Boundary Bargain: Growth, Development, and the Future of City-County Separation 9780773599048

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the boundary bargain

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McG i l l -­Q u e e n ’ s S t u d ie s i n U rba n G ov e r n a n c e Series editors: Kristin Good and Martin Horak In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in local politics and the governance of cities – both in Canada and around the world. Globally, the city has become a consequential site where instances of social conflict and of cooperation play out. Urban centres are increasingly understood as vital engines of innovation and prosperity and a growing body of interdisciplinary research on urban issues suggests that high-­performing cities have become crucial to the success of nations, even in the global era. Yet at the same time, local and regional governments continue to struggle for political recognition and for the policy resources needed to manage cities, to effectively govern, and to achieve sustainable growth. The purpose of the McGill-­Queen’s Studies in Urban Governance series is to highlight the growing importance of municipal issues, local governance, and the need for policy reform in urban spaces. The series aims to answer the question “why do cities matter?” while exploring relationships between levels of government and examining the changing dynamics of metropolitan and community development. By taking a four-­pronged approach to the study of urban governance, the series encourages debate and discussion of: (1) actors, institutions, and how cities are governed; (2) policy issues and policy reform; (3) the city as case study; and (4) urban politics and policy through a comparative framework. With a strong focus on governance, policy, and the role of the city, this series welcomes manuscripts from a broad range of disciplines and viewpoints. 1 Local Self-­Government and the Right to the City Warren Magnusson 2 City-­Regions in Prospect? Exploring Points between Place and Practice Edited by Kevin Edson Jones, Alex Lord, and Rob Shields

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3 On Their Own Women and the Right to the City in South Africa Allison Goebel 4 The Boundary Bargain Growth, Development, and the Future of City–County Separation Zachary Spicer

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The Boundary Bargain Growth, Development, and the Future of City–County Separation

Z ac h a ry Spic er

McGill-­Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

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©  McGill-­Queen’s University Press 2016 isbn isbn isbn isbn

978-­0-­7735-­4748-­3 (cloth) 978-­0-­7735-­4749-­0 (paper) 978-­0-­7735-­9904-­8 (eP DF ) 978-­0-­7735-­9905-­5 (eP UB)

Legal deposit second quarter 2016 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-­free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-­consumer recycled), processed chlorine free McGill-­Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Spicer, Zachary, 1983–, author The boundary bargain: growth, development, and the future of city–county separation / Zachary Spicer. (McGill-Queen’s studies in urban governance; 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn 978-0-7735-4748-3 (cloth). – is bn 978-0-7735-4749-0 (paper). – isbn 978-0-7735-9904-8 (ep df ). – is bn 978-0-7735-9905-5 (ep u b ) 1. Cities and towns – Ontario – Growth – Ontario – Case studies. 2. Municipal government – Ontario – Case studies. 3. County government – Ontario – Case studies. 4. Regionalism – Ontario – Case studies. 5. Ontario – Economic conditions – Case studies. 6. Ontario – Rural conditions – Case studies. I. Title. II. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in urban governance; 4 HT384.C32O58 2016

307.7609713

C 2016-900256-X C 2016-900257-8

This book was typeset by Interscript in 10.5 / 14 Sabon.

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Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction 3 1  Municipal Organization in Ontario  17 2  Growth, Development, and Conceptualizations of Urban and Rural  62 3  London and Middlesex County  75 4  Guelph and Wellington County  95 5  Barrie, Orillia, and Simcoe County  109 6   Designing Institutions that Work  135 A p p e nd i ce s A  List of Separated Cities and Counties  161 B  Interview Listing by case study  164 Notes 169 References 175 Index 187

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Acknowledgments

I am very grateful for the help and mentorship of Andrew Sancton in getting this project off the ground and written. I would also like to thank Martin Horak and Robert Young for being so generous with their time and knowledge. Comments from Katherine Graham, Godwin Arku, and Timothy Cobban were also of great assistance. Although neither saw the manuscript, Christopher Alcantara and Andre Perrella of Wilfrid Laurier University were very encouraging as I worked to prepare this book. For that, I thank them. In November 2013, the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (I MF G) provided me with a forum to present parts of the research that would eventually form the basis of this book. The feedback led me to believe that a book on city–county separation was not only possible, but likely to find a broad readership. I M F G Director Enid Slack was very encouraging as I worked through several earlier book drafts. I thank her not only for her assistance but also for providing me with a great environment at the Munk School to complete the manuscript. I would like to thank those who sat down for interviews for this project. Because of the research ethics approval necessary for this project, I cannot name them, but I hope each knows I appreciate their assistance. It would have been impossible to complete this book without their input. The municipalities included in this study also made a number of resources available to me, including internal documents, budgets, and maps. I appreciate all of it and thank them kindly. I  would also like to thank Jacqueline Mason of McGill-­ Queen’s

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viii Acknowledgments

University Press, who provided invaluable assistance as I prepared this manuscript for publication. I also thank Gillian Scobie for her expert copy editing. All errors, of course, remain my own. My wife, Sarah Spicer, has encouraged me to move forward with this project for some time and, as a result, knows far too much about city–county separation than any kindergarten teacher rightfully should. This book is dedicated to my mother, Heather Allen, who unfortunately passed away before it was published. I hope she would have liked it.

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the boundary bargain

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Introduction

Linking urban and rural areas is one of the great challenges of municipal governance. Due to the vastly different physical settings and economies of rural and urban areas, we have traditionally seen the two as distinct (Sweet 1999; Clarke 1955). These perceptions of urban and rural distinctiveness led to institutional separation, as provincial governments granted both areas governance structures that entrenched their uniqueness and completely divided one from the other. These institutional structures have persisted even though provincial governments have shown a clear preference for governance structures that link, rather than separate, urban and rural. The notion that urban and rural are very different places is long-­ standing. In fact, both are usually defined as the opposite of the other. Rural areas are envisioned as places of peace, innocence, and simple virtue; urban areas as busy, anonymous, and mature. Each attracts a different type of person, provides a different lifestyle, and certainly provides different opportunities. Physically, urban and rural areas are noticeably different. Rural areas are marked by open spaces, are much more sparsely populated, and are connected to a much more natural way of life. Those living in rural areas often have larger homes and lots and are frequently great distances from others. In contrast, urban areas are much denser. Land is not as readily available and is, therefore, much more costly to purchase and develop. Growth is directed upwards, as urban areas focus much more on vertical rather than horizontal development.

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Economically, the two, again, differ greatly. Agriculture is central to rural economies. Rural landscapes often feature large farms with families who make their living from the land. Much of this is inter-­ generational, with farms being passed down from one family member to another. Small-­town centres act as retail hubs, where rural inhabitants can buy and sell goods. In contrast, the economies of urban areas are much more diverse and fragmented. Those living in cities often find work in a variety of industries, both white-­and blue-­ collar, opportunities for work are much more plentiful, and the cost of living is considerably higher. Culturally, the distinctions between urban and rural continue. Rural areas are seen as much more tight-­knit. Because they are much more sparsely populated, social connections are built within the entire community. Most of those living in rural areas know their neighbours. Many participate in community events and congregate in town centres to do business. Urban living is much more anonymous. With larger populations, it is challenging to create meaningful connections within the community at large, ultimately building a culture that is much more fragmented. Both urban and rural residents believe they have chosen a superior lifestyle. From a rural perspective, cities can be seen as dirty, dangerous, and anonymous. Urban bonds of community were considered weak. If you were hungry, there was no one to feed you. If you were sick, there was no one to care for you. If you were poor, there was no one to help you. Proponents of rural life believed that you were truly alone in cities, where everyone operated free of a moral centre. From an opposing urban perspective, rural areas were marked by backwardness and ignorance. Rural life was limiting. The economy was basic and opportunity was scarce. Smaller communities meant your life was much more scrutinized. The Church was given too much control over daily activities. Cities, by contrast, were places of ambition and drive. One could grow and learn and more easily create meaningful connections with others of their choosing. It is not surprising, then, that those living in urban and rural areas made great efforts to maintain their distinct lifestyles. Many were deeply invested in this task. The identity of each was built in contrast

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Introduction 5

to the other, so the continued uniqueness of urban and rural areas required that these persistent stereotypes about the “other” also continue. In the same way as rural fathers and mothers wished to keep their children close to the land to keep them moral and to maintain a succession plan for the family farm, urban proponents wanted to keep their cities growing and innovating. Institutional separation, then, was as important as cultural separation. From a rural perspective, it was believed the crime and vice that was so rampant in city life would spread and infect rural inhabitants if institutional connections were not in place. From an urban perspective, institutional separation allowed cities not to be bogged down in the more narrowly focused politics of rural life. As such, institutional separation was considered mutually beneficial. However, despite the belief that institutional separation would prevent a blending of urban and rural cultural values and lifestyles, such a convergence did eventually occur. After the Second World War, Canada began to see the rise of new patterns of land use, namely the growing popularity of suburbia. Peri-­urban regions grew to dominate the once-­rural areas that had surrounded major city centres (Harris 2004). Concentric rings of low-­density development grew around cities, as Canadians demonstrated a preference for larger homes with bigger lots, two-­car garages, and a reliance on the automobile. These areas were not quite urban, but not quite rural. Instead, suburban Canada borrowed liberally from each. Those who moved to these new suburban areas could find the peace and tranquillity of rural living without completely abandoning the city. They were able to purchase the large lots and homes that were normally reserved for rural life, but did not have to completely remove themselves from the proximity of the city. In this sense, they were also able to easily access the opportunity that urban life provided. Suburban residents could drive every day to urban workplaces, connect with their peers, and have access to city amenities, without having to accept the noise and crime of city living. In a sense, this was the best of both worlds. At this point, the once clear distinctions between urban and rural began to blur, different physical settings blended, and urban and rural economies converged, diluting distinct urban and rural cultures

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and ways of life. Urban and rural Canada began to meet in the middle, so to speak. Despite this convergence, many of the institutions put in place to divide urban and rural communities remain in place. Most Canadian policy-­makers responded to the rise of suburbia by building governance structures that viewed urban and rural as connected. Urban areas were thus linked to the growing areas around them through common institutions, giving local officials a way to better respond to development pressures and provide for service and policy continuity. One of the first such institutions in Canada was Metropolitan Toronto which was created in 1953. After the Second World War, growth in Toronto intensified, much of it directed to the areas immediately outside the city’s boundaries. Development and growth crossed municipal borders, making policy coordination more challenging. Urban areas needed more control over their surrounding rural and developing areas to maintain service continuity and to plan on a regional scale. Creating an upper-­tier government, like Metropolitan Toronto, with broad servicing and planning responsibility, was seen as the solution. The Province of Ontario followed this up with several similar institutions around the Greater Toronto Area in the 1960s and 1970s. The immediate growth around large cities like Toronto eventually continued outwards. Urban and rural began to converge around most of Ontario’s largest cities, as well as cities across the country, such as Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montreal, Quebec City, and Halifax. Suburban life proved popular and in many areas, downtown cores began to hollow, as once barren rural landscapes began to fill in with low-­density housing. In response to many of these changes, similar regional institutions were put in place in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Quebec City in the 1960s and 1970s. A system of regional districts was established in British Columbia between 1965 and 1967. In Ontario, regional governments were created in Ottawa-­ Carleton, Niagara, Peel, Halton, Waterloo, Hamilton-­Wentworth, Sudbury, York Region, Durham Region, and Haldimand-­Norfolk with the same basic goal: to connect the urban centre with its periphery, better placing local officials to address growth and development.

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Introduction 7

The provincial government also believed that the economic benefits of urban life could only be extended to rural areas by creating common institutions. The creation of these regional governments followed a similar pattern. Each had an upper-­tier unit created for a large urban centre whereas its hinterland commonly followed old county boundaries (Fyfe 1975; Jacek 1985). Local municipalities were reduced through consolidation within this region to provide the urban centre with more control over its surrounding area (Fyfe 1975). At this point, more power was directed toward the centre of the region where growth was emanating from so that local and provincial officials could ensure suburban growth would not be uncontrolled. They would manage and direct development within these fast-­growing areas, and use governance structures as a coordination mechanism. This response to local growth and development was new. The traditional response in Canada to growth was to create distinctions between urban and rural. For example, in Ontario, when an urban area reached a certain population threshold it was automatically separated from its county. From that point on, it would cease to have any institutional links to the area around it. According to this traditional institutional thinking, newly urban territory was distinct and required formal separation so it would not be bogged down in the narrowly focused politics of rural life nor would it be allowed to contaminate the values of surrounding rural areas. Despite the shift toward regional government and institutions that link urban and rural, many cities in Ontario remain separated from their counties. Separated cities are not an institutional relic. These are active institutions, but certainly ones that are experiencing ­challenges as urban development continues to spread. This book examines these relationships and the continued use of city–county separation in Ontario. This system is antiquated and, as we will see in the coming chapters, is experiencing intense pressure for change. Because city–county separation draws on ever-­decreasing distinctions between urban and rural, it is unable to adequately link rapidly growing regions that would benefit from greater service and policy continuity.

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c i t y – c o u n t y s e pa r at i o n

The logic behind the creation of regional government is relatively new in the context of hundreds of years of municipal evolution. The more traditional institutional outlook at the local level – and the one that has been dominant throughout most of our municipal history – has been to politically separate urban and rural areas (Bain 1967). This has its roots in the early English municipal system (Pinchbeck 1940; Archer 2000). Cities were thought to be so unique they required a complete separation from their rural peripheries. Whereas the county was rooted in agrarian and subsistence living, cities began to take on increased importance with the advent of new technology (Wilson and Game 1988). Urban areas grew at a rapid pace and took on new significance as centres of industry, commerce, and innovation. As cities became the economic drivers of nations, it became paramount to create local government capable of managing and promoting growth (Merewether and Stephens 1972). It became clear that the challenges inherently connected with increased density – poverty, housing, and the creation of advanced infrastructure – required a government with a broader functional scope. A separate urban government could, in theory, address distinct urban opportunities and challenges (Magnusson 1983). As a result, the separation of urban and rural municipalities was seen as mutually beneficial. Since both areas had different cultures and economies, including each in a common political structure was neither desirable nor practical. Rural inhabitants viewed urban areas with suspicion due to the fluidity and relative anonymity of urban life, which challenged the ordered nature of rural living. Sweet summarizes this sentiment, stating that “the dirt, the filth and physical corruption of urban streets were repeatedly employed as a metaphor for the immorality and spiritual corruption which urban living engendered among its inhabitants” (Sweet 1999, 223). Rural residents were considered to be harder working and more honest, taking simple pleasure in their agrarian lifestyle, and rarely deviating into vice. Political scientist David Siegel suggests that many rural residents believed that “urban dwellers were tainted in ways that people living in idyllic rural settings close to the soil were not” (1997, 134). Although some urban and rural areas may have been physically

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Introduction 9

linked, there was nevertheless a pervasive belief that political separation could prevent urban life from tainting the supposed idyll of rural living. Many of these notions were instilled into rural inhabitants through literature. Historian Rosemary Sweet argues that these views originally stemmed from the representation of cities as centres of evil and vice in biblical texts, namely in the Old Testament’s depiction of Sodom and Gomorrah or Babylon (1999, 223). These notions also found their way into popular poetry from the period, such as book four of William Cowper’s, “The Task”: The town has ting’d the country; and the stain Appears a spot upon a vestal’s robe, The worse for what it soils. The fashion runs Down into scenes still rural; but alas, Scenes rarely grac’d with rural manners now! (553–7)1 As a result, these types of views manifested themselves in structural distinctions. Because rural inhabitants believed establishing common political institutions would only encourage the spread of these values and vices to rural areas, early municipal structures favoured a political separation between the two areas. The institutional practice of city–county separation evolved slowly. As early as the Middle Ages, English boroughs were exempt from the power of local courts and administrations, setting them on a different plane than their more rural counterparts (Merewether and Stephens 1972). In the early English municipal system, some urban areas of importance were granted royal charters and formally distinguished from the more rural shires and counties (Innes and Rogers 2000). Although this practice would not receive official codification until the creation of the 1888 Municipal Corporations Act, the beliefs behind urban–rural separation in Great Britain laid the basis for the more organized system of city–county separation that emerged in the American and Canadian colonies (Bain 1967). Early Ontario policy-­makers were influenced by the concept of rural and urban distinctiveness and eventually adopted this institutional practice when founding our provincial municipal system. The

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1849 Baldwin Act separated urban areas in Ontario from their surrounding counties as soon as they became incorporated as cities. This system lasted for more than a century, until provincial officials began a shift toward regional government in the 1950s, when rapid urbanization changed how the province viewed urban and rural areas. During this period, urban growth spilled over into areas once thought to be “rural,” which created shifts in labour and settlement patterns. This increased suburbanization caused provincial policy-­ makers to see urban and rural areas as connected, therefore requiring greater policy coordination. At this point, the province began placing urban and rural into the same institutional structures. This shift in organizational thinking was accompanied by institutional change. Following the creation of Metropolitan Toronto in 1953, Toronto became the first city in Ontario to be part of a two-­tier structure. The inception of Metropolitan Toronto followed nearly two decades of efforts to find solutions to the region’s growing infrastructure deficiencies and social problems. Policy-­makers argued that the solution was to align the urban core of Toronto with its neighbouring suburban communities and, mostly rural, townships in order to create continuity between service and infrastructure. This same mode of institutional thinking was behind the creation of the province’s ten regional governments in the 1960s and 1970s, when common political institutions were introduced into southern Ontario’s rapidly suburbanizing areas. Despite this evolution in Ontario’s municipal system toward regional government and the institutional connection of rural and urban areas, many cities remained separate from their counties.2 Today, eighteen cities and towns in Ontario remain separated: Barrie, Windsor, Guelph, London, Kingston, Peterborough, Orillia, Pembroke, Brockville, Prescott, Gananoque, Cornwall, Smiths Falls, St Thomas, Belleville, Quinte West, Stratford, and St Mary’s.3 City–county separation is thus the last institutional vestige of our long-­standing, but now quite dated, thinking about urban and rural distinctions. After the creation of regional government, the provincial gov­ ernment turned its attention to the county system. Separated cities ­featured prominently in the subsequent review process. The province identified growth as a central problem with the county system.

