If the past two weeks are any indication, we will be hearing a lot of talk about municipal amalgamation in the next little while. As part of that, we are sure to be told more than once that voters have given approval for this, or a mandate for that, or whatever.
But what did the voters actually say? To recap, here are the non-binding questions in each municipality, and the way we voted on Nov. 15:
鈥� Victoria: 鈥淎re you in favour of reducing the number of municipalities in Greater Victoria through amalgamation?鈥� Eighty per cent voted yes.
鈥� Oak Bay: 鈥淎re you in favour of the District of Oak Bay being amalgamated into a larger regional municipality?鈥� Sixty-two per cent voted no.
鈥� Saanich: 鈥淒o you support council initiating a community-based review of the governance structure and policies within Saanich and our partnerships within the region?鈥� The result was 88.5 per cent in favour.
鈥� Esquimalt asked two questions: 鈥淎re you in favour of the Township of Esquimalt exploring options to achieve efficiencies by further sharing some services with other municipalities?鈥� Eighty-seven per cent voted yes.
And: 鈥淎re you in favour of exploring the reduction of the number of municipalities within Greater Victoria through amalgamation?鈥� Sixty-seven per cent voted yes.
鈥� Langford: 鈥淎re you in favour of the City of Langford being amalgamated into a larger regional municipality?鈥� The result was almost an even split: 50.15 per cent in favour, 49.85 per cent against.
鈥� The questions asked of voters in Central Saanich, North Saanich and Sidney were nearly identical: Are you in favour of a provincially funded study to investigate the feasibility, costs and implications of amalgamating the three municipalities of the Saanich peninsula?
The majority of voters in all three municipalities voted yes: Central Saanich, 71 per cent; North Saanich, 62.5 per cent; and Sidney, 68 per cent.
The other municipalities did not have a referendum on the topic.
Victoria isn鈥檛 about to invade Esquimalt; Saanich isn鈥檛 about to annex View Royal. No one voted to implement amalgamation. The most anyone can deduce from the referendums is that in seven of the eight municipalities that asked questions, the majority favoured exploring the idea of some sort of amalgamation.
That puts the ball in the provincial government鈥檚 court, and as Premier Christy Clark noted this week, the province cannot force amalgamation on any community that does not want it. The Community Charter forbids it. The province鈥檚 task is to initiate a study on implications, possibilities and costs and then, at some point in the future, let the voters decide.
Much information must be gathered, analyses done, numbers crunched, people heard. It鈥檚 a complex issue, and there are no quick and simple solutions.
The majority of people in Greater Victoria who voted on the issue didn鈥檛 say: 鈥淟et鈥檚 amalgamate.鈥� They said: 鈥淟et鈥檚 study it.鈥�
Don鈥檛 let anyone try to tell you that you voted for something else. Clip and save this list as a guide so you鈥檒l know that the elected officials are accurately representing what the voters told them.
