North Joint Chamber Address 2023

On June 15, 2023, Regional Chair and CEO John Henry spoke at the 2023 Annual Regional Chair Address and Luncheon for the Scugog Chamber of Commerce and Brock Board of Trade.

Good morning everyone,

I’m thrilled to be here with all of you today - in person - to talk about the exciting things happening in Durham Region.

We are currently located on land, which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange among the Mississauga Peoples, and is the traditional and treaty territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation and all the Nations covered under the Williams Treaties.
Durham Region is now home to many First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

We honour, recognize and respect these Nations and Indigenous Peoples as the traditional stewards of the lands and waters on which we meet today.

It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone; and I’m so appreciative that we can all come together for special occasions, such as this.

I’d like to thank the Brock Board of Trade and Scugog Chamber of Commerce for making this event possible.

One year ago, a severe weather event led to a tornado touching down in Uxbridge; leaving extensive damage in its wake.

Many of the township’s residents and local businesses were affected; and are still recovering.

I continue to be inspired by the resiliency and tenacity of the Township of Uxbridge, its residents and its local business community.

I have witnessed a strong sense of community and support for one another; and I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of those involved in ongoing recovery efforts.

While there is still work to be done, I am confident that our northern communities impacted by this event will rebuild, stronger than ever.

Now, it is my pleasure to provide you with an update from the Region today—both on the past year and the year ahead.

Last October, we held a municipal election where a new Regional Council was elected.

Our new council is committed to working on behalf our residents to do what is best for the communities, businesses and organizations of Durham Region.

Together, it’s our responsibility to uphold the public’s trust and confidence over the next four years, as guided by our Strategic Plan.

The past few years have been tough; and COVID-19 is the single biggest challenge that we have faced as a Region.

But, we continue to meet these challenges head on and there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, thanks to the hard work of our staff and community.

We’ve been focused on modernizing operations to create a more responsive municipal government that meets the evolving needs of our communities.

A shining example of this is the myDurham 311 enterprise—a modernization project aimed at improving Durham’s customer service by creating a consistent, convenient and personalized experience for customers–regardless of how they choose to interact with the Region.

We were awarded a TECHNATION Ingenious Award and a Smart 50 Award for our Smart Home Device Voice Service—an innovative platform where Durham Region residents can interact with their Google Home or Amazon Echo device to find out information about Regional services.

In late 2022, we launched the myDurham 311 phone service—now, customers only need to remember one number – 311 – for answers to questions about services like roads and traffic, transit, waste and recycling, water and sewer, and more.

This is down from the 60 publicly listed phone numbers we had before we launched 311.

And most recently, we launched the myDurham 311 Customer Service Portal—an online portal that is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week at myDurham311.ca—for residents to submit and track requests for many Regional services online.

I am so pleased to share that the Region of Durham and Township of Scugog were recognized for successfully implementing personalized, omnichannel experiences through the myDurham 311 and My Connected Scugog portals with the 2023 Excellence in Municipal Systems Award by the Municipal Information Systems Association (Ontario).

This flagship partnership is enhancing service delivery for our residents and strengthening information sharing among local and regional municipalities; and I look forward to sharing more updates as we move toward achieving our vision for a smart, connected and accessible region.

We’ve been recognized for delivering services in new innovative ways to meet the needs of residents and businesses.

Durham Region was named one of the Top Smart21 Communities of the Year for 2023 – for the third year in a row.

We ranked in the top 15 of North American communities’ Most Open Cities via Open Data Initiative.

And most recently, we were recognized as one of the top seven Intelligent Communities in the world alongside cities from Australia, Brazil, Canada (New Brunswick), Taiwan and Vietnam.

I’m excited to see what happens this year. The top seven Intelligent Communities of the Year will be announced on June 20, right here in Durham Region.

In partnership with technology provider Visual Defence, we won a Smart 50 Award for using Artificial Intelligence to optimize road maintenance—a first of its kind in Canada.

We worked with them to develop an app called ROVER, which is installed on a smartphone that mounts to the windshield of a Region’s road patrol vehicle, to automatically detect, identify and capture images of potholes using AI, so that we can fix them more efficiently.

Our commitment to innovation allows us to address the biggest challenges we face, while ensuring we remain successful in our current areas of strength.