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Introduction 11

Counties were unable to control growth emanating outwards from central cities, placing pressure upon the county’s governance structure. The same problems were identified in the lead-­up to the creation of regional government, where linking the city and the county through common institutions was identified as the solution. Linking separated cities and counties, however, was not easy, largely due to the disproportionate population size between many separated cities and counties. With no easy solution available, the province left the institutional composition of these eighteen separated cities and towns untouched. The growth they identified, however, continued. Combined with these representational concerns was many rural municipalities’ persistent resistance to urbanization. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, they actively opposed large-­ scale growth and development. Although many demonstrated a preference for suburban living, many rural officials went to great length to oppose these types of incursions into their communities. However, over time these attitudes changed. As we will see in chapter 3, an emerging mantra in rural communities is the idea of urbanization on rural terms, namely, accepting urbanization to promote community sustainability. The case studies examined in this book demonstrate this trend. Rural officials’ interest in attracting residents and development is piqued. Once-­ rural communities are now competing directly for growth with the separated cities they border. Herein lies a fundamental challenge to the bargain underlying city–county separation. Rural municipalities were supposed to remain rural, while growth and development was to be directed toward the dense, urban centre of the separated city. Today, Ontario’s separated cities and counties are facing twenty-­ first-­century growth challenges using nineteenth-­century municipal institutions. This book examines the migration of our thinking about urban and rural and argues that to adequately address modern municipal problems municipalities need modern tools. Institutional fit is key to this process. The right institutions can properly shape the development process and create sustainable communities; ill-­fitting institutions perpetuate the negative problems of development. Ontario is now stuck in an unenviable position. City–county separation had been put in place because of the perceived negatives of

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combining urban and rural. But this institution was unable to address rapid rates of growth. From this point forward, provincial policy reflected the notion that urban and rural were connected and that both areas needed to be placed into common institutions to better connect populations and provide servicing on a regional scale. For the most part, regional government was the policy tool used to achieve this end, but it still left eighteen cities and towns separated from their counties. Efforts were made to find better-­fitting institutions, but the creation of common institutions proved challenging, perhaps even more so than the creation of regional government. The disparities in rural and urban populations created a governance challenge and the province put a stop to the process when potential solutions proved too challenging to achieve. The growth previously identified continued and separated cities and counties are now struggling to find solutions. City–county separation may be an institution unique to Ontario, but all provinces have struggled to find a workable solution to urban and rural convergence. In this book, I highlight the evolution of Ontario’s municipalities to further explore this policy problem. The argument made here is that institutional fit is key to finding balance not only in planning, but also in governance for similarly growing areas. It is hoped these lessons can be used elsewhere across the country. w h y d o e s c i t y – c o u n t y s e pa r at i o n s t i l l m at t e r ?

In Canada, provincial officials have ultimate authority over the institutional composition and responsibilities of their municipalities. Provincial governments dictate the size, shape, and function of municipalities across the country. In a strict constitutional sense, municipalities in Canada do not have an equal relationship with provincial governments. As such, the scope of municipal responsibility and institutional composition tend to reflect provincial agendas and attitudes toward growth. Within this context, examining city–county separation is important for a number of reasons. First and foremost, very little is known about city–county separation in Ontario or elsewhere. As previously

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Introduction 13

described, many provincial governments have demonstrated a preference for institutions that formally link urban municipalities to neighbouring suburban and rural communities. Furthermore, the Ontario provincial government identified increased suburbanization as a key factor when it introduced regional government in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of Ontario’s counties with separated cities are currently experiencing similar trends in suburbanization today, forcing the inevitable question of whether the continued use of city–county separation serves these areas effectively as a governance model. Second, diagnosing governance problems can help enhance the ability of rural, suburban, and urban areas beyond Ontario to better manage growth. Similar systems can be found in a number of jurisdictions in North America. In the United States, only Virginia has a statewide system of city–county separation, but several cities, such as Baltimore and St Louis, were separated from their counties, while others, such as San Francisco, Denver, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baton Rouge, and Nashville, have become coterminous with their counties (Bain 1967, 34). In Canada, most provinces, except Quebec and British Columbia, have urban centres that are separated politically from their surrounding rural areas. Quebec, however, did participate in city– county separation until provincial legislation was introduced in 1979 that abolished the province’s seventy-­ one upper-­ tier rural counties and replaced them with ninety-­ five municipal regional counties that reintegrated previously separated cities (Sancton 2011, 125). All other provinces make a distinction between their urban and rural areas, and have created institutional structures that distinguish them administratively and legally. For example, Saskatchewan uses a system of rural municipalities, which act as administrative bodies for otherwise unorganized territory and exclude any neighbouring cities, towns, or villages (Garcea and Gilchrist 2009, 347), whereas Nova Scotia, influenced by early English municipal organization, used a county system and for many years separated cities and towns from county structures (Cameron and Hobson 2009, 141). The relationship between institutionally distinct multi-­municipal regions has attracted attention from academic researchers for decades. Beginning with the pioneering work of Studenski (1930),

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Jones (1942), and Gulick (1962), researchers have attempted to find solutions to metropolitan “fragmentation.” This group believed that the lack of a clear institutional connection within metropolitan areas negatively affected policy coordination and service continuity. Public choice theorists criticized this view, believing the fragmentation inherent within metropolitan regions, and the competition that inevitably resulted from it, was functional (Bish 1971; Bish and Ostrom 1974; Oakerson 1999; Ostrom, Tiebout, and Warren 1961). As a counterbalance to both perspectives, “new regionalists” believe that voluntary networks of cooperation can overcome the negative externalities that result from municipal fragmentation (Salet, Thornley, and Kreukels 2003; Savitch and Vogel 1996). City–county separation closely reflects the relationship described by many of these theorists. Uncovering how separated cities and counties approach growth and development can help further our understanding of how multi-­ municipal regions operate without institutional linkage. Finally, this book demonstrates that institutions matter. With many areas trying to come to grips with the convergence of urban and rural areas, the solution is finding the right institutional fit. When it comes to growth, development, and the future of rural areas, much of our attention is focused on broad growth management tools – development charges, urban growth barriers, regional transportation – while we routinely overlook our main municipal institutions. Simply put, the institutions we put in place can dictate the course of local decision-­making and shape local policy debates. Separated cities and counties are experiencing challenges with growth primarily because they have an institutional structure that cannot respond to modern patterns of development. Separating urban from rural may have worked to create density at one time, but not anymore. Growth now spills over borders that once cleanly divided urban and rural, but now this separation simply makes regional solutions to growth more elusive and handicaps local actors trying to coordinate policy responses. This book also demonstrates that decentralized efforts to control growth do have a place in our understanding of urban and suburban development. In many cases, local officials are best placed to understand the politics, policies, and local economics of their communities.

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Introduction 15

As we will see by exploring the dynamics of city–county separation, ill-­fitting institutions constrain local actors. Thus, we should design institutions that empower them. Without empowering these key players in the growth equation, creating workable, sustainable communities will continue to be a challenge. b o o k o r g a n i z at i o n

This book proceeds in several stages. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the various institutional designs used in Ontario, charting the evolution of the county system to the regional governments created from the 1950s to 1970s and, finally, to the amalgamation push that occurred in the 1990s. This chapter demonstrates that the trend connecting urban municipalities to their neighbours has turned counties with separated cities into institutional anachronisms, resulting in suburbanization being one of the key factors in the creation of regional government in Ontario. Over time, the distinction between urban and rural areas began to blur, prompting the provincial government to largely abandon the belief that urban and rural areas should be separated. In response, the province began building institutional linkages between urban and rural in the hope that connecting the two would allow the government to better control and facilitate economic growth and development. Chapter 2 examines existing theories of regionalism, introduces the concept of an urban–rural divide, and discusses the notion of urban–rural convergence. Once seen as distinct, rural areas have focused on taking more control of their future by directing the process of urbanization and land management. This chapter also reviews various methods of controlling growth and bridging municipalities in urban and rural areas. The second part of this book delves deeper into city–county separation in Ontario. Chapter 3 examines growth and development around London, Ontario. Chapter 4 examines Guelph and Wellington County and chapter 5 examines Barrie, Orillia, and Simcoe County. Each area is experiencing tremendous growth, much of which has occurred in the rural lower tiers around these separated cities. Primarily due to the lack of institutional connection between these

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communities, London, Barrie, and Guelph have embarked upon different strategies to control this growth, each with varying levels of success. Each region was selected as a case study for different reasons. Guelph is located on the western periphery of the Greater Toronto Area (GT A ) within a county focused on remaining rural. London is located far outside what is traditionally considered the G TA and has experienced decades of moderate growth, which may present a different dynamic between urban and rural. Finally, Simcoe was selected because of the province’s sustained interest in the rapidly growing county. The province has imposed a strict growth management plan for the area. How this modern tool is affected by the continued use of a nineteenth-­century tool for municipal organization may provide an intriguing contrast between different institutional compositions. These chapters document the challenges that county growth places upon the relationship between these separated cities and counties and describes how the institution of city–county separation itself is proving to be a significant challenge to creating cooperative relationships. Chapter 6 discusses some of the trends identified in the previous chapters and attempts to draw conclusions about the nature of cooperation between Ontario’s separated cities and counties. In this chapter I argue that increased suburbanization has fundamentally challenged the system of city–county separation. Without mechanisms to control planning and development outside of their borders, separated cities have clashed with neighbouring county municipalities in several areas. Consequently, city–county separation finds continued success in areas where officials from county municipalities are content to remain primarily rural. The province has continuously allowed separated cities to expand and helped facilitate annexation. This has prolonged the lifespan of an institution that is now ill-­fitting and ill-­equipped to address the challenges of suburbanization in many areas. Finally, some alternative institutional arrangements are discussed that may improve the governance networks within these areas.

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1 Municipal Organization in Ontario

introduction

Municipal organization in Ontario has undergone vast changes since the first European settlers arrived and demanded that local institutions be established. Central governments slowly ceded more power to local governments, culminating in the passage of the Baldwin Act in 1849 and the establishment of basic municipal institutions that remain mostly intact today. One such institution was the introduction of counties with the provision that urban areas should be allowed to separate from these two-­tiered governments once they became classified as a city. Over time, many jurisdictions separated with the prevailing logic that rural and urban areas were so distinct that their separation was mutually beneficial. The province’s local governments have experienced several rounds of institutional change since the introduction of the Baldwin Act, beginning in the 1950s with the creation of Metropolitan Toronto. Soon after, the idea that urban areas required some modicum of control over their surrounding rural and suburban areas in order to promote growth and control development led to the creation of ten regional governments in the province. These same growth pressures were identified in Ontario’s counties. As a result, a number of reports in the 1980s and 1990s recommended reintegrating separated cities into their counties. However, despite further rounds of restructuring in the 1990s, the county system and its separated cities went unaddressed.

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City–county separation is thus an enduring part of Ontario’s municipal system and although the practice of city–county separation has since been effectively discontinued, eighteen cities and towns remain separated from counties across the province. What follows is a discussion about the evolution of Ontario’s municipal system with a focus on counties and the province’s separated cities. e a r ly i n s t i t u t i o n a l o r g a n i z at i o n

Most of Ontario’s early townships were created when the Loyalists arrived in Upper Canada in 1783–84 (Armstrong 1985, 137). These early settlers soon demanded a voice in local affairs. Central governments responded to these claims by appointing local magistrates to hear and settle minor disputes and generally preserve the peace. In 1785, the government passed an ordinance allowing for the “granting of a limited civil power and jurisdiction to His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace in the remote parts of this Province” (Ross 1949, 6). The aim of the ordinance was to provide consistent administration throughout the colony, rather than only its more urban parts. Despite the strengthened role of justices of the peace in local administrations across the colony, central authorities retained control over many aspects of local life (Careless 1990, 265). Calls for greater local powers continued, and the government eventually responded by creating districts and appointing special officers to administer them (Ross 1949, 6). In 1788, eight districts were created across the colony: Western, London, Niagara, Home, Newcastle, Midland, Johnstown, and Eastern (Arm­ strong 1985, 138). In 1836, Bathurst, Dalhousie, Ottawa, Wellington, and Gore districts were added to the existing district system (139). Each of these districts was appointed a set number of officials: judges of the Court of Common Pleas, justices of the peace, coroners, a sheriff, and a clerk of the Court of Common Pleas and of the Sessions of the Peace. This system also established Courts of the Quarter Sessions across the province that, until 1793, constituted the only form of local administration in many parts of the colony (Ross 1949, 6). The colony’s counties originally had two main functions: to act as organizing units for the militia and to elect members to the Legislative

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 19

Assembly (Careless 1980, 29), with military organization being the dominant task. Writing in 1887, early historian John George Bourinot recounts the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-­Liancourt referring to Canada’s counties as “purely military, and related merely to the enlisting, completing and assembling of the militia” (Ontario 1987, 9). J.M.S. Careless contends that the limited amount of power given local administrators at this time rested with the district administrations (1980, 29). Each county contained locally appointed magistrates, or justices of the peace, who met in the district Court of Quarter Sessions to perform both administrative and judicial functions (Careless 1980, 29). Central governments directly controlled districts, providing directives for their operations (Ross 1949, 23). Much of their autonomy involved providing administration for the district grammar school, courthouse, and jail located in each district’s capital town (Careless 1980, 29). In 1793, Governor John Graves Simcoe reluctantly permitted the passage of the Parish and Town Officers Act, providing for the limited election of local officials. This Act enabled the justices of the peace to assemble the inhabitants of any “parish, township, reputed township or place” to meet and elect certain parish and town officers, including a clerk, two assessors, a collector, two to six overseers of highways and roads, one or more pound keepers, and two town wardens (Ontario 1987, 9). Despite limited local elections, colonial governments continued to control local affairs. There was, however, a strong push for more local control during this period as certain communities began to receive special powers and authorities. Kingston, York, and Niagara received special police acts from their Courts of the Quarter Session in 1816, 1817, and 1819, respectively (Careless 1990, 266). In 1816, the legislature passed the first public school act for Upper Canada, giving citizens in each local jurisdiction the right to meet, free from the interference of magistrates of the local Court of Quarter Sessions, to make arrangements for common schools, and to appoint school trustees (Ross 1949, 10). After Brockville received an elected police board in 1832, Hamilton followed suit in 1833, along with Belleville, Cornwall, and Port Hope in 1834. York took perhaps the greatest step forward toward achieving incorporation

