Oosterhoff, other officials, take public comment
A Town Hall-style meeting on regional governance held last Saturday at the community centre got off to a rocky start, with many of those turning up saying they’d had difficulty finding the meeting room, owing to a lack of directional signage. Mayor Marvin Junkin was among them, having sat waiting for the doors to be opened at one room, not knowing that the meeting was in another. In all, a mere 20 people found their way to the gathering, with a few stragglers shuffling in partway through.
The meeting revolved around Premier Doug Ford’s proposed review of regional municipalities, with which the Ontario government has said it hopes to reexamine “the governance, decision-making, and service delivery functions of eight regional municipalities and Simcoe County.”
This review of regional governance includes the Region of Niagara, which is currently divided into 12 municipalities, each with their own local councils. These councils are composed of councillors elected from various wards, and a mayor. Every mayor, and a select number councillors (determined by the population of the municipality) from each municipality also sit on Regional Council to govern on matters that affect all of Niagara. Pelham has two representatives on Regional Council—Mayor Junkin and Regional Councillor Diana Huson.
In order to review the current system, the provincial government has put together an advisory body of two, Ken Seiling and Michael Fenn, who are tasked with looking into the current functionality of regional municipalities. Included in their mandate is the requirement to question whether the two-tier structure is working for communities, if the number of councillors properly reflects the population, and if decisions are made efficiently, among other inquiries. Their examination into service delivery in municipalities includes determining if the current system hinders effective infrastructure decisions, and questioning whether there are opportunities to save on costs.
The buzzword that is being heard in relation to the potential outcome of these reviews is “amalgamation,” specifically the amalgamation of Niagara’s municipalities into a single-tier structure of government. A regional government would make decisions for all of Niagara, rather than having every local town council decide matters for itself.
The idea is that under one tier of government, decision- making and services delivery would run more efficiently as only one body would be debating it. Services such as hydro, roadwork, snow plowing, and some others would be run solely at a regional level in this scenario, rather than at both the local and regional levels as is now often the case.
David Siegel, a professor of political science at Brock University, recently published a policy brief, “Under the Knife and Under the Gun: An Overview of Regional Government in Niagara,” devoted to laying out the facts regarding what the reviews entailed.
“The purpose of this policy brief is to present factual information about Niagara’s current system of local government along with some analysis that can be used in the discussions that will be taking place over the next months,” writes Siegel.
The article also includes a section on amalgamation, presenting both positive and negative points. Referencing the municipal amalgamations that occurred in 1998-2002 (in Haldimand, Norfolk, Hamilton, Ottawa, and Greater Sudbury), Siegel writes, “It might be possible that some amalgamation will result in cost savings. However, there seems no evidence that this has yet occurred. The proponents of amalgamations as a cost-saving mechanism should bear a significant burden of proof.”
However, Siegel also says that amalgamation could have positive changes including allowing Niagara to speak with one voice and benefiting the delivery of certain services.
“Amalgamation would eliminate the competition between area municipalities to enhance their tax base and would allow for the creation of one economic development agency representing the entire region.”
The potential for the amalgamation of Niagara’s municipalities featured as a prominent topic during Saturday’s Town Hall meeting. Attendees were invited to voice their opinions and speak with Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff.
“The goal of this review is to help ensure that regional governments are working harder, smarter, and more efficiently,” said Oosterhoff, reminding attendees that, “The outcomes of the review are not predetermined. No, decisions have been made.”
“This is your turn to speak up. I'm your representative,” said Mayor Junkin. “You tell me what you want to see down the road. I will convey that to the Region and the provincial government.”
Several individuals accepted Oosterhoff and Junkin’s invitations, taking to the podium to convey their thoughts, many of them focusing on amalgamation, in particular its possible effects on services and allocation of tax money. Many agreed that change needed to be seen on some level in order to better organize and deliver services that are currently provided by both regional and municipal governments.