This includes responsibly managing tax dollars to support all of the great work our departments do.

We announced at the beginning of June that we have maintained our Triple A rating from Moody’s; and are currently one of only eight Canadian municipalities to have been awarded this rating. We also continue to maintain a Triple A credit rating from Standard and Poor’s. 

These accreditations support Durham’s reputation as a leader in fiscal management and give our residents and businesses confidence that we are managing their tax dollars responsibly. This is critical, especially during times of economic uncertainty.

We know that Durham is one of the most in-demand regions to live, within one of the most in-demand countries in the world. We are seeing that love for our community translate into fantastic support for locally owned and operated businesses.

We have worked together with our partners to run successful initiatives including the annual Shop Where You Live campaign, which has been growing due to the support from partner organizations across the region including chambers, BIA’s, small businesses and government.

This important work to support our local businesses would not be possible without the Brock Board of Trade, Scugog Chamber of Commerce, and Uxbridge Chamber of Commerce, through our joint efforts as members of the Durham Economic Task Force.

The small business sector accounts for 75 per cent of all new jobs in Canada, and the joint efforts of the Task Force, Chambers and Boards will continue to support recovery and help this sector flourish in Durham Region.

To each and every one of you in this room, thank you for your continued advocacy efforts for local businesses; for your crucial role in rebuilding, reopening and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic; for the invaluable programming you provide to local businesses, professionals, students and entrepreneurs; and for playing a key role in helping to fuel Durham Region’s economy.

Our long-term vision for the Region is a talented workforce, vibrant downtowns, a reputation for business innovation and a distinct creative identity – a place of economic prosperity that provides a great quality of life for residents.

And the Region’s newly released Economic Development and Tourism strategy (known as “Ready, Set, Future”) will help us achieve this vision.

We’ve set bold aspirations for 30-years into the future for: People, Location, Acceleration, and Creativity.

At the very core of this strategy are People. We are advancing a workplan that will see the People of Durham lead Ontario in technical skills and trades training, and in average university-level education attainment.

We are focused on successfully attracting, retaining, developing and deploying people in a way that maximizes their potential in the regional economy.

This type of talent-driven economy requires an increasingly skilled and talented workforce.

A workforce that requires an inclusive and supportive environment where individuals and businesses can build knowledge, capacity and skills to match current and future demand.

This type of supportive environment is fostered through initiatives like Invest Durham’s Agriculture Workforce Project – a project dedicated to informing residents of careers in agriculture and agri-food production and encouraging them to enter careers in these industries.

The Invest Durham team created a hub of resources for current and future agriculture-sector workers to learn more about the exciting opportunities in the industry; and help identify solutions for labour shortages.

I’d like to pause and share one of the career profiles with you.

These videos featuring community members working in the sector have been added into programming for the Specialist High Skills Major programs at high schools and have already been viewed by thousands of students.

As well, there are job boards, information on post-secondary programs and resources for teachers.

Together, this innovative approach contributes to creating a sustainable workforce for Durham's local agriculture sector.

Attracting these skilled and talented people will require diverse and vibrant Locations.

The region is forecasted to grow to 1.3 million people and 460,000 jobs by 2051.

To match residential and economic growth and increase job to resident ratios, we need a bold vision for the intensification and commercial renewal of our downtown urban cores.

Durham will also continue to advance great projects to support the region’s 14 downtown areas, and ensure they are diverse, safe, financially attainable to both residents and new businesses, lively and vibrant; and our incredible quality of place will provide a competitive advantage.

The award-winning Downtowns of Durham website saw more than 61,000 visits last year from people wanting to learn more about fun things to do in their downtowns.

We will continue to work together with the organizations in this room to support our local business community.

Durham will be a place where homegrown talent and companies are Accelerated into global leaders.

Durham’s innovation community is creating an ecosystem for business success and sharing that story with the world.

This ecosystem will be on display at Collision Conference in June – the world’s fastest growing technology conference in North America.

Members of Durham’s innovation community, including the region’s economic development team and local area economic developers; three post-secondary institutions; as well as our incubators and accelerator, along with Ontario Power Generation and the Automotive Parts Manufactures’ Association, will be onsite showcasing Durham Region’s exciting development potential to businesses and investors. 

