It鈥檚 time to put amalgamation of the Capital Regional District on municipal ballots. There are reasons aplenty, including 13 different municipalities with nearly 100 municipal office-holders, three school districts, six separate 911 dispatch centres, four independent municipal police departments and three separate RCMP detachments, institutions such as two major hospitals that straddle municipal borders and a network of municipal boundaries so confusing most people don鈥檛 know where their town stops and the next one begins.
Services are duplicated and diluted. Jurisdictional differences crop up almost daily. It鈥檚 a system tailor-made for inefficiencies and tangled bureaucracy.
Various groups in favour of talking about a merger have coalesced into Amalgamation Yes, which describes itself as 鈥渁 non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to bringing about a referendum on the issue of municipal amalgamation in the Capital Regional District.鈥�
鈥淲e are convinced that the current fragmented local governance model, consisting of 13 separate municipalities, is not the most effective means of governing the region,鈥� says the group鈥檚 website. 鈥淎s a group, we do not support any particular model of amalgamation, but we do believe that fewer municipal governments will better position the region to face current and future challenges.鈥�
A referendum, regardless of the outcome, won鈥檛 immediately resolve what is becoming an increasingly complex issue, but letting people have their say is a necessary step along the road to rationalizing the muddle.
Sometimes, the call is heard for the province to force amalgamation on the region, but sa国际传媒鈥檚 Community Charter forbids that, and for good reason: A shotgun marriage would not be a happy marriage.
For similar reasons, the referendum needs to be non-binding. If municipalities were locked into an arbitrary deadline for achieving amalgamation, the result could easily be a Frankensteinish creation that would lurch across the landscape for decades.
At the initial public meeting of Amalgamation Yes last week, Victoria-Beacon Hill MLA Carole James, who said her New Democratic Party would support the call for a referendum, noted that the discussion around amalgamation has been based on feelings, not facts.
Facts are vital to the discussion, but so are feelings. If regard for a sense of community and hometown loyalty is set aside, the process will be handicapped from the start. All the facts in the world won鈥檛 convince those who believe they are being forced into an alliance they don鈥檛 want.
Those who resist the idea of amalgamation do so with good reason; their fears and concerns are not trivial. They need to be discussed and resolved.
The issue is not simply a matter of merging 13 municipalities into one entity, and a ballot question should not portray it as such. It could be a question like this: Do you support pursuing some degree of amalgamation among the municipalities of the Greater Victoria region?
Metchosin has a huge sense of place, but it鈥檚 interesting to note that Metchosin Mayor John Ranns suggests looking at forming three municipalities. Another proposal foresees the 13 municipalities becoming six. That鈥檚 the way the conversation should go 鈥� ideas beget ideas.
In the past, some mayors didn鈥檛 want to talk about amalgamation because they said they weren鈥檛 hearing about it from constituents, but only those afraid of the answer should oppose a referendum.
Few people live, work, eat, play and shop in just one municipality. Our commonalities far outnumber our differences. It鈥檚 time to get together and build on those things we agree on, and work out ways to deal with the differences.
It鈥檚 a conversation we need to have.
