A Comment by Will MacKenzie
(A Brief Foreword by NAL publisher Doug Draper – Niagara, Ontario’s regional council recently agreed to placing a referendum question on the October, 2014 ballots for the next municipal elections, asking voters if they would favour one ‘City of Niagara’ over the current two-tier system of 12 local municipalities and regional government we have in Niagara. The following comment is a thoughtful response to that.)
Former Ontario premier Mike Harris and Harris MPPs like Tim Hudak, forced municipal amalgamation down the throats of many communities, including Flamborough, across the province with very mixed results.
Before voting in such a referendum on amalgamation, I strongly urge all residents of the Niagara Region to look very closely.
A number of years ago, the former Conservative government of Mike Harris forced amalgamation on a number of cities/municipalities across the province. From what I have seen, most have been absolute disasters!
I live in what had been the township of Flamborough. I moved here after the amalgamation, but my life partner has lived here for more than 50 years (yeah, we are old and retired). Flamborough did not have a common border with the old City of Hamilton. It bordered on Dundas, Burlington, Milton, Puslinch, Cambridge, and Brant County. It was a part of the old Region of Hamilton-Wentworth. Anything that was Hamilton-Wentworth became City of Hamilton.
Why?
Simple answer: to bail out the financial disaster that was the old City of Hamilton.
There had been a push to have Flamborough join Burlington or Halton Region, but that fell apart of a number of reasons.
Since amalgamation, taxes have skyrockted, services have not improved.
The crumbling downtown core of Hamilton is a huge black hole, sucking all the tax revenue from the surrounding areas, but nothing changes. People will not go to downtown Hamilton because it is too much like Detroit or Cleveland. Beggars, panhandlers, prostitutes and drug addicts have taken over.
Is the City of St. Catharines leading the drive for amalgamation in Niagara?
Here in our area, it was the City of Hamilton that led the push.
Residents of the smaller and rural municipalities in Niagara must think long and hard before voting in favour of amalgamation.
The larger areas, because of their population density, will overpower the smaller when it comes to dispersal of tax money.
If the residents vote in favour of amalgamation, so be it. All I am urging you to do is look closely. Don’t buy “a pig in a poke,” just because some politician says you should.
Remember, a promise from a politician is null and void with the next breath he/she draws.
Will MacKenzie is a member of the former Township of Flamborough which, due to a forced amalgamation drive more than a decade ago by Ontario’s Mike Harris government is now part of City of Hamilton. He has a long and respected background in the fields of journalism and communications, and has been a regular contributor of comments to a range of issues addressed in posts on Niagara At Large.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
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We know that many politicians lie, will do anything to keep on the public purse, I have never seen anybody like Dalton Mc.Guinty where lying was second nature, like going to the bathroom or putting on a shirt. I don’t know how he can face the mirror that he shaves before. If they handed out Oscars for lying , his garage would be full of them
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Niagara, beware of wolves in sheep clothing! A referendum for amalgamation is perhaps a road you do not want to travel. Think long and think hard and check all the facts.
The surrounding Hamilton-Wentworth District was forced into amalgamation with Hamilton and it has been a complete disaster for the surrounding districts. Our taxes have tripled with nothing to show for it. At the time of amalgamation we had weekly garbage pick up, OPP protection, an efficient rapid response volunteer fire department with a brand new pumper, fully functioning libraries, and a town hall. All surrounding areas were in the black financially, each with its’ own elected government, people to whom you could approach for assistance. We were independent and purchased any necessary services from neighbouring communities who were only too happy to have the extra income.
Flamborough was dragged kicking and screaming into the amalgamation even though there does not exist a neighbouring border line with Hamilton. We fought and lost. What do we have now? Garbage pick up once a week, 2 police vehicles per night covering 191 square miles, a city fire department who took our new equipment into the city, libraries and town halls torn down and not replaced and triple to quadrupled taxes. New housing construction surrounds and stretches for miles outside the city limits not to mention the loss of our identification and our voice. Each township is under represented so that the City of Hamilton councilors can overrule for anything they want and they want everything for the city. They have been unsuccessful in revitalizing the disastrous mess of the core of the city and “bus only” lanes cut all traffic off increasing congestion on the roads. Costly empty buses circle through farms giving residents bus service to nowhere and this in an area where, to live, people require cars.