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as Toronto in 1834, when it received its own elected council and mayor (Careless 1990, 266). The Rebellion of 1837 halted the evolution of municipal organization in the province, but the Durham Report, written in the wake of the rebellion, began the process of creating truly representative local institutions (Ross 1949, 13). In his report, Lord Durham wrote the following about local government in the colonies: The establishment of a good system of municipal institutions throughout these Provinces is a matter of vital importance. A general legislature, which manages the private business of every parish, in addition to the common business of the country, wields a power which no single body, however popular in the constitution, ought to have … the power of local assessment, and the application of the funds arising from it, should be entrusted to local management. (Ross 1949, 13) The introduction of the District Councils Act in 1841 provided for the election of district councils and gave more power to local officials, while ensuring that central authorities retained a significant amount of control over local affairs (Careless 1990, 266). The Act reorganized local administrations by creating a district council composed of a warden, appointed by the governor of the province, and councillors elected at large (Ross 1949, 14). The districts incorporated under the District Councils Act also took over some of the functions previously administered by the Courts of the Quarter Session, such as the responsibility for certain roads and bridges, supporting local schools, and raising funds for “district purposes” (Ontario 1987, 9). Each council was allowed to pass bylaws, although each bylaw still required approval from the governor-­in-­ council (Ross 1949, 14). Although central authorities continued to hold a significant amount of power under the District Councils Act, Romaine Ross argues that this act signalled a change in the province’s outlook toward local administrations: “It was apparent that Lord Durham’s inquiry into the affairs of the colonies was already producing an effect upon the minds of legislators, and the astute political observer

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 21

could foresee a complete change in British colonial policy … the [District Councils] Act was but preparing the way for complete local self-­government in the not too distant future” (Ross 1949, 14). From the unorganized demands of early settlers for local administration to the slow easing of power away from central governments, citizens began managing more of their own affairs locally. Local governments took on more responsibility during this period as they evolved from units of military organization and electoral districts for the Legislative Assembly. Over time, the colony’s counties and districts assumed the responsibility for many local tasks and the delivery of certain services, in the process entrenching themselves in the province’s early governance structure. At this point, municipal organization in Upper Canada closely resembled local institutions in Great Britain. The most obvious difference between the two systems was that the British used the county as the basic unit of municipal organization whereas Upper Canada used the district. Despite this difference, the district in Upper Canada had many of the same functions as the English county (Aitchison 1949, 107). The Upper Canada districts were much larger – mainly because of the sparse early settlement in the colony – but, like the early British county, were nevertheless controlled by central authorities. As Glazebrook documents, only “pockets of democracy” existed in the British county system during this period. County officials, all drawn from the landed gentry, were appointed. Consequently, justices of the peace – who presided over the Courts of the Quarter Sessions – assumed administrative responsibilities (Glazebrook 1974, 36). In Upper Canada, the same appointed officials and justices of the peace administered early local affairs, with the district serving as the boundary of their jurisdiction. Over time, in Upper Canada – as in Great Britain – local administrations received more powers although central authorities retained significant control over local affairs. Nevertheless, the creation of a  locally appointed administrator would eventually make way for the adoption of elected town councils and leadership. Following the  British Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, which created major advances for local democratization in British municipalities, Robert Baldwin initiated similar measures with the 1849 Municipal

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Corporations Act. Baldwin’s efforts created the basic structure of municipal government in Ontario and provided local populations with the right to govern their own affairs. the baldwin act and beyond: t h e i n t r o d u c t i o n o f c i t y – c o u n t y s e pa r at i o n

Baldwin’s insistence on creating a more complete organization for Upper Canada’s municipalities stemmed from his passionate belief in responsible government. Chief among Baldwin’s beliefs was that local affairs should be handled directly by local authorities elected by the people they intend to serve (Wilson 1933, 260). This concept runs counter to the institutional designs of early colonial administrations, even to the central tenets of the District Councils Act. Baldwin had actually opposed earlier attempts at municipal organization in Upper Canada. For many years, there had been calls supported by figures such as Lord Durham and Lord Sydenham to create municipal institutions in the colony. The summarily introduced District Councils Act was met with resistance from the legislature, with Sir Allan MacNab and the Tories criticizing it for creating small republics in Upper Canada’s rural areas. Baldwin also opposed the measure, but because he believed that it was not democratic enough, arguing that the Act gave too much power to the governor general and too little to local authorities (Wilson 1933, 134). Despite the measures that ultimately created locally elected councils in the District Councils Act, local administrators desired even more control over their affairs. In 1843, Baldwin introduced a bill that would have created general municipal administration throughout the province; however, despite being passed by the assembly, the bill was ultimately vetoed by the governor-­in-­council. In 1844, the Baldwin-­Lafontaine administration failed in its re-­election bid, temporarily stalling the issue of local self-­government until Baldwin and Lafontaine returned to power in 1848. Baldwin’s bill was later reintroduced and passed in the assembly; this time, however, Lord Elgin – the more progressive successor to Lord Durham, who believed strongly in self-­government, both centrally and locally – approved the bill (15).

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 23

The Baldwin Act defined the organizational status of local government along with the powers of municipal councils and their relationship with the central government (Ross 1949, 38). Furthermore, a central tenet of the Baldwin Act was the abolition of the districts created in the Territorial Divisions Act. In place of districts, this Act created two categories of local government: local municipalities – which included cities, towns, villages, and townships – and counties (Higgins 1986, 49). The Baldwin Act also created population standards to classify each local government, defining villages as having fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, towns as having 2,000 people or more, and cities as having a population of more than 15,000 (Ross 1949, 38). The Baldwin Act also created smaller police villages, which were established with very limited powers and intended mainly to provide fire suppression and basic police protection services (Wilson 1933, 261). Townships and towns were created as larger political units than the police villages, with larger populations and greater servicing responsibilities. The colony’s three cities – Hamilton, Kingston, and Toronto – held additional powers and were effectively treated as  counties (Baldwin and Baldwin 1969, 216). Consistent with Baldwin’s belief in responsible government, the Act specified how local officials should be elected and what powers they would hold. Every township was to elect five councillors who would elect a reeve from among themselves. Townships containing more than 500 taxpayers would elect a deputy-­reeve (Wilson 1933, 261). The reeve of each township would also sit on county council (Baldwin and Baldwin 1969, 216). The Baldwin Act strengthened the ability of local governments to provide servicing to residents. Counties became the key provider of local services and were given distinct powers that were not transferred to townships, towns, and villages. The county assumed responsibility for certain roads and bridges, the county court house and jail, the maintenance of shire halls, and some licensing powers, particularly in the field of transportation. More significantly, no limit was placed on the taxation powers of counties – or other municipal levels – because the governor general could no longer disallow local bylaws, which he could previously veto under the District

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Councils Act (Ontario 1987, 12). As counties gradually increased their service responsibilities, they eventually gained responsibility for local school superintendents (1850), social services – such as the creation of houses of industry and refuge (1866) – road maintenance for local roads intersecting with county roads (1896), the purchasing of toll roads (1901), and library services (1947) (16). Like much of Upper Canada’s municipal development, Baldwin’s 1849 Municipal Corporations Act followed trends and institutions from the United Kingdom. The UK ’s 1835 Municipal Corporations Act laid the groundwork for local governments there for increased independence and provided Baldwin with a guide in his attempt at municipal reform in Upper Canada. The 1835 Act had its roots in an 1833 Royal Commission that was established to investigate “the state of municipal government in England and Wales” (Chandler 2007, 42). The ensuing report found that many boroughs in the county were prone to maladministration, with incompetence and corruption rife among appointed local officials (43). The report’s findings led Britain’s Parliament to approve the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. The Act established a uniform system of government in 178 incorporated towns, with the intention of reducing abuses found by the Royal Commission: the Act outlined steps to help reduce the influence of corrupt officials, such as the extension of the franchise to more people – namely rate payers – allowing local officials more control and accountability; separated administrative and judicial powers by removing appointed justices of the peace from key administrative positions; abolished trading monopolies; placed borough police forces under a special Watch Committee; introduced a borough audit system, giving further layers of accountability to the financial affairs of local administrations; and maintained the right of the Crown to grant municipal charters, while regulating the functions that local bodies could perform (Clarke 1955, 45). Overall, the most important aspect of the 1835 Act was the replacement of appointed officials with elected officials in key local administrative positions. While the rampant corruption and maladministration discovered by the 1833 Royal Commission is often identified as the main impetus for redesigning the municipal system

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 25

in Great Britain, C.F.J. Whebell argues that the rise of European liberalism and the belief in responsible government was also a key factor in establishing more democratic local institutions. According to Whebell, this trend was “beginning to erode the very core of centralized authority in the British Empire” (1974, 50). It was in the midst of this democratizing spirit, and in the shadow of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, that Robert Baldwin set out to reform the municipal government system in Upper Canada. While spending time in Great Britain during the introduction of the 1835 Act and the reform period, Baldwin appears to have met with Joseph Hume, one of the leaders of this movement (Baldwin and Baldwin 1969, 148). It is not surprising then that Baldwin’s reforms mirrored those in Great Britain and upheld the trend experienced elsewhere in the British Empire to vest more control and authority in local decision-­makers. Since the establishment of the Act, the system that Baldwin established has been only slightly altered. The biggest change came with the 1866 Municipal Act, which changed the composition of county councils, and the Act’s 1896 amendment, which significantly reduced the size of county councils and prohibited local councillors from being elected to county council (Ontario 1987, 13). Over time, new counties were created, a process that remained in place until the introduction of the Municipal Amendment Act of 1903. This Act made no provision for the formation of new counties, other than stating that the creation of new counties was “a matter for special legislation” (Ross 1949, 31). A 1930 amendment to the Municipal Act once again changed the composition of county councils, allowing communities with more than 1,000 inhabitants to have the reeve and deputy reeve sit on county council, as well as introducing the multiple vote system whereby the reeve received an additional vote in municipalities with more than 2,000 electors. In municipalities with more than 300 electors, the deputy reeve also received an additional vote (Ontario 1987, 14). Traditionally, when an Ontario municipality became urbanized – defined as having more than 15,000 inhabitants – it could be poli­ tically separated from its county. According to the Municipal Corporations Act of 1849, whenever any incorporated town reached

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a population of 15,000, as determined through census returns, the governor of the province could, through an order-in-council, declare the town a “city” (Province of Upper Canada, 1849 [64]). As the Act itself states about the relationship between these new cities and their former counties: LX X X V . And be it enacted, That each of the Cities which shall be or remain incorporated as such under the authority of this Act, with the liberties thereof, shall, for all Municipal purposes, and such Judicial purposes as are herein or hereby specially provided for, but no other, be a County in itself. (Province of Upper Canada, 1849) Thus, although these cities became independent, they nevertheless remained geographically attached to their former counties. Although these areas were politically and judicially distinct, these new separated cities could not prevent officials from their former counties from meeting at existing county offices within their borders. Accordingly, many of these new separated cities remained as county seats. Also, while county justices of the peace had no authority within the new city itself, the city could not prevent county officials from holding Courts of the Quarter Sessions within its boundaries. Several other provisions in the Act defined the relationship between counties and their separated cities, with the overall provision being that separated cities could not interfere with county property or mobility within its borders. Over time, thirty-­eight cities and towns became separated from counties in Ontario. Table 1.1 shows the historical listing of separated cities and counties in Ontario. Of these thirty-­eight cities, four eventually returned to their counties, five were absorbed into new regional structures, and eighteen cities and towns, as mentioned earlier, remain separated. Yet, while the relationship between separated cities and counties is administratively and politically clear, separated cities remain both absent from county life yet present within their borders, establishing a unique relationship from the time of separation.

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Leeds and Grenville 1922

Gananoque

Woodstock

Carleton

Eastview

Ingersoll

Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry

Cornwall

Wentworth

Kent

Chatham

Wellington

Waterloo

Cambridge

Guelph

Leeds and Grenville 1859

Brockville

Hamilton

Brant

Brantford

1913

1879

1963

1945

1880

1916

1877

1860

1959

Simcoe

Hastings

Belleville

Rejoined the County in 1975 under Bill 95, An Act to Restructure Oxford County.

Incorporated as a city in 1846. Hamilton was one of three jurisdictions proclaimed cities under the Baldwin Act and excluded from Wentworth County. Returned with the creation of regional government in 1973 and amalgamated in 2001.

Incorporated into the Ottawa-­Carleton Regional Government with its inception in 1969. Eastview’s name was also changed to Vanier during this time. Later amalgamated into the new City of Ottawa in 2001.

The Town of Chatham was separated from Kent County in 1880, declared a city in 1895, and amalgamated in 1997.

Galt was separated from Waterloo County in 1916 and returned as the City of Cambridge (after Galt was amalgamated with Hespeler, Blair, and Preston) with the creation of regional government in 1973.

Brant County re­organized as a single-­tier municipality in 1999.

Year separated Notes

Barrie

County

City

Table 1.1  City–county separation history

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1855 1920

Simcoe

Durham

Carleton

Grey

Essex

Renfrew

Peterborough

Leeds and Grenville 1868

Hastings

Essex

Orillia

Oshawa

Ottawa

Owen Sound

Pelee Township

Pembroke

Peterborough

Prescott

Quinte West

Riverside

1921

1998

1850

1971

1917

1969

1904

1855

Middlesex

1912

Welland

Waterloo

Kitchener

Niagara Falls

Frontenac

Kingston

Annexed by Windsor in 1966.

Created as a separated city from Hastings County through amalgamation in 1998 of the City of Trenton, Sidney Township, Murray Township, and the Village of Frankford from Northumberland County.

Created as a separated township in 1869.

Rejoined the county on 1 January 2001.

Returned with the creation of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-­Carleton in 1969. Amalgamated in 2001.

Returned with the creation of Durham Region in 1974.

Returned with the creation of the Regional Municipality of Niagara in 1970.

Returned with the creation of regional government in 1973.

Incorporated into a town in 1838 and a city in 1846. Kingston was one of three jurisdictions proclaimed cities under the Baldwin Act and excluded from the County of Frontenac.

Year separated Notes

London

County

City

Table 1.1  City–county separation history (Continued)

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Hastings

Waterloo

Welland

Essex

Woodstock

Trenton

Waterloo

Welland

Windsor

Woodstock

Perth

St Mary’s

Elgin

Perth

Stratford

York

Lincoln

St Catharines

Toronto

Lanark

Smiths Falls

St Thomas

Lambton

Sarnia

1901

1853

1917

1947

1880

1881

1855

1854

1876

1902

1914

Incorporated as a municipality separate from the county in 1901. Rejoined the county in 1975 under Bill 95, An Act to Restructure Oxford County.

Returned as part of the creation of the Regional Municipality of Niagara in 1970.

Returned with the creation of regional government in 1973.

Was amalgamated in 1998 with Sidney Township, Murray Township, and the Village of Frankford to create the City of Quinte West.

Incorporated as a city in 1834. Toronto was one of three jurisdictions proclaimed cities under the Baldwin Act and excluded from York County. In 1953, Metropolitan Toronto was created, which separated the area from York County. The county seat subsequently moved to Newmarket.

Incorporated as a village separate from Perth County in 1854.

Returned as part of the creation of the Regional Municipality of Niagara in 1970.

Sarnia rejoined Lambton County with the passage of Bill 35 on 13 July 1989, which amalgamated Sarnia with the Town of Clearwater and, together, both rejoined the county.

