MNM 2025 Year in Review March

Published by: Mid North Monitor
Author: Mid North Monitor Staff
January 15, 2026

HOUSING ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ESPANOLA

The Espan­ola Recre­ation Com­plex lobby was the site for an import­ant announce­ment on Feb. 25.

Mark G. Serre, the Nickel Belt MP and Par­lia­ment­ary Sec­ret­ary to the Min­istry of Energy and Nat­ural Resources, announced that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment agreed to provide $2 mil­lion to Espan­ola for the con­struc­tion of 64 new homes over the next three years.

Joseph Burke, chief admin­is­trat­ive officer/clerk for Espan­ola, said the 64 homes are the start towards the devel­op­ment of 400 homes over the next dec­ade and that in 2024 there were 30 new res­id­en­tial units as well as infra­struc­ture invest­ments. These achieve­ments encour­aged the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to recog­nize Espan­ola.

Burke said the Espan­ola Action Plan has five key ini­ti­at­ives. The first is the review of the town's land use and expand­ing urban ser­vice bound­ar­ies. Second, the town will mod­ern­ize the geo­graph­ical inform­a­tion sys­tem (GIS). Third, cli­mate adapt­ab­il­ity and grow­ing in a sus­tain­able man­ner is top of mind. Fourth, the town is look­ing for oppor­tun­it­ies to develop its own land and, last, they are devel­op­ing part­ner­ships with hous­ing pro­viders.

The Hous­ing Accel­er­ator Fund (HAF) is the source of the $2 mil­lion which will see the build­ing of new homes across Canada. HAF will speed up the per­mit pro­cess and aims to provide more afford­able hous­ing for Cana­dians. Espan­ola was suc­cess­ful in its applic­a­tion, hav­ing been refused pre­vi­ously.

Mayor Douglas Ger­vais expressed his grat­it­ude to com­munity part­ners Espan­ola Regional Hos­pital, Espan­ola Fam­ily Health

Team, and the Man­it­oulin Sud­bury Dis­trict Ser­vices Board. He also thanked Serre, town staff, all of the sup­port received.
 

PC CANDIDATE BILL ROSENBERG WINS ALGOMA-MANITOULIN RIDING

Algoma-Man­it­oulin has a new Mem­ber of Pro­vin­cial Par­lia­ment fol­low­ing the Feb. 27 Ontario Elec­tion.

Pro­gress­ive Con­ser­vat­ive can­did­ate for Algoma-Man­it­oulin Bill Rosen­berg took the top spot in the rid­ing.

Rosen­berg is a retired busi­ness­man and exper­i­enced pub­lic ser­vant. He was elec­ted to Thes­salon town coun­cil in 2014. He has served as deputy mayor before becom­ing mayor in 2018.

In a brief press release he thanked the people of Algoma– Man­it­oulin.

“I am incred­ibly grate­ful for your trust and sup­port.”

He also acknow­ledged his fel­low can­did­ates for their ded­ic­a­tion to pub­lic ser­vice.

In the race in the Algoma-Man­it­oulin rid­ing Rosen­berg was fol­lowed by New Demo­cratic can­did­ate David Timer­iski, Lib­eral Party can­did­ate Reg Nigan­obe in third spot, and Incum­bent MPP Michael Mantha fin­ished in fourth spot.

The elec­tion res­ults for Algoma-Man­it­oulin on Feb. 28 are: PC can­did­ate Bill Rosen­berg 11,263 votes for 41.3% of votes; NDP can­did­ate David Timer­iski – 7,409 votes for 27.2%; Lib­eral can­did­ate Reg Nigan­obe – 3,948 f0r 14.5%; Inde­pend­ent can­did­ate Michael Mantha – 3,238 for 11.9%; New Blue Party can­did­ate Pres­sey Shel­don – 717 votes for 2.6%; and Green Party can­did­ate Maria Legault 677 votes for 2.5%.