PREMIER TAKES AIM AT REGIONAL REFORM
In a bid to ‘make better use of taxpayers’ dollars,’ task force set up to look at 9 regions. Some mayors applauded the move, others worried if it would be done with a ‘hatchet’
Premier Doug Ford is tackling regional reform, a prospect met with excitement by some Ontario mayors and warnings from others who watched Toronto council get slashed in half.
Ford’s Progressive Conservative government announced Tuesday it would review regional governments in municipalities including Peel, Halton, Durham, and York.
To that end, Michael Fenn, a former deputy minister and one-time chief executive of Metrolinx, and Ken Seiling, the recently retired longtime chair of Waterloo Region, have been retained as special advisers.
“Our government is committed to improving the way regional government works,” Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark said in a statement.
“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,” said Clark.
“Michael Fenn and Ken Seiling bring a wealth of experience that will help us examine if the way regions are governed is working for the people.”
Fenn and Seiling will work with Queen’s Park to look at ways to make it easier for residents and businesses to access services; for municipalities to better deliver those services, and examine “possibilities to cut red tape and duplication, and save costs.”
The consultation will be done this spring. Along with the GTHA regions, they will look at Waterloo, Niagara, Muskoka, Oxford and Simcoe — and their lower-tier municipalities. In all, some 82 municipalities will be included in the review.
At Toronto City Hall, after a routine meeting with Mayor John Tory, mayors had differing reactions to the announcement. Mississauga’s Bonnie Crombie welcomed it and said she will urge Ford to get her city out of Peel Region.
“I made no secret that I think there is inefficiency and duplication in two levels of government,” Crombie said. “We have proven in the past that Mississauga could realize up to $30 million in savings should we control our own destiny and be a single tier” government. Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, the former Progressive Conservative leader who has crossed political swords with Ford, batted aside speculation that one aim of the reform is getting him out of office.
“I hope this will be a healthy conversation,” Brown said. “I hope that municipalities and regions will be consulted sincerely as this process unfolds. Obviously there are savings when you work in numbers ... I look forward to participating in this consultation. I think we give the government the benefit of the doubt.”
But Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward warned Ford he had better not treat the 82 local governments involved in the review the way he treated Toronto. Ford announced in July, during an ongoing election, that he was going to cut council from a planned 47 seats to 25 and forced the change through the courts over Toronto’s objections.
“Where there are opportunities to share on policing, to share on other services, on purchasing, wastewater, we know how to do that and I think the central message that we mayors would like to send to the province is we know our business,” Meed Ward said.
“Consult with us before making unilateral changes, consult with our community before making any changes and allow us to educate you a little bit about what we think needs to be done. We’re all about finding efficiencies, there’s no argument there — but you don’t do it with a hatchet, you do it with a handshake.”
Mayor John Tory echoed that, saying he wishes Toronto had got the “the same opportunity” to be consulted. “And maybe you’d like to think that a lesson was learned from that,” he said, of the province’s announcement. Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti welcomed the review, but raised the prospect of early elections, before 2022, for municipalities where the governance structure gets changed, saying leaving the status quo while announcing future changes could allow “all kinds of games. Ultimately, if they move to a different structure, they may have to actually look at the mandates of the current councils in those areas and decide to maybe call an earlier election than originally planned if there is a change in governance,” Scarpitti said.
Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said if the Ford government wants to introduce a modern approach to governing, “then you have to listen to the people before you make changes. So, the consultation process has to be a sound one. It has to be principle driven, which means every single individual should be heard.”
When Ford, who was elected June 7, unilaterally downsized Toronto council, he also cancelled the first-ever regional chair elections in Peel, York, Niagara and Muskoka. At the time, the premier and Clark said they were pressing the “pause” button on those votes — but allowing democratically elected chairs in Durham and Halton — because they were thinking about regional reform.
In 1997, former Tory premier Mike Harris eliminated the former regional municipality of Metro Toronto and amalgamated the old City of Toronto with Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke, the City of York and the borough of East York to form what was then known as the “megacity.”
Niagara Regional chair Jim Bradley said in an interview that Fenn and Seiling are “highly regarded” and bring a lot of experience to their new advisory roles. “This is not unexpected. The new government said it would be looking at regional government as many other governments have done in the past,” said the former provincial cabinet minister, who was an MPP for 41 years. But Bradley said some of Ontario’s smaller municipalities served by regional governments may be concerned that they will be swallowed up by larger municipalities through amalgamation.
“Certainly the small municipalities will no doubt be making their points to the commissioners,” he said.