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Political scientist Warren Magnusson argues that the idea that the powers of a municipality should vary with its size and character was a key principle of the Baldwin Act. Magnusson suggests that the belief that rural and urban areas are distinct, and need to be treated as such, has always been an important consideration: “There was from the beginning a recognition that the governments of cities would be different from the governments of other polities at the municipal level – more complex, more ambitious, more powerful and certainly more expensive.” As a result, cities require the administrative independence to provide the types of improvement and regulation required by their density whereas rural communities needed neither the same power and autonomy nor did they want to finance the types of projects and services that cities find necessary. Moreover, since many rural leaders were fearful of urban expansion and exploitation, severing formal relations with urban areas was, from a rural perspective, beneficial (Magnusson 1983, 7). David Siegel provides a similar justification for the creation of city–county separation in Ontario. Like Magnusson, Siegel argues that the interests of urban and rural areas were considered so distinct that it would have been inappropriate to combine them. Siegel provides an interesting dimension to this justification, however, when he argues that there were additional motivations for separating not only urban and rural areas, but also urban and rural people. Siegel argues that “There was also a strong moralistic streak in old Ontario which held that urban dwellers were tainted in ways that people living in idyllic rural settings close to the soil were not … therefore it was beneficial to have this separation to prevent any contamination” (1997, 134). Urban and rural areas, then, were as different sociologically as they were administratively. The logic behind city–county separation also fit with the urbanization trend in the mid-­1800s. The urban population of Upper Canada increased by 4.5 per cent in the 1850s and 4.1 per cent in the 1860s. Shortly after Confederation, a fifth of the province’s population lived in urban communities. Historian J.M.S. Careless argues that this was a persistent and lasting trend: “The urban segment [of the population] was thus already growing faster than the rural population, which in some areas had its peak by the early 1860s” (Careless

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 31

1980, 21).1 Growing industrialization and commercialization not only attracted people from the farm to the city, but also deepened the distinction between urban and rural areas. These conditions created the perception that both areas would benefit from having separate political institutions. The Baldwin Act not only established the foundations of modern local government in Ontario, but also established how policy-­makers viewed the distinctions between urban and rural parts of the province. As a policy tool, city–county separation was considered to be beneficial to both areas: rural areas would be free from urban expansion and urban interests would not dominate county councils. Moreover, rural areas would not be forced to meet the very different servicing demands that urban areas inevitably require, while urban areas would be free from the limitation of narrowly focused rural politics. This mutually beneficial system remained in place for many years, until the attitudes of provincial policy-­makers toward the relationship between urban and rural began to change. t h e c r e at i o n o f m e t r o p o l i ta n t o r o n t o

For more than one hundred years, the belief in urban and rural uniqueness perpetuated Ontario’s system of city–county separation until an ideological and institutional shift began emerging with the creation of regional and metropolitan government. The main site for this shift was Toronto, which, in 1953, became the first Ontario city to be part of a two-­tier structure (Sancton 2011, 118). After the Second World War, Toronto emerged as a metropolis. Marked by high rates of suburbanization, Toronto quickly became a major centre for inward migration (Robinson 1991, 113). In 1941, Toronto and its immediate neighbours had a population of approximately 925,000 residents; however, by 1961, that figure had more than doubled, to 1.9 million (Nader 1975, 230). This rapid suburbanization forced policy-­makers to address the infrastructure deficits and social demands that were accumulating within the Toronto region (Frisken 2007, 55). Consequently, many saw the creation of Metropolitan Toronto as the solution to area-­ wide problems that crossed jurisdictional boundaries. Urban areas,

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in this case, needed more control over their surrounding rural and developing areas to maintain service continuity and plan on a regional scale. Toronto grew slowly by annexing suburban territory. Neighbouring jurisdictions frequently petitioned the city to be annexed (Colton 1980, 53). This process was halted in 1912, when city administrators decided that proposals for annexation were too costly for the  city (Crouch 1954, 85). By 1912, however, Toronto had legally absorbed thirty bordering communities. Although Toronto itself engaged in only marginal boundary adjustments after 1912, smaller suburban municipalities began to grow and serve outlying populations after annexation was halted (Colton 1980, 53). The village of Weston became a town in 1915; Mimico and New Toronto became towns in 1919; York was reorganized, creating the new municipality of North York; East York and Forest Hill were incorporated in 1924; and, in 1926, the Village of Swansea was created (Crouch 1954, 85). Toronto and its growing suburban municipalities used inter-­local agreements to coordinate services and infrastructure development. Between 1915 and 1950, municipalities in the Toronto area made approximately 163 agreements (Crouch 1954, 86). Despite this cooperation, requests for annexation did not stop, with suburban towns, such as Forest Hill, making several requests for annexation during the 1920s and 1930s (Colton 1980, 55). Attempts at creating a two-­tier structure began in the early 1900s. In 1924, a member of the Ontario legislature, George S. Henry, asked cabinet to draft legislation that would have created a “metropolitan district” for the area (Frisken 2007, 55). Henry’s proposal called for a “metropolitan district” that would include representation from both the city and its surrounding suburban municipalities and provide several major services to the area, leaving the existing municipalities in the area intact to provide all other services (56). However, Henry’s colleagues rejected his proposal and, by the time he came to power as premier, his government was focused on combating the economic downturn of the Great Depression (Frisken 2007, 56). Metropolitan government was quietly removed as a priority policy issue since most of the municipalities around Toronto

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 33

had been declared insolvent (Colton 1980, 55). Nevertheless, Henry continued to believe that Toronto and its suburban area needed some type of regional organization. In October 1933, he commissioned a formal inquiry into Ontario’s metropolitan problems. The inquiry recommended the creation of a type of county system for Toronto and its immediate area, which would perform regional services for the city and its suburbs. Yet, when the Liberals came to power in 1934, they dissolved Henry’s inquiry before it had completed its work. Although the incoming Minister of Municipal Affairs, David A. Croll, proposed a bill in 1936 that would amalgamate sections of the area surrounding Toronto into the city, he left cabinet in 1937 and his bill was never introduced (56). At the beginning of the postwar period, there were thirteen municipalities within Greater Toronto (Rose 1975, 334). Despite the many failed attempts to coordinate the area through institutional change, it remained fragmented. James Milner describes the general attitude toward the growing region: The problems of local government in the Toronto metropolitan area … derived essentially from the inability of the thirteen existing municipal governments to engage in concerted action to solve their obviously common problems, such as arterial road construction; from the financial inability of individual municipalities to provide obviously local services, such as schools; and from the widely recognized fact that many of the local services could be most efficiently supplied only on an area basis. (Milner 1957, 570) The City of Toronto held a similar attitude toward its surrounding area. In a 1943 master plan, the city argued that future population growth “must largely be accommodated in the vacant land of adjacent suburbs.” The report continued by emphasizing that “the political boundaries of the City bear no relation to the social and economic life of its people” before proposing “a partnership of all the municipalities in the Metropolitan Area” (Colton 1980, 59). Eventually, the City of Toronto applied to the Ontario Municipal Board (O MB ) for an order that would amalgamate the thirteen

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municipalities within the Greater Toronto Area (Rose 1975, 334). While the OMB rejected the city’s application for amalgamation, it did recommend a type of metropolitan federation that could allow for the expansion of services for the growing area. This new metropolitan organization would be responsible for area-­wide services while existing municipalities would be responsible for more local services (Frisken 2007, 70). The province obliged, and with the passage in 1954 of Bill 80 – the Metropolitan Toronto Act – Metropolitan Toronto was born (Crouch 1954, 85). Metropolitan Toronto was established with a twenty-­four-­member council that consisted of the twelve suburban reeves, or mayors, and twelve Toronto city councillors (Kaplan 1965, 538). The twelve members of the Toronto council comprised the mayor, the two controllers who had received the most votes, and the nine aldermen who led the polls in their wards (Colton 1980, 71). The twenty-­fifth member of the council was the chairman, who was originally appointed by the province, but thereafter elected by the members of council (Kaplan 1965, 538). Metropolitan Toronto was established as a unique entity, with two key financial distinctions from traditional county governments: it was able to assess real estate for taxation purposes and it was allowed to issue debentures on behalf of itself and all local governments within its territory. Metropolitan Toronto also had a large amount of service responsibility. It was initially tasked with the construction and maintenance of arterial roads, major sewage and water facilities, regional planning, public transportation, the administration of justice, metropolitan parks, and housing issues that council chose to address. The old City of Toronto and the twelve suburban municipalities would be responsible for police and fire protection, business licensing, public health, and libraries. In other service areas, they would share jurisdiction with Metropolitan Toronto (Colton 1980, 71). Albert Rose argues that the primary motivation for creating Metropolitan Toronto was to correct serious inadequacies in basic municipal services to accommodate the city’s rapidly growing suburban population (1972, ix). Frisken, in a comprehensive political history of the region, concurs, arguing that the principal objective of pursuing metropolitan government was, “to speed up the provision

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of infrastructure to support suburban population growth and industrial expansion” (2007, 81). As Toronto states in its 1943 master plan, not only would future population growth need to be accommodated in the suburban parts of the metropolitan area, but the city and its surrounding area were also becoming socially and economically intertwined, if still politically separated. The logic behind bringing these areas together ran counter to traditional thinking about cities and their hinterland. In this instance, the city and its outlying areas were not so distinct that they required total separation, but were instead slowly growing together. The city needed its surrounding area to grow, making shared common political institutions necessary to facilitate outward expansion and growth. This same thinking soon found its way into the creation of additional provincial regional governments, as Ontario’s other major urban areas also began growing into their once separate rural and suburban areas. t h e c r e at i o n o f r e g i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t i n o n ta r i o

The rhetoric used to justify the creation of further regional governments in Ontario throughout the late 1960s and 1970s relied on much of the same rationale as the creation of Metropolitan Toronto. Finding disparities in regional growth rates, the province identified the need for regions to be able to plan on a regional scale to better facilitate economic growth (Higgins 1986, 198). As a result, the notion that urbanized centres required more control over their periphery was no longer isolated to Toronto. Sensible growth and development, and addressing the growing rates of suburbanization required other urban centres – mainly around Metropolitan Toronto – to have common political institutions. Widespread suburbanization was occurring not only in Toronto, but also around the major urban centres in Southern Ontario, such as Hamilton, Oshawa, Barrie, Newmarket, and Brampton (Robinson 1991, 113). Harris (2004) points to the increase in automobile sales as a key factor in promoting suburban expansion and outward migration from urban centres. Harris argues that in 1910, most workers lived near their workplaces and either walked or took the

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streetcar to work (2004, 129). By the 1960s, however, most drove automobiles, allowing them to live considerably farther away from their workplace (Harris 2004, 129). In 1945, just over 1.1 million cars were registered in Canada. By 1952, that number had doubled and, less than a decade later in 1961, had doubled again, reaching 4.3 million (130). As a result, some municipalities on the outskirts of major cities experienced 20 to 40 per cent growth rates in the postwar period (Robinson 1991, 113). This growth inevitably challenged the traditional system of city–county separation and forced the provincial government to examine the fitness of municipal institutions to address such a demographic challenge. In the 1960s, two key reports highlighted the rapid urbanization in the province and recommended the creation of regional governments. The first was the 1965 report of the Select Committee on the Municipal Act and Related Acts, which found that Ontario’s rapid urbanization required larger municipal units. The second was the report of the Ontario Committee on Taxation, which drew on the recommendations of the Committee on the Municipal Act and Related Acts and recommended a tiered system of regional government across the province with varying service and policy responsibilities. Shortly after the submission of these two reports, several individual regional studies assessed the viability of regional government in many of the province’s most rapidly urbanizing areas. The result was the creation of ten regional governments and a permanent change in the way the province viewed urban areas in relation to their rural peripheries. The Beckett Committee, named after its chairman, Hollis E. Beckett – then the Member of Provincial Parliament for York East – submitted the first major report addressing the need for regional government in the 1960s. The mandate of the Select Committee on the Municipal Act and Related Acts was to investigate the province’s large body of statutes and recommend solutions. Although Beckett examined a number of provincial Acts, it was his recommendations on the Municipal Act that were the most intriguing. The Beckett Committee began its discussion on local and regional government by emphasizing that the character of separated cities

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 37

and counties in the province had changed dramatically since the introduction of the Baldwin Act: The combination of population growth and urbanization coupled with economic prosperity and futuristic thinking has created a need for greater forethought and a demand for community services never envisioned by the original authors of our municipal legislation. Not only have our cities developed a new vigour but population has spilled over into rural areas which were neither financially or politically equipped to deal with the resulting problems. (Ontario 1965, 167) The report further notes that steady – and, in some areas, rapid – urbanization was changing the nature of certain communities. Rural areas slowly became more developed, earning the moniker “dormitory municipalities.” As these problems intensified, local politicians struggled to find solutions since urbanization crept over several jurisdictions. The Beckett Committee, therefore, recommended restructuring as the only alternative: “In order to restore responsibility to the elected representatives and increase the possibility of economical and efficient administration of municipal services, larger units of government are necessary” (Ontario 1965, 168). The report presented several reasons for this conclusion, which included: the growing complexity of local government activities, the extent to which many functions were affected by developments outside the local municipality, the need for more highly qualified staff, the increasing cost of many services, and the difficulty of dealing with some problems on the basis of the smaller existing municipalities (169). The committee suggested that larger municipal units would correct these problems. In fact, it laid out seven benefits of increasing the size of local governments. In particular, it argued that larger municipal units would: 1 facilitate the provision of services which require large areas; 2 facilitate agreement on common policies and the coordination of activities;

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3 eliminate some special purpose bodies that had been created to deal with the problems of extending beyond the limited area of local municipalities; 4 make it more feasible to employ more highly qualified staff and staff with specialized qualifications; 5 provide a more fiscally sound municipal unit; 6 reduce competition for commercial and industrial assessment; and 7 enlarge the tax base, thereby reducing inequalities in the burden of taxation To account for newly urbanizing areas, the committee saw a clear benefit in increasing the size of local governments, essentially arguing that the functional scope of each area needed to be increased. Although defining the borders of new regions proved challenging, the report did note that certain aspects – such as population, logical planning areas, watersheds, and economic and social conditions – should be criterion factors. The report also found that Ontario’s counties presented natural geographical units that could be converted into regional governments. Separated cities would be included in the new regional governments, the report noting that their inclusion would create a “strong nucleus” and provide “added vitality” for the rest of the region. The report also lists several other benefits for absorbing separated cities into new regional units: “The larger area would also give greater scope to planning through the natural extension and co-­ordination of existing facilities, and would eliminate the constant threat and fear of annexation of amalgamation … in addition, many thousands of dollars are being wasted in the battles over boundary changes” (Ontario 1965, 173). The committee did, however, note that converting a county into a regional government might not always be ideal and that an examination of each area should be conducted before implementing any regional government, largely out of concern that including a large separated city or town in the new region’s political life would have negative effects (Ontario 1965, 173). Nevertheless, the committee was mostly unconcerned about this aspect and recommended proceeding with regional government in spite of these concerns.