After attending last year in a large booth inspired by our incredible local food producers, our efforts resulted in securing hundreds of investment leads for Invest Durham.

And we will continue that momentum next month by leveraging this incredible opportunity to promote Durham Region’s leading edge electric and connected technology ecosystem, including our fantastic research and development supports.

Our vision for the future is to have our innovation community’s reputation known internationally for solving the world’s biggest challenges.

Our People, Location and Acceleration pillars are driven by Creativity.

We are building momentum around our arts, cultural and creative industries to strengthen our distinct cultural identity.

A shining example of this is Durham Region’s film and television industry.

When people think of Durham Region, they often picture our busy downtowns, rolling country sides and scenic waterfront trails.

But here, also lies a vibrant and booming film industry; one that saw record-breaking production values in 2022.

When we focus on creating vibrant, distinct cultural identities, we accelerate innovation, investment and high-quality job growth.

Durham will continue to grow its distinct cultural identity by supporting its area municipalities and enabling its vibrant base of creative businesses, cultural institutions, galleries, entertainment venues and homegrown talent.

Through an economic development lens, we are seeing strong demand for commercial and industrial investment in our communities, with a high volume from both international and domestic developers.

I am going to pause for a moment to play this video that highlights the investment across the region.

The Region will continue to work together with local area municipalities, local chambers of commerce and boards of trade to help support the economy and attract new businesses and major innovative projects.

Much like supporting our business community, we continued our work to support the most vulnerable residents in Durham.

Over the course of the pandemic, we’ve seen some of our most vulnerable residents face hardship and challenges—struggles with mental health, addictions, affordable housing and homelessness.

In some of Durham’s communities, the number of people experiencing homelessness has tripled. We know that for 60 per cent of the people who accessed a Durham shelter in 2022, it was their first time. This really demonstrates the increase in homelessness we’re seeing across the entire region.

The impacts of the challenges related to homelessness, mental health and addictions are often felt most acutely in downtown neighbourhoods; affecting residents, local businesses and community safety and well-being.

The challenge is great, but we are working collaboratively with our local municipalities, Durham Regional Police Service and Lakeridge Health to support our community.

We continued to work to implement At Home in Durham—the Durham Region Housing Plan— while responding to the community’s needs through supportive housing initiatives like the Beaverton Supportive Housing Project.

This 47-unit modular housing development will provide accommodation, and access to wrap around services that support life stabilization, to unsheltered residents, with priority access being given to those in north Durham—including individuals from the townships of Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge.

Homelessness is a housing status; it’s not someone’s identity and everyone deserves access to affordable housing and the care they need to live a happy and healthy life.

We are working diligently to ensure all residents and businesses feel supported to ensure that our communities remain safe and welcoming places to live, work, shop and visit.

Another one of our goals is Environmental Sustainability, which we made great strides in over the past year.

We have several projects to prioritize this goal, including the LEAF Backyard Tree Planting Program.

To date, we’ve seen more than 1,700 trees and shrubs planted on both public and private lands through subsidized tree planting that boosts the Region’s efforts to combat climate change.

And we continue to add to that number each year.

We’re continuing to advance low-carbon fleet transitions, including Durham Region Transit’s first battery electric buses and the development of a long-term fleet transition road map.

In April, Durham Region Transit (DRT) took a significant step forward in their E-Mission Zero program - a suite of emission-reducing initiatives to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions through a sustainable network of vehicles, infrastructure and facilities by 2037.

We’ve begun implementation of Durham’s Nuclear Sector Strategy.

Durham has always been a proud nuclear host community at the forefront of nuclear innovation, producing low-cost electricity safely, reliably and virtually without carbon emissions.

This strategy will play an important role in the Region meeting its goal of achieving Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The Region also playing a significant role in the provincial Energy Sector as the Clean Energy Capital of Canada, producing 30 per cent of Ontario’s electricity.

Our existing economic cluster of Nuclear Supply chain companies and our post-secondary institutions are continuing to drive advancements in energy innovation not just for Canada, but for the world.

I’ve touched on our accomplishments and priorities from 2022. Now I’d like to share our vision for the year ahead.

