Anti-annexation group in Springwater calls for politicians to resign
By: Wayne Doyle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Source: BarrieToday.com, Sep 10, 2025
The accusations are severe, the remedy even more so.
According to the folks who run the anti-annexation Springwater Simcoe Facebook group, Springwater Township Mayor Jennifer Coughlin and Councillors Brad Thompson and Matt Garwood are “failing to serve the best interests” of the township and “betraying constituents” when it comes to the City of Barrie’s municipal boundary expansion proposal.
The group is calling for all three township politicians to resign, based on its interpretation of the legal opinion from the municipality’s legal counsel, Loopstra Nixon LLP, which was posted to the township’s website late last week.
In its Facebook post on Sept. 7, the Springwater Simcoe group said the legal opinion “does not mince words,” concluding that “the Barrie proposal is not fair and not in keeping with principles applied in other boundary adjustments.”
For context, the same legal opinion offered this: “We are of the opinion that there is merit to both the Barrie proposal and to the Midhurst expansion. Each option presents distinct advantages, and when all relevant factors are considered, either could yield positive outcomes for the township.”
According to the Springwater Simcoe group, which includes Springwater residents John Spring, Jim Sales, Roy Monk and former township councillor Jack Hanna, Barrie’s proposed annexation of Springwater land is not needed, is costly and would be too slow.
“In the face of this clear and devastating information of which the mayor and her two council supporters were aware of, we believe it is time for them to resign,” the group stated. “As a result of mayor’s powers, Mayor Coughlin, Councillors Thompson and Garwood are now controlling the township.”
Coughlin was one of 169 municipal leaders who had strong mayor powers bestowed upon them by Ontario’s premier on May 1. Under strong mayor powers, the mayor requires support of one-third of council plus one. With Springwater having a seven-person council, the mayor requires the support of at least two councillors.
The Springwater Simcoe group contends the legal opinion was being suppressed and only came to light when township council voted unanimously to post the legal opinion after coming out of a closed session on Sept. 3.
“Mayor Coughlin received the legal opinion on Aug. 5 and kept it from the public until Sept. 4,” the group alleged. “On Sept. 3, council stood up to the mayor and passed a motion to make the legal opinion public.”
According to the minutes from the council meeting, the legal opinion was originally requested through a notice of motion, brought forward by Coun. Anita Moore during the May 21 council meeting.
Her motion directed staff to send all relevant documents and information on Barrie’s boundary proposal to Loopstra Nixon LLP so the law firm could work up an opinion. As part of her motion, a subsequent meeting was to be scheduled to receive the opinion.
According to Thompson, the request was made in an open session of council, but the report would come back in a closed session because it would be considered confidential. Additionally, he noted, council was on summer recess when the legal opinion arrived.
The last official council meeting of the summer was held on July 2, he said.
“We all got (the legal opinion) at the same time,” Thompson said. “We didn’t have any secret meetings, they were closed sessions. We voted unanimously to release it to give the residents as much information as possible.”
Garwood concurred with Thompson’s recollection.
“To clarify, the legal opinion was initially considered confidential, council unanimously voted during a special meeting on Sept. 3, 2025, to make the legal opinion public in the interest of transparency,” Garwood wrote in an email to BarrieToday.
Thompson said within days of receiving the legal opinion, Coughlin reached out to the other members of council to arrange a meeting to discuss it.
According to Coughlin, she tried to convene a meeting to discuss the legal opinion, but couldn’t get it done.
“It was an exhausting process, especially as some members of council chose not to respond to my requests/emails directly with me,” she wrote in an email to BarrieToday. “Instead, they created political roadblocks.
“Yet, I still made myself available to the will of council,” the mayor added.
Coughlin said she received three replies in writing, each one advising her that if a full council was not in attendance, they wouldn’t be, either.
“During the most significant negotiations and discussions in Springwater’s history, antics took precedence over foresight,” she said. “To suggest these ‘op-ed’ releases are anything but another attempt to erode the trust I have been diligently building in Springwater is laughable.
“It’s pure sophistry and pretense.”
Remote voting under scrutiny as Springwater debates election bylaw
By: Wayne Doyle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Source: BarrieToday.com, Sep 20, 2025
Springwater Deputy Mayor George Cabral is no fan of remote voting.
