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Ron Shulman

Last Monday I did something I never thought I would do. I attended a Blue Mountains Town council meeting. I should have done this a long time ago. It clears up a bunch of issues.

I went to hear Don May make his presentation on the Municipal Services Corporation.

The following represents my analysis of the meeting in 3 parts, but with one conclusion.

John Milne: A Professional Presentation

John Milne, a local resident delivered a professional, well-prepared presentation. Charts. Data. A concrete motion. He was asking about a $19.7 million sewage infrastructure overrun that council had formally directed staff to explain back in December 2025.

Five months later, the answers still haven’t come.

Milne proposed a June 1 deadline to force a response. Staff said they couldn’t meet it. It was settled on June 8, but the CFO seemed to be making it quite clear that was an unreasonable time frame as this was a very complex request.

That was the first thing I learned sitting in that room.

What the Room Got Wrong

Here is what is strange about the request and the lack of an appropriate response. Everyone in that room knew the Mill Street project hasn’t started. $19.7 million hasn’t been spent. It won’t hit the books until 2027 or 2028 at the earliest. And yet somehow, the conversation stayed fixed on that number — as if it were the whole story.

It isn’t. It isn’t close.

The CFO was in the room. Monica Quinlan sat there while Milne made his case. She said nothing. She did not tell him — or council — that $19.7 million is not the problem. It is the next problem. The current problem is already on the books, already in execution, already accruing debt service.

She let a materially incomplete picture stand. Unchallenged.

At the meeting, Deputy Mayor Peter Bordignon and Councillor June Porter were clearly frustrated by the intransigence of the CFO and CAO to deliver a report that council had directed months earlier, but they were clearly powerless.

The Real Numbers: What’s Already Committed

The Craigleith Bomb

Above and beyond everything already committed, the town is already paying consultants to plan a project it hasn’t told ratepayers is coming — a $45 million obligation that exists nowhere in the public conversation about TBM’s finances. Who is going to pay for it?

This will be paid for in your water bill

.But the Craigleith WWTP is not the end of it. Add everything together — committed wastewater borrowing, the Craigleith plant, and the fire hall — and the full weight of TBM’s capital obligations comes into view

A Council Without Control

The motion Milne brought was reasonable. The question he asked was legitimate. But it was the wrong question at the wrong scale.

The question council should be demanding an answer to is this: how does TBM service $52 million in wastewater capital debt by 2028 that rises to $97M by 2030, along with $21M in capital debt when the Craigleith Fire Hall comes on board in 2028.

These figures above do not include interest. At 4.5% — a current Ontario municipal debenture rate — debt service on the $52M commitment adds $2.34M annually. At $97M, that rises to $4.37M per year. Neither number appears anywhere in TBM’s public accounting.

This is a council that does not know — or has not been permitted to know — the full weight of the debt it has already authorized.

Part Two: The CAO Report

Council directed CAO Adam Smith to explore Municipal Services Corporation opportunities for The Blue Mountains.

He was given one month.

This is what he produced.

The report runs seven pages. It contains no statement of TBM’s wastewater debt. No reference to $52 million in committed borrowing. No mention of $4.37 million in annual debt service. No acknowledgment of the $45 million Craigleith WWTP obligation sitting in planning. No projection of what any of this does to the water bill.

A report evaluating whether a solution fits the problem — written as if the problem doesn’t exist.

Failure One: He ignored MPP Saunderson.

Council directed him to work with MPP Brian Saunderson. Saunderson is actively pursuing MSC legislation at Queen’s Park under Minister Rob Flack. He is the single most important external ally TBM has on this file.

He appears once in the report. In the background section. Then nothing.

No consultation documented. No legislative update. No assessment of what Bill 98 or the WWPC Act means for TBM’s options. The politician doing the work at the provincial level was treated as a footnote.

Failure Two: He argued against his own evidence.

His own report confirms the MSC delivers exactly what TBM needs. Debt relief through the Annual Repayment Limit. Professional governance. Scaled capital planning across municipal boundaries.

Then he recommended against it.

His stated reason: no neighbouring municipality is actively pursuing an MSC. That is not analysis and had he done what he was supposed to, talk with Brian Saunderson he would have had a different view.

Failure Three: He recommended the status quo and called it a next step.

Council asked for recommended next steps. Option 3 — his recommendation — is to continue identifying opportunities for service modernization.

TBM has been identifying opportunities for years. The Craigleith WWTP is still in planning. The debt is still accumulating. The water bill is still rising.

Identifying opportunities is not the next step. It is what got this town here.

Where This Leaves Council

This council is stuck.

Not for lack of will. Deputy Mayor Bordignon and Councillor Porter made that clear in the room. There are members of this council who want to move. Who understand the urgency. Who have been asking the right questions for months.

They can’t get answers.

When the data finally arrives — as it did today in ADM.26.033 — it arrives without the numbers that matter. No debt position. No cost of inaction. No honest accounting of what ratepayers are facing,

That is not acceptable. Not with $97 million in wastewater obligations bearing down on this municipality. Not with reserves turning negative. Not with an EOI deadline of August 13 that closes whether council acts or not.

A council cannot govern without data. A municipality cannot plan without honest analysis. And a CAO cannot be permitted to evaluate solutions to a crisis he has declined to name.

Don May walked into that room with the numbers, the analysis, and the solution. He did the CAO’s job.

A Pause. Before Don May.

Two tasks. Two failures.

Council directed the CFO to explain a $19.7 million capital overrun. Five months passed. When Milne pressed for a deadline, staff said the request was too complex. June 1 became June 8. Monica Quinlan said nothing more.

Council directed the CAO to evaluate the MSC. He produced seven pages containing no debt figures, no cost of inaction, and a recommendation against the one tool that addresses the problem — justified by the absence of neighbours who had tried it.

