Amalgamation

[jeffster]

You're probably right though, if Ford wants to get this done, he'll just do it and make decisions without too much thought whether or not we want it. The main issue being the size of the government in this region, which is really large.

Councillors in Kitchener are 1 per 24,000
In Cambridge it's 1 per 17,000
In Waterloo it's 1 per 14,500

Collectively, just at the local level, there are 25 councillors, this is the same as Toronto. This doesn't include the region plus the townships. This seems to be the issue. But at the same time, these councillors only work part-time, it's not a real job like it is in Toronto.

I don't think amalgamation is the answer, but the region should try to come up with a better solution. But whatever the they come up with, people are going to be pissed off.

The number of councillors is not a problem here in Waterloo Region. As you point out, they’re not even full-time, so they don’t cost much. Lots of councillors means easier access to decision makers. There are various criteria for evaluating the number of councillors, some of which push towards few and some towards many. It’s a balance. In Toronto, cutting the number of councillors in half was clearly inappropriate — the number of constituents per councillor is now very high, to the extent that I understand the total number of office staff didn’t shrink at all. And it’s harder to staff all the boards and committees that need councillor representation in Toronto.

If more councillors means better decisions, we should have more councillors. Councillor salaries are an utter triviality compared to the budget they are tasked with maintaining.

I agree. And I am unsure how it would ever work if we went the same route as Toronto. Toronto itself is now lined up the same as the province and federal ridings, which is 25. This area would only have 5 if we were to mimic. So you'd have Kitchener-Centre, Kitchener South-Hespeler, Kitchener-Conestoga, Cambridge and Waterloo. You could see how this would create major issues.

Although one thing, the SportsPlex in Cambridge would be built somewhere in Cambridge without all the bitching that is going on there now, Cambridge would also likely start getting taller buildings, and there would never be another Northdale.

I could also see the Sunlife parking lot by Grand River Hospital ripped apart and have a large auditorium built there to replace The Aud.