A Commentary by Doug Draper
‘Don’t dare ever mention the A-word.’
As a journalist in Niagara, Ontario, I’ve heard variations of that line around municipal council tables in this region for the better part of for more than 30 years.
Niagara regional headquarters
It’s as if any talk of amalgamating municipalities in this region is akin to promoting some form of pornography or an apocalypse. And it’s as much to say; ‘Let’s continue on with a xenophobia and narrow, parochial vision that continues to prop up 13 municipal corporations in Niagara that have fail we, the people, so much that our region continues to suffer one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada, that continues to see young people coming out of college and university fleeing this region for greener pastures, and that continues to resist building a truly regional transit system that has been available in almost every other region in southern Ontario for more than a decade now.
So we should say thanks to Tom Rankin of Niagara-based Rankin Construction and to a handful of other prominent business people in Niagara for attending a roundtable of regional government this June and calling for another look at amalgamating our 13 – yes that’s right, THIRTEEN – municipalities in to one.
These business people and others in the past have tried to make a case that attracting more businesses and jobs to Niagara has suffered from the amount of bureaucracy that has to be gone through dealing with two levels of municipal government. But over and over again, due to too many mayors and councillors at the local level who place parochial interests above the interests of Niagara as a whole, these calls for a united region have gone nowhere.
Once again, our extraordinarily high unemployment rate, the exodus of too many of our young people and the skills they could bring to building a more prosperous region, the lack of an affordable and convenient regional transit system, and patch-work urban planning that continues to destroy precious woodlands and watershed areas is testament to that.
On the transit file alone, local municipal and regional politicians, including the mayors of the 12 local municipalities siting around the regional table, have been told time and time again, by post-secondary student groups, businesses and others that the lack of an affordable, seamless transit system is a roadblock to a healthier, more prosperous future for Niagara.
Yet while other regions in this province have long ago moved forward with regional transit systems, all we continue to have is this fragmented, patchwork or local transit authorities and the barest bones of a so-called “inter-municipal transit system” that makes it so costly and inconvenient to move people around that it is a recipe for failure.
And under the current Niagara system of a regional government and 12 local municipalities, we have politicians from some of those municipalities saying, in so many words; ‘No way. We are not giving up our local transit operations.’ As we saw recently at the regional government level, there isn’t even much of an appetite for putting the issue to a vote.
Then, municipal politicians in this region wonder why GO Transit and Metrolink is so reluctant to run all-year-round, full services here, as it does for regions like Waterloo that have full regional transit services.
Indeed, why would Go and Metrolink, transit people to Niagara if there is no promise that they can access an efficient and affordable regional transit system when they get here? If Niagara Region’s so-called business case doesn’t include an immediate promise to launch a seamless regional transit system here, I wouldn’t
Then there is the mess we have made of urban planning across this region, along with the ravaging of more and more of our green space, due to local municipalities continuing to compete with each other for everything from where a new hospital and police headquarters should go, to residential and commercial development.
How much better off would we be if we could make plans or where to locate buildings and infrastructure, looking at the whole map of Niagara rather than having local municipalities competing with each other for scraps?
Certainly there are those who will continue to argue that they are against liquidating the 12 local municipalities into one Niagara because they don’t want to lose their Thorold or Welland or Fort Erie, etc. Many of them are afraid that an amalgamated Niagara will mean the end of their communities.
This fear is misguided.
What they are saying is that they are afraid their community will cease to exist if it is not under the jurisdiction of a corporation, which is what a municipality is.
And I would suggest to them that a community is not a corporation. A community is the people who live there and who interested and determined they are to support a sense of community.
Niagara’s regional government with the current 12 local municipalities was established 45 years ago, out of two counties – Lincoln and Welland – and 26 cities, towns, villages and hamlets. Several of the 26, at least those with populations that cared to do so, have kept their local identities as communities to this day. Port Dalhousie, Ridgeway, Crystal Beach, Queenston, Merriton, Stevensville and Chippawa are among the examples.
They didn’t need a corporation to preserve their sense of community. They did it on their own and because they cared enough to keep a spirit of community in the places they live alive.
So let’s finally get away from all of this ‘we are going to lose our community’ stuff and look at what is best for Niagara and its health and prosperity in the 21st century.
We have a relatively new regional council under the chairmanship of Al Caslin. I would urge you to go to the Niagara Region website, find the contact information for him and your local regional council members, and urge them to begin a full and open discussion on amalgamation in this region.