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 39

With respect to the responsibility provided to new upper-­ tier municipal units, the committee noted that individual studies should be conducted for each new region in order to determine which services would be best handled by the upper or lower tier (Ontario 1965, 176). However, it did recommend that the new regional councils have the responsibility to assess, tax, plan, maintain arterial roads, and administer public health, hospitals, welfare, and policing. The report also suggested that regional councils assume responsibility for storm and sanitary trunk sewers, sewage treatment plants, trunk water mains, water purification plants, “regional-­type” parks, and fire services (185). The Beckett Committee acknowledged that the same trends in urbanization that occurred during the 1950s in Toronto were occurring throughout the province. Rapid suburbanization in certain areas was stretching the functional limits of the province’s counties, while simultaneously blurring the distinction between urban and rural Ontario that had existed for nearly one hundred years. The second report, published in the 1960s by the Ontario Com­ mittee on Taxation, also addressed a similar notion of regional government. Formed in 1963 under the chairmanship of Lancelot J. Smith, the committee extensively studied Ontario’s taxation system, publishing their findings in 1967 (Ontario 1967a, vii). It had one mandate, which was to produce a “tax and revenue system [that] is as simple, clear, equitable, efficient, adequate and as conducive to the sound growth of the Province as can be devised” (Ontario 1967b, 495). Published in three volumes, the committee’s report examined all facets of taxation in Ontario, including retail sales taxes, income taxes, even revenue from alcoholic beverages and motor vehicle sales. The second volume was dedicated to local revenue, specifically the property tax, which the committee described as “unpopular” and “vulnerable to criticism” (1). Although the committee ultimately proposed major reforms to the property tax system, the report’s major contribution to Ontario’s municipal organization was its concerns about the relationship between municipal structure and finance. Although it was reluctant to delve into the municipal structure, the committee nevertheless provided three reasons for doing so (Ontario 1967b, 495):

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1 Efficiency in raising revenue by property tax demands assessment and collection on a regional basis. 2 Equity in local finance can hardly be achieved under the structure of our present municipal institutions. 3 Municipal capacity to develop non-­property sources of tax revenue, whether individually or in partnership with the Province, is severely circumscribed by limited territorial jurisdictions. Thus, although the focus of municipal restructuring in the past was largely on lower-­tier municipalities – generally leaving upper-­tier units intact – the committee recognized an important exception to this trend: the 1953 creation of Metropolitan Toronto (Ontario 1967b, 498). The committee praised the new Metro model, noting that it has been “hailed throughout North America, and indeed much of the world,” and that it had “achieved high standards of success” (499). Wanting to replicate this success throughout the province, the committee proposed a regional government scheme that would enhance access and service across the entire province. The report thus recommended creating twenty-­two regions for Ontario, with three distinct classes: metropolitan (the province’s most densely populated areas), urbanizing (the province’s rapidly growing areas, generally on the periphery of Ontario’s “metropolitan” areas), and county (the province’s more rural areas) (Ontario 1967b, 510). A fourth class – the district – was reserved exclusively for Northern Ontario communities (512). The distinctions between each classification – metropolitan, urbanizing, county, and district – were primarily for servicing purposes since the committee believed that each classification would require differing responsibilities at the upper tier (Ontario 1967b, 514). Servicing, then, is perhaps best understood as a spectrum that includes all four models, with metropolitan areas having more servicing responsibility at the upper tier and northern districts less. However, this does not necessarily mean that lower-­tier municipalities were to be strengthened in these areas. Instead, the committee suggested that the province maintain servicing responsibility in many remote and heavily rural areas (535); in these instances,

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 41

Table 1.2  Implementation of regional government in Ontario Regional government

Review

Implementation

Ottawa-­Carleton Niagara Peel Halton Waterloo Hamilton-­Wentworth Sudbury York Durham Norfolk-­Haldimand

1963–65 1964–66 1965–66 1965–66 1966–70 1967–69 1968–70 1967–69 1969 (discontinued) 1969–73

1969 1970 1973 1973 1973 1973 1973 1970 1973 1974

responsibility for some services would be shifted from the county or region to the province. Overall, the report emphasized the need to reconcile municipal structure with financing. The Ontario Committee on Taxation had three main recommendations: that the provincial government plan and schedule detailed studies of boundaries, functions, and forms of municipal organization throughout the province; that each of these new regional governments be responsible for assessment, tax collection, and capital borrowing on behalf of their constituent municipalities; and that where it was impossible to include a community in a regional government, the province should provide regional services to the community on a contractual basis (Ontario 1967a, 238). The reports of both committees set the stage for wide-­ ranging reform. Although the province did not implement all of the major reforms suggested by both reports, it did follow the recommendation calling for in-­depth individual reviews of Ontario’s rapidly urbanizing areas. After local reviews in the Ottawa area began in 1963, ten regional governments were created: Ottawa-­Carleton, Niagara, York, Peel, Halton, Waterloo, Hamilton-­Wentworth, Sudbury, Durham, and Haldimand-­Norfolk (Fyfe 1975, 360). Table 1.2 lists each of Ontario’s regional governments along with the date of their review and eventual implementation. Although the reports that recommended creating these regions stressed the importance of bringing urban and rural areas together,

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they also argued that the eventual success of these governments was regionally dependent. For example, the Niagara Local Government Review Report argued that, “the separation of cities (and towns) from the county made good sense in an earlier age when the distinction between urban and rural was sharper.” To allow separated cities to remain independent of regional governments was “disastrous” (Mayo and Moore 1966, 59), a sentiment shared by the authors of many other studies such as the Hamilton-­ Burlington-­ Wentworth Local Government Review Commission (Steele, Jarrett, and Morison 1969). Conversely, the authors of the Waterloo Area Local Government Review argued that the differences between urban and rural within their study area remained significant and that the implementation of a regional government would have a negative effect on rural areas, including the dilution of rural voices on any reorganized regional council and the potential requirement to fund services for which rural areas had little use (Fyfe and Morrow 1970, 182). As such, the authors recommended implementing a reorganized city–county system that would create two large separated urban municipalities through amalgamation (Kitchener-­ Waterloo and Galt) and five enlarged rural municipalities within the county borders (178). Although the report reiterated its concerns about rural representation and servicing, the provincial government dismissed these concerns in their charge toward regional reform. Instead, the provincial government believed that the distinction between rural and urban was eroding and, in some cases, non-­existent. The government also believed that the economic benefits of urban life could only be extended to the surrounding area through common political institutions (Fyfe 1975, 362). John Robarts, Ontario’s premier from 1961 to 1971, argued that the organization of local government was directly related to regional economic development; thus, for a region to grow economically, Robarts argued that urban and rural areas needed to be linked through a shared political life. Believing that the conditions were right for the implementation of regional government, Robarts argued the following in the Ontario legislature (Robarts, Ontario Legislature, 1968): 1 There is a general realization that society now lives on a regional scale.

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2 There is a genuine willingness to study development problems objectively. 3 Sharing assessment and dormitory expenditures will bring about regional thinking and budgeting faster than any other single influence. 4 Urban areas should not be separated from their surrounding rural areas. 5 Annexation as an adjustment factor in territory is of limited value today. Similarly, Darcy McKeough, then the Minister of Municipal Affairs, outlined some of the criteria necessary to create a region (McKeough, Ontario Legislature, 1968): 1 a sense of community identity based on sociological characteristics, economics, geography, and history; 2 a balance of interests; 3 an adequate financial base; 4 a large enough area to take advantage of economies of scale; 5 boundaries that facilitate maximum interregional cooperation; 6 community participation; 7 community acceptability. These criteria guided the establishment of the regions that McKeough and Robarts created. Each had an upper-­tier unit created for a large urban centre while its hinterland commonly – although not universally – followed the old county boundaries, thereby reducing the number of local municipalities within the region to provide the urban centre with more control over its surrounding area (Fyfe 1975, 362). The introduction of regional government in Ontario marked a shift in how provincial policy-­makers viewed urban and rural areas. The reports of both the Select Committee on the Municipal Act and Related Acts and the Ontario Committee on Taxation identified the changing nature of urbanization in the province’s counties. Counties were becoming more urbanized and, as such, the vast differences previously identified between the two areas were quickly diminishing. This logic brought about ten regional governments and the reintroduction of several once-­separated cities into its surrounding areas.

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As a result, the focus then shifted back to the county system where the same forces of urbanization that had been identified as the rationale for creating Ontario’s new regional governments were still at work. the county reform era

The county system proved resilient. For more than one hundred years, it had remained largely unchanged until the formation of Metropolitan Toronto and then the establishment of regional government. The creation of regional government created new political problems for the province and the government soon shifted its focus to reorganizing the county system. In October 1973, John White, then Minister of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs, ushered in “a new phase of local government reform – a phase in which the initiative will come, not from Queen’s Park, but from the counties themselves” (Williams and Downey 1999, 163). The first of these reform proposals came from the Association of Counties and Regions of Ontario (A C R O ), which proposed four specific calls for reform (Williams and Downey 1999, 163): 1 Consolidate local municipalities. 2 Strengthen the second tier in counties by including separated towns and cities. 3 Ensure equitable representation on county councils. 4 Enlarge and update the responsibility of county units. Many of these recommendations reflected long-­standing concerns of mayors, council members, and representatives of the counties themselves, especially with respect to equitable representation on county councils. As a result, many of these proposals were included in various provincial reports on the county system throughout the decade. Three successive provincial reports investigated Ontario’s county system and later made recommendations intended to strengthen the province’s counties. The first report, Patterns for the Future (1987), called for greater flexibility in service delivery and adjustments in county representation. The second, County Government in Ontario (1988), emphasized a strengthened upper tier by including separated

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 45

cities and towns. The final report, Toward an Ideal County (1990), provided a set of principles intended to ensure consistency in policy creation and service delivery across the province. Patterns for the Future was the result of a task force formed in February 1987 by then Minister of Municipal Affairs, Bernard Grandmaître. The report clearly stated that it was a proactive attempt to improve governance in Ontario’s counties and was not responding to any identified need for reform. The minister tasked the committee – headed by MPP Ray Haggerty and composed of three mayors of  lower-­tier municipalities, two from counties and one from the Ottawa-­Carleton regional government – to examine “retooling and reshaping” the county system, but not restructuring (Ontario 1987, i). In fact, the terms of reference for the review were quite narrow: accountability, representation, and the distribution for responsibility for services (4). The report began by identifying some of the potential problems in the county system: disproportionately growing populations, growing representation inequity, and evolving service demands (Ontario 1987, 2). Much of this, the report noted, was due to the pressures of suburbanization and growth: Urban development has placed a continuous pressure on local municipalities and their counties … Few municipalities are now predominantly rural in nature. Suburban development has created a climate for annexation disputes. Some townships are now larger than towns; some could qualify for city status, which would mean separation from the county system. The disparity in size among municipalities has placed strains on representation, which become particularly contentious as pressures for new services at the county level are felt. (Ontario 1987, 19) The committee’s main concern about these pressures was representation at the county level. They thus recommended a series of reforms to the county council system, such as a higher population base for a second municipal representative on county council (Ontario 1987, 45), and a rebalancing of service responsibilities, such as the delivery of general social services (61).

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Although the report made several other recommendations, perhaps most important to this discussion are the two items that fell outside the committee’s terms of reference: small municipalities and separated cities. The committee felt that smaller municipalities, specifically those with fewer than 2,500 electors, were skewing the balance of representation at the county level. Although the report stops short of recommending structural change to correct this imbalance, it does recommend that a future report examine the issue more closely (Ontario 1987, 24). Separated cities were also a problem for the committee. From their meetings with county officials, the committee learned that many areas feared that a large number of city separations would occur in the near future, primarily due to the quickening pace of population growth in some regions. Since an area would be automatically removed from the county system once the Ontario Municipal Board approved its application for city status, the report argued that this process could have detrimental effects for counties: “When a municipality separates from the county, the county system not only loses part of its resource base, but also the ability to provide services on a county-­wide basis … representation and accountability are similarly impaired as area-­wide services must then be provided by joint committees or special purpose bodies” (Ontario 1987, 24). The report then states that inter-­local agreements can be “time-­ consuming to negotiate, can foster dispute, and can create confusion about accountability,” and argues that these agreements create uncertainty about the county’s role as a policy-­maker (Ontario 1987, 62), causing public uncertainty about what level of government is responsible for what service. Inter-­local agreements, the report continues, do not necessarily provide stable administration since their terms and conditions are subject to periodic renegotiation (65). Despite its resistance to inter-­local agreements, the report recommended that counties continue to be allowed to enter into such agreements (66). The committee recommended a future study on the impact of city– county separation (Ontario 1987, 24), expressing alarm over the potential rate of city separation in the future, an aspect not apparent in their discussion of smaller municipalities. As a result, the committee

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 47

proposed that separated cities should be encouraged to rejoin the county system and that no further separations should be allowed. Further, they suggested that the minimum population required to grant city status be increased above the current rate of 25,000. Also, given the number of cities that could be separated in the near future, the report stated that, “consideration should be given to providing incentives for larger municipalities to stay in the county system, and that disincentives be eliminated” (25). Unfortunately, the committee did not state what it believed such “disincentives” were. Patterns for the Future identified many of the same problems with the county system that both the Ontario Committee on Taxation and the Select Committee on the Municipal Act and Related Act had found. Unlike previous reports, however, Patterns for the Future added a different sense of urgency, stating that a further repercussion of this rapid urbanization could be the wide-­ranging separation of newly created cities. The second major report of the county restructuring era, County Government in Ontario, resulted from a taskforce chaired by M P P Charlie Tatham. This taskforce was established to examine three separate items identified by Patterns for the Future (Ontario 1988, i): 1 issues of representation and functions; 2 problems related to small and separated municipalities; 3 commissioning of separate investigations into each county. County Government in Ontario begins by discussing how Ontario’s demographics and economy have shifted since the creation of the county system in 1849. This discussion is important in that it signals a further departure from the original impetus for the creation of Ontario’s counties and shows that much of the institutional logic that created the province’s regional governments remained very much still intact: The face of Ontario has changed significantly since the introduction of county government through the Baldwin Act of 1849. While substantial alterations have been made to the structure and functions of other local governments in Ontario since that

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time, the county system remains much the same today as it was 140 years ago.   Although county governments have not experienced major reorganization, the society within counties has changed over the years. Ontario in the twentieth century has been shaped, and will continue to be shaped, by changes in settlement and commuter patterns, in the nature of traditionally rural areas, in the mix of people living in counties, and in the expectations which residents have of their local government. The distinction between the rural and the urban communities in counties is no longer as clear as it once was. This change has placed new requirements and demands on a government system designed for a primarily agricultural society.   The part of the province currently covered by county governments is distinct from the more urban areas of regional municipalities and from the less densely populated districts in the north. The county form of government must remain specially suited to the communities, which combine urban and rural interests, traditional stable communities and new growth areas. However, counties, like all other governments, represent a dynamic and often increasingly demanding population. This constantly changing society must be recognized and accommodated if counties are to remain important units of government. (Ontario 1988, 1) Herein lay the task force’s challenge: although Ontario’s counties were growing, thus blurring the once-­clear distinction between a county’s rural areas and its more urban portions, these areas were not growing at the same pace as the areas within the province’s newly created regional governments. Noting that Ontario’s counties were no longer primarily agricultural communities, the committee found that most of the labour force in the province’s counties was commuting to different areas for work, particularly in the Greater Toronto Area (Ontario 1988, 2). Accounting for these changes would be challenging, especially for counties that were growing disproportionately (3). To address and strengthen the unique role that counties play in Ontario’s municipal system, County Government in Ontario made

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 49

forty-­one recommendations. Although the bulk of these recommendations deal with county council representation, some did address restructuring. Since the viability of each lower-­tier municipality is one of the main focuses of County Government in Ontario, the report suggests that each municipality rely on a population base to support itself. The report thus recommends that each municipality have a minimum population of 4,000, unless issues such as population density and geographic isolation warrant a smaller size (Ontario 1988, 18). The report also suggested that police villages be eliminated and annexed or amalgamated into the nearest municipality (19). Both of these recommendations helped satisfy shared concerns in Patterns for the Future about small municipalities within counties. By eliminating these municipalities, the report hoped to solve some of the representation inequities in county councils during this period. However, the most important structural recommendations in County Government in Ontario do concern separated cities with the proposal to integrate separated cities back into county life. The report argues: The Committee feels it is crucial to the future of the county system that there be more integration with and coordination between the county and any separated municipalities located within the county. At present, there is a dissipation of resources, energy and creativity in disputes between separated municipalities and counties (and local municipalities in counties) over boundaries, negotiation and renegotiation of agreements and competition for new assessment. In the Committee’s vision of a strengthened county system, this energy would be redirected into cooperative efforts recognizing the shared municipal interests and, more importantly, the common interests of the residents and workers of these larger communities. (Ontario 1988, 34) Despite their insistence that separated cities should be reintegrated back into the county, the taskforce acknowledges that this might not be always possible and that the re-­entry of a separated city may cause more harm than good. Although the committee did not specify under

