Ford government will not redraw Ontario regional government, Clark says

Theglobeandmail.com
October 25, 2019
Jeff Gray

The Ontario government says it has decided against pursuing a “top-down approach” and will not radically redraw the province’s regional governments, despite a consultation process that took months.

Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark announced Friday that instead of acting on a menu of possible sweeping changes -- including Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie's plea that her city become independent from Peel Region -- Queen's Park will instead offer up $143-million for municipalities across the province to find new ways to lower costs and improve services.

The move is the latest climb down for a government that has softened a series of controversial cuts to municipal spending in recent months and just Thursday offered to modify its plan to increase high school class sizes in an effort to avert a teachers strike.

In January, Mr. Clark announced the appointment of two advisers -- former senior Ontario bureaucrat Michael Fenn and former Waterloo Regional chairman Ken Seiling -- to review Ontario’s eight regional municipalities (Halton, York, Durham, Waterloo, Niagara, Peel, Muskoka District, and Oxford County), the County of Simcoe and their 82 lower-tier municipalities.

But after 10 months, more than 8,500 submissions and nine consultation sessions with individuals and organizations on ways to improve local government, the Ford government has chosen to stand pat.

"Throughout this extensive review, the government heard that local communities should decide what is best for them in terms of governance, decision making and service delivery," Mr. Clark's news release reads. "After careful consideration of the feedback, our government stands firm in its commitment to partnering with municipalities without pursuing a top-down approach."

The review was first promised in the summer of 2018, when Premier Doug Ford unilaterally slashed Toronto’s city council almost in half in the middle of the city’s 2018 election. The government also cancelled the first elections that year for a regional chair in Peel -- being contested by former Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown, who later won the mayoralty in Brampton -- and votes for regional chairs in York, Niagara and Muskoka.

A decision on what to do with the advisers’ confidential report was originally promised in August, 2019, but then delayed until October.

While some local mayors speculated the review was aimed at amalgamating municipalities or scrapping regional governments, Mr. Clark maintained he had no preconceived notions, other than looking for ways to make regional government more efficient and avoiding duplication.

Ms. Crombie, like long-serving Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion before, saw the review as a way for her city – the province’s third-largest – to break free of Peel Region and become a stand-alone municipality like Toronto, Windsor or Hamilton. She has argued that Mississauga should not be forced to subsidize the growth of its smaller neighbours in Peel, the municipalities of Brampton and Caledon.

The $143-million in funding will be open to all 444 of Ontario's municipalities, the government said. The government also says it will launch a consultation about whether to align the fiscal years of provincial and municipal governments.

The province antagonized many municipal governments earlier this year when it proposed cuts to the funding they receive for public health units, which do everything from track vaccinations to inspect restaurant kitchens for food safety issues, as well as funding for child care and ambulance services. Some of the cuts were retroactive, prompting some municipalities to warn they would have to reopen their budgets and even raise extra taxes. Mr. Ford put the moves on hold in May, and in August softened the blows, offering transitional funding as the province shifts to making municipalities cover 30 per cent of the costs of public health.