At the very least, let’s not lull ourselves into continuing with a status quo that sees Niagara fall further and further behind other regions in Ontario and our neighbours across the border in Buffalo, New York.
(Now Niagara At Large invites you to share your points and counterpoints to this commentary, remembering that we only post comments from individuals not afraid to share their first and last name.)
Niagara At Large 
Absolutely! You hit the nail on the head! We are over-governed and under-developed and as a result, policies in Niagara are staid, ageist, ableist and totally ineffective with respect to how to attract growth, maintain younger people (and even people my age — because the first opportunity I get I will be gone too if this keeps up …). Niagara does not even get its fair of funding; for example, for certain discretionary benefits, Niagara continues to get about 15% of the average funding from the province that is given to other regions of the same approximate size and population demographics. The quicker we move to amalgamation, the better off the region and all of its communities will be.
The regional council’s decision to leave the transit system balkanized between the three cities that have it and leaving municipalities the choice to join or not, continues with the fragmentation and in some cases, overlap of the system, which is not producing the best results. An affordable, convenient and seamless transit service is absolutely essential to growing our region, bringing in more tourism and businesses, as well as keeping people here that will see this region as a viable place to live.
In the past six months, I have watched over twenty people that I know – ranging from college or university graduates, to middle aged people like myself, all leaving the region to live elsewhere. We are probably the only region that is shrinking year or over year in population with the senior demographic being the highest (and even then, I would even question the region as even a place to retire in).
I’ve also noted at least four major provincial associations that planned major conferences in the past year have considered Niagara, but have chosen other locations because of the poor transit, lack of GO Service, the cost of many establishments, etc. This could have brought more money into the pockets of Niagara businesses and tourism establishments and thus, more jobs … but it is apparent that Niagara is not making itself a welcoming region for others from elsewhere.
Further, just on a city level, closing outdoor pools, other recreational facilities and schools being shuttered, also adds to the problem. When I go, I doubt I will even be able to sell my house for what I bought it for, because of this problem that Niagara regional councilors seem to have about putting the interests of the whole of Niagara before their own little fiefdoms, and yes … I agree, amalgamation does not erase communities. After this, I plan to go to Port Dalhousie to see some of the places there (and yes, when I say ‘Port Dalhousie’, or Merriton, or Chippewa, or Crystal Beach, or whatever … people KNOW what I am talking about … because these communities still exist and always will).
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I believe you have the Niagara diagnosis right, but maybe not the prescription.
There is a fundamental disconnect between governing and regulating. I would suggest – Niagara is over-regulated, not over-governed. Gone are the days when the best and brightest among us, the achievers, the doers and the visionaries went into elected office, AFTER having developed a record of accomplishment.
Now you have a different type of “governance”, that relies on the professional mandarinate to propose, validate and certify the political correctness of, before implementing policy. Bold leadership? not before the bureaucrats have the legal department remove the “bold” and water “leadership” down to the safety of mealy mouthed pablum.
And so instead of “governing” in the historic sense and have the courage to stand accountable for decisions, you have a political class that has become compelled to hide behind regulations. The flexibility to adjust to changing circumstances, entrusted by voters to elected officials, has been transferred to a bureaucratic elite that rules by regulation, hides behind the job security of tenure and defaults predictably and unaccountably to the safety of the normalcy bias.
Democracy has been replaced by bureaucracy. What our well meaning amalgamationists propose will only serve to irrevocably entrench this paradigm, further distancing the people from the “leaders”, and regrettably making elections pointless.
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Be careful what you wish for.
It may just happen.
Please remember that local accountable “parochial” councillors are the root of democracy. Super councillors, disconnected from the constituents, will disenfranchise much of Niagara, and certainly the Southern Tier, by simple math. You will get at best a benign tyranny of the majority, running rough-shod over us country bumpkins in the South, and folks generally they don’t understand or even try to understand.
As for “parochialism”, that word has lost its true meaning, demonized as it has been by command and control & unaccountable elites. Think “PMO” vs the House of Commons if you have any doubts. Niagara is blessed with inherent checks and balances that still marginalizes anything South of Highway 20.
The real solution for what ails Niagara may in fact be to return it to the original Lincoln and the Welland Counties, respectful of the distinctly different cultures and accountable to the voters.
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All you have to do is look at Hamilton to see why amalgamation is not just a bad idea, it is a disastrous, expensive, useless, crappy, idiotic idea!
