Counterpoint: Question #13
The Lindsay Post is running a weekly series of questions, with answers by both the "Yes" and "No" sides of the issues.

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Question #13: How will our system pay for provincially-mandated upgrades to water systems?

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Provincial bullying will be offset by "strength in numbers"

      Before we begin, let's point out the obvious: systems don't pay for water upgrades or anything else; taxpayers do.

     A single-tier system of governance like the City of Kawartha Lakes might be well-positioned to distribute the pain of government bullying over a broader tax base. But why must we submit to government bullying?

     There's a theory why grazing animals bunch together in herds. An individual animal in a flock of a thousand stands only one chance in a thousand of being eaten by a predator. Collectively, the depredation is barely noticeable.

     The reason for amalgamations in the first place was to facilitate the downloading of responsibility for services from the Province to the municipalities. Municipalities forced into mega-herds weren't supposed to notice the shift of the tax burden onto the backs of property tax payers.

     The provincially-mandated upgrades to Kinmount's water system was one of the first tests. Council succumbed to the herd theory: Kinmount, they said, could never afford the expensive upgrades, so they distributed the pain among all municipal water-system users.

     But does anyone seriously think that the Province would have made Kinmount a ghost-town? The Ontario government was lucky that the financial pain of Kinmount's system upgrades was spread over the residents of Lindsay, Bobcaygeon and so forth. When the jackel got hungry, there was security in numbers.

     The jackal will get hungry again, of course. When Lindsay's or Bobcaygeon's water treatment plants needs upgrading, and they will, ratepayers in Kinmount and Fenelon Falls will have to shell out to help pay for it if we stay as the City of Kawartha Lakes.

      What's the alternative? When faced with the same problem in Chatsworth, their Mayor and Council said, "If the Province insists on expensive upgrades that we don't want or need, then the Province can pay for it", and refused to cave in to blackmail.

     Of course, if a water system needs repairs, residents must be prepared to pay the cost, as they did before amalgamation. The majority of residents in the "City" draw their domestic water from wells. They pay to have the wells drilled in the first place and if something goes wrong, they pay for the repairs, without asking someone else to chip in for the repair bill.

      If this sounds as though we are unsympathetic to the plight of the residents of Kinmount whom the Province threatened with financial ruin in the face of post-Walkerton regulations, we're not. Water system upgrades or any other provincially-mandated infrastructure spending ought to be a provincial responsibility after de-amalgamation, and it will be, if municipalities show some backbone.

     How will we deal with provincial bullying after de-amalgamation? How do any other small municipalities in the province deal with it? If the provincial orders are unreasonable or unnecessary, we will tell the Province to provide the money to enable us to comply. That's what federal and provincial infrastructure funding is for.

     After a return to two-tier local government we will have the "strength in numbers" of the County to provide "clout" in dealing with the Province, but also the independence of the individual municipalities.

     If the only advantage of a single-tier mega-city is to facilitate provincial plundering of the property tax base, we're no better off than the herd of gazelles.