Please note that Lanark County operations are being affected by the worldwide Microsoft 365 outage.

County staff are temporarily unable to access their email accounts, and some County services may be impacted until the issue is resolved. If you need assistance, please call 613-267-4200 ...during regular business hours. Please follow extension 2140 for Social Services.

Lanark County Council received information on the Operation F1 Project for high-speed internet.

At the economic development committee meeting last month, Storm Internet’s Birket Foster said over the past year Storm has upgraded nine towers, which has dramatically improved speed. Storm ...funded more than half of the project with support from the Eastern Ontario Regional Network (EORN). He said this has resulted in vast improvements in rural areas.

Storm’s wireless footprint stretches from Sharbot Lake to the Quebec border and includes 262 towers they own. Within the smaller F1 Project area, they are working on fixed wireless access and have the potential to connect 3,000 premises. He explained with the upgraded towers and five licensed links, they can push a large bandwidth between two antennas where there is no fibre in an area. “It’s a way of doing it without waiting for fibre to arrive,” he said, adding it is just as fast.

He described the technologies they use in the F1 Project, including signal processing to allow a working signal despite trees, terrain and buildings.

Foster expressed thanks to EORN, the Ministry of Energy and Mines, and the Province of Ontario for their continued investment in rural connectivity. “This funding enables Storm Internet to complete vital broadband projects in unserved and underserved areas across the region,” he said. “With this support, we can deliver reliable, high-speed Internet to the homes and businesses that need it most."

Lanark County Council has approved requesting four delegations with provincial ministries at the 2027 Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference in January.

Clerk Jasmin Ralph explained requests were submitted by staff and members of Council and reviewed by the Government Relations ...Working Group. The requests to be submitted include:

✅ Asking the Ministry of the Solicitor General to provide for a predictable phased-in approach to manage budgeting pressures due to OPP costs, which continue to have one of the largest budgetary impacts on local municipalities. Municipalities have no input on the billing process, and large year-over-year increases reduce their ability to manage infrastructure and other costs.

✅ Asking the Ministry of Natural Resources to increase funding and support for municipalities through the Ontario Phragmites Action (OPA) Program. This has already received significant investment for a multi-year program to map, manage and control the invasive weed, and continued investment and expansion will leverage more progress and effective outcomes that lower future maintenance costs and ensure more sustainable infrastructure and better biodiversity.

✅ Asking the Ministry of Transportation to manage phragmites eradication for their highway corridors or to work with municipalities to ensure it is managed.

✅ Asking the Ministry of Health for sustainable funding for the Lanark Integrated Frontline Team (LIFT), which is a successful mobile outreach initiative that supports individuals experiencing homelessness, housing instability, mental health challenges and substance use issues. Current pilot funding from Health Canada ends March 31. LIFT is a partnership between Lanark County Paramedic Services and Lanark County Mental Health and focuses on health outcomes to reduce impacts on emergency departments and increase trust in the healthcare system for those experiencing barriers.

The county will be informed in the coming weeks about which proposed delegation requests have been accepted.