At Wednesday night’s council meeting, he said he was concerned with the security, or lack thereof, of an electronic system that could be vulnerable to hacker attacks and lacks the ability to verify the person who’s voting is actually the registered voter and is allowed to cast a ballot.
“It’s kind of, you know, jump on board and do it,” he said before introducing an amendment to the draft bylaw regarding alternative voting methods for the 2026 municipal election that was before council.
Cabral referenced research on the subject done by Orillia Coun. Jay Fallis, who had found a 2024 thesis called Cyber Risks in Ontario Online Elections, by James D. Brunet of Western University. The thesis was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the master of engineering science degree in electrical and computer engineering.
Brunet’s paper looked at a variety of electronic voting systems currently in use across Ontario municipalities that do not meet European standards for cyber-security.
“There are potential risks at many stages of the online voting process,” Brunet wrote. “Computer systems that count votes could be tampered with, voters could be intimidated into voting a particular way, voters could be impersonated, the secrecy of the vote of voters could be compromised, etc.”
Despite the potential risks, Brunet said, not much research has been done into how these elections are conducted in Ontario, as well as how well municipalities in Ontario are doing in addressing these risks.
At its Aug. 11 meeting, Orillia city council opted for paper ballots over electronic options.
“One fraudulent vote, in my opinion, is one too many,” Cabral said Wednesday night.
He added that until the provincial government provides guidelines for remote voting, he wants the option removed.
His amendment called to remove remote voting and to ensure the township‘s regular advance polls at standard locations continue to happen and that the regular election day polls continue to happen at their locations.
Mayor Jennifer Coughlin said she wasn’t in favour of changing the bylaw until residents had a say.
“If this is something we’re actually altering, how our residents are able to vote, I feel this should be a standing item on the agenda with information, with correspondence,” she said. “That at least gives us information as to what percentage of our voters utilized the mechanisms that we’re about to take away.
“I think electors should have a say in how they get to pass the vote,” the mayor added.
Coughlin suggested the bylaw be deferred to the next meeting so staff could prepare a report. She said council’s goal should be to make it as easy as possible for everyone to vote.
Cabral said he wasn’t interested. His only concern was to ensure remote voting is 100 per cent accurate.
“I can tell you right now, there were people who voted in the 2022 election that should not have voted and that’s the reason why I’m putting this forward,” he said.
He didn’t name them and he wanted the motion to go forward as delivered.
“As a resident, I want to ensure that the voting that takes place in Springwater Township is 100 per cent accurate and only those people who are allowed to vote get the opportunity to vote by being challenged, verified and then, given that opportunity,” Cabral said.
Township clerk Jennifer Marshall addressed the issue of security in the report she drafted to accompany the draft bylaw.
“Technical protective measures, such as fire-walling, user authentication techniques, failover connectivity and server redundancy, all decrease the likelihood and effectiveness of these threats,” Marshall wrote. “Proper testing and auditing throughout the various implementation phases also serve to protect the voting system from external threats.”
She said internet voting platforms utilize the same stringent access methodologies and encryption principles which protect internet banking sites and electronic medical records (EMR) systems.
“Although there have been documented cases of malicious attempts designed to comprise an online voting system, there are no known controverted elections resulting from the use of an internet voting channel,” Marshall wrote.
She also addressed the issue of validating voter identification. She said voter authentication practices commonly exist as part of any online voting system and can be customized to include use of personalized security questions, CAPTCHA challenges, and/or unique identification codes.
“There are also procedural controls in place to authenticate potential electors,” Marshall wrote. “For example, only electors on the voters list receive credentials which can be used to register to vote and/or vote online.
“An individual may be added to the voters list, but first must validate their identity by submitting an acceptable form of personal identification to a designated Election Official,” she added.
According to her report, one ballot from the 2022 municipal election was quarantined by the election vendor, Scytl. The ballot was spoiled and caught by the system as the elector made more than one selection for one race when not permitted. The system initially allowed the ballot to be cast, but through the verification process, it was identified and quarantined for auditing.
“As such, this ballot was not included in the final count,” Marshall wrote. “The refusal of this ballot did not affect the outcome of the election.”
Of the township’s 17,506 eligible voters in the 2022 municipal election, 5,756 votes were cast (one was rejected), representing a voter turnout of 32.88 per cent, the lowest level since 2006.
At the end of the night, Cabral relented and agreed to refer the item. The motion was referred to staff for more information and will be dealt with at an upcoming meeting.
