Tuesday's election call means the so called Safer Municipalities Act dissolved with Parliament, ending a promise made by the PC government to give municipalities the tools they said they needed to clear homeless encampments.
Bill 242 passed first reading in December, promising a suite of new measures including $75.5 million aimed at making it easier for municipalities and police to evict people from homeless encampments.
“These encampments are taking over public spaces with illegal drugs happening out in the open and creating huge safety risks for people and communities,” Doug Ford said when announcing the proposed legislation. “Enough is enough. It has to stop, and it will stop.”
Tuesday's election brought an end to all bills not passed by the House and given Royal Assent before dissolution.
Despite that, and with an election call looming, the province announced Monday the distribution of the $75.5 million would go ahead anyway.
The Region of Waterloo is among dozens of municipalities that have received a portion of the funding to create more emergency shelter spaces and affordable housing units.
The largest portion, $50 million, is for ready-to-build affordable housing projects. A further $20 million will be used to expand shelter capacity and create additional temporary accommodation spaces.
The remaining $5.5 million will top up the Canada-Ontario Housing Benefit (COHB) to get shelter resident into longer-term housing and free up emergency shelter spaces for those living in encampments.
“Our government has delivered significant support to municipalities to address the challenges encampments can pose to public safety across Ontario,” Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra said with Monday's announcement.
“Mayors have asked us for additional help and we have been clear that we will provide funding to municipalities that show results in winding down these sites. We can no longer accept encampments as a place to deal with mental health and addiction issues.”
Funding will flow through municipal service managers and Indigenous program administrators working in communities across the province, said a press release.
CambridgeToday attempted to get clarification from the region on the province's claim its portion of the funding, nearly $6 million, had been delivered and how it will be spent, but did not immediately hear back.
The region's Plan to End Chronic Homelessness is expected to cost about $200 million to fully implement over the next six years and any new provincial or federal funding is expected to lessen the burden on local taxpayers.
Organizations working on the front lines of the homelessness issue called the Safer Municipalities Act "inhumane" and "irresponsible" when it was tabled.
Julie Kalbfleisch, communications manager for Sanguen, isn't optimistic the legislation will go away. She fears this is just a delay and it will be tabled again if the Progressive Conservative government is re-elected.
The funding, however, is a promising sign for the region's growing unhoused population.
"Any flow of money into the region to help with providing more shelter space is good news," Kalbfleisch wrote in an email. "With over 2,300 folks experiencing homelessness, our first priority should be housing and social support."
"Right now, what's important is that we see voters engaged with the issues and root causes of homelessness and we choose a government who has a plan and will work towards solutions that are not punitive and further harming our most vulnerable community members."
Last fall, Ford was urged by 29 mayors, including Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett, to use the notwithstanding clause and override a 2023 Ontario Superior Court decision that found evicting people when there is nowhere else for them to go is unconstitutional.
It would have amended the Trespass to Property Act to "enhance penalties” for those who set up encampments, making “continuous” trespassing — staying more than 24 hours after being told to leave — an aggravating factor for judges to consider when sentencing somebody convicted of violating the act.
The bill would also have allowed the courts to hand out longer sentences to people it considers likely to trespass again and give police the power to “seize and remove any substances found in plain view” without a search warrant, make arrests and issue fines.
The province eventually dropped its plan to use the notwithstanding clause.
But before that happened, the City of Cambridge began clearing encampments anyway in what legal experts believed was in defiance of the 2023 court decision.
Monday's provincial funding announcement came less than a week after the federal government called on the province to do more to support the homeless crisis.
With that call, the feds pledged $88 million to nine municipalities, including Waterloo region, to implement “Community Encampment Response plans” and provide additional support to unhoused people.
With files from The Trillium.