Central Frontenac voted May 12 to explore a second municipal services corporation, separate from the four-township FMSC, to own a proposed Sharbot Lake housing project. The chief executive of the existing corporation, FMSC, also manages government relations for a 15-county advocacy non-profit — work the law exempts from lobbyist registration. The consultant whose report recommended the second corporation works for a firm that has registered a federal lobbyist on the program her client is applying to. The same provincial regulation places both corporations outside the open-meetings regime.
Two municipal corporations now sit inside the Central Frontenac housing file. One is the Frontenac Municipal Services Corporation, or FMSC, the body four lower-tier Frontenac townships incorporated on November 7, 2023 to deliver communal water and wastewater services across the county. The other is the corporation Central Frontenac council voted on May 12 to explore owning and operating a proposed 24-unit housing project on Garrett Street in Sharbot Lake. Both corporations are authorized under the same provincial regulation, Ontario Regulation 599/06, made under section 203 of the *Municipal Act*. Two of the people closest to each are also tied to government-relations activity on different sides of the same federal housing money — one through advocacy the law exempts from registration, the other through a firm that has registered a federal lobbyist.
Bromberg, the existing corporation, and WOWC
FMSC was incorporated as an Ontario business corporation. Its share register splits Class A voting shares across South Frontenac at 58%, Central Frontenac at 16%, North Frontenac at 15%, and Frontenac Islands at 9%. The County of Frontenac holds 25% of non-voting Class B shares. The four lower-tier townships committed a combined $696,800 over five years to stand the corporation up, the figure cited in the original June 20, 2023 North Frontenac authorizing resolution and confirmed by FMSC's CEO in his April 17, 2026 right-of-reply to NFNM. North Frontenac authorized its entry to FMSC by Resolution #285-23 on June 20, 2023 in a 5-2 vote. The other three townships passed parallel authorizations.
Gerald Lichty, Mayor of North Frontenac, currently chairs the FMSC Board of Directors. He signed the resulting shareholders agreement in two capacities, as Mayor of North Frontenac and as Warden of the County of Frontenac at the time of signing.
Justin Bromberg has been FMSC's chief executive officer since March 17, 2025, the date in Frontenac County's announcement of his hiring. The same announcement identified his other position. He is Manager of Government Relations at the Western Ontario Wardens' Caucus (WOWC), a non-profit corporation that represents 15 southwestern Ontario counties and conducts documented advocacy to provincial cabinet ministers. WOWC's own staff page lists him in that role as of this writing. The role has remained active throughout his FMSC tenure.
WOWC's advocacy is registered as the work of a non-profit representing member municipalities rather than as private-sector lobbying. The federal *Lobbying Act* (s.4(1)(c)) and Ontario's *Lobbyists Registration Act* (s.3) both contain municipal-officer exemptions that shield this kind of advocacy from individual lobbyist registration. The exemptions are the reason a search of FMSC, WOWC, Bromberg, or Frances Smith (FMSC's current President and Mayor of Central Frontenac) against either registry returns no matches. NFNM ran twelve Ontario queries and seven indexed federal queries. None returned a hit.
Blair, the corporation being designed, and Build Canada Homes
The second corporation does not yet exist. On March 4, 2026, Central Frontenac received a report titled "Housing, Servicing, & Ownership Workshop Report" from its housing consultant, Lindsay Blair, Executive Director of 2B Developments Consultants & Associates Inc. of 18 Drummond Street West, Perth. The report identifies the financial mechanism the proposed new corporation would deliver. Recommendation #2 reads, in full: "The municipality should explore creating a municipal services corporation to own and operate the housing project. This could enable the municipality to take on the debt to build the project, with the debt not being consolidated within the municipal financials." Council accepted that recommendation as written in Motion 2026-196 on May 12, moved by Councillor Phillip Smith and seconded by Councillor Bill Everett.
The housing project the new corporation would own is the 24-unit development proposed for the Garrett Street former school site in Sharbot Lake, a property Central Frontenac purchased in 2017. Blair's report proposes a one- and two-bedroom mix at affordable rents of $950 and $1,550 a month, calculated against the federal Build Canada Homes affordability calculator. The Build Canada Homes program is the same program 2B Developments is registered to lobby. On January 6, 2026, 2B Developments registered a federal lobbyist, Jacob Gorenkoff of Homeward Public Affairs, on subject matters that include "Build Canada Homes – Program Design and Implementation." Twenty-one days later, on January 27, 2026, Central Frontenac council authorized 2B Developments to submit a Build Canada Homes application on the township's behalf, for the same Garrett Street project. Blair confirmed at the April 30, 2026 Central Frontenac Housing Advisory Committee meeting that the application has been submitted.