As always, we remain focused on the future to ensure a safe and prosperous tomorrow for our great communities.

A key priority for the organization in 2023 is continuing to bring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into our very core.

Working across the organization and with the community, our recently established DEI office provides a dedicated focus on our efforts to address systemic racism, promote community development and advocate for equity for all residents.

In February, we celebrated Black History Month in partnership with the Canadian Jamaican Club of Oshawa, The Power to Be International, Congress of Black Women, DurhamOne and Durham Regional Police Service, the City of Pickering, Municipality of Clarington, at an in-person event at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa.

The incredible evening showcased Black excellence through the arts; displaying talent from local artists, engaging the community in discussion and celebrating Canada’s Black communities.

We are a region that is committed to creating welcoming communities that provide equal opportunities for people of all abilities.

From February 3 to 5, Durham Region proudly hosted the 2023 Ontario Parasport Games, for a second time.

More than 300 athletes competed in 11 parasports in front of roaring fans at nine accessible venues.

Hosting these Games amplifies our community pride, provides athletes with a stepping-stone to national or international experience, and grows accessible sport opportunities and participation in our region.

The anticipated local economic impact of the Games was between $500,000 and $1 million. It’s another direct and positive impact for Durham’s economic future, and an exciting event to showcase our region.

We remain committed to improving accessibility of our services, programs and facilities which is outlined in our 2022-2025 Multi-Year Accessibility Plan; relying on advice from our Accessibility Advisory Committee to support our ongoing accessibility efforts within this plan.

Fostering an inclusive environment is central to the Region’s strategic plan, which aims to build a healthy, inclusive, age friendly community where everyone feels a sense of belonging and prioritizes service excellence.

This push for equity is seen in many different areas of the Region, including Durham Region Transit through the Transit Assistance Program, or TAP.

TAP aims to improve transit access and affordability for customers currently receiving Social Assistance in Durham Region.

Through TAP, residents can pay as they go, or pay monthly, and have unlimited access to DRT services for the month.

We’re also working to improve service on Durham Region Transit this year, including the addition of new routes, overnight service, new connections and the award-winning Durham Transit OnDemand service.

OnDemand delivers service to everywhere in the region, including the north, to ensure every person has access to transit.

Most recently, following the successful launch of contactless credit card payments in January, Durham Region Transit will now be accepting contactless debit card payment, making transit easier and more convenient for residents.

We’re committed to improving our services by listening and engaging with our residents.

This is highlighted in another one of our main priorities for this year: Community engagement.

We remain committed to service excellence for our communities in 2023 and beyond.

In November 2022, we hosted the 2023 Budget Town Hall to listen to residents’ questions and feedback on the Region’s business plans and budgets.

More than 14,000 participants attended by phone, online and in person.

The 2023 Business Plans and Budgets – which were approved by Regional Council in March – are an important step in bringing critical investments forward and incorporating the excellent feedback we have received.

One of the challenges that we face when thinking about community engagement is how in Durham—like many Canadian municipalities—our broadband connectivity is not equally shared.

We all know, broadband access is vital infrastructure that is essential for communication, education and economic competitiveness.

It’s a challenge that we continue to address through our Broadband Strategy and ongoing work to ensure our residents, businesses and institutions, have access to fast, reliable and affordable broadband services.

In 2021, we began work to expand broadband infrastructure in north Durham.

Through the Region’s recently established broadband Municipal Services Corporation, Durham OneNet Inc., work is underway to create the underground backbone infrastructure necessary to facilitate high-speed broadband to underserved areas and bring the region in line with some of the best-connected communities in the world.

To date, we have completed approximately 70 kilometres of new fibre build, with more to come in the future.

We will continue to look to the provincial and federal governments to work with us to fund further development of critical broadband infrastructure in north Durham.

While we aim for improvements in community engagement, we also continue to be committed to improving community safety.

The Community Safety and Well-Being Plan continues our work in ensuring that the needs of Durham Region residents are met.

By working with our community partners, we can share best practices, collaborate and continue our work on community safety and well-being.

The GTHA Community Safety and Well-Being Symposium last June was a chance to work collaboratively, to raise awareness about priority risk areas, share best practices, discuss the escalation of violence and gun violence across the GTHA and identify action items.