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Hamilton? Hamilton is doing very well under amalgamation. Hamilton has an unemployment rate of 5.2%, compared to Niagara at 6.4% and Canada at 6.8%, Hamilton is faring well. They also have a great regional public transit service that services all of Hamilton. Don’t underestimate Hamilton. Things are going well there.
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What???? Do you want to see our tax bills? Taxes more than double … services reduced! All the money going into the downtown to support the panhandlers, drug addicts and winos!
Hamilton is NOT faring well! Council is still disfunctional, downtownies still have majority and overrule anything that will benefit the rural areas.
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Allow me to throw a spanner into the works. I know far less than the above commentators most certainly. That said, I see problems ahead.
1) Chris W mentions that once those who ran for office were visionaries, with a solid background of community volunteerism and “record of achievement”. No more. Ask any of the elected regional councillors just how many ‘community organizations’ they ever volunteered for –heritage, sports, mental health, social services, etc and so on, and you would come up empty-handed. Many of them are Partisan Plants, as we all well know. No record of achievement there. That includes a whole swat of them at the Region.
2) Yes, you are all correct about the parochialism. But there is, as CW and Will MacK problems with amalgamation. Let” start with the unions, of which I was a proud member before retiring, on the executive of my local.
So when one amalgamates 12 municipalities into one Niagara — all the municipalities firefighters, police, librarians (some unionized, some not), hospital staff, etc. Do you think that any one of that group will go for the lowest pay-scale of the 12 municipalities or the higher? No brainer there. It happened in Hamilton, Toronto, and the Lambton area. Costs rose. Not hard to figure that out.
3) I keep seeing more and more ads in Municipal World magazine for layers and layers of Middle Management folk at the Region. A former Regional Councillor shocked me by telling me just how over-middle-managed the Region is –costing us all more than pocket change.
4) Finally, no point in going to the Regional Politicians. It is the Province which must mandate amalgamations, not the 3rd and 4th tier officials. It”s the Province who should be approached, if at all.
So, I have no answers. More questions than answers. I appreciate all the comments above.
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So true regarding the quality of our elected officials. There is a complete lack of talent among our politicians in Niagara. Some of them have parlayed their positions as municipal councillors into full time occupations in the municipal government and/or public agencies without even having proper credentials/experience for these positions. Political parties have infiltrated our municipal governments to the point where councillors are forming voting blocs aligned with partisan influence. These same businesses discussing amalgamation with the Region should form a citizens group and lobby the government, but they’re not much better. They just talk and take little action.
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Speaking of parochialism — there is nothing that reveals Niagara’s “parochialism” more that the failure of amalgamation-boosters to do any proper research on the experience of other amalgamated Ontario municipalities. The latest research shows that there is no cost savings (costs go UP rather that down) and few if any other advantages to amalgamation. I have friends and relatives in Ottawa, Hamilton, and Toronto; to a person, they hate amalgamation. I agreed with Chris that Niagara is poorly governed, but amalgamation would only exacerbate the problems we already have, and bring new ones.
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From today’s (Tue, Jul 07, 2015) Hamilton Spectator:
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5710969-new-study-says-municipal-breakup-is-possible/
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This article in the Toronto Star counters the pro arguments
Amalgamation a flop, Fraser Institute study suggests
As debates in Peel and Toronto illustrate, cultural differences weren’t considered in the rush to cut costs — while savings turned out to be an illusion.
An argument about how development is planned in the largely rural municipality of Caledon, with councillors from Mississauga and Brampton pitted against Caledon in the Peel Region council, illustrates the study’s point that amalgamation moves failed to consider cultural and governance differences.
By: San Grewal Urban Affairs Reporter, Toronto Star Published on Tue Jul 07 2015
It’s no secret that when it comes to municipal politics, many members of Ford Nation in the outer wards don’t see eye-to-eye with their downtown Toronto counterparts. And in Caledon a battle is escalating with the rest of Peel Region, as rural values are confronted by urban growth.
It’s all part of the problem of amalgamating municipalities under one government, argues a new study by the conservative-leaning Fraser Institute, released Tuesday, titled De-amalgamation in Canada: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.
The report’s co-author Lydia Miljan, a political science professor at the University of Windsor, says many of today’s post-amalgamation problems had never been seriously contemplated.
“I think that when a lot of this initial discussion about amalgamation came forward by the previous government, it was all about cost savings, it was all about reducing duplication, and not enough thought was brought into just basic issues of governance and cultural differences between areas, in terms of sensibilities about what people want in certain communities,” says Miljan.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie had not seen the Fraser Institute study, but responded to questions Monday about the possibility of her city “breaking up” with Peel Region.
