Sendzik: Status quo not effective approach
St. Catharines mayor’s State of the City address touches on governance review
Mayor Walter Sendzik urged business, political and community leaders to open their minds to opportunity when the province reviews Niagara’s governance this year.
In his fifth State of the City address, the St. Catharines mayor said many people get cloistered into a way of thinking that if something has always been done one way, it should just stay that way.
“The reality is let’s open up our minds and let’s say, how can we do things differently, whatever it may be,” he said.
Sendzik said he wasn’t saying the solution is one city, six cities or 12 municipalities. But he emphasized that whatever the decision is has to positively affect future generations, like the Tomorrow Voices children’s choir that performed at the event at Club Roma Wednesday.
“I don’t care if the community is called St. Catharines or Niagara or
St. Catharines-Thorold-WellandNiagara Falls-Wainfleet, whatever the heck it’s called.
“But if we don’t make sure that the decisions that we’re making today are going to have that long-term impact, these kids that were singing here, we’re not doing justice to them because our decisions have to be about them.”
About 500 people gathered for the annual event hosted by the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce which saw the mayor highlight the city’s successes and progress over the past year, including early daily GO Train service, a revitalization of the Port Dalhousie piers and the dry docks getting a new occupant.
Sendzik focused mainly on themes of compassion, optimism and momentum during his 38-minute speech, but said he wanted to address “the elephant in the room.”
In January, the province announced a governance review of Ontario’s eight regional governments. Former deputy minister Michael Fenn and retired Waterloo region chair Ken Seiling were appointed special advisers.
Niagara’s 12 mayors have met to discuss how they can work together to come up with a made-in-Niagara governance solution they’re hoping the province will accept.
“With all this momentum that we have and all this opportunity and optimism in front of us, we’ve got to make sure that what happens with the provincial government and it’s impact on Niagara we have some measure of control over,” Sendzik said.
“We want to make sure we’re the architects of this new Niagara.”
He said elected officials have to be thinking well into the future about how they are positioning the city and the region to complete in a global economy that is more integrated and technologically advanced than human history has ever had to deal with before.
“If we don’t get this review right, if we don’t get this governance issue right, we’re going to continue to fall behind.”
He urged the community to join the region’s mayors in articulating where they see Niagara going.
“Think about where we want to go as a community, and what does it mean — not to the 60 year old but to the five-year-old.
“Because the five-year-old is going to stand on our shoulders and it’s up to us to make sure the shoulders that they stand on are going to position them for longterm prosperity and growth.”
He also told the crowd to challenge elected officials who say the status quo is the only way to go.
“The status quo is only going to get us so far,” Sendzik said.
“It’s opening up our minds to the opportunities of where we can go that’s actually going to bring us further down this path.”
‘‘ If we don’t get this review right, if we don’t get this governance issue right, we’re going to continue to
fall behind.”
WALTER SENDZIK
St. Catharines mayor