No mandate for area-wide amalgamation study

In a March 24 panel discussion hosted by the Victoria Salon at Camosun College, four of us debated this resolution: Be it resolved that whereas the citizens of Greater Victoria have elected to explore the concept of amalgamation, that the number of local governments in the Capital Region should be reduced from the current 13 municipalities. Those who saw the debate encouraged more such events.

I spoke against the resolution, not because amalgamation is necessarily a bad idea, but because I don’t agree that the referendums last November provide a regionwide mandate to explore amalgamation.

How to read the referendum results? There are three patterns and each of them is different. On the Saanich Peninsula, Sidney, North Saanich and Central Saanich voters agreed to look at the costs and benefits of amalgamating the three communities. At least 60 per cent in each municipality support proceeding with a study to examine amalgamation-related options.

In the Western Communities, Langford decided to put a direct amalgamation question on its ballot, and of those who voted that day (19 per cent turnout) 50.1 percent supported Langford amalgamating with other municipalities.

There was more of a “proxy vote” in three other communities. A “look into amalgamation” coalition of candidates (the Pro-Am Party) had candidates in Colwood, Sooke and View Royal. Their website was explicit — people should not vote for them unless they favoured looking into amalgamation. None of the three candidates was elected. In the Western Communities, there is no mandate to explore amalgamation options.

Two of the four core municipalities, Esquimalt (67 per cent) and Victoria (80 per cent) voted for exploring the reduction of the number of municipalities in Greater Victoria. Oak Bay, like Langford, asked residents directly whether they were in favour of Oak Bay being amalgamated into a larger regional municipality (62.2 per cent voted no).

The vote in Saanich was around this question: “Do you support council initiating a communitybased review of the governance structure and policies within Saanich and our partnerships within the region?” Voters strongly supported such actions (88.5 per cent).

Since November, much has been made of these results, particularly for the four core municipalities. In the B.C. legislature on May 6, Rob Fleming questioned Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Coralee Oakes on the government’s next steps.

Of interest is his view of the referendum questions: “While the referendum’s wording of each question was slightly different, they are approximately the same.” This implies that even though the Saanich version did not mention amalgamation and the Oak Bay version bluntly asked voters to decide whether Oak Bay should be amalgamated, those differences should be set aside in preference to some kind of regionwide study. A more accurate interpretation would conclude that among the four core municipalities, there is no concurrent mandate to explore amalgamation-related options.

What do we do with these referendum results? First it is clear that there is a mandate to look at amalgamation on the Saanich Peninsula. This could begin as soon as the process is firmed up and resources are allocated. Community involvement would be central to that process. The result would be one or more amalgamation-related options that would be put to the voters in those three communities.

The current legislation is clear that majorities in all three communities would be required to formally change the governance structures.

Second, the evidence from reviewing the experiences and research (costs and benefits) of amalgamations elsewhere should be made available to the whole region. The evidence both for and against amalgamation could be organized so that citizens and politicians could inform themselves for future discussions and decisions.

Third, we should not lose track of a core principle that underpins the process for changing governance structures among B.C. municipalities: Citizens’ votes count — and they count in each community that would be affected by such changes. Substituting some kind of area-wide decision rule (such as an overall majority) for the current rule would disadvantage smaller municipalities.

And right now, deciding on an area-wide amalgamation study in the absence of any such mandate would have the same effect.