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Regional Governance Review

ShonTron said:
Where that would leave Caledon, I don't know.
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steveintoronto said:
I've noted a few articles in the Orangeville Metroland spawn (can't remember the name) examining whether Caledon would be welcomed north. It's an interesting discussion, but Caledon's wish is not to be an orphan, but at the same time, to remain rural.
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Could Dufferin County be a municipal dumping ground for province’s review of regional governments?
By CHRIS HALLIDAYOrangeville Banner
Wed., Jan. 16, 2019
[...]
In a four-part series produced in December by the Orangeville Banner and Caledon Enterprise, the newspapers sought to answer one hypothetical question: would it make sense for Caledon and Dufferin County to amalgamate?

Our final answer: “It’s complicated,” but it’d most certainly have to be brought down from on high by the province. And it’d be far more likely if Peel were to be restructured. That possibility has been made even more real by Tuesday’s announcement.

“Amalgamation disproportionately affects rural areas. It leads to cuts in services and therefore the disenfranchisement of rural residents,” White argued. “For an area like Dufferin where the largest economic sector is agriculture, that would be a tragedy.”

Uncertainly in Peel Region, namely due to Mississauga’s wish to break away from Brampton and Caledon to become a single-tier government, is the X-factor though. If Caledon, Brampton and Mississauga can’t resolve any differences, provincial officials have told Peel politicians a merger of the last two into a single city could be contemplated.

“Then the question is, does Caledon stay in that new city?” Caledon Coun. Ian Sinclair previously asked. “Or do we take everything, Mayfield, north and join with the greater Dufferin?” [...]
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https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...provinces-review-of-regional-governments.html
 
gweed123 said:
One of the things I'd like to see from this is the splitting of urban/suburban and rural regions into different counties/regions. Take for example Durham Region. You have the populous southern portion, and the rural northern portion. Would it not make sense to split it along the urban-rural divide, and amalgamate that northern portion with another region/county (or create a new one)?
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I tend to agree. The parts of the north that aren't in the Greenbelt/Morraine are completely rural with no urban areas to be built out with the exception of Beaverton. The residents pay regional taxes and see virtually nothing for them. When we lived there we were well and septic and paid a surcharge for waste collection. It seemed like a lot of money for police, volunteer fire, a few roads plus other scattered region-wide services. Recall that when Durham region was first created out of Ontario County Rama and Mara townships went to Simcoe County (plus, I think an eastern area that went to Northumberland County).

ShonTron said:
The District of Parry Sound isn’t a municipal government. The province only created two upper tier municipalities in the North: the former Sudbury Regional Municipality (now the City of Greater Sudbury) and the District Municipality of Muskoka. All other districts (Parry Sound, Sudbury, Manitoulin, Nipissing, Temiskaming, Cochrane, Algoma, Thunder Bay, Kenora, and Rainy River) are administrative only, for such things as judicial services and land registry purposes. If you’re not in an incorporated city, town, or township, you’re not in a municipality. That’s why there’s still MTO-maintained secondary highways up there - there was no county to download them to.
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True, but to be totally accurate, there are no unincorperated areas in Parry Sound District. The question of why isn't Parry Sound included in the review could be asked of every other County or District in the province. The possible answers are (a) even Ford is limited to amount of disruption he can commit at one time or (b) he doesn't know they're there. Perhaps their best defence is to treat him like he's a reptile and if they don't move he won't see them.
 
ShonTron said:
The District of Parry Sound isn’t a municipal government. The province only created two upper tier municipalities in the North: the former Sudbury Regional Municipality (now the City of Greater Sudbury) and the District Municipality of Muskoka. All other districts (Parry Sound, Sudbury, Manitoulin, Nipissing, Temiskaming, Cochrane, Algoma, Thunder Bay, Kenora, and Rainy River) are administrative only, for such things as judicial services and land registry purposes. If you’re not in an incorporated city, town, or township, you’re not in a municipality. That’s why there’s still MTO-maintained secondary highways up there - there was no county to download them to.
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Not just secondary highway. MTO also has 7000 series highway where there was no municipality to download to (or the municipality wouldn't take it).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highways_in_Ontario#7000-series_highways
There are also Local Roads Boards (Local Services Boards) - essentially these are municipal roads (or maybe more correctly abandoned logging and mining roads) where there is no municipal government to look after them. MTO looks after these too (with MNDM funding) as the public had become used to using them and nobody has the guts to just close them. These are slightly different from similar roads that are still the jurisdiction of MNR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_services_board
 
lenaitch said:
I tend to agree. The parts of the north that aren't in the Greenbelt/Morraine are completely rural with no urban areas to be built out with the exception of Beaverton. The residents pay regional taxes and see virtually nothing for them. When we lived there we were well and septic and paid a surcharge for waste collection. It seemed like a lot of money for police, volunteer fire, a few roads plus other scattered region-wide services. Recall that when Durham region was first created out of Ontario County Rama and Mara townships went to Simcoe County (plus, I think an eastern area that went to Northumberland County).



True, but to be totally accurate, there are no unincorperated areas in Parry Sound District. The question of why isn't Parry Sound included in the review could be asked of every other County or District in the province. The possible answers are (a) even Ford is limited to amount of disruption he can commit at one time or (b) he doesn't know they're there. Perhaps their best defence is to treat him like he's a reptile and if they don't move he won't see them.
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That’s true. There aren’t any “unincorperated” parts of Parry Sound District. But nearly half the district isn’t covered by an *incorporated* municipal government or by an Indigenous reserve. Places like Britt, Key River, Loring, and Byng Inlet aren’t in any municipality.
 
