Ward 15 Newsletter - May 2003

To Business In A Minute… But First, An Apology: To those who attended the April 16^th Tax Aftermath meeting at Millgrove Community Centre, hosted by myself and Dave Braden, let me start with an apology.

The Millgrove Community Centre is the largest municipally-owned facility we have up there in terms of total capacity and while I understand there were at least 500 people there, a large number of local residents were stuck in the foyer and outside. I also understand from the phone calls my office fielded the next day that the attendance number would have been even higher except that some residents simply gave up and left because they couldn’t hear what was going on. That’s one of those good news/bad news scenarios – we wanted the meeting to be enthusiastically attended (and it was) but we certainly didn’t want anyone to be excluded. For that, we’re sorry. But as I said, it’s the biggest hall we have.

What Happened At The Meeting: To those who missed it, as well as those who were there, the best way to describe the meeting would be “a good beginning.” We still have a long way to go but every journey has to start at some point. Clearly, ours has.

To a person, the sentiment was the same all evening and that was simply this: being part of Hamilton has been a big financial drain to the residents of Flamborough. The tax burden since January 2001 has been unbearable. The services were far superior when we were just Flamborough. No one is happy being part of this forced amalgamation. The mention of former Municipal Affairs Minister Tony Clement, who initially made Flamborough the offer to opt out of Hamilton, only to pull it away later, came up more than once and never in a particularly pleasant way.

And the D-word – “deamalgamation” – was repeated over and over and over again.

So from that meeting, a few strategies were devised. First of all, serious citizens with the time to invest, signed their names to a list with the intentions of creating a committee to spearhead the drive to fight for Flamborough. As we speak, a Carlisle resident, Peter Cooper, who collected those names, has already created the Free Flamborough Committee and they are busy getting organized for this fight. He can be contacted at 905-690-7524. Dave Braden has held subsequent meetings in Rockton and Jerseyville and from the sounds of it, the committee will incorporate residents from across Flamborough.

What Happened In Kawartha Lakes: As I mentioned at the meeting, I drove up to Kawartha Lakes to meet with some key people up there on April 22nd. Kawartha Lakes is a key figure in the deamalgamation battle in that they are the only municipality in Ontario which has been given permission to put the deamalgamation question on their upcoming November municipal ballot. Right off the top, let me explain how their situation is different than ours. Kawartha Lakes is also an enforced amalgamation, done at the same time as ours, of mostly small communities – places like Fenelon Falls with populations in the neighbourhood of 1,500-to-2,000 residents. The one larger area in the group is Lindsay with a population of 16,000. And like us, it’s a smaller communities like Fenelon Falls who feel they’re paying the way for the larger community - Lindsay – even if it is only 16,000 people.

But Kawatha Lakes is also the riding of former-Municipal Affairs Minister Chris Hodgson. It seems Hodgson had been under fire from a large number of constituents over the amalgamation and late last year, he appeared before the Kawartha Lakes Council and asked them to put the deamalgamation question on their municipal ballot. Newspaper reports from that area say Hodgson was under so much pressure, at one point there was a billboard across the street from his mother’s house that said simply: “Vote out Chris Hodgson.” Shortly thereafter, Hodgson resigned as Municipal Affairs Minister and announced he wouldn’t be running for the Tories in the next Provincial election.

However, it is important to note that Hodgson made no such offer to Hamilton and indicated since the Kawartha Lake’s offer that he never would. The present Municipal Affairs Minister David Young has also offered us nothing. So Kawartha Lakes has been given an opportunity that no other municipality has been offered. That gives Kawartha Lakes quite an edge – one that we don’t have… yet.

Who Is VOCO? A group called the Voices of Central Ontario (VOCO) has been banging the deamalagamation drum in that region for quite some time. Spearheaded by Fenelon Falls residents John and Anne Panter, they have become a formidable voice in Kawartha Lakes, as well as other areas unhappy with forced amalgamation. So on April 22, I drove up to Fenelon Falls to meet with John and Anne Panter, as well as Kawartha Lakes Ward 5 Councillor Faye McGee, also a vocal proponent of deamalgamation.

They gave me a number of tactics and strategies to use in a battle to either deamalgamate or simply separate Flamborough on its own, as well as a number of helpful contacts.