I spent thirty-five years as a strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies across four continents. In that world, when a CEO turns to a CFO with a hard question, she opens her laptop and answers it. In rare cases — genuinely rare — she asks for a day. In rarer situations still, a week.

When a CEO directs a VP to analyze a problem, that VP analyzes the problem. A VP who returns with an analysis of a different problem — one shaped to fit a pre-existing conclusion — has a short future.

What I saw in that council chamber was not a bad day. It was an organizational signature. The visible expression of how this municipality responds when accountability is requested and inconvenient.

In one meeting, TBM revealed why it is where it is — financially, organizationally, and culturally. Not because the problems are unsolvable. Because the institution is not designed to solve them.

The responsibility for that rests with the Mayor — who is, in the corporate analogy, the CEO. Mayor Matrosovs has pioneered a new form of remote work: she no longer shows up. Without a Mayor who leads from the chair, council has no centre of gravity. It flounders. And this is what we are watching.

Part Three: Don May

Don May came prepared.

He addressed the CAO’s central objection directly. Yes, the Simcoe Municipal Services Corporation does not yet exist. The legislation is pending. But the City of Orillia — which is not even in Simcoe County — has formally asked to be included. That request has been accepted. The precedent is established. The door is open.

Before making his ask to council, Don explained why the MSC matters. Three reasons. TBM needs all of them.

What is a Municipal Services Corporation Designed to Do?

Long-Term Capital Financing. Ontario caps municipal debentures at 20 years. An MSC issues at 40. TBM’s wastewater debt transfers to the MSC. It disappears from the town’s books. Spread across the member municipalities, the cost impact on any single ratepayer drops substantially. To be clear: the current $52 million transfers off TBM’s books entirely. What is even more important is that the MSC may choose not to go forward with Craigleith. Given the nature of a regional plan they may establish something more cost effective with a greater long-term benefit.

Professional Talent, Quality and Focus. TBM cannot attract or retain the engineering talent this infrastructure demands. An MSC recruits project managers who have built treatment plants a dozen times over. The mandate is singular: run the infrastructure competently. Nothing else. A professional organization does not have a $19.7 million overrun.

Scalability and a Plan. TBM has no credible infrastructure plan. This is in fact documented in their planning literature. MSC’s first mandate is a ten-year capital plan — every asset mapped, every investment sequenced. Not a study. A plan with a board whose only job is to execute it. TBM was the second fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 2016 and 2021. The infrastructure must be built for where it is going — not patched for where it has been.

It was a clear, actionable, time-sensitive request. The EOI deadline is August 13. The window is open now.

What Followed Was Instructive

Several members of council did not do their homework.

One raised the concern that TBM would lose control of its water system. It is a reasonable concern in the abstract. In the context of this municipality it is breathtaking. This is a council that just overran a single project by $19.7 million with no oversight and no accountability. Control of the water system is not something TBM currently possesses.

Another member kept returning to the need to negotiate with Collingwood separately. Don had to explain — more than once — that Collingwood would be embedded in the MSC. The negotiation is the MSC. That is the point. I will leave what that exchange revealed about council preparation to the reader.

Council’s Proposed Resolution

THAT Council directs staff to make a submission through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Expressions of Interest (EOI) for implementing a Water and Wastewater Public Corporation model;

This is a major win for the town.

AND WHEREAS it is essential for both Council and the public to have a comprehensive understanding of the legal, financial, and operational implications of a Municipal Servicing Corporation and Water and Wastewater Public Corporation

AND THAT Council directs staff to hold a public education meeting for the purpose of education regarding Municipal Servicing Corporations

AND THAT Council directs staff to continue to identify opportunities for service modernization and transformation of water and wastewater services within the municipality, in accordance with Option #3;

This last clause placates the CAO. It is unnecessary. The EOI submission renders it moot.

The Community Meeting

Don finished with a suggestion that has real merit. Hold a community meeting. Bring this to ratepayers directly. Let them understand what is coming and what the alternative looks like.

Your water bill is going up over 100% — or TBM can join the MSC.

That is the headline. That is the choice. Ratepayers deserve to hear it plainly before the bills arrive.

A Closing Thought

I came away from that council chamber shaken by two things.

The first is the gap between staff and council. The intransigence. The inadequacy of the analysis. The willingness to let a governance failure persist in plain sight.

The second is something I need to say directly. I have been unfair to some members of council. I have written about TBM council as if it were a uniform body of complacency. It is not. There are members in that room who are fighting. Who are frustrated. Who have been asking the right questions for months and getting nothing back.

In fact, it is my understanding that the Deputy Mayor, Peter Bordignon did what the CAO was supposed to do and met with MPP Brian Saunderson to informally express interest in TBM joining the MSC. It was at his direction that the resolution was rewritten.

They deserve better from their staff. And they deserved better from me.

Don May’s community meeting idea is the right next step. Not because council has failed entirely — but because the people paying the bills deserve a seat at the table before the bills arrive.

Why you need to vote

The October 2026 election is the reset. One council. One chance to elect people who understand what an MSC is, what this town can actually afford, and what the consequences of another four years of inaction look like on your tax bill. What I learned is that there are people on this council that have no business running a $50 million business.

If you are a permanent resident — you are already on the voters’ list.

• If you are a renter — you are eligible. Register at RegisterToVoteOn.ca by August 12, 2026. Vote.
• If you own a property in TBM but live elsewhere — you are eligible as a non-resident elector. Register. Vote.
• If you rent from a landlord — tell them. They have more at stake than anyone.

You have two options. Stay home in October — and pay for it on your tax bill, in your rent, and in the value of your property. Or show up and be part of the solution.

The choice is yours. The bill is not.

Thank You. And an Ask.

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