Hamilton mayoralty candidate pitches 311 service — which was first studied here nearly 2 decades ago

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Published July 18, 2022 at 1:30 pm

Mayoralty hopeful Keanin Loomis is promising something that Hamilton opted not be an early adopter of almost 20 years ago.

Some two dozen city and regional governments across Canada have 3-1-1 service, which provides residents with access to non-emergency municipal services. Hamilton is the largest census metropolitan area in the nation which does not have it. On Monday, Loomis, one of the three declared candidates for mayor alongside Bob Bratina and Ejaz Butt, said that he would pitch a 3-1-1 service, with a mobile app and phone centre, if he is elected this fall.

“Over the course of our campaign, citizens are consistently expressing that City Hall is not responsive,” Loomis wrote in a social media post.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) reserved 311 for non-emergency municipal services in November 2004. That same year, Ward 4 Coun. Sam Merulla introduced a motion requesting staff to investigate the possiblity of creating a 311 system in the city. The response that council received was that it would be too expensive, and there the matter has seemingly remained.

In the years since, in the timeframe that a child born in 2004 would have become old enough to start post-secondary studies this September, at least 24 centres nationwide have added a 3-1-1 service. Halton Region added 3-1-1 in 2008 and Peel Region added it 2009.

Hamilton, with a population of 785,184 in the 2021 Canadian Census, is the ninth-largest city in the nation. The next-largest city without 3-1-1 service is London, Ont., which is 12th-largest at about 543,000 people. Several comparably smaller municipalities that have 3-1-1 include Sudbury, Ont., (170,000 in Greater Sudbury) and Trois-Rivières, Que. (161,000).

Hundreds of cities in the United States also have 3-1-1, including a few whose population just makes it into six figures. For instance, Waterbury, Conn., with a population of 114,000, has it.

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