Like us, Flamborough resident Tony Colvin also spoke to John prior to the April 16 meeting and in Millgrove, Tony offered up one of VOCO’s more unique protests that seemed to meet with unanimous approval – the yellow ribbon campaign. When I talked to them in Fenelon Falls, they reiterated the success of their yellow ribbon campaign whereby residents have been tying yellow ribbons on trees in their front yards or their mailboxes. It’s a strong visual campaign that certainly speaks volumes as to how a community such as Flamborough feels about amalgamation and its ill-effects on us thus far. The Free Flamborough Committee will be setting up the yellow ribbon campaign.  However, I hear a number of residents have simply been fashioning their own and tying them to their trees. (Anne Panter’s advice was to go to dollar stores, buy plastic yellow tableclothes and cut them into strips.)

But more importantly, they told us of one Ontario community near Timmons – Black River-Matheson – that had been successful in deamalgamating.

What Happened In Black River-Matheson? The news that an Ontario community had already been successful in their deamalgamation attempts was very encouraging – at least on the level of precedents being set. Once we started researching their situation and contacted the Toronto lawyer who had dealt with the matter, it became apparent that their situation was radically different than ours. Back in 1996, the Conservative government approached the municipality and told them, basically, that they would be amalgamated and they had the chance to do it themselves or sit back and let the Province do it. So the township of Black River-Matheson and the neighbouring community of Iroquois Falls developed their own restructuring proposal that would take in their two communities, as well as annexing 13 unincorporated surrounding communities. By restructuring in this manner, they were under the impression that they didn’t need the permission of the 13 communities. They were wrong. Those 13 communities took in a large number of cottagers, as well as a few mining companies, who fought the annexation at the court level. After two separate court battles, it was decided that Black River-Matheson had gone beyond their municipal authority and had, in fact, contravened the Municipal Act. The communities were deamalgamated by the courts. So what were the after-effects of the Black River-Matheson court ruling? Well, from that point, the Province was a little more careful in how amalgamation was set up, opting instead to do things themselves, rather than run the risk of more lost court challenges.

And that’s why, in the end, Flamborough found itself as part of Hamilton – without any choice in the matter. The Province saw the potential for mistakes on the municipal level – if the restructuring decisions were left to the municipalities – and they simply started doing the restructuring under their own authority. And make no mistake, in the end, the Province is the final authority when it comes to amalgamation or deamalgamation. Every municipality, including Flamborough and Hamilton, exists simply because the Province says it exists. If Premier Ernie Eves decided tomorrow that, say, Burlington was part of Hamilton, that would be the beginning and the end of the discussion – whether they liked it or not, Burlington would be part of Hamilton. That’s the degree of power the Province holds in this situation.

So any hopes of pining deamalgamation success on a legal precedent set by the Black River-Matheson situation could be tricky. In the end, the court ruled that it was Black River-Matheson’s efforts at restructuring that were “beyond the law-making powers of the town and are therefore illegal and void.” In our case, we’ve been forced into this situation by the Province. Still, we’re not about to ignore a successful case of municipal deamalgamation. Perhaps at this point, we need a legal opinion to see if there are any parallels we can draw on between their situation and ours to know for certain if we can use their example to our benefit.

What’s Next? Ward 14 Councillor Dave Braden and myself will be hosting another meeting at the Rockton Fairgrounds on Saturday, May 24^th at 12 noon. Because of their expertise in this particular area, our invited guests will be VOCO’s John Panter, Kawartha Lakes Councillor Faye McGee and John Williamson, the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. During our afternoon session with them, they already imparted this advice: Get the local movement in Flamborough started as soon as possible and let the politicians at Queen’s Park catch up with you later. If your movement is strong and united, it will spur similar actions in Ancaster, Dundas, Stoney Creek and Glanbrook and at that point, the MPPs will have to listen to it. Even in Kawartha Lakes, they have heard about Flamborough and its long-standing vocal opposition to amalgamation. They believe we can be leaders in the fight. And as well as being enthusiastic, energetic and eager to help, they’re in the same situation as us. I hope to see you all on May 24. We have a long way to go but we’re starting to move in the right direction.

A Final Note: I have switched my Constituents’ Days at Flamborough Town Hall from Friday to Thursday. Anyone who wishes to meet with me can now stop by on any Thursday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m. No appointments are necessary – just drop in. As well, if you want to contact me through the week, I am available at 905-546-2713. My e-mail address has also changed (though the old one still works) to: mmccarth@hamilton.ca My assistant, Don, is also available at 905-546-3944 or at: dredmond@hamilton.ca.

Sincerely,

Margaret