Online and telephone voting for the 2026 Municipal and School Board Elections is now open for Lanark County municipalities, including:

✅Beckwith Township
✅Carleton Place
✅Drummond/North Elmsley Township
✅Lanark Highlands
✅Mississippi Mills
✅Montague ...Township
✅Perth
✅Tay Valley Township

Visit your local town or township website or contact your municipal office for more information on how to vote, election assistance and more.

Polls close at 8 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. Make sure your voice is counted!

Lanark County Council has adopted a by-law for the Child Care Waitlist Priority Placement Policy. The new policy comes into effect April 1, 2027 for centres that are part of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC) program, which is locally administered by Lanark County as the service... manager.

Director of Social Services Emily Hollington explained the policy ensures families are served fairly and consistently and establishes a standardized approach for filling child care space vacancies for CWELCC-enrolled licensed child care centres in the county. “By implementing clear procedures and prioritization guidelines, licensees can uphold public trust, promote inclusive access and allocate child care spaces in a manner that reflects community needs and policy objectives.”

Hollington explained competition for affordable child care space has drastically increased with CWELCC, and county staff have been working with child care providers about equitable selection and providing fair and transparent waitlist management. A centralized approach was undertaken due to the county’s responsibility associated with access.

When a vacancy results from a child transitioning to the next age group, priority will be given to currently enrolled children who are eligible to advance. Following internal transitions, remaining vacancies will be offered to applicants on the wait list in the following order:
1. Siblings of currently enrolled children. This is a common practice to allow siblings to attend the same centre.
2. Children eligible for fee subsidy. Licensees must maintain a formula-based minimum percentage of capacity for children eligible for fee subsidy.
3. Children of Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs), Educational Assistants, Inclusion Support Educators, and Kitchen Staff that are employed at any CWELCC-enrolled licensed child care centre in Lanark County. This helps to address sector challenges related to an ongoing RECE workforce shortage.
4. Special requests approved by the Service Manager. This is expected to be limited and would be considered on a case-by-case basis to ensure transparency and fairness while addressing unique circumstances.
5. All other children in chronological order based on the date the application was received.

“This policy reinforces the county’s commitment to ensuring families have equitable access to licensed child care,” Hollington said.

Lanark County Council received a progress update on the Business Retention and Expansion (BR+E) program, a proactive program designed to support local businesses and strengthen the region’s economic vitality.

Lanark County BR+E Coordinator Tim Woods said survey questions were completed... and five volunteer training sessions have been held, resulting in 45 trained volunteers to conduct structured business interviews. They have reached out to more than 300 businesses and have completed 80 interviews so far, with a goal of 200. This will lead to working with community leaders to build action plans to address the results, followed by implementation and monitoring. There are six focus sectors: retail, tourism, agriculture, skilled trades and construction, manufacturing, and natural resources.

“Information gathered through this initiative will be used to develop a targeted action plan, and input from businesses is critical in order to identify key priorities and inform decision-making,” Woods said. Businesses can sign up at www.lanarkcounty.ca/grow.