking at the event in his role as Enniskillen mayor.

The breakfast was held at the Point Edward Optimist Hall to provide Lambton’s mayors and First Nation chiefs a chance to talk about their municipality’s economic outlook. About 100 were in attendance.