Thunder Bay, Ont., leaders meet with provincial ministers at annual AMO conference

Kris Ketonen · CBC News

· Posted: Aug 22, 2026 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 22

Crime, housing and infrastructure were among the issues discussed by the City of Thunder Bay's delegation to the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference.

This year's conference took place in Ottawa from Aug. 16 to 19. City leaders met with seven provincial representatives, including ministers, during the event.

That included meetings with Infrastructure Minister Todd McCarthy, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Sylvia Jones, and Solicitor General Michael Kerzner.

One significant development that came out of the conference was an announcement by the provincial and federal governments that they would provide $1 billion in infrastructure funding to municipalities that don't levy development charges.

"We're the only municipality over 100,000 people that doesn't have development charges," said Coun. Trevor Giertuga, who chairs the city's intergovernmental affairs committee. "We've been lobbying for years to get this, and a billion dollars with such a large community like ours ... it's going to [have] a significant impact on our community."

Coun. Kasey Etreni, who's a member of the intergovernmental affairs committee and also attended the AMO conference, said it's still unclear how much of that money Thunder Bay may receive.

"People have already reached out asking how much of a piece of the pie are we going to get out of that $1 billion," she said. "At this time, we don't know."

Giertuga said another positive was hearing that the province is moving ahead with improvements to the section of Trans-Canada Highway that runs through Thunder Bay, including replacing six sets of traffic lights with interchanges.

• Province, feds roll out $1B for municipalities that don't charge development fees

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"The Ministry of Transportation told us that they will be giving out the contract next month for the design-build for 13 kilometres of the expressway," he said. "That's the first step of a $450 million project."

"We have a bottleneck coming into Thunder Bay, right?" he said. "That'll alleviate a lot of our transportation issues in conjunction with the Northwest Arterial, which is the $33 million project."

"We told them we're prepared to put some skin in the game here and contribute, collaborate with the province for this."

Other issues raised during the conference include the future of the former Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital property on Algoma Street North.

While the property is still listed as being "under review" on Ontario's surplus property site, Giertuga said the province told the city it would have first right of refusal if it decides to dispose of the property.

"They said that it's not needed by the other ministries," Giertuga said. "So it's surplus, and we will be the first one at the table with them, and in conjunction with First Nations, [with] our proposal for that area."