Election results could be ‘quite good’ for Canada but no local voice in government: Barrie mayor

While this year’s federal election results could be “quite good for Canada,” a local voice is absent in the Canadian government, according to Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman.

“There isn’t a voice in government anywhere in central Ontario,” Lehman told Global News. 

“That is a bit concerning, because as the mayor of the largest city in central Ontario, there are issues that we deal with the federal government about frequently.”

On Monday night, election polls closed and ballots were counted. While Canada elected a Liberal minority government, both of Barrie’s electoral ridings voted Conservative.

Barrie–Innisfil, which is comprised of south Barrie and Innisfil, re-elected Conservative Party incumbent John Brassard, while Barrie–Springwater–Oro-Medonte, which encompasses north Barrie, Springwater and Oro-Medonte, elected a new Conservative MP, Doug Shipley. 

Both Brassard and Shipley have served on Barrie city council.

“They know municipal issues extremely well, so I expect them to be strong on the files for infrastructure, for housing, for transportation,” Lehman said.

According to Lehman, one key issue in Barrie is housing – rents are expensive.

“What’s needed there is us to drive over the finish line a strategy that’s been underway for five years already in Barrie, which is our affordable housing strategy,” Lehman said.

“The target there is to build 840 new units of affordable housing.”

What that looks like from a federal perspective is an investment by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in social housing, Lehman added.

As Barrie grows, there’s a need to expand the city’s transit system.

“We’ve seen a huge jump in ridership on Barrie Transit, to the point where we’ve needed to add more buses on some of our busiest routes, and we’ve added new routes,” Lehman said.

“That requires fleet, which is a capital expense that the federal government often helps us pay for.”

The Barrie mayor noted that the Liberals’ platform also addressed infrastructure, another key issue in the city.

“I think on infrastructure, it is important to us that the Trudeau government, who are now re-elected with a minority, continue to implement the plan they sort of launched in their first term of government,” he said.

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While there’s no local voice in government, Lehman said that’s been the case for the last four years – Conservative MPs, one of whom was Brassard, represented both Barrie ridings after the 2015 election.

“Both the MPs, as opposition members, and myself and others were able to, I think, work well to get things done for Barrie at the federal level,” Lehman said.

“I think the government, even though they don’t have members in central Ontario, did do a number of things that were very positive for Barrie.”

One example, he noted, could be the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund, which was promised by both Barrie’s Conservative and Liberal candidates this election.

“I’m hoping that just because the Liberal candidates weren’t elected, the government will still listen to the fact that both their candidates, and the successful Conservatives, felt that was a priority for our community,” Lehman said.

Since Shipley has been elected as the Conservative MP for Barrie–Springwater–Oro-Medonte, there will be an opening for his position on Barrie city council.

Lehman said council must decide whether they will appoint a new councillor or hold a byelection.

“If it’s early in the term of council, we almost always call a byelection because with three years still to go, we want people to still be able to choose their elected representative.”

The byelection would occur sometime between late February and early March, Lehman said.

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