Neighbouring townships ill-equipped to deal with homeless exodus from Barrie
By: Wayne Doyle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Source: BarrieToday.com, Sep 16, 2025
Springwater Coun. Phil Fisher says he has no issues with Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall’s decision last week to declare a local state of emergency to address homeless encampments across the city.
Fisher is, however, concerned with what impact Nuttall’s decision will have on the folks who live in his Ward 5, which includes the community of Midhurst, just north of Barrie’s city limits.
“I don’t begrudge him for trying to deal with the problem,” Fisher said during an interview with BarrieToday. “But I have to be fair. When you dismantle an encampment in Barrie, those people still exist and they’re still homeless.
“They’ll migrate somewhere else, whether it’s Shanty Bay, Ward 4 in Springwater (Bayfield Street west to Essa Township’s eastern border) or Midhurst,” he added. “The fear is, and I think it’s a legitimate fear, that when those encampments are dismantled in Barrie, will we see a mass migration?”
According to Fisher, homeless people living in Midhurst is nothing new. He said there have been reports in the community for a couple of years.
He said he’s heard from residents who have come upon homeless people sleeping on the bench outside of the Midhurst branch of the Springwater Public Library, and others who have seen members of the homeless community trek into the wooded areas off Bayfield Street and St. Vincent Street, pushing shopping carts that contain their worldly possessions.
Fisher says he’s empathetic to their plight but adds the township doesn’t have the resources to help them.
“Because we’re a smaller and typically more rural municipality, we definitely don’t have those programs on the same scale that a Barrie would,” he said. “We’re not properly equipped to deal with this.”
Oro-Medonte Mayor Randy Greenlaw echoed Fisher’s concerns. He said he doesn’t expect to see an impact on his township, because it is a sparsely populated, rural area that doesn’t have the infrastructure available to deal with transient arrivals.
“Given the rural landscape of Oro-Medonte and vast size of the township, it is reasonable to anticipate people currently experiencing homelessness located in Barrie would choose to relocate to a more urban area, where access to services is easier from a geography/distance perspective,” he said in an email to BarrieToday.
“If (Oro-Medonte) is impacted by the City of Barrie’s declared emergency, the township will take appropriate action and steps to address potential challenges,” Greenlaw added.
While Essa Township is in the same boat as Springwater and Oro-Medonte when it comes to not having the resources needed to deal with the issue, Essa Mayor Sandie Macdonald has a number of steps she says she’s prepared to take.
“If persons were to try to locate or start an encampment in Essa, we would promptly co-ordinate with the county, provincial partners, local social services (and) emergency management teams to understand the scope of the situation and the support required,” Macdonald told BarrieToday in an email.
She said Essa would evaluate its available resources, but because its resources are limited, it would rely on the mandated services of the County of Simcoe, such as social housing, outreach programs, and all agencies that are educated experts in dealing with these situations.
The county is responsible for efforts to help homeless people throughout the region, including Barrie, which involves both funding and programs.
Macdonald said Essa would create a transparent communication program to ensure residents are well informed about the situation, ensuring the safety and well-being of both residents and those seeking assistance.
“The County of Simcoe has taken an active role in helping to provide accommodations to many of the individuals who were homeless, living in the encampments,” Macdonald said. “The county continues to work diligently with positive developments.”
She said Essa is committed to treating all individuals with dignity and respect, especially during times of crisis.
“We would work collaboratively with the county and emergency services to achieve a positive outcome,” she added.
According to an article published Monday on BarrieToday, Barrie’s decision to declare a state of emergency to deal with homeless encampments last week has already sent shock waves north into Orillia, about 35 kilometres north of Barrie, where front-line workers say the effects are being felt in real time.
At The Lighthouse, Orillia’s main shelter and outreach centre, staff say they have started to see new faces arriving, some of whom have come from Barrie. That movement, while not unusual in itself, is straining a system that was already at its limit, say officials.
Rosemary Petersen, managing director of The Lighthouse, said she was caught off guard by Barrie’s move to elevate the issue to an official state of emergency but also said she recognized the declaration as a reflection of a worsening crisis.
“We do have to recognize that there is a housing crisis and that shows up in the fact that there are encampments in our communities,” Petersen said. “Seeing that there’s a state of emergency in that sense means that there is a necessary response, and we absolutely recognize that.”