Time to carve Cambridge out of the Region of Waterloo: Ermeta
Posted Jun 1, 2023 01:18:38 PM.
As the province considers whether to carve up the Region of Waterloo, at least one area councillor says he believes it is time the City of Cambridge be allowed to chart its own course.
It comes following a decision by the province earlier this month to dissolve Peel Region and to make the cities of Mississauga, Brampton, and Caledon independent, single-tier municipalities.
“I believe decisions are better made by elected officials who reside in the community and are, therefore, closer to the people and know the community best,” said Cambridge Ward 8 Councillor Nicolas Ermeta on The Mike Farwell Show.
“Somebody in Kitchener-Waterloo should not be deciding what happens in Cambridge and somebody in Cambridge should not be deciding what happens in Kitchener-Waterloo,” he continued.
Ermeta said he believes an independent Cambridge would be better suited to making decisions that better reflect the will of its residents.
He also said, while it may not be easy, he doesn’t think the challenges insurmountable either–though he did acknowledge some potentially tough decisions on shared services like transit, garbage collection, and policing.
“We could look at a Cambridge police force and at least see how much that would cost but, certainly, we could [also] look at keeping the regional police and contracting from that or having some kind of a joint partnership,” Ermeta said. “The OPP is also an option as well that we could look at.”
“Cross-border agreements, we can find a way to do that if we need to,” he added. “So there are a number of different options the city could consider moving forward.”
Ermeta said those considerations would likely be similar across all currently shared services while suggesting a decision to take on sole responsibility would not necessarily mean a spike in property taxes.
“I believe we’re a very efficient municipality in that we have the best staff around who are very good at finding efficiencies and savings, so I’m quite confident we can find a way to make things work.”
