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How much is that percentage wise? Thunder Bay's police and fire budgets went up by a combined 2 million this year, to $63.6 million dollars, a 3.3% increase. Most city departments saw a change between -1% and +1%.

Thunder Bay privatized recycling a long time ago, and service was cut in half. We lose blue boxes, and can only recycle cardboard, metal and type 1 or 2 beverage and soap containers. The cardboard gets shipped to Minneapolis for processing. The absolutely dismal experience we've had with ReCool handling our recycling has a large segment of the population turned off privatized garbage pickup. In Toronto they privatized garbage and service was reduced to one bag bi-weekly. We allow 3 bags every week. Recycling was reduced from weekly to bi-weekly with privatization. No significant cost savings were found, and no service improvements have been introduced over the term of the contract. The city has to operate its own recycling depots, ReCool won't run them.

Not saying the privatizing is always bad, but it can go wrong, so make sure that any contract the city makes a private company sign is well written to avoid the kind of shit we're going through with recycling. Even Kenora has a more progressive waste system than us! They can recycle everything there!