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What might they have in mind for us?

January 28, 2019   ·   0 Comments

THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT announced a plan Tuesday for a comprehensive review of the province’s municipal governments and hasn’t apparently ruled out the possibility of imposing amalgamations.

A government news release says the review will include Peel, Halton, York, Durham, Waterloo, Niagara, Muskoka District and Oxford and Simcoe counties, and their lower-tier municipalities.

A total of 82 municipalities will be examined, and the province hasn’t ruled out the possibility that some could be amalgamated.

The Progressive Conservatives say the review will focus on three areas: governance, decision-making and service delivery.

“Our government is committed to improving the way regional government works and we will be looking at ways to make better use of taxpayers’ dollars and make it easier for residents and businesses to access important municipal services,” Steve Clark, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, said in a news release.

Under former premier Mike Harris, Ontario amalgamated a series of local governments ranging from Kawartha Lakes to Toronto in a similar bid to improve efficiency, although the effectiveness of that strategy has been questioned in the years since.

Mr. Clark hasn’t said whether the province is headed for another round of amalgamation, and in a Queen’s Park interview noted there was “always opportunity for two municipalities to come together to talk about that aspect, but we’re not talking about that in this regional government review.”

Of all the provinces counties and regions, none has seen less change than Dufferin, which leads us to wonder what might be in store for us.

One need look no further than our immediate neighbours to see the widespread replacement of former towns and villages by area-wide municipalities. To the north we’ve witnessed the disappearance of Dundalk (now part of Southgate), while to the east Alliston, Beeton and Tottenham are part of New Tecumseth and over in Wellington  Fergus and Elora are unicorporated parts of Centre Wellington and Mount Forest and Arthur are urban centres in North Wellington.

As for Dufferin, all we’ve witnessed is the elevation of Mono from a township to a town and the merger of the village of Grand Valley and township of East Luther to form the new Town of Grand Valley.

We suspect one change the Ford government might be eying is the creation of a new county or region encompassing Dufferin and Caledon.

After all, the result would be something akin to what has happened in Toronto, with 44 old wards being replaced by 25 new ones that have the same boundaries as the federal/provincial electoral districts.

The result here would be a single upper-tier government for an area with about 110,000 people and the likelihood that the number of lower-tier municipalities would shrink to three or four from the current nine (Caledon, Orangeville, Shelburne, Grand Valley, East Garafraxa, Melancthon, Mulmur, Amaranth and Mono).

Skeptics need only look at what happened in the Nickel Basin during the Mike Harris era, when the Cityof Sudbury and all the urban centres for many miles around were merged into the current single-tier City of Greater Sudbury.

Mayors from around the GTHA were meeting with Toronto Mayor John Tory on Tuesday afternoon as details about the review first emerged. One offered some advice for the government: “Consult with us before unilaterally making changes, consult with our community before making changes and allow us to educate you a little bit on what we think needs to be done,” said Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward.

Hopefully that will happen.

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