10-28-2019, 11:22 AM
I'm surprised that the advisers didn't wind up recommending the amalgamation or dissolution of even a single one of the nine regional municipalities they reviewed. But I'm not sure if investigating the amalgamation of only some constituent parts of a regional municipality was part of their purview.
Amalgamating the whole county would be a mistake. Others have wisely pointed to the difficulties that the new City of Hamilton has had, and most of those are due to the fact that extremely rural parts of Wentworth were included.
They ought not to have been, and equally the rural parts of Waterloo should not be governed by a single tier that includes the cities. But the cities are so intertwined in every way besides governance that they should be amalgamated, and I include Cambridge in this even if the case is not quite as abundantly obvious. It's bizarre that, in some parts of KWC, people a block apart receive different services, and we are held back by a lack of central planning.
Amalgamating the whole county would be a mistake. Others have wisely pointed to the difficulties that the new City of Hamilton has had, and most of those are due to the fact that extremely rural parts of Wentworth were included.
They ought not to have been, and equally the rural parts of Waterloo should not be governed by a single tier that includes the cities. But the cities are so intertwined in every way besides governance that they should be amalgamated, and I include Cambridge in this even if the case is not quite as abundantly obvious. It's bizarre that, in some parts of KWC, people a block apart receive different services, and we are held back by a lack of central planning.