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what conditions such a re-­entry of a separated city into a county would be harmful, it did recommend greater cooperation between both communities on boundary issues without competition for assessment and growth (Ontario 1988, 34). The committee also recommended that, where a separated city cannot be brought back into the county, a city–county liaison committee be established with no more than eight members and equal representation from both the county and the separated city (35). Finally, the committee recommended that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing not approve future separations of municipalities from counties (44). The third report on county governance, Toward an Ideal County, was intended to summarize the findings of Patterns for the Future and County Government in Ontario and provide a list of the principles required for strong county governance. The report, authored by then Minister of Municipal Affairs John Sweeney, identified the same three main problems as Patterns for the Future and County Government in Ontario (Ontario 1990, i): 1 unfair representation of municipalities on county council; 2 a proliferation of boundary disputes and inter-­municipal agreements within counties and between counties and neighbouring separated municipalities; 3 the inability of many small municipalities to deal effectively with growth pressures and increasingly complex and expensive service demands. To address these problems, Toward an Ideal County proposed sixteen principles for good county government. The first eight principles are described as “general” in nature and outline the essential features of county governance, such as a clear division of responsibilities and accountability and accessibility mechanisms (Ontario 1990, 1). The tenth principle addresses local municipalities, recommending that (like County Government in Ontario) all lower-­tier municipalities have a minimum population of 4,000 to remain “viable” (2). Principles eleven through fourteen address the composition of council, recommending that county councils be no

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 51

larger than twenty members and that no single municipality be able to constitute a majority of the votes on council (3). Although most of these recommendations address the concerns in Patterns for the Future and County Government in Ontario about small municipalities and inequity on county councils, the final two principles focus on the issue of separated cities. Toward an Ideal County recommended integrating separated cities back into the county system. This, according to the report, had the following substantial benefits (Ontario 1990, 3): 1 removes competition for assessment by pooling costs and benefits; 2 eliminates the duplication of administration of certain services, thereby providing more effective and efficient services and fostering economies of scale; 3 reduces the number of special purpose bodies established for joint service delivery, thereby reducing the number of joint service agreements and improving accountability and accessibility; 4 redirects the resources, energy, and creativity of the municipal units involved to promote the shared interests of the area; 5 creates a strong focus of local government in the area. Although many of these benefits are vaguely stated, it was clear that the province was looking for a way to better integrate separated cities with their original counties. However, this report – like County Government in Ontario – acknowledges that this reintegration would not always be advantageous for a county, such as when a returning city held so much of the area’s population that it would dominate a restructured county council (Ontario 1990, 4). In these instances, the report urged separated cities and counties to form liaison committees and joint service boards. Despite being the culmination of a series of examinations into county governance, Toward an Ideal County is surprisingly light in its recommendations for concrete legislative changes. In fact, the only real commitment the report offers is the need for the province to fund county reform studies (Ontario 1990, iv). However, what the report does do successfully is present the province’s vision for these

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communities and lay out a path for future reforms, even though the impetus for these reforms was expected to come from the counties themselves. Despite the amount of concern raised during the county reform era about the continued existence of city–county separation and the insistence that separated cities be reintroduced to their counties where possible, only two counties were reorganized during this period. Guided by the province’s new outlook on their county governments, the separated cities of Woodstock and Sarnia and the separated Town of Ingersoll rejoined Oxford and Lambton Counties with revised representation at the county level. The reorganization of Oxford County was intended to avoid the imposition of regional government (Beecroft 1983, 11). Officials in the county, along with the separated City of Woodstock and the Town of Ingersoll, were concerned that if the province decided to implement regional government, the county’s external borders might be altered, meaning that parts of Oxford County could be split and added to surrounding regional governments, such as the Region of Waterloo and Haldimand-­Norfolk (12). To avoid this situation, the county and its separated municipalities began studying various options to improve county governance. To overcome concerns about the dominance of the urban areas on the reconstituted county council, the Oxford County council was initially created with twenty members and a balance of both urban and rural representation. Woodstock received six members and gave one to each municipality. This gave the urban areas (Woodstock, Ingersoll, and Tillsonburg) and the rural areas of the county ten members each (Beecroft 1983, 75). Although Oxford County was reorganized to avoid the imposition of regional government, the second county to be reorganized during the county reform era – Lambton County – was restructured to avoid a potentially devastating loss of assessment. From 1950 onwards, the City of Sarnia sought to annex territory from its surrounding neighbours, namely from the Township of Sarnia, believing that growth was necessary to further economic development and expansion (Montgomery 1990, 1). Lambton County had always

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resisted these efforts, mainly because it believed that losing the Town of Sarnia’s assessment would be financially crippling for the sparsely populated county. Although Lambton County successfully resisted Sarnia’s efforts for nearly forty years, in the late 1980s the dispute over annexation came to a head when the province forced both governments to find a resolution (81). In 1989, the province formed a restructuring committee, which declared that the City of Sarnia should be amalgamated with the Township of Sarnia (then renamed Clearwater) to provide the city with more land to expand. There was, however, an additional caveat: that the new city should become part of the county, largely so that Lambton County would not be financially depleted by the loss of its assessment base (61). Enhancing the county’s assessment base finally eased Lambton County officials’ concerns; yet, if the county had been able to secure a more stable assessment base, it is very plausible that Sarnia would have been able to remain separated indefinitely. While the restructuring committee felt that it was important for the new city to rejoin the county, they also had concerns about the revised county council. To ensure that the city would not dominate county council – a concern also addressed by the province in Patterns for the Future and County Government in Ontario – the committee proposed that the new council be composed of twenty-­four members made up of five members from the city and nineteen from the county municipalities. To add more security for the city, the committee added a provision that transferring any service to or from the county level required a majority of votes from a majority of municipalities (Montgomery 1990, 69). According to Williams and Downey, the era of county reform “ended quietly” (1999, 166).2 This assessment is quite apt. Despite numerous calls for reform and the even bolder calls for restructuring contained in County Government in Ontario, very little came to fruition. Only ten counties requested individual studies, as recommended in each report (Williams and Downey 1999, 166). Moreover, only a small proportion of Ontario’s counties – most notably, Oxford County and Lambton County – went through any significant changes during this period. Despite long-­ standing concerns with county

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organization, especially the presence of small municipalities and separated cities, very little was done to solve these issues aside from recommending that smaller municipalities be consolidated and any further city separations be stopped. The series of reports in the 1980s and 1990s were effective at outlining the challenges that the county system faced. Despite very little institutional variation since the inception of counties, these reports recognize the importance of addressing the changing environment around and inside Ontario’s counties. As a result, each report outlines three issues that were nearly universal for all of the province’s counties: increasing populations, a shifting internal economy and labour force, and steady – if not rapid – urbanization. These issues were creating problems for Ontario’s counties, the most important being inequities in representation, increasing disparities in the size of lower-­tier municipalities, and the possibility of widespread separation of newly urbanized areas of the province’s counties. Yet, despite the identification of these problems and their potential ramifications, very little structural adjustment was completed. There were some changes to the composition of council, but there was no wide-­scale consolidation of smaller municipalities within counties and the reintegration of separated cities. Although city–county separation as a practice was halted, only two counties were reorganized to see their separated cities integrated back into their structures during this period. Also, although each report clearly stated that the provincial government would prefer more integrated county structures, there was also a clear downside to this practice, particularly in the inevitable domination of the city on county council. In the absence of a clear plan to reintegrate the city back into the county, the province favoured city–county liaison committees and joint servicing and planning boards over inter-­local agreements, believing the latter to be volatile and difficult to negotiate. The province was, effectively, searching for common bodies to guide service delivery in the absence of common political institutions. Unlike the county reform era, Ontario’s next phase of reorganization would result in significant changes. During the county reform era, the province largely sketched out a vision of how counties would

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Municipal Organization in Ontario 55

be organized in the future, leaving the counties themselves to implement their vision of an “ideal county.” Reports and committees repeatedly implied that change would have to come from municipalities themselves rather than Queen’s Park. However, the next provincial government to address restructuring in Ontario would not be so patient. t h e e r a o f a m a lg a m at i o n

Until the election of Mike Harris as premier in 1995, the province had never undergone wide-­ scale municipal restructuring. When Harris and his Progressive Conservatives were elected, there were 850 municipalities in the province; by 2000, that number had been reduced to 444 (Siegel 2005, 129). Through a series of voluntary and non-­voluntary amalgamations, the Harris government contributed to municipal restructuring in both highly urbanized and rural communities across the province, including Ontario’s counties. Harris came to power with an agenda of reducing government waste and cutting taxes – a program clearly stated in his election document, The Common Sense Revolution. The Common Sense Revolution made some specific pledges, such as reforming legal aid, cutting government grants and subsidies, and reducing taxes, but is vague about how it intended to restructure municipal government. The Progressive Conservative platform argued that the province had too much government: “Canadians are probably the most over-­ governed people in the world … we do not need every layer – federal, provincial, quasi-­governmental bodies, regional, municipal and school board – that we have now.” The document continues by stating that “We must rationalize the regional and municipal levels to avoid the overlap and duplication that now exists.” Yet, despite these two claims, the platform did not describe any specific action it would take to achieve the “rationalization” of regional and municipal government in the province. The Common Sense Revolution states only that “We will sit down with municipalities to discuss ways of reducing government entanglement and bureaucracy with an eye to eliminating waste and duplication as well as unfair downloading by the province” (Ontario Progressive Conservative Party 1994, 17).

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Despite these initially vague claims, the Harris government did, in fact, undertake a major restructuring of municipal government in Ontario. One of the Harris government’s major legislative tools to achieve this end was Bill 26, the Savings and Restructuring Act. The purpose of Bill 26 was “to achieve fiscal savings and promote economic prosperity through public sector restructuring, streamlining and efficiency and to implement other aspects of the government’s economic agenda” (Ontario, 1995). Although the bill’s main purpose was to find efficiencies and amend multiple existing Acts and provincial departments, the amendments to the Municipal Act and various other statutes related to municipal operations contained some of the most dramatic changes. According to David Siegel, the Savings and Restructuring Act contained both permissive and mandatory elements; permissive in that it allowed any group of municipalities to devise its own voluntary restructuring proposal, yet mandatory in that it also permitted municipalities to ask the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to appoint a commissioner who could impose a binding agreement. Municipalities were strongly encouraged by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to amalgamate voluntarily. Any voluntary amalgamation, however, required the approval of what was described as a “triple majority” – the majority of the affected municipalities containing the majority of the affected population, and the approval of the county council (Siegel 2005, 131). More than a year after the implementation of Bill 26, very few municipalities had engaged in the intended government restructuring. By 1997, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing had approved only twenty-­one restructuring plans, reducing the number of municipalities by fifty. Although the process seemed to be proceeding slowly, Andrew Sancton (2000) argues that two key developments sped up the restructuring process: first, the provincial government announced that it would amalgamate the municipalities within Metropolitan Toronto in December 1996; and, second, Chatham and all the constituent municipalities of Kent County were amalgamated at the order of provincially appointed commissioner Peter Meyboom (Sancton 2000, 106).

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Although the twenty-­ one municipalities had been considering restructuring proposals for close to a year after the passage of Bill 26, they had been unable to agree (Siegel 2005, 132). When Meyboom was appointed on 6 February 1997, he held five days of meetings in Chatham and Kent and gave each municipality one hour to provide recommendations. At the end of this series of meetings, Meyboom presented a draft report to local councils providing them with two options: a streamlined two-­tier county system or a “unicity” model, which called for the complete amalgamation of all lower-­tier municipalities and the dissolution of the county government. Of the twenty-­ two municipalities who received the report, twenty-­ one rejected total amalgamation (Downey and Williams 1998, 225). Yet, despite the affected municipalities’ clear choice, Meyboom selected complete amalgamation for Chatham-­Kent. The amalgamation of Chatham with Kent County was significant in that it signalled to the rest of the municipalities in the province that there were consequences for not quickly pursuing voluntary restructuring. Robert J. Williams and Terrence J. Downey argue that numerous municipalities wanted to avoid “the Chatham-­Kent experience.” Further, for many municipalities, “the strategy was to find a local solution among the county participants as a way to stave off being forcibly merged with a dominant urban municipality” (Williams and Downey 1999, 187). Arriving at a similar conclusion, Andrew Sancton argued that the fear of forced restructuring provoked municipalities into finding suitable partners for amalgamation. He suggests: From April 1997 onward, Chatham-­Kent became the horrible example that no one else wanted to follow. Counties scurried to get on with restructuring so that they would avoid a commissioner. For many, the main object was to devise a plan that would not involve becoming linked with a populous urban centre whose residents could dominate the local political process. (2000, 108) Certainly the “Chatham-­Kent” experience provided many municipalities with the incentive to pursue restructuring, primarily in

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Ontario’s rural communities. While rural areas were the primary sites of restructuring, the most highly publicized amalgamations occurred in some of Ontario’s largest urban centres. In December 1996, the provincial government introduced Bill 103 – the City of Toronto Act – that amalgamated all of the municipalities within Metropolitan Toronto (Frisken 2007, 251). The provincial government then turned its focus to regional governments with 1999’s Fewer Municipal Politicians Act, which amalgamated the regional municipalities of Hamilton-­Wentworth, Ottawa-­Carleton, and Sudbury, and separated the regional municipality of Haldimand-­Norfolk into two municipalities, Haldimand and Norfolk (Sancton 2000, 142). The guiding rationale for the Progressive Conservative government’s pursuit of restructuring was to reduce the number of politicians and municipal staff, lower taxes, remove levels of government, and create more efficient municipal structures. The provincially published Guide to Municipal Restructuring sets out principles that municipalities should follow when pursuing restructuring, including less government, effective representation, and the “best value for taxpayer’s dollar” (Downey and Williams 1998, 215). Although the Progressive Conservative government did proceed with a number of high-­profile amalgamations in some of the province’s largest urban areas – such as Toronto, Hamilton, and Ottawa – Williams and Downey (1999) argue that, in fact, much of the restructuring that occurred under the Harris government took place in rural Ontario. For example, in counties with a separated city, there were 283 lower-­tier municipalities before 1995 and 131 after 2000 – a 53.7 per cent reduction. While separated cities did absorb some of these municipalities, much of this restructuring involved consolidating small rural municipalities. Table 1.3 illustrates these restructurings in each area. The total number of municipalities listed in both columns includes the cities and towns separated from each county. In an examination of restructuring in four rural counties – Victoria, Dufferin, Wellington, and Perth – Williams and Downey found that “the strategy was to find a local solution among the county participants as a way to stave off being forcibly merged with a dominant urban municipality” (1999, 187). As a result of this desire, much structural reorganization across rural Ontario was “hastily concluded” in

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Table 1.3  Municipalities in counties with separated cities County

Municipalities prior to 1995

Municipalities in 2000

Elgin Essex Frontenac Hastings Lanark Leeds and Grenville Middlesex Perth Peterborough Renfrew Simcoe Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry Wellington Total

16 22 15 30 19 25 22 16 20 37 16 21 24 283

8 8 5 14 9 13 9 6 9 18 16 7 9 131

an effort to avoid the experience of Chatham-­Kent (Williams and Downey 1999, 187). While previous sets of municipal reforms – such as the introduction of county and regional government – centred on redefining the relationship between urban areas and their rural peripheries and addressing the challenges stemming from rapid urbanization, the restructuring of the 1990s primarily sought to achieve fiscal savings and reduce government. Despite this, the Mike Harris government dramatically reduced the number of lower-­ tier municipalities in Ontario’s counties, a key recommendation of reports during the county reform era, while placing larger municipal governments along the borders of the province’s separated cities. s u m m a r y : t h e c u r r e n t s tat e o f o n ta r i o ’ s m u n i c i pa l o r g a n i z at i o n

Municipal organization in Ontario has proceeded in several phases. Early organization saw the province separated into administrative districts before being divided further into smaller units that still exist today

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in the form of counties. When a jurisdiction was urbanized within these constructs, its political separation followed an institutional logic that suggested that cities were too important to be entrenched within the narrower politics of county life. They were a different entity that needed a certain amount of institutional freedom in order to provide necessary services to their citizens and grow progressively. Increased suburbanization gradually replaced this institutional logic with the idea that cities needed more control over their hinterland for growth, economic expansion, and regional coordination by developing common political institutions to guide these regions. Each institutional shift was accompanied by a change in the relationship between urban and rural areas. Over time, policy-­makers came to view urban and rural areas as connected – a view that found itself intertwined in the evolution of municipal organization in Ontario. In light of these organizational shifts, city–county separation seemed like an anachronism compared with its institutional counterparts. Several reports submitted to the provincial government during the 1970s and 1980s identified rapid urbanization as a key problem in Ontario’s existing county system. As a result, two key reports – County Government in Ontario and Toward an Ideal County – recommended reintegrating separated cities into their counties. Yet, despite the report committees’ conviction that separated cities should rejoin county life, the government did not take action to force separated cities back into county structures. When restructuring orders came from Queen’s Park in the 1990s, Ontario’s separated cities fell largely outside their purview, with smaller municipalities in the county system bearing the brunt of provincially initiated amalgamation. Once again, the government took little action to force separated cities back into county structures, mainly because the Harris Progressive Conservatives were more interested in eliminating governments altogether and eliminating municipalities than in rebalancing the relationship between urban and rural Ontario. Separated cities currently fall outside the prevailing logic of municipal organization in Ontario: they do not have formal institutional linkages with their hinterland or any formal mechanisms to provide for regional planning and coordination. Similar systems can be found in a number of jurisdictions in North America. In the

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United States,3 Virginia4 is the only state with a formal system of city–county separation, but several cities, such as Baltimore (1851) and St Louis (1876), were separated from their counties. Several other jurisdictions, such as San Francisco (1856), Denver (1902), New Orleans (1813), Philadelphia (1854), Baton Rouge (1949), and Nashville (1962) have become coterminous with their counties (Bain 1967, 34).5 In Canada, most provinces, except Quebec and British Columbia, have urban centres that are separated politically from their surrounding rural areas. Quebec, however, did participate in city–county separation until it introduced provincial legislation in 1979 that abolished the province’s seventy-­ one upper-­ tier rural counties and replaced them with ninety-­ five municipal regional counties that reintegrated previously separated cities (Sancton 2011, 125). All other provinces make a distinction between urban and rural areas, and have created institutional structures that distinguish them both administratively and legally. Although forms of city–county separation exist elsewhere, it is Ontario’s shift to regional government and new organizational thinking that makes this project interesting. Many counties in Ontario, in various states of suburbanization, still have separated cities in Ontario. Although, since the 1950s, the province has largely favoured the use of regional government, there has yet to be a study that assesses how city–county separation affects real-­world policy-­ making. As described in the introduction, the institutional composition of local government continues to affect the everyday lives of residents across the province.