“What I see happening in the Niagara Region is redundancies when we look at things like municipal works, water services, development fees, things that affect us as the public,” said Fort Erie business owner Bill Marr.
“I think that if we streamline those programs we could definitely utilize those ones better. Do we need a whole bunch of separate municipal works to take care of the city and then the take care of the Region, or could we amalgamate those services into one headquarters and divert funds equally for those areas?”
Marr used snow plows as an example, pointing out that at times a Regional plow will drive down a snow-covered road to get to another but will not plow it because it is a municipal road.
“It's about tremendous opportunity to make something better here in Niagara,” said resident Stephen Kaiser. “We are heavily regionalized already and I think it's a tremendous opportunity for us to bring economic development together.”
Regional Councillor Diana Huson said in a later interview that amalgamation could be beneficial in some ways, though she did not see it as a fix-all solution.
“I do believe that there's room for improvement and how governance in Niagara occurs,” said Huson. “In terms of amalgamation, I think that there are some definite benefits in clarifying the roles of some of the responsibilities between and municipalities in the Region.”
Others, though in agreement that change needed to be made, were unwilling to jump on the idea of amalgamation and regional governance as a solution.
“If we're going to pay 45% to the local municipality,” said Grimsby Councillor Dave Sharpe, “50% of the Regional municipality, I'd rather see 75% stay in local municipalities and have the people who were elected in that area make the decision on how to spend that money. If we're going to amalgamate services, I'd like to see them amalgamated locally.”
Others were worried that Regional governance might result in negative changes to the communities of Niagara.
Resident Nick Lancione expressed concern that jobs would be affected by amalgamation.
“My concern here is that the government is actually cutting jobs,” he said. “We're talking about amalgamating, about bringing a bunch of staff together for one Region and losing a whole bunch of jobs. So in a world where we live in, where jobs are scarce, we're cutting jobs, good-paying jobs.”
Another prominent concern, voiced in particular by attendees from rural areas, was that Regional governance would result in an uneven distribution of resources and services relative to the amount of taxes paid. Theoretically, under Regional governance, taxes would be equivalent across the Region, meaning that a rural town such as Wainfleet would pay the same as St. Catharines for services but possibly have less access to them.
“Whether one Niagara is a solution or not I don't know,” said Diana Huson, “because the problem with a one Niagara solution is that all of the taxation would level out across Niagara. The problem with that is our rural communities would be paying for services that realistically they don't have access to. Also the municipalities that have debt issues would also be shared among communities that currently don't have that issue. So there are a number of issues in terms of the shared responsibilities.”
This worry of uneven distribution also extends to the matter of fair representation under Regional governance.
“If we were to change the size of councils strictly based on population,” said Huson, “rural communities specifically would lose positions at council. Wainfleet only has one representative. If we looked at it based on population, they wouldn't be there at all. They would be the only municipality without a member. West Lincoln, Lincoln, Pelham—all smaller communities that have a significant rural population or rural base would lose out.”
A solution for such an issue might be weighted voting, where instead of there being a number of Regional council members relative to the population of a municipality, each would have one council member, but the votes of councillors of larger municipalities would carry more weight.
These changes are far from decided however, and much debate and research must still take place before a final decision can be made.
“I'm not exactly a big proponent of just quickly giving power to the Region,” said Steven Soos, who lost a bid to last October to become mayor of Welland. “Unfortunately over the past few years, the Region has had issues with managing labor, managing bids and tenders. They have a lot of problems with a spending billions of dollars on botched projects. We have to get that house in order before we start bringing other departments. So it has to be done very carefully if it's going to be implemented.”
The overwhelming message from those in attendance was that, regardless of their current position, they wished to be included in any further debate that takes place on the issue. The Saturday session was an opportunity for residents to express their views—many hoped that in the future another meeting would present information and studies the government had done on the topic.
“The only thing I'm asking is, that I'd like to see, once we do have your party’s stats, is how much it's going to cost to make this amalgamation,” said Nick Lancione.