ShonTron said:
That’s true. There aren’t any “unincorperated” parts of Parry Sound District. But nearly half the district isn’t covered by an *incorporated* municipal government or by an Indigenous reserve. Places like Britt, Key River, Loring, and Byng Inlet aren’t in any municipality.
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Thanks for that. I was under the impression that all of the District was covered by incorporated municipalities - I be wrong. To me, "unincorporated" means there is no municipal corporation with an elected 'board' (council) and tax base. I didn't realize much of the north end was simply geographic townships with a smattering of local services boards.

1547690864692.png
 
lenaitch said:
I tend to agree. The parts of the north that aren't in the Greenbelt/Morraine are completely rural with no urban areas to be built out with the exception of Beaverton. The residents pay regional taxes and see virtually nothing for them. When we lived there we were well and septic and paid a surcharge for waste collection. It seemed like a lot of money for police, volunteer fire, a few roads plus other scattered region-wide services. Recall that when Durham region was first created out of Ontario County Rama and Mara townships went to Simcoe County (plus, I think an eastern area that went to Northumberland County).



True, but to be totally accurate, there are no unincorperated areas in Parry Sound District. The question of why isn't Parry Sound included in the review could be asked of every other County or District in the province. The possible answers are (a) even Ford is limited to amount of disruption he can commit at one time or (b) he doesn't know they're there. Perhaps their best defence is to treat him like he's a reptile and if they don't move he won't see them.
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That's interesting Parry Sound isn't in the review. This is the Province of Ontario, not GTA!
 
Though in the long term, don't be surprised if *all* municipalities in Ontario are abolished on behalf of "city-county" unitary entities...which might even include the Northern districts. And what's left will only show as "wards" (or, for census purposes, "urban clusters").
 
W. K. Lis said:
There could be a new regional government of Toronto that combines Peel, York, and Durham with the current City of Toronto into a new Metropolitan Toronto. Or just annex Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and Markham, or any other city that will get a "subway, subway, subway" by Doug Ford's edict.
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Even if this made sense, Toronto is not included in the scope of this review.
Arguably, that's stupid but I think Ford already conducted his "review" of Toronto's governance.
 
lenaitch said:
I tend to agree. The parts of the north that aren't in the Greenbelt/Morraine are completely rural with no urban areas to be built out with the exception of Beaverton. The residents pay regional taxes and see virtually nothing for them. When we lived there we were well and septic and paid a surcharge for waste collection. It seemed like a lot of money for police, volunteer fire, a few roads plus other scattered region-wide services. Recall that when Durham region was first created out of Ontario County Rama and Mara townships went to Simcoe County (plus, I think an eastern area that went to Northumberland County).
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Exactly. Not to mention those rural residents get completely out-numbered by the suburban residents. It would make far more sense for them to be grouped in with other municipalities that have similar population characteristics (and similar population totals).
 
gweed123 said:
Exactly. Not to mention those rural residents get completely out-numbered by the suburban residents. It would make far more sense for them to be grouped in with other municipalities that have similar population characteristics (and similar population totals).
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That's why, in 1922, the rural Township of North York was incorporated and broke away from the urban Township of York, to keep its agricultural background. Didn't work.
 
adma said:
Though in the long term, don't be surprised if *all* municipalities in Ontario are abolished on behalf of "city-county" unitary entities...which might even include the Northern districts. And what's left will only show as "wards" (or, for census purposes, "urban clusters").
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Whether it's a 'city', 'town', 'township' or 'county', municipal corporations are ultimately the same. While it might be functionally feasible have a single tier county governments across all of southern Ontario, such geographically large entities with uneven population distribution would not be without their own problems. They do exist in at least Alberta and possibly other western provinces and their experience might be instructive. The vast majority of the northern districts are comprised of unorganized geographic township (i.e. no local government at all) and no district governance. The cost to implement such a thing would be enormous given the minimal tax base.

I would challenge any governance review to be appropriate for today and the near term and still be valid 100 years from now.

Besides, as mentioned, they are not scoped into the current review.
 
So anyway can we discuss this from more of a political angle since I think in reality that is what matters more than what is actually best for regional planning. Lets look at Peel, York and Durham. Is there any appetite in these communities from amalgamation into one region? From what I hear from Mississauga, they want the removal of Peel region and to operate as a single tier municipality.

Now if we are discussing the obvious political angle of getting back at Patrick Brown by merging Peel Region, it is an interesting concept but isn't this really dumb from a political perspective? They have 8 seats in Mississauga and Brampton, and all of them have a very good chance of swinging. If the move the combine the regions upsets Mississauga and Brampton residents aren't they setting themselves up for failure next election? Also Patrick Brown can just run for mayor of Peel so its not even blocking him effectively.

I think that there may be a push to remove a large number of regional powers and give the local councils more power since that is the politically popular move, at least with the GTA regions.
 
ShonTron said:
At least the government is creating $150,000/year jobs for nonagenarians. I guess that's it for Peel Region.

Who are they going to appoint next? Don Cherry?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1086376648310771712
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Don Cherry would be a funny choice, dear I say," for the hockey fans". Of course, we know how DoFo is. And, Hazel will likely salute to DoFo all time. They're all conservative..
 
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