Editor's note: The following story has been updated from its original version to clarify comments around a Mainstreet Research poll.
Quito Maggi, president and chief executive officer for Mainstreet Research, says he had no idea the City of Barrie was going to highlight his firm’s poll results in a news release issued Tuesday under the headline ‘New poll shows majority of Barrie-area residents support boundary expansion.’
“I would never have written that,” Maggi said of the headline during an interview with BarrieToday. “I don’t think it’s accurate.”
Maggi said he was surprised to see some of the poll results included in the city's news release, as he normally makes sure the polls are posted on his company’s website before it’s delivered to the public to ensure transparency.
“People need to see the questions and the responses to have confidence in the poll,” Maggi said.
The challenge in this case, he added, was the City of Barrie didn’t commission the poll — that was done by iPolitics, an Ottawa-based digital news outlet.
“I don’t know why they commissioned it,” Maggi said.
BarrieToday sent an email to Marco Vigliotti, editor-in-chief of iPolitics, asking why it had commissioned the poll. No reply was received prior to publication of this story.
Scott LaMantia, the City of Barrie's manager of marketing and communications, defended the news release's headline.
“The focus of the research/poll was the boundary expansion,” LaMantia said in an email to BarrieToday.
Maggi provided BarrieToday with a copy of the poll report, which included the six questions that were asked and the statistical breakdown of responses.
There were 742 responses for every question, with 546 respondents living in Barrie and 196 living in Oro-Medonte.
Question: ‘Do you believe that the Greater Barrie area needs to work with the Province of Ontario and federal government to address the housing affordability crisis?’
Yes — Barrie residents 82.9 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 67.4 per cent.
Question: ‘Are you aware that there are tens of thousands of residents that commute daily to the Greater Toronto Area?
Yes — Barrie residents 88.8 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 91.8 per cent.
Question: ‘Do you believe that the Greater Barrie Area has a sufficient supply of good paying career jobs?
Yes — Barrie residents 13.9 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 12.4 per cent.
Question: ‘Do you support Barrie’s goal of bringing more high-paying jobs to the Greater Barrie Area?’
Yes — Barrie residents 86.3 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 72.6 per cent.
Question: ‘Do you support Barrie having sufficient land supply to attract new investments by major industry, creating high-paying jobs?
Strongly Support — Barrie residents 44.9 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 38.8 per cent
Somewhat Support — Barrie residents 30.7 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 26.7 per cent
Somewhat Oppose — Barrie residents 6.5 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 9.3 per cent
Strongly Oppose — Barrie residents six per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 18 per cent
Don’t know — Barrie residents 11.8 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 7.1 per cent.
Question: 'Do you believe that local manufacturers should be able to expand in the Greater Barrie Area or move elsewhere to expand operations and increase the number of jobs?
Yes — Barrie residents 82.5 per cent, Oro-Medonte residents 61.8 per cent.
Barrie has been pushing for boundary expansion along its borders with Oro-Medonte Township and Springwater Township.
Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall appeared before the province's standing committee on heritage, infrastructure and cultural policy, regarding the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s study on regional governance, on Nov. 6 to make the case for Barrie’s boundary expansion for industrial development — plans for a combined 2,200 hectares in both townships.
Nuttall has said Barrie could provide for 20,000 industrial, manufacturing and warehousing jobs during the next 20 years if it could work out a deal to use neighbouring land.
But by mid-November, after Nuttall also made presentations to councillors from both townships, Springwater council voted unanimously to terminate discussions with Barrie about the city’s proposal for boundary adjustments and decided to send a letter to the ministry saying talks on the matter were finished.
Oro-Medonte’s council has also said it’s not comfortable with Barrie’s request for land.
In the city’s Dec. 6 recommendations for its new Official Plan (OP), which designates land use, to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra, Nuttall said that as Barrie grows, there needs to be a sufficient amount of jobs to accompany the housing growth.
Barrie city council pledged to build 23,000 new residential units by 2031 as part of Bill 23, the province’s More Homes Built Faster Act of 2022, which calls for 1.5 million new homes built in Ontario, again by 2031.
