The TC had an editorial in favour of amalgamating the local governments. There was also a letter from John Hutchinson arguing for amalgamation.
Both are fine sentiments and point out very good reasons for the amalgamation of our local governments, problem is that there is no serious discussion happening from any local government on the issue.
What is needed is a local citizen lead initiative to reorganize our local governance. There have been some small attempts to do this in the past, but nothing serious has happened. Some of the attempts have looked too partisan for many people, others have simply not gotten off of the ground.
If I had a lot of spare time, I would spearhead something, but with four kids, lots of work, and community volunteering, there is no time left for me to take this on.
Any volunteers?
4 comments:
Hi Bernard:
I'm the person who sent the letter on amalgamation to the Times Colonist. Like you, I am surprised there is no organized drive to unite out metropolitan area into one city.
The letter published was, however, edited by the paper, mostly for brevity, but it also weakened the tone of it somewhat. Following is my letter as it was originally submitted.
The problem for amalgamation proponents is that the obvious blinds us to the important. We get distracted by the burlesque of the hundred politicians being paid to govern Greater Victoria, focusing the public’s attention on the waste of their salaries, which is a pittance compared to the total budgets of the area’s municipalities.
Arguments on the economies of scale by combining bureaucracies, services and civic works into a single unit can also run both ways, depending on the bias of the debaters.
So, what are the real problems with the status quo and should be driving us toward amalgamation? One is demonstrated by the federal government’s recent call for the 22 largest municipalities in Canada to meet to discuss how to use money provided for infrastructure improvements. Victoria, a capital city with over 300,000 people in its metropolitan area, 13th largest in the nation, was not invited. Why? Because its City population of 78,000 is 63rd in the nation, Saanich with its 108,000 people is 44th. Saskatoon went with its 200,000, so did Kitchener, Longueuil and St. John’s (151,000). (numbers from 2006 census)
Even on a Provincial basis, Victoria City commands no respect as it is only the 14th largest municipality in BC. Even Nanaimo is larger. Saanich is 7th in the province, but, like Burnaby to Vancouver, is discounted by the label ‘suburb’. The Balkanization of our city is what deafens the BC and federal governments to us when infrastructure projects are assigned.
We need to amalgamate into a single entity in order to accomplish projects of common concern, such as transportation, sewage, health care and housing. An example is the commute from the Western Communities into the city. This is of importance to people living in six municipalities who work or want to shop in the City. It is also important to employers and businesses in the City. But each municipality is focused within its own borders. Would an amalgamated city have wasted its resources at the Spencer Road Interchange, rather than addressing the bottleneck at MacKenzie-Admirals? The latter is actually in a corner of Saanich, whose residents are mostly unaffected by the traffic snarl.
Much of what should be controlled by the city is now run by the provincial government through its proxies such as BC Transit, the Highways Department and the CRD. Some look on the CRD to accomplish what the municipalities cannot agree to do, but it is representatives from the 13 municipalities plus three ‘electoral areas’ that must achieve consensus. In effect the CRD was a creation of the province, and does whatever the province deems is best. Decisions on transit, roads, health care, sewage, and water are effectively out of the hands of local voters.
We must take control of our situation through amalgamation, either by overcoming objections from municipal councilors who feel it is in their own interest or that of their constituents to maintain the status quo, or through an initiative from the provincial government. The myth perpetuated is that we might lose control of our own little bailiwick when, due to the above circumstances we have in reality no control at all.
I thank you for raising this issue and would like to be involved in some way. It is ridiculous for our tiny area to be governed by this many councils. Unfortunately, I am new here (moved from the US last year) and would not have the people networking chops to pull off something like this. But, I am willing to offer some time and effort into helping, especially with website, facebook and other awareness raising issues. Please keep me posted. If we can find someone to spearhead this initiative, I will definitely chip in.
Does anyone know what happened to the lessgov.com web site? This looked like a group that wanted to amalgamate Victoria. I was excited to find their web site and then disappointed to discover it has not been active for several years.
Dave
les gov was started in anticipation of the 2005 municipal elections but not enough happened with it to make the issue prominent in the election that time around.
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