Snowmobile clubs in Eastern Ontario are facing financial issues. While clubs claim their membership wish to increase trail fees, the province has denied any increase to permit fees. This is resulting in reduced revenue, and the local effect is that snowmobile clubs are reducing the number of trails that are maintained this season.
This issue was brought up at South Dundas council, which resulted in a resolution being passed calling for the province to reconsider, or at least explain why a fee increase has been denied. The issue was also brought up at SDG Counties council, and resulted in a lengthy discussion about the impact on tourism and local economies. Council agreed to consider making this an issue to discuss at a possible delegation to one of the provincial conferences municipalities attend, such as the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, or Rural Ontario Municipality Association.
While issues that affect tourism, like snowmobiling, may seem important to people connected directly to the activity, is this a more pressing issue than housing, jobs, rural education, or infrastructure? Provincial conferences—AMO, ROMA, or Ontario Good Roads—are places where municipal officials can meet with provincial officials and lobby for the major issues. SDG Counties has lobbied for infrastructure funding, housing, rural education, connecting links funding, and for the safety issues and needed improvements for Highway 138. Local municipalities have been successful in making sure SDG and the six municipalities within it, are not forgotten, or at least not ignored.
At these conferences, SDG competes with every other municipality for attention. While it is not at the same intensity as say CBC-TV’s Dragon’s Den, people delegating at one of these conferences are dealing with serious issues and lobbying for serious money for those issues. What does it say at a conference with representatives from all 444 municipalities in the province, when one county says it wants money for social housing, and SDG Counties lobbies for snowmobile fees? It says that some municipalities’ priorities are not in line with their needs.
The issue about snowmobile club fees is important to those who are involved with that recreational activity. Should there be some discussion about those fees with provincial officials–sure, but that conversation should be between the clubs and the province. Municipalities have limited resources to use for lobbying, and many issues of greater importance to deal with than that of snowmobile fees. If council does not remember all the priorities they should be lobbying for, then they need only look at the reserves they raided in that same meeting to pay for infrastructure work: a stark reminder of where their real priorities should lie.
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