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2 Growth, Development, and Conceptualizations of Urban and Rural

introduction

Early institutional thinking saw urban and rural as distinct. This was a clear byproduct of deeply entrenched cultural understandings of rural and urban. Rural residents believed that cities were dirty and dangerous places and that disease spread much more rapidly in urban centres. Cities were rife with vice and lacked a moral centre, because they were much more detached from the Church. By contrast, urban residents believed that rural areas were backwards, ignorant, and limiting, stifling places without opportunities to learn and grow. These were imported ideas that were certainly not unique to Ontario. The urban–rural divide is long-­standing but provincial authorities saw value in creating an organizational structure for their municipalities that affirmed and entrenched these beliefs. City–county separation was seen as a tool to ensure the long-­term separation between urban and rural. It was believed that without institutional connections both areas would be free to develop on their own terms. Over time, however, provincial attitudes began to see the two as connected and began to emphasize regionalism. Because our cultural understandings of urban and rural and subsequent policy responses to municipal governance are so connected, it is valuable to explore the concepts of “urban” and “rural” to a greater extent, along with the genesis of our understanding of the relationship between the two. How policy-­ makers have viewed

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urban and rural has changed dramatically over time. The evolution of these attitudes has coincided with structural change and centrally administered attempts at managing growth and development. These efforts are also detailed below. w h at i s r u r a l ? w h a t i s u r b a n ?

As described in the introduction, the institution of city–county separation is solidly rooted in perceptions of “urban” and “rural.” That distinction between the city and the county flowed from perceived cultural, sociological, and economic differences between both communities. With these distinctions in mind, we built institutions to entrench this divide. City–county separation, then, can be seen as the dominant manifestation of urban–rural distinctiveness. The guiding logic behind this form of municipal organization states that the absence of institutional connections between urban and rural leads to the maintenance of perceived cultural and sociological differences. From a rural perspective, the type of perceived urban problems described in the introduction – the vice, the crime, the filth, the anonymity – could be contained and prevent urban blight from contaminating idyllic rural areas.1 From an urban perspective, cities would not be bogged down in the more narrowly focused politics of rural life. To early policy-­makers, disconnecting both communities made sense because this distinction was clear, but today our understanding of the relationship between rural and urban is murky.2 The terms “urban” and “rural” are not well defined. We seem to agree that the two matter – we would not have put in place institutions that would politically divide the two if we did not believe that the differences were vast. In fact, geographer Michael Woods describes the distinction between urban and rural as “one of the oldest and most pervasive of geographical binaries” (2011, 3). How we perceive urban and rural has an effect on the types of institutions and policies we put in place to service residents of both areas. To better understand city–county separation then, we need to better understand the relationship between rural and urban. Most people have some general idea of urban and rural and can feel if they are

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in an urban area or a rural area, but the concepts themselves are hard to define. In fact, our common understanding of what urban and rural are stem from their inherent distinctiveness: urban can be understood as areas that are simply not rural and rural as areas that are not urban. In his seminal book The Country and the City, Raymond Williams describes how rural and urban stand distinct from one another: On the country has gathered the idea of a natural way of life: of peace, innocence and simple virtue. On the city has gathered the idea of an achieved centre: of learning, communication, light. Powerful hostile associations have also developed: on the city as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition; on the country as a place of backwardness, ignorance and limitation. A contrast between country and city, as fundamental ways of life, reaches back into classical times. (1973, 1) As Williams describes, the two areas often stand in contrast to each other. Rural areas are traditionally framed as places of peace, tranquillity, and simple virtue, whereas urban areas are often framed as bustling and brash (Woods 2011, 21). The countryside is quiet and peaceful, the city a busy and very much disordered place. As Woods describes, rural society often reflected a particular “moral geography” (2005, 5). Rural areas were associated with values such as harmony, stability, and moderation (Woods 2005). Much of this was due to the close relationship rural inhabitants had with local churches, which played a large role in regulating the social order in these areas. The same sort of moral geography was thought to be absent in urban areas, leading to the pervasive belief that those who lived in rural areas were pure and more straitlaced. The dichotomy between rural and urban was popularized during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century with the rise of industrialization in Europe and North America. Notions of the peaceful countryside and the chaotic city stemmed from discourses of anti-­ urbanism and agrarianism that were used to differentiate between the urban present and the rural past (Woods 2011, 21). Conceptualizations of the rural idyll existed throughout much of our history, but the

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nostalgic understanding of the rural spread and further entrenched the perception of urban–rural difference. Rural and urban was also characterized from this point in terms of economic use. Rural areas became understood as places of economic independence, where inhabitants not only lived from the land, but also commercialized it and commodified their labour and the productive output of their property. Contrast this with urban life, where inhabitants often laboured for someone else, often in industrial settings. As such, there was a very real economic dichotomy to be layered on top of the long-­perceived traditional cultural and value differences. To get a good understanding of urban and rural and how our perceptions of each fed into institutional design, we need to view urban and rural in modern terms, free from the nostalgia of the “rural idyll.” As mentioned above, defining urban and rural can be a challenge, but there are three perspectives on how to identify and delimit urban and rural communities that may be helpful. These approaches can be broadly categorized as descriptive, socio-­cultural, and social construction or postmodern. Descriptive approaches hinge on what can be observed or measured. Most descriptive measurements of rurality or urbanity have focused on core variables, such as employment, population, land use, remoteness, and migration (Halfacree 1993, 23). This descriptive approach evolved from a desire to quantitatively delimit urban and rural. Statistics Canada, for example, has developed a number of indicators for measuring rural and urban, including variables for geographical space or population density (du Plessis et al. 2002). Certainly there is a need for such analysis, especially when taking a macro approach to urban and rural classification. Critics, however, have charged that descriptive measures are limiting and fail to capture the varied sociological and economic dimensions of rural and urban life. In response, socio-­cultural approaches describe urban and rural based upon physical structure, social organization, and sets of attitudes and beliefs. Wirth (1969, 143) focuses on social relations, arguing that we do not need to know population sizes or employment figures to determine urban and rural. Rather, we need to focus on how social relations change based on density. Differences

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in value sets and culture spring from differences in density and settlement; urban and rural produce divergent social outcomes. Focusing on these types of relationships can help us differentiate between urban and rural. Finally, social construction approaches argue that there is no rural or urban to speak of. According to this perspective, each is an analytical distinction that individuals construct for themselves. Proponents of the social construction approach believe that urban and rural should be studied with perception, identity, power, and symbols in mind that view “urbanism” and “ruralism” as modes of life. This approach argues that any distinction between urban and rural has no theoretical value, because they are intrinsically connected (Halfacree 1993, 25). There is a lot of perceived value in seeing both urban and rural as interconnected, a notion that has been particularly prevalent in the Canadian context. Parkins and Reed (2012) explained this unique Canadian connection in detail, arguing that: Scholars point to the unique character of Canadian society, closely linked to natural resource extraction, modes of production, remoteness, rurality and the North … the Canadian rural landscape offers a chance to examine the repeated rise and fall of communities, industries and cultural transitions over decades. Today is no different, with significant attention to numerous interactions among the globalized social and economic forces and the impacts of these forces on the Canadian countryside. (2012, 5) The vastness of the Canadian landscape and the connection between rural Canada and Northern Canada, then, provide a unique cultural setting for understanding the relationship between the urban and rural within our domestic context. Actual economic and social relations have always transgressed the imagined borders between urban and rural areas (Woods 2011, 23). Networks of goods, people, resources, and capital flow between both areas. This is clearly evident in counties with separated cities. The separated city is politically and administratively distinct, but economically and geographically present.

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This connection between urban and rural is most distinct when it comes to urbanization. While those in urban areas have always experienced an immediate economic connection to rural areas in terms of food production, land consumption is an often overlooked connection, but one that is growing in importance. From a land-­use perspective, urbanization is commonly thought of as “the expansion of non-­ agricultural economic activities” and “the permeation of urban cultural practices, attitudes and consumption patterns.” In this thinking, the process of urbanization is often framed in terms of the influence and power of urban areas over rural (Woods 2011, 44). Urbanization has mainly been understood as the orientation of rural production to serve urban markets. For example, agricultural production – the economic output most associated with rural life – has always been targeted toward urban populations. Urbanization is also associated with the permeation of urban cultural practices and values (Cloke 2006). The political and economic hegemony of urban areas is an everyday reality to those living in rural communities. Nowhere is this hegemony seen more than in development. Growth into rural lands can be seen as an extension of this concept of urbanization – the commodification of rural land for the use of the urban. Rural areas are inextricably tied to urban economic and political power and have been for generations. As Barnett (1998) argues, “The countryside is in urban hands already, as it has been since the city generated its trade and capital” (342). The notion that rural areas exist to service urban areas is a pervasive one, especially in urban areas, but even in rural areas as well. Related to urbanization is the lesser-­known concept of counterurbanization, the movement of people from urban areas to rural areas. The explanations for counterurbanization are varied. The first relates back to the rural idyll – that the solace of rural life can be appealing for those living in urban areas, motivating them to move. In fact, some opinion polling has found that most of the urban population in countries such as the UK and Canada would live in rural areas if they were able (Bollman and Biggs 1992; Woods 2005). The second is economic. The urban to rural shift of some manufacturing and service sector jobs under economic restructuring has meant that rural regions may have greater employment opportunities (Woods

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2005). This flow of urban residents to rural areas, however, pales in comparison to rural residents who have migrated from rural to urban areas over the course of the past century. Many hoping to find their way back to rural areas have instead found their way to peri-­ urban communities on the edge of urban areas, not necessarily in rural areas themselves. More recent polling has found that younger generations, particularly millennials, much prefer life in cities than in rural areas (Flint 2014). In contrast to our perception of the urbanization of rural life is the ruralization of urban life. This process is understood in several ways. First is the migration from rural areas to urban, at which time rural migrants would bring their cultural and social beliefs to the city (Woods 2011, 44). Second is the significant incorporation of rural landscapes into urban areas. The creation of parks and inner-­city “villages” have always been attempts to “bring the country to the metropolis” (Jones and Willis 2005). A newer phenomenon is the creation of urban agriculture and a desire on the part of urban inhabitants to grow their own food, usually in the form of small vegetable gardens (Lynch 2005). Due to this dual influence, many argue that there is a convergence between urban and rural areas, creating hybrid and peri-­urban communities (Woods 2011). Under this conceptualization, the urban influences the rural and the rural influences the urban. This relationship, then, can be seen as somewhat symbiotic, where urban and rural co-­exist and influence one another but do not necessarily benefit each other. Despite this convergence, urbanization within rural areas is routinely framed negatively. Rural communities are portrayed as victims, subject to the whims of stronger urban areas. Following political economy and Marxist approaches to studying urban and rural areas, rural inhabitants are framed as powerless, as capital is seen as fueling urban expansion. It is often believed that nothing can stop this inevitable process as farmland is slowly converted into urban housing and commercial outlets. How accurate are these impressions? Many authors do agree that rural areas are changing because of their relationship with urban areas, but argue that rural communities are more resilient in the face of these changes than is commonly

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believed (Salamon 2003a; 2003b; Pratt 1996). Rural inhabitants are not always victims in the process of urbanization. In fact, many can be accepting of the process and have helped shape it. Rural leaders can accept growth as a method of rural sustainability and maintaining control over the type of development that occurs, ensuring that it is consistent with community standards. Few authors have articulated this resilience better than Renato Miguel do Carmo. In an article entitled “Suburbanism as a Way of Staying Alive,” Miguel do Carmo found that rural residents have changed their views toward urbanization, with many viewing it as an opportunity to reverse declining population (2012, 90). In many areas growth is no longer viewed negatively, but rather as an opportunity for community rejuvenation. This could explain why many rural areas around separated cities are seeking to expand and increase their population, by maintaining rural social networks, culture, and values. Recent research has implored us to see urban and rural as connected. Although there is a two-­way symbiotic influence, the influence of urban areas on rural ones is most noticeable, largely through vast land-­use changes in rural communities. Rural areas are not, as mentioned earlier, passive victims. In fact, we can see a process of rural areas shaping this urbanization process on their own terms, reimagining our conceptualizations of urban and rural land-­ use planning. They are shaping their own communities and directing the forces of urbanization in their communities. g r o w t h , d e v e lo p m e n t , a n d

“sprawl”

The patterns of migration from rural to urban and, eventually, peri-­ urban, has resulted in significant challenges for policy-­makers. This migration and the creation of these hybrid areas play a central part in this study as we examine the shift in attitudes toward urban and rural and subsequent policy responses. It is thus useful to better understand the forces drawing people from urban areas to rural and vice versa. Provincial and municipal governments have tended to favour a compact settlement design. In theory, city–county separation should promote this idea by firmly separating urban areas from

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rural, which would promote density. As we will see, this is not necessarily the case. The province has not relied solely on formal institutions to contain growth, however. Below, we will look at some of the different provincial efforts to direct urban development. Urban growth into rural areas is generally conceptualized in economic terms. This growth has an exchange value attached to it, creating motivation for both public and private interests. Private developers have contributed to outward, low-­ density growth by choosing to invest in relatively inexpensive suburban and rural development instead of urban redevelopment projects (Filion 2003, 58). Municipal governments have allowed expansion to benefit from the additional investment and tax revenues that follow this type of growth (Eidelman 2010). This confluence of public and private interests in development has been described as a “growth machine.” Defined by Logan and Molotch (1987) as a pro-­growth group of local interests, a “growth machine” brings together a coalition of politicians and public officials, developers, investment bankers, and realtors intent on maximizing the value of property. Motivated by the desire to generate positive returns on high property values, this coalition comes to influence local planning processes either by holding key local positions themselves or through lobbying municipal officials. Overall, the individuals who make up this coalition work to normalize a growth ethic in local development (Leo and Anderson 2006, 169). Sustainability, then, becomes a secondary concern in local planning and expansion and growth are given a prominent place in municipal decision-­making. Generally termed “sprawl,” these patterns of growth are characterized by unlimited outward expansion, low-­density housing and commercial development, leap-­frog development, fragmentation of land-­use planning among multiple jurisdictions, reliance on private automobiles for transportation, large financial disparities among municipalities, segregation of the types of land use, race-­and class-­based exclusionary housing and employment, congestion, and a declining sense of community among area residents (Squires 2002, 2). Development resulting from sprawl has thus been heavily criticized as unaesthetic and economically, socially, and environmentally costly.

