IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Municipality of County Warden Ron Baillie said Wednesday that request for proposals for a governance study is on the agenda for a shared services meeting Sept. 9.

Mayors and the warden, along with each CAO, usually attend the shared services meetings and since all the players involved will be in attendance, governance will be discussed.

Town council debated the merits of making a list September 26 after receiving a request from the Municipal Joint Services Board.

That board, which currently only oversees waste management, asked the three participating municipal units for a prioritized list of services they "would like to see investigated" for possible movement.

A shared services committee, including council members and CAOs from Pictou County’s six municipalities, has been meeting every two to three months for the last year and a half and have talked to recreation directors from all the towns to see how they could work together.

“It came out of the mayors and wardens meetings,” says New Glasgow councillor Troy MacCulloch who chairs the committee. “The idea was to start looking at things that as a county we can start sharing.”

The towns of Trenton, Westville and Stellarton will be hiring one building inspector and one planning development officer while Pictou and New Glasgow will be hiring one person for each position as well to be shared between the two towns.

The Municipality of Pictou County will be looking after hiring fire inspectors that will cover five areas.

Today, June 20, the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg, the Town of Bridgewater and the Town of Mahone Bay announced that they are partnering to explore options to work more collaboratively to deliver municipal services to residents.

“All levels of government are looking for ways to live within their means while still delivering the services and programs that families depend on,” said Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations Minister John MacDonell. “Partnering to provide shared services has potential to keep our communities sustainable, and we are pleased to support this review.”

Nova Scotia's telehealth line handed more than 130,000 calls in its third year of operation, according to the department of health.

HealthLink 811 is a free service providing callers with access to registered nurses 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The 29 nurses answer general health questions or, if warranted, advise callers to head to an emergency room.

The service is three-years-old and the minister of health got the help of a one-year-old to mark the occasion Thursday.

The Treasury Board wants a consultant to do a shared services review, which the government expects will result in options for saving money and improving services, programs and accountability.

Besides information technology and human resources, the review will also examine financial services, and building infrastructure and asset management. A request for proposals issued Tuesday said busing for school boards is included.

The News has hired Corporate Research Associated to survey residents in an effort to find out if people support the idea of a governance study, amalgamation, sharing services or keeping the status quo when it comes to running the municipal units.

While the issues do get complicated, here are some simple notes about each item.

Governance study: This has been initiated by municipal councils, supported by municipal councils, defeated by municipal councils for various reasons but mostly they all focus on the cost and how much each council and the province should pay.

The three councils did not endorse the report, District of Lunenburg Mayor Don Downe emphasized — rather they accepted it so that residents can look at it and say what they want.

The Regional Governance and Shared Service Delivery Review was carried out for the District of Lunenburg and the towns of Bridgewater and Mahone Bay by Marathon Human Resources Consulting Group Ltd. of Dartmouth.

More than 7,000 doctors, who care for 6.5 million Ontarians, now manage their patients' health information with an electronic medical record.

That is just some of the significant progress outlined in the 2011 eHealth Progress Report.

Waterloo - More people across the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant and Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Networks now have access to better quality and more efficient health care.

Thanks to a five million dollar investment from eHealth Ontario, ClinicalConnect is expanding to better serve more patients in the WW and HNHB LHINs. Now, more than 2,500 health care providers, such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists in both LHINs can exchange secure patient information much faster.

“Given our region’s significant geography, information technology and information management are key resources to connect patients with care,” says Louise Paquette, CEO, NE LHIN. “Technology is the enabler for improving care coordination, navigation and access for fellow Northerners.”

After an increasing number of Canadians and businesses moved online throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, three-quarters of the population feels it’s important to have a secure and privacy-enhancing digital ID to safely make transactions online.

Moreover, a survey from Digital ID and Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC) has revealed that the majority of Canadians believe it is important for federal and provincial governments to move quickly on enabling digital ID in a safe and secure manner.

The case, Perrenoud v. eHealth Ontario, deals with eHealth’s decision to cancel employees’ performance awards and merit increases for the last two fiscal years. The cancellation followed on a request for review from the Minister of Finance.

The defendants opposed certification on the basis that eHealth had no contractual obligation to pay the awards and increases. The defendants also raised some technical objections to the common issues raised by the plaintiffs, but found they were not fatal, and allowed the plaintiffs to amend.

The Ontario government has launched consultations aimed to improve the province’s privacy protection laws. The consultations will be conducted through an online survey, written submissions and web conferences.

The consultations will include individuals and businesses from the province’s tech, finance, and service sectors, as well as the information and privacy commissioner of Ontario. All parties have been asked to provide input on how the province can improve transparency concerning the collection, use, and protection of personal information online.

The network will implement video conferencing technology from Hackensack, N.J.-based Vidyo Inc., enabling patients to consult with their clinicians via laptop and desktop computers in the home linked to the Internet. The rollout will take three years and also include additional providers.

As the province overhauls its data infrastructure, Ontario is putting the call out to public organizations and businesses to help it create a new provincial data authority.

Ontario is putting extra focus on ensuring that information collected is “private, secure, anonymous and cannot identify people individually,” according to Finance and Data Transformation Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, who on Friday announced the latest step in the province’s digital transformation strategy.

The mobile and electronic health development and innovation centre (MEDIC) will be open to students, faculty and industry partners as a place to develop and showcase the college’s works in the electronic health technology field.

Sault Ste. Marie MP Bryan Hayes announced Monday $466,492 in federal dollars for a host of projects, including $185,000 for the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corp., to attract businesses in the information and communication technology (ICT) and digital gaming sectors, as well as gauge the feasibility of establishing an ICT hub and shared data services facility.

Burlington residents can now report distracting signs advertisements around the city that they feel should be removed for pedestrian and driver safety.

The new customer service feature for ‘nuisance signs’ is available using the city’s online service request application at www.burlington.ca/servicerequests.

Residents already use the website, as well as the iPhone or Android app, to report potholes, broken traffic signs, graffiti and coyote sightings.