Six local mayors share vision for regional governance
Posted Jan 19, 2024 04:00:00 AM.
Last Updated Jan 18, 2024 06:59:03 PM.
Whether Waterloo Region should amalgamate has been a lingering question for a long time and now it’s back to the forefront.
The province’s Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy held a public hearing on Regional Governance in downtown Kitchener Thursday. All but one of the mayors agree on a vision for the future of Waterloo Region: A reformed version of the current two-tier government structure.
Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe was the only one not in attendance.
Mayor of Kitchener Berry Vrbanovic, Cambridge Jan Liggett, Wellesley Joe Nowak, Wilmot Natasha Salonen, North Dumfries Sue Foxton and Woolwich Sandy Shantz agree (along with their councils) that planning authorities need to shift to the municipalites, so that developers have just one order of government to approach if they’re looking to invest in a specific community.
In an interview following the meeting, Vrbanovic said that developers have been pleased with their dealings with Kitchener and other municipalites. He said everyone he’s talked to would like municipalities to get more authority in areas like transportation, bylaw enforcement, culture and recreation, and library services.
As for why Mayor McCabe was not standing with other local mayors, Vrbanovic said she decided not continue in the dialogue on a shared view for regional governance.
However, McCabe told CityNews that’s not why she was absent.
“I was not invited. I was not informed,” said McCabe. “I have raised questions about the financial viability of the approach they are asking for. In the discussions I have had with them, it sounds like they are assuming that monies that go into the region, would simply go to the individual municipalites and there’s certainly no confirmation that’s how it would work.”
McCabe also stated that she is an advocate for amalgamation, the opposite of what the other six mayors are proposing.
Vrbanovic is not interested in a one-tier government.
“Bigger isn’t necessarily better,” said Vrbanovic to CityNews 570 in an interview. “When we look at some of the amalgamations that have happened across the province previously, we haven’t seen the cost-saving that was talked about.”
Vrbanovic added that staying with a familiar framework is crucial during a housing crisis.
“To create the kind of disarray that would come either from eliminating the region or trying to force an amalgamation and the years of work that would be necessary to put that into place, that would be time and energy that would be going away from building homes and that’s not what we can afford to do right now.”