“Mississauga is Canada’s sixth largest city, and it may be time to re-evaluate our position in the Region of Peel,” Crombie stated in an email.
“The issue of whether or not Mississauga should remain as part of Peel Region is not new. Members of Council and former Mayor McCallion repeatedly raised the possibility of Mississauga becoming a single-tier city, just like Toronto. We are currently undertaking a governance review on the future of Peel Region, so now is the perfect time to have this conversation.
“Now is the opportunity to answer the question: should Mississauga remain in Peel? I look forward to reviewing the findings of the Fraser Institute report once it is released.”
Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey also expressed her concerns with the region’s amalgamated government.
“Based on recent developments, it is clear that the current governance model requires attention and that the residents of Peel are not represented properly,” Jeffrey stated.
Last month, Caledon’s five representatives staged a walkout at Peel Region council, after Crombie, Jeffrey and other council members from Brampton and Mississauga tried to call in the province to address questionable land use decisions by Caledon. (The vote succeeded at a subsequent meeting.)
Caledon Mayor Allan Thompson, who has said the other two cities don’t understand Caledon’s rural sensibilities, said publicly that the move could bring an end to Peel Region.
The Fraser report also details the divisions in Toronto illustrated by last year’s municipal election, when the suburban viewpoint embodied by the Ford brothers carried places such as Etobicoke and Scarborough, while those in the central part of the city largely supported Mayor John Tory (open John Tory’s policard)’s more urban mandate.
Beyond the cultural divisions, Miljan says amalgamation has not necessarily achieved the cost savings it was supposed to.
“Unfortunately, we found that it sounds good on paper; certainly you saved a little bit of money by having fewer mayors and municipal councillors, but what people quickly realized was, that is not the biggest ticket item.”
She says, for example, staffing costs often go up when municipalities amalgamate because jobs are not eliminated and salaries are brought up to the levels of those in the largest cities.
Miljan said her findings about differing political values being forced together under amalgamation are highlighted by the situation in Peel. “That controversy in Peel I think underscores these bigger debates that need to be had.”
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Fort Erie was a Town run by the local Chamber of Commerce , as the founder of Fort Erie’s C of C was also the Mayor, the business group never relinquished control , even when there was amalgamation back in 1970, Niagara Region was used byPremier Bill Davis as a template for the rest of the Province, the biggest mistake was allowing Region to run the water and sewage treatment plants and giving the pipelines to the municipality, the result, chaos, Crescent Park residents have been wallowing in their own sewage for 40 years. The C of C people made Town Council reduce the number of councillors down from 8 to 6 thereby solidifying their control on the thirty thousand residents here.
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Well, there you go then. It appears we all agree that we are quality-deprived by the great thinkers, our elected officials at the Region. And all studies show, over and over and over, the dismal unhappiness of those amalgamated Regions —Hamilton/Dundas. Toronto, Lambton/Sarnia/Kent counties, Ottawa, and now Peel. Yup. A mess. costly too. Not wanted by the Electorate, just by the Block Partisan Politicians many of us face on our local Municipal Councils.
There you go.
Figure it out. Can’t undo what was done over 40 years ago by making the Regional Mun. of Niagara, but what a mess. Just read today’s St. Catharines Standard to understand the partisanship at full play here.
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Devolution into sustainable constituent groups is revealing itself to be an international imperative.
We need only look at the splintering of the Euro Zone to see this same situation beyond our borders. The most stable part of the Middle East is the Emirates – precisely because parochialism was allowed to blossom, and each Emirate is a sustainable entity.
Where the elected representatives are too few and too distant from the electorate, where the boundaries are gerrymandered to suit political agendas, the result will always result in lack of accountability and the marginalization of those lacking sufficient numbers.
Amalgamation is a Stalinist concept, the attempt to make all citizens homogeneous, interchangeable, vulnerable and marginal components of the machine. It is no the panacea.
I again posit that the citizens of Niagara would be better served if the Region were to be returned to the original Lincoln and Welland Counties.
At least that would begin to ensure proper representation.
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…amalgamating should be an evolutionary process with for example St Catharines, Thorold ands NOTL.
….Niagara Falls and Fort Erie…
…Welland and Port Colborne…
…create three larger cities and in time amalgamate if that becomes a favourable option…
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De-amalgamation and resolving to the twelve municipalities will just make many of our problems worse … certainly I can’t see a region wide transit service or even garbage collection succeeding under that model.
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