By Cecilia Nasmith

Northumberland County council voted at its Jan. 30 meeting to withdraw the bid it made in partnership with Alderville First Nation to host the 2019 Ontario Indigenous Summer Games.

Council supported the bid in September to Indigenous Sport and Wellness Ontario for the event.

At the time, the bid-review committee indicated that a host community would be announced in November. It has since extended the timeline for bid review and will not confirm when an announcement might be expected. The concern is that the time remaining between a later announcement and the summer event might well be insufficient to organize the support and engagement of local venues, sports officials and other community partners in case their bid was accepted.

Council voted unanimously to withdraw their bid with regret.

Cobourg Mayor John Henderson asked for official notification of the withdrawal of the bid for his town, as they had expressed interest in being a partner.

“We have a list of partners and venues we have to advise,” chief administrative officer Jennifer Moore said.