These conversations will help inform the implementation of the Region’s Plan and make Durham Region a safer place for everyone.

In February, the federal government announced the launch of the Building Safer Communities Fund— funding to support local initiatives that prevent gun and gang violence.

Through this fund, Durham Region will receive up to $4.3 million to prevent gun crime and gang violence in the region.

Another impactful example of how we are working together to maximize community safety is the implementation of the PulsePoint app by the City of Oshawa.

This life-saving app uses the Oshawa Fire Services’ Computer Aided dispatch system and the GPS on smartphones to alert everyday citizens trained in CPR when a sudden cardiac arrest incident occurs in a public place, and sends a notification if they are within 500 metres of the cardiac arrest incident.

Every second counts when a cardiac arrest occurs, and this real-time notification enables members of our community to provide life-saving support until Durham’s first responders arrive. 

What began as a partnership with the City of Oshawa, is now deployed in our north Durham communities.

We hope to have all other local area municipalities added in the future.

As our region continues to grow, it’s important that for us to maintain strong, responsive and sustainable services, and that is especially important for waste management.

Our Long-Term Waste Management Plan will help us to achieve our waste goals by reducing the amount of waste we create, and managing generated waste as a resource, balancing financial needs and environmental sustainability.

We will build innovative systems in collaboration with our residents and stakeholders to ensure a healthy, safe and happy community for all.

We also remain committed to making our roads a safer place for motorists and pedestrians through Vision Zero, a plan with an end goal of zero road fatalities in Durham Region across all modes of transportation.

Our immediate goal is a minimum 10 per cent reduction of fatal and injury collisions by the end of this year.

Along with fostering safe and welcoming communities, comes the Region’s responsibility to manage growth, including supporting affordable housing and planning for major infrastructure on a regional basis.

Last month, Durham Regional Council adopted a new Regional Official Plan (ROP), as amended.

The new ROP is the culmination of several years of work and extensive public and stakeholder consultation completed through Envision Durham, the Municipal Comprehensive Review of Durham’s existing ROP.

The new ROP provides policies and strategic directions that guide future growth, infrastructure and service delivery, land use planning and development related matters to ensure an improved quality of life – to secure health, safety, convenience and well-being of present and future residents of Durham.

On May 17, Durham Regional Council adopted the new ROP, as amended, and it is being forwarded to the province for approval.

Successful urban planning requires a vision—a bigger picture. It’s about shaping communities that balance growth with services, while protecting the environment for our residents.

It’s the foundation of our ROP, and the basis for Envision Durham—our vision for growth to 2051.

And while we share the province’s goal of increasing housing supply, the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 (Bill 23) is concerning.

Regional governments play a critical role in infrastructure planning and delivery; helping to support growing communities.

One of the concerns with Bill 23 is that it reduces the development charges we can recover for new infrastructure like water and sewer pipes, transit, roads and more.

Given critical projects we are already planning for through our long-range capital plan, funds in reserve cannot absorb the cost impacts of

Bill 23.

We’re evaluating the impacts and working with the province to identify solutions; including how to work together to increase the supply of different types of housing for all residents and income levels.

If you’re interested in learning more, I encourage you to visit durham.ca/Bill23.  

Before I finish, I want to also say that despite the recent provincial announcement about changes to the structure of the Region of Peel, there have been no concerns raised about the size or structure of the Region of Durham.

Our Region, and the eight local municipalities, have a productive and strong track record of working together to serve our residents. Together, we provide the backbone of service delivery in a two-tier structure that ensures services are planned, funded and delivered in a cost-effective manner; and on a large geographic scale.

We have all made continuous improvement part of our core business, and we will keep working together to address common challenges.

We look forward to speaking with the provincial facilitators about Durham Region, and all of the work that is done to ensure we remain a location of choice for residents and businesses.

I’d like to close by saying thank you for the opportunity to share some of our successes and priorities with you today.

We are stronger when we work together, and seeing the Chambers and Boards join in advocacy across Durham Region demonstrates unity that will help strengthen our region’s business community. 

We’ve achieved so much over the past year and I’m looking forward to continuing this work throughout the rest of 2023 and beyond.

Thank you for all that you do.

I’m happy to take any questions.