City of Brantford Council ultimately decided not to request that the provincial government repeal Bill 5, “Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025,” during its regular Council meeting on Tuesday, August 25, 2025.
Last week, at the Committee of the Whole, Planning and Administration meeting on Tuesday, August 19, councillors voted on whether they would approve a resolution to:
- Endorse the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s (AMO) request that the province include municipalities in the development of the regulatory framework to implement Special Economic Zones (SEZs).
- Oppose the provisions contained in Bill 5 that would reduce the environmental protections, override municipal planning authority, or prevent good faith consultation with Indigenous communities.
- Encourage the Province to support responsible housing and infrastructure growth through environmentally sound policies, local planning tools, and projects that protect sensitive wildlife and natural resources; and
- Request that Bill 5, “Protecting Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act, 2025” be repealed and that consultation with municipal organizations such as the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the Rural Ontario Municipal Association be prioritized for the creation of legislation that would accomplish shared goals between both levels of government as equal partners.
A copy of the resolution was to also be sent to Ontario Premier Doug Ford; Rob Flack, Minister of Municipal Affairs; Greg Rickford, Minister of Indigenous Affairs and First Nations Economic Reconciliation of Ontario; Will Bouma, MPP for Brantford-Brant; Larry Brock, MP for Brantford-Brant; AMO and all Ontario municipalities.
Despite the initial 9-0 vote to go ahead with asking the province to repeal the bill, and hearing from further delegations like Ella Haley and Wilfred Davey, the decision was reversed after councillors heard from Mayor Kevin Davis and Councillor Rose Sicoli, both of whom were absent from the August 19 meeting.
“When we talk about Bill 5 and what its intended purpose is, I’m interpreting this piece of legislation to be a bill that promotes Ontario’s economic growth and simplifies the process, especially where infrastructure is concerned, by reducing the red tape behind the scenes,” said Sicoli.
Davis added that the resolution needed to be considered in the context of what is currently happening with the current trade and tariff situation.
“There’s this sense of complacency that has crept in,” he said. “That everything’s fine, because we’ve got CUSMA [the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement].
He went on to say that while people feel like Brantford won’t be affected by the steel tariffs like Hamilton might be, there’s an “economic storm coming and we’re just beginning to see it.”
“We saw it last week when President Trump, with the stroke of a pen, imposed what’s called derivative steel tariffs. That means that if you make something in Brantford that has steel in it, that’s come from a Canadian plant, you’re now subject to a 50 per cent tax at the border,” said Davis. “… You can’t even get steel from the U.S., they’re completely back ordered. That’s a very serious threat to our local economy, to the economy across southern Ontario. Now we’re about to move into negotiating CUSMA, and that’s saving a lot of manufacturers and industries in Brantford and throughout the province, but I don’t think that CUSMA is going to survive.”
The Mayor continued to say that he believes U.S. President Donald Trump is targeting Canada with unfair treatment compared to other countries, and that the provincial government is trying to be resilient.
“I fully expect he’s going to rip up that trade agreement and if that happens, we folks are in serious trouble. It’ll have a devastating impact on our economy across Ontario,” he said. “I think with this legislation, the provincial government is trying to establish and create a building block for our future prosperity, to make us more resilient to what President Trump wants to do to us.”
Davis said that he’s read Bill 5 several times over and he doesn’t see that it talks about eliminating all of the environmental and regulatory controls, but that it talks about streamlining the development process.
“The permitting process in Ontario has become so bureaucratic, so encumbered with red tape, that we are now one of the worst jurisdictions in the world to build something,” he said. “Ontario is gaining a reputation as the ‘can’t build province,’ as a province where large economic development projects go to die.”
“I’ll give an example, in the European community, you can usually get approvals for a mine in about three years. In Australia, it’s about five to six years, in Alberta and BC, less than ten,” Davis continued. “Ontario has one of the longest permitting approval processes in the world, more than 15 years. …So I see Bill 5 as an attempt to kick start our mining industry, which made us famous around the world.”
Saying that Bill 5 is not intended for local projects, but rather, for projects at a provincial scale, Davis said he was concerned that asking the province to repeal the legislation could cost the city tens of millions of dollars.
”We’re making a pitch to the provincial government to allow us to use provincial right-of-ways, like Paris Road and King George Road, to build sewers and pipes into the boundary lands. If we can’t do that, and the bureaucrats are saying, ‘no,’ that’s another $30 million in costs. We’re also applying for a $20 million grant for the water tower,” he said. “Common sense tells you, if you’re kicking the shin of the centerpiece of this government’s economic agenda, how likely are you going to get those indulgences? This resolution, if passed, would be the only resolution like this from a big city in Ontario. I’m fearful of the impact it will have on taxpayers in this city.”
Following his statements, the resolution asking the province to repeal Bill 5, failed on a recorded vote of 7-4. Members of council voting against the resolution included Mayor Davis and Councillors Rose Sicoli, Michael Sullivan, Gino Caputo, John Sless, Dan McCreary, and Greg Martin.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