Blair is also the principal of Rural Impact Canada, a related entity she launched in September 2024 from a $1 million Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Housing Supply Challenge grant. The grant was awarded jointly to 2B Developments and the Eastern Ontario Regional Network, with FMSC named as a partner; the stated purpose was to design and replicate the municipal-services-corporation model for rural water and wastewater servicing. FMSC President Frances Smith was quoted in the July 17, 2024 announcement in her FMSC capacity. Rural Impact Canada was subsequently named a CMHC Housing Supply Challenge Round 5 finalist on its municipal-services-corporation program.
The structure both corporations sit inside
Ontario Regulation 599/06 is the framework that authorizes both FMSC and any separate MSC Central Frontenac may set up. The same regulation that lets a township deliver services through a private corporation also makes the corporation a deemed institution under freedom-of-information law and exempts it from the *Municipal Act*'s open-meetings provisions. The records are reachable in principle. The meetings are not open by design.
FMSC's own operating by-law, By-law #1, was passed on March 25, 2024. Section 4.08 permits FMSC directors to contract with the corporation without disqualification and does not require them to account for profits from those contracts. Section 132 of the Ontario *Business Corporations Act* requires directors to declare a material interest in any contract with the corporation. That declaration would happen at an FMSC board meeting, internal to the corporation. Bromberg has stated, on the record, that the board minutes are not public, and that Smith did not declare a conflict at any FMSC board meeting where the Sharbot Lake former school site was discussed, citing the position that the land is owned by Central Frontenac and FMSC's role is to "identify available lands."
On the council side, Central Frontenac's minutes for August 12, 2025, when council passed By-law 2025-37 authorizing the township's execution of the FMSC shareholders agreement, record no declaration of pecuniary interest by Smith. Central Frontenac's pecuniary interest registry is kept at the township office in Sharbot Lake, available for public inspection only at the office, with no online version. The combination means there is no public record at either level, the corporation's or the council's, of whether Smith made any disclosure regarding matters where her FMSC role and her Central Frontenac mayoralty intersect.
Any new corporation Central Frontenac sets up under Motion 2026-196 would need its own by-law, board, and disclosure practices. None of those documents exist yet.
The pattern
The shareholder townships made their FMSC entry decisions in public. Central Frontenac's May 12 vote on Motion 2026-196 is the same kind of public, recorded act, at the front of a process that would put another set of decisions inside another corporation. A council vote that authorizes a corporation is the last public act in a chain that then continues inside the corporation. North Frontenac's councillors who voted 5-2 to join FMSC in June 2023 made a recorded public choice. The chain that follows, including FMSC's decisions on Sharbot Lake, on Verona, on contracts, on compensation, and the proposed second corporation's eventual founding documents, is not on the same public record. The corporations act on the public's behalf. The public is not at the table.
It is not "by the people, for the people" if it is by a corporation, for the corporation, with a benefit to the people. Two such corporations now sit at the centre of one Frontenac housing file. The chief executive of the first also runs government-relations advocacy for a 15-county non-profit — advocacy the law exempts from lobbyist registration. The consultant behind the second works for a firm that has registered a federal lobbyist on the very housing program her client is applying to. Residents of the four shareholder townships paid for the first. Central Frontenac's council is being asked to authorize the second. They are entitled to know what they are being asked to buy.
NFNM has not put questions to FMSC, the Western Ontario Wardens' Caucus, or 2B Developments in advance of this article and is sending right-of-reply requests to each on the date of publication. Any responses received will be published. Comment is welcomed at [email protected].
Disclosure: NFNM’s publisher, Donald Morton, has announced his intention to seek the office of Mayor of North Frontenac in the October 2026 election. This disclosure was added on July 14, 2026.
Correction — July 15, 2026: An earlier version of this article, including its headline, summary and closing line, described the two individuals at the centre of Frontenac’s municipal services corporations as “registered lobbyists.” That characterization overstated the record and has been corrected. Justin Bromberg is the chief executive officer of FMSC; his government-relations work for the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus is exempt from lobbyist registration under the federal Lobbying Act (s.4(1)(c)) and Ontario’s Lobbyists Registration Act (s.3), and he is not personally a registered lobbyist. Lindsay Blair is a housing consultant and Executive Director of 2B Developments Consultants & Associates Inc.; she is not personally a registered lobbyist. On January 6, 2026, 2B Developments registered a federal lobbyist, Jacob Gorenkoff of Homeward Public Affairs, on subject matters including Build Canada Homes. The article has been amended to reflect these distinctions. NFNM corrects the record publicly.