Amalgamation debate won't end with yes vote
Times Colonist,
August 25, 2014
Re: “Voters need facts on amalgamation,” letter, Aug. 22
In answer to the letter-writer’s call for comments from “people who lived in areas surrounding cities that have been forced to amalgamate,” I have an observation from my time as a resident in 2002 of Beaconsfield, Que., when it was one of 27 independent municipalities on the Island of Montreal that were absorbed by the City of Montreal.
Granted, the circumstances were radically different from those now obtaining in the capital region. The Montreal merger, and many more throughout Quebec, were imposed by the Parti Québécois government, largely to stave off the embarrassment of having municipalities with large federalist populations petition to remain in Canada in the event of a victory by the sovereigntist side in a future referendum.
But the one germane lesson we could draw for the capital region, where the spirit of democracy is alive and parochial, is that ardent campaigns to demerge and go back to the halcyon way things were would arise the day after Greater Victoria’s 13 fiefdoms were amalgamated into a single megacity.
Jean Charest’s Liberals were elected in 2003 largely on the strength of a promise to allow merged municipalities to organize referendums to demerge. Although the threshold was difficult, 15 Island of Montreal municipalities quickly recovered most of their former powers. There is now a regional board for the whole island called the Montreal Agglomeration Council that makes the CRD look methodical and businesslike.
The point is that amalgamations can be undone, and arguments over efficiencies and cost savings will never end. A yes vote wouldn’t be the end of it, especially in a region where we don’t so much elect governments as debating societies.
Earl Fowler
View Royal
Times Colonist,
August 25, 2014
Re: “Voters need facts on amalgamation,” letter, Aug. 22
In answer to the letter-writer’s call for comments from “people who lived in areas surrounding cities that have been forced to amalgamate,” I have an observation from my time as a resident in 2002 of Beaconsfield, Que., when it was one of 27 independent municipalities on the Island of Montreal that were absorbed by the City of Montreal.
Granted, the circumstances were radically different from those now obtaining in the capital region. The Montreal merger, and many more throughout Quebec, were imposed by the Parti Québécois government, largely to stave off the embarrassment of having municipalities with large federalist populations petition to remain in Canada in the event of a victory by the sovereigntist side in a future referendum.
But the one germane lesson we could draw for the capital region, where the spirit of democracy is alive and parochial, is that ardent campaigns to demerge and go back to the halcyon way things were would arise the day after Greater Victoria’s 13 fiefdoms were amalgamated into a single megacity.
Jean Charest’s Liberals were elected in 2003 largely on the strength of a promise to allow merged municipalities to organize referendums to demerge. Although the threshold was difficult, 15 Island of Montreal municipalities quickly recovered most of their former powers. There is now a regional board for the whole island called the Montreal Agglomeration Council that makes the CRD look methodical and businesslike.
The point is that amalgamations can be undone, and arguments over efficiencies and cost savings will never end. A yes vote wouldn’t be the end of it, especially in a region where we don’t so much elect governments as debating societies.
Earl Fowler
View Royal
