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The Lindsay Post is running a weekly series of questions, with answers by both the "Yes" and "No" sides of the issues.
Question #1:Was this a forced amalgamation?
Yes, of course the amalgamation was forced. In a different context that ruling depends on one question: did the victim resist and say "No"? We certainly did. In November 1999 Victoria County Council voted 17-6 against requesting a Commission. That should have been the end of it. No means No. But then one township (Emily) voted 3-2 to request a Commission, Lindsay endorsed the request, and the Ontario Government handed us over to Mr. Kitchen.
Even then we resisted. In fact, we set a record, with 613 written submissions to the Kitchen Commission. More than 75% of these opposed a single-city structure; most favouring the status quo: "Please go away and let us find our own solutions!"
We kept on resisting. In April 2000, an 866-name petition, representing every municipality in the County was presented to the Ontario Legislature, asking them to remove the Commissioner and cancel the restructuring. Even after Mr. Kitchen had abolished our municipalities and declared us a "City" we continued to resist. Since December 2000 more than 11,000 names have been presented on petitions to the Legsislature, asking that the amalgamation be reversed.
What about our elected representatives? They too resisted. In the first round of Kitchen's meetings with Councils, 10 written briefs supported retaining the status quo (5 Councils, including the County, did not respond). In the second round, 7 supported the status quo, 2 wanted a revised two-tier structure , only 2 supported single-tier (again, not all Councils responded).
And what about voters? Obviously no-one asked them. So, in the summer of 2001 we held our own referendum throughout the County. In the full knowledge that the vote was not "official", 6209 people came to the polls to register their opinion. 5993 (96.5%) voted to de-amalgamate. But what was perhaps more moving was the number of voters who said "Thank you for giving us this chance to be heard".
An unelected Commissioner was given carte-blanche to determine the future of our local governments. His decision, according to the legislation, was beyond the reproach of even the elected Provincial Government. Regardless of one's opinion of the outcome, surely that must make any rational person queasy. History has shown what happens when democratically elected bodies appoint dictators. This isn't to fault the Commissioner, rather the process. Indeed, things might even have been worse. As he himself remarked, he had the authority to name us "Kitchen's Corners".
It has been argued that even if it was forced, the amalgamation was democratic because it was imposed by democratically-elected bodies. We disagree. Our democratically-elected County Council voted against it. The Provincial government was never given a mandate to remove local government, in fact they had to change the law to do so (Bill 26).
One municipality was able to impose a Commission on the entire County. Obviously the MPPs in the Ontario Legislature found that undemocratic, because they have now changed the law so that never again can a lower tier municipality trigger a restructuring. We were the last.
In fact, it is on that basis that the Minister of Municipal Affairs requested this referendum. Our amalgamation was one of a handful which fell under this law. If the law that allowed this to happen has been rescinded as undemocratic, the resulting amalgamation must also have been undemocratic.
Yes the amalgamation was forced, and local governments were violated. But, by continuing to resist, the people in Victoria County have kept democracy alive. On November 10 they will at last be allowed to decide their own fate. Then they can say "Yes"!