It’s hard to predict what will come of last Wednesday’s session of the Ontario government’s Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy in St. Catharines.
Back in November, 2023, Niagara was one of six communities where public meetings were announced to be held by the committee for the purpose of reviewing regional governance as overseen by the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
It was often referred to as an amalgamation committee, though the province’s focus on getting more homes built seemed to have shifted the focus of the meeting to housing.
Chaired by Laurie Scott, the PC MPP from the Haliburton - Kawartha Lake - Brock riding, the committee consists of seven PC MPPs, 2 from the NDP and one Liberal, though during Wednesday’s proceedings Mary-Margaret McMahon, a former Toronto city councillor elected as a Liberal to the Beaches - East York, was referred to as an independent member of the committee.
As well, Niagara’s four MPPs - Conservative Sam Oosterhoff of Niagara West, and NDP members Jenny Stevens (St. Catharines), Jeff Burch (Niagara Centre) and Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates - were at the table.
As an observer in the room for a portion of the meeting, it was a rare chance for me to experience the some political theatre right in our backyard.
Local mayors and some representatives from the Niagara Region as well as some business people who had previously expressed a desire to address the committee were each given seven minutes to state their cases. For many, that time limit was not enough, as they were cut off when their time was up and had to wait for a question period that came with its own similar time constraints.
Some, such as Regional Chair Jim Bradley and President and CEO of the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce Mishka Balsom, used their time slots to plead for a more streamlined process to speed up the building of houses in the region.
Bradley outlined a five point request toward this end. He told the committee he would like to see what he referred to as a new deal to get infrastructure upgraded to support thousands of new homes, a provincial approvals facilitator created by the government, a streamlining of the Ontario Land Tribunal process, new incentive programs and a time limit on municipal zoning orders, or MZOs.
Some, such as St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe and his Niagara Falls counterpart Jim Diodati, urged the government to reduce the number of elected representatives in Niagara by abolishing Regional Council and reorganizing Niagara’s 12 municipalities into four larger ones.
A few of the presentations from the business community showed up to push for the region to be organized into one governing body with the abolition of the 12 municipal governments. Former St. Catharines Regional Councillor Bruce Timms pushed his longstanding goal to have the Regional Chair chosen by a general election.
The mayors of smaller communities, including Cheryl Ganaan from West Lincoln and Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Gary Zalepa, made a case largely for the status quo, outlining to the provincial politicians the progress they’ve made in their own communities to accommodate growth and stressing that they don’t want to be swallowed up by the surrounding larger communities.
Zalepa’s impassioned lament about NOTL having lost its high school and its hospital in response to a question posed by Oosterhoff was a great example as to how passionate he is about the town maintaining its current status.
With Niagara Region’s population expected to grow to a population of 694,000 from its current 484,840, it’s clear, though, that the discussion on housing last week was badly needed and certainly timely.
But what is also clear is that those who are currently making decisions at the regional and municipal levels in Niagara aren’t necessarily all on the same page when it comes to how to get there.
With that kind of growth expected, something has to give and some form of a unified efforts between the 12 has to come to fruition. The age of governmental silos will not work.
The way the different leaders approached their seven-minute time slots kind of muddled what the actual purpose of the committee meeting was. Was the meeting about governance, or was it about getting houses built? Nobody really knew for sure, and no one on the committee really stated what the final goal is. .
There has been some speculation that the Ford government’s December reversal of their decision to dissolve the Peel Region has left the province with less of an appetite to make any governance changes, at least for the remainder of their current term, which comes to an end in June, 2026.
Dr. David Siegel, a Brock University professor emeritus from their Political Science faculty, believes that the province’s September reversal of plans to remove lands from Greenbelt protection has also contributed to a reluctance for government restructuring.
Early this week Oosterhoff suggested that another visit from the standing committee to another Niagara municipality will take place by spring.
I had a chance to ask Siegel, Bradley and Gates what they think will come of these meetings and when a report or any decisions might be made. None had any clue and it seems Oosterhoff doesn’t know either.
So again, what is the exact purpose of this committee? Is it just a dog and pony show by the government, a way for them to keep a promise they made to listen to local concerns and let people have their say? Or is real change going to come from this process?
One thing is certain, though, the wheels of progress in Niagara continue to move slowly. And this provincial standing committee doesn’t seem to be willing to step on the gas pedal any time soon.
