Reducing the reporting burden has been a primary advocacy issue for AMCTO and our members since 2017 when we released Bearing The Burden: A Review of Municipal Reporting to the Province. That is why we were pleased when Minister Clark committed to reducing the reporting burden at the 2018 AMO Conference and when Premier Ford announced at the 2019 AMO Conference that 94 reports had been eliminated and 27 others had been consolidated or simplified.

Since then, in the spirit of collaboration and transparency, AMCTO has requested on many occasions that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing release this list of eliminated, consolidated and simplified reports. You can see our most recent requests for this included in our 2020 and 2021 Pre-Budget submissions.

Finally, on Friday, January 21, 2022, AMCTO was notified that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has made this information available online via the Municipal Finance Officers' Association of Ontario (MFOA) website.

While AMCTO welcomes the long-overdue release of information, we have several significant concerns with this inventory and the way it is being presented.

Mainly, we want to be clear that:

• AMCTO was not provided an opportunity to review the inventory and therefore we are not in a position to stand-by its validity.
• Other than the four reports highlighted on the MFOA site, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing continues to refuse to account for the reports it claims to have eliminated, consolidated, or simplified.
• There has been no commitment from the current Government to engage our Association and members in a future dialogue about addressing the municipal reporting burden in a real, meaningful, measurable and transparent manner.

On behalf of our members, we will be expressing our disappointment and concern formally to the Ministry this week, but felt it was important for you to know our position on this issue.

As always, we will continue to advocate on your behalf and we will continue to keep you up to date on our efforts.

For more information or questions, please contact:

David Arbuckle, MPA
Executive Director
darbuckle@amcto.com | (905) 624-4294 ext. 226

Alana Del Greco
Manager, Policy and Government Relations
adelgreco@amcto.com | (905) 624-4294 ext. 232