Why did this have to happen? Many reasons: downloading ever increasing welfare costs in exchange for the larger income of education taxes which it immediately started cutting back on by creating the Snobolen “crisis’”. Hamilton was severely in the red financially with no way to grow or expand or increase its’ tax base as it was completely surrounded by successfully run districts fencing them in. What a coup to be able to pull in all this tax base, all the excess funds and equipment purchased by the hard earned tax dollars of the district and to gain from Flamborough the income from Flamborough Downs.
The politicians will tell you what they want you to believe. Beware of the people who surrounded Mike Harris, i.e. Tim Hudak and associates. Don’t take my angry response to amalgamation, I am but one person burned by this process. Definitely check for yourself. Free Flamborough still exists and still fights on. Talk with anyone in the affected areas to check for the impressions of others. Be very wary of opening the gates to allow the wolves into the grazing fields of Niagara. For a concise history of events check at
http://www.FreeFlamborough.com/cff_history-background.html.
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The question must be asked, “Where do these beggars and drug addicts in Hamilton come from?” Well, they also come from the Township of Flamborough. So do the cars that drive into Hamilton for work and people without work looking for affordable housing.
Clearly larger cities are important to well-being in the villages, which do not exist in isolation. There are policy issues around urban design, land use, transportation, poverty alleviation, economic coordination, and infrastructure that require collective action with the larger picture in mind. One Niagara seems the best way forward. Finding ways for villages and cities to maintain and enhance their identity and prosper while addressing the larger issues may be difficult but should be possible.
Have there been difficulties in enforced amalgamations? Yes. Toronto is experiencing class warfare promoted by the likes of Ford pitting “hard working middle class suburbanites” against the “elite urbanites.” We are too diverse here for that to happen, although I’m sure we could find our own divisions (north/south). We would just have to work through that. Keeping us stuck in parochial turf wars is certainly not the answer. We can’t afford the waste of duplication, the lost opportunity to coordinate our economy, the failure of competitive urban and rural planning.
How amalgamation is done is essential to its success. I argue that an uninformed yes/no vote now, without a clear proposal, is a waste of time, a strategy for failure. The vote should be to explore and report back for a final decision. We need to have the conversation on what we Niagara to be like 10, 50, 100 years out. We need to take our time to get it right, including community consultation on the system of representation and how the representatives are to be selected.
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I agree totally. Wasn’t Ancaster and Binbrook victims of this amalgamation as well. Look at what has happened in those previously quaint communities!
Let St. Catharines, Welland and Niagara Falls amalgamate if they want to. Leave us rural municipalities alone and out of it….
Just sayin…..
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I see regional council did not see the light and include the term limit, chair vote and babysitter questions on the referendum. Speaks volumes about their true motives. They are self-serving just like every other politician and do no want to risk their access to the public teat!
just sayin……
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Many of the smaller communities of what is now Greater Fort Erie , wound up getting screwed big time, by the Chamber of Commerce dominated Fort Erie council, look at what those people did to Crystal Beach, giving away huge chunks of Bay Beach to out of town developers. and downloading the expenses on to the general taxpayers, What happened to all these high priced Town staff, when the slot funds dried up,? they flew the coop, leaving us broke and up to our eyeballs in debt. our debt has not had any payments made on it since amalgamation.40 years and not paying anything on our credit card, just interest. The debt doubled with our new Mayor. we are just shy of our borrowing limit. St.Catharines does not give a damn about anything, but St,Catharines.so why would that change??? We were all lied too, about the benefits of Regional Government,it would save money, never happened. Region is now an empire on- to itself. We still don’t have a bus service, even though the damn bus goes right through here without stopping, 3000 people live here in Stevensville.
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