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The most common problem associated with sprawl is sustainability. Environmental sustainability is a large concern for policy-­makers. Low-­density development – and its car-­dependent culture – increases air pollution and a range of associated diseases, such as asthma and heart problems. This type of development also increases energy use, despoils forests, and increases pollution in rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water (Squires 2002, 11). Fiscal sustainability is also put at risk by low-­density development. Sprawl often requires large infrastructure investments for roads, sewer systems, schools, and other public services (12). In contrast, urban infrastructure usually decays without any reinvestment. As such, there is a very real concern that sprawl necessitates the most expensive infrastructure investment and brings the least amount of benefits. This unsustainable growth creates a governance challenge. The fragmentation in land-­use planning is of greatest concern for central governments. Growth and sprawl does not stop at borders. This, coupled with the persistence of rural communities to urbanize on their own terms – as described above – has created a situation where local governments have been unable to control growth without the help of regional and provincial intervention. There have been some provincial attempts in the past to control growth. The creation of Metropolitan Toronto and the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board in 1954 was an attempt to provide more coordination for regional planning and servicing efforts (Frisken 2007). In 1968, the Robarts government called for the creation of a “parkway belt” to preserve a clear division between urban and rural areas in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). In 1973, the Davis government announced plans for a greenbelt to protect the Niagara Escarpment and surrounding areas (Eidelman 2010, 1218). Eidelman (2010) explains how both of these initiatives failed to have a function that would formally contain growth and were ultimately abandoned. By the 1980s, sprawl within the GTA had worsened and successive provincial governments decided they had little choice but to act. The Peterson government indicated it would take measures to reduce sprawl and increase density, but its defeat at the hands of Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party put an end to those plans (Eidelman 2010, 1218). Rae’s government had its own plans, however. It declared the

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Oak Ridges Moraine an area of provincial interest for further study, and reformed the Planning Act, which affirmed the province’s authority to intervene in municipal planning (White 2007, 37). Once elected in 1995, the Harris government reversed many of these changes (Eidelman 2010, 1218). During its second term, however, it began to seriously examine the prospects of protecting sensitive lands from development. Eidelman (2010) argues that the Oak Ridges Moraine conflict between developers and environmentalists signalled a key shift in policy direction for the Harris government. The Moraine, a 1,900 kilometre tract of land north and east of Toronto, serves many ecological functions for the region, including supplying and filtering ground water and river flows into Lake Ontario (1219). Its preservation was thus identified as an environmental priority for the province. The provincial government introduced the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan in 2002 as a way of protecting this ecologically sensitive area from development. Along similar lines, the Harris government also appointed a Smart Growth Secretariat and a series of growth panels to explore the province’s growth problems (1219). By this point, the provincial Progressive Conservative government had begun to embrace “smart growth” principles. Smart growth emerged in the 1990s and initially served as a response to the “no growth” environmental movement, which sought to completely halt development outside urban boundaries. In contrast, smart growth sought to lessen the adverse effects of ill-­conceived suburban development, calling for more metropolitan or regional planning to make more efficient use of existing resources and provide a more equitable distribution of the costs and benefits of uneven development (Squires 2002, 15). The goal was to better manage growth, not stop it. Squires (2002, 15) tells us that the smart growth approach has eight core objectives: 1 reusing existing land and infrastructure resources more effectively; 2 restricting development in outlying suburban and exurban areas; 3 developing a range of transportation modes and relying less on the automobile; 4 concentrating residential and commercial development in central locations and along the lines of mass transit arteries;

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5 creating area-­wide revenue sharing and regional investment pools; 6 providing more affordable housing construction and distributing such housing throughout metropolitan areas; 7 enforcing fair housing laws more vigorously; and 8 increasing public and private investment in central cities to achieve more balanced development throughout the region. The province’s next initiatives, Places to Grow and the Greenbelt, were solidly rooted in smart-­ growth principles. Although the Progressive Conservative government laid the foundation for the implementation of smart-­growth principles, it failed to win a third term in 2003. The newly elected Liberals, however, were quick to pick up the smart-­growth mantle. In June 2005, the province introduced the Ontario Places to Grow Act, which mandated the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure to prepare regional growth plans that would establish specific density targets and planning priorities to promote compact sustainable communities (Eidelman 2010, 1212). The report argued that the region was experiencing massive growth rates that would continue well into the future. While acknowledging that this growth did bring benefits, such as increased economic activity, the report stated that there were a number of negative consequences as well: “Without properly managing growth, communities will continue to experience the negative aspects of rapid growth, such as increased traffic congestion, deteriorating air and water quality and the disappearance of agricultural lands and natural resources” (Ontario 2012, 6). Under the plan, 40 per cent of all residential development would be required to take place within existing urban areas. Another phase of the province’s adoption of smart-­growth principles was the Greenbelt Act, which established a 728-thousand-­ hectare protection area around the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the largest protected area in the world (Eidelman 2010, 1214). c o n c lu s i o n

The practice of city–county separation is rooted in our understanding of “urban” and “rural.” The two were seen as having different

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values, cultures, and economies. Although from a policy perspective both have been connected with the creation of regional government in the 1960s and 1970s, there is evident that these two concepts are still important to provincial and local policy-­ makers. Rural and urban are still seen as separate institutions. For example, the provincial government has very detailed and tightly regulated land-­use policies – namely Places to Grow – that draw strict boundaries between urban and rural in the hopes of preserving what is rural. As far as this current government is concerned, rural areas need special attention. Traditional conceptualizations of rural areas have perpetuated the belief that these are idyllic areas populated by simple, hardworking people, free from the vice and anonymity of urban life. These sorts of concepts led to an institutional separation of urban and rural areas that persisted for over a century. When growth and development began to blur the once clear lines between urban and rural areas, the provincial government designed institutions that connected urban and rural with the overall goal of better linking both areas. The objective was to provide common institutions to better account for overflow growth and to better address regional policy priorities, such as transportation. Despite the creation of these regional governments, to this day eighteen cities and towns are still separated from their counties. Growth and development in many of these areas has not abated, leaving many unable to plan on a regional scale. As demonstrated above, we have also seen a convergence of urban and rural values. Urbanization is no longer seen as a symptom of the victimization of rural areas. We have seen an urbanization of rural areas in conjunction with a ruralization of urban life. The convergence of these values has established a new strategy on the part of some rural leaders: urbanization on rural terms. Many once-­rural areas adopt growth instead of rejecting it. The shift in this mentality has put the institution of city–county separation in doubt. In the following three chapters we will examine the process of growth and adaption in three Ontario counties: Middlesex, Simcoe, and Wellington.

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3 London and Middlesex County

introduction

London, Ontario, located in the heart of southwestern Ontario, currently finds itself embroiled in a debate about regional growth with its rural neighbours. As the region’s largest city, London has always experienced steady growth and inward migration. Its rural neighbours have traditionally been content to see London grow, as long as this growth did not encroach upon their land or negatively affect their rural lifestyle. In this vein, they have very much adhered to the original logic behind city–county separation, whereby the county remained rural and the separated city remained urban. The past decade has seen this once clear distinction dissolve in the London-­Middlesex County area. London’s neighbouring community, Middlesex Centre, has actively pursued growth in the past several years. Throughout the process, Middlesex Centre officials have been quite frank about their ambitions: they are trying to persuade younger London families already situated in the city to move outward to the county and enjoy larger housing lots, lower taxes, and be closer to urban amenities. This chapter demonstrates that this mentality toward growth is the antithesis of the logic behind city– county separation and is putting the viability of the institution in the London area into doubt. r e s t r u c t u r i n g i n lo n d o n a n d m i d d l e s e x c o u n t y

London was separated from the County of Middlesex in 1855 (History 1972, 70). London’s separation had been anticipated for

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some time, as the city grew continuously through the 1840s and 1850s. The improvement of roads between London and its hinterland during the 1840s was a major factor in the city’s population growth – from 1,716 in June 1840 to 4,584 by 1848. The arrival of the railroad caused London’s population to top 10,000 in 1854 at which time it petitioned for city status and separation from the county (Brock 1990, 23). London grew slowly through a number of annexations early in its history. Following the founding of London, the city underwent fifteen major boundary changes. Its first boundary change was the annexation of the town of London East in 1885 (Worral 1980, 11). This first boundary change, much like London’s latest rounds of annexation, was intended to control growth outside the city. London East had been incorporated as a village in 1874, with a population of approximately 2,500 residents, but by 1880 it had grown to 3,651 inhabitants (15), mainly as the result of its petroleum industry. London began to covet this industrial growth in 1872, but an incorporation push to protect the area from annexation by the petroleum companies, who were hoping to avoid the city’s regulation and taxation regime, was successful (Cobban 2008, 56). After a fire in 1884 showed that London East was woefully unprepared for emergencies and unable to provide the servicing levels residents required, London was finally able to acquire the municipality, with the concession that it would not attempt to heavily regulate the petroleum industry (61). Five years later, the city further annexed 406 hectares of land south of the Thames River and, in 1897, London annexed the village of London West (Petersville) as well as a portion of land on its western boundary (Worral 1980, 23). In 1912, London annexed 2,200 hectares of land in the Ealing district, Pottersburg, Knollwood Park, and Chelsea Green (39). In 1950, the city further absorbed 49 hectares of land to provide housing for an influx of returning soldiers from the Second World War and, in 1954, it further annexed land to the south by taking the Chelsea Heights area into its borders (40). London’s motivation in each of these annexations was to provide land for a growing population within the city and contain growth outside of the city. Many of these later annexations provided the city

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with more industrial land along major railway routes. However, two large-­ scale amalgamations in the 1960s and the 1990s greatly expanded London’s boundaries. In the 1960s, London again looked to expand and passed a bylaw that called for annexing 24,000 hectares of land from four neighbouring townships (Sancton 1998, 164). Most of this land came from the Westminster area, from which London had previously annexed smaller portions of land in 1958 (61 hectares) and 1959 (71 hectares) (Worral 1980, 45). The bylaw that the city passed was referred to the Ontario Municipal Board, which created a three-­ member panel to examine the matter, eventually reaching a decision in May 1960 that allowed London to annex 12,200 hectares, all from the townships of London and Westminster (Sancton 1998, 164). Once again, the motivation for such a large annexation of land was growth pressures. While addressing the need for annexation, the London Free Press argued that “the annexation is required if London is to expand residentially and industrially … the city can prove quite easily that it is full to the brim and indeed that it is spilling over into surrounding territory” (Worral 1980, 47). This round of annexation was not only important in that it greatly expanded the city’s territory (which was previously only 3,140 hectares), but, as Andrew Sancton argues, was also a primary reason that London was not converted into a regional government in the late 1960s and early 1970s (1998, 163). In 1979, London again saw the need to expand due to growth pressures. Very little, however, was done to expand the city’s borders and meet these needs until 1988. Citing a lack of available industrial land, the city informed the province that it wanted to annex 4,339 hectares of land from the Township of London and 2,792 hectares from Westminster (Sancton 1998, 166). In January 1988, the city formally approved an annexation bylaw, but the extent of the land under question was not disclosed (167). In a statement to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, City of London officials argued that rapid growth was occurring in Westminster and London Township. City officials noted that Westminster had “aggressively” moved to develop Lambeth and its surrounding area to

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accommodate 7,000 to 8,500 more residents over ten to fifteen years. The same activity was occurring north of the city in London Township, but this growth was constrained by a lack of water supply and sewage disposal. London officials also noted their concern about development in West Nissouri and North Dorchester Townships, primarily south of the London airport (City of London 1988, 2–3). In 1989, the province appointed a “fact finder” to investigate the proposed annexation. Reporting back in April 1990, the report recommended that a negotiating team be struck that would include representatives from the City of London, Westminster, the Township of London, West Nissouri, North Dorchester, Delaware, and the County of Middlesex. It was also recommended that this group be guided by the provincial report, Toward an Ideal County (Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing 1990, 80). Although the recommendations of the “fact finding” report were fairly straightforward, a number of interesting conclusions were reached. Chief among them was that Westminster would have no additional debt capacity for future projects after the construction of sanitary sewer piping and the finding that “an annexation of the Town of Westminster and the township of London would threaten the viability of the County of Middlesex (Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing 1990, iii). Unsurprisingly, residents of the area slated for amalgamation were outraged and argued that the annexation was not needed because London had inflated its growth projections and that the boundary change would harm local agricultural production (McCool 1992). Residents in the more rural areas of the county were not receptive to London’s plans. Most believed that London would continuously grow and expand and eventually consume large tracts of agricultural land in Middlesex County. After a lengthy negotiation and arbitration process, the City of London finally acquired portions of land from the Town of Westminster and the Townships of Delaware, London, West Nissouri, and North Dorchester, thanks to the London-­Middlesex Act, which came into effect on 1 January 1993. The Town of Westminster was dissolved, with most of its territory going to the

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City of London, and the remaining portions transferred to the Townships of Delaware and North Dorchester. Portions of the Township of London were to be annexed to the Township of West Nissouri. The Village of Belmont received portions of both North Dorchester and the Town of Westminster (Ontario 1992, 1). Middlesex County also went through various rounds of restructuring in the 1990s. After the election of the Progressive Conservatives in 1995, the provincial government began encouraging municipalities to amalgamate through the Savings and Restructuring Act. Some municipalities believed that amalgamation was inevitable after the amalgamation of Metropolitan Toronto in 1996 and the City of Chatham with Kent County and began exploring options for restructuring in 1997 (Sancton 2000). Much of this restructuring took place in Ontario’s rural areas (Williams and Downey, 1999). Middlesex was not immune to these changes: its twenty-­two municipalities were reduced to eight. A summary of these changes is provided in table 3.1. Despite holding out hope that they would not need to amalgamate, the county informed its lower-­tier municipalities that they would have to create consolidation plans. Otherwise, they were told, the province would forcibly amalgamate them (personal interview – 17 February 2012). The experience of Chatham-­Kent was a fear of municipal officials, who wanted to find appropriate consolidation partners with similar populations and economies (personal interview – 17 February 2012). The county put together a number of different proposals, trying to configure new municipalities that varied greatly in size. One proposal saw the county’s lower-­tier municipalities divided into four larger municipalities that would each border the City of London and extend into the more rural areas of the county. This proposal was intended to provide each area with “room to grow” along the edges of the city (personal interview – 17 February 2012). Despite the possibility of growth along its borders, London did not object to this plan. Some speculated that this had to do with London’s size – it was so much larger than the county that it had no reason to care about the configuration of the municipalities along its border (personal

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Table 3.1  Summary of late 1990s restructuring in Middlesex County New municipal name

Type of restructuring

Lobo Township, London Township and Delaware Township

Middlesex Centre

Amalgamation 1 January 1998

Village of Lucan and Biddulph Township

Lucan Biddulph

Amalgamation 1 January 1999

Town of Strathroy, Township of Caradoc

Township of Amalgamation 1 January 2001 Strathroy-­Caradoc

Municipalities

Date

Township of McGillivray, Township North Middlesex of East Williams, Township of West Williams, Town of Parkhill, Village of Ailsa Craig

Amalgamation 1 January 2001

Township of Adelaide, Township of Metcalfe

Township of Adelaide Metcalfe

Amalgamation 1 January 2001

Township of North Dorchester, Township of West Nissouri

Municipality of Thames Centre

Amalgamation 1 January 2001

Township of Ekfrid, Township Municipality of of Mosa, Village of Glencoe, Village Southwest of Wardsville Middlesex

Amalgamation 1 January 2001

interview – 17 February 2012). Another proposal called for the conversion of the county into a single-­ tier municipality that would include London (personal interview – 17 February 2012). Although the county did provide some initial direction to the restructuring plan, it withdrew as an active driver in the process when it became clear that the lower tiers were coming to their own solutions. County officials did, however, encourage the lower tiers to explore options within the county’s existing borders, discouraging them from looking for amalgamation partners outside of Middlesex (personal interview – 17 February 2012). The new municipal boundaries followed existing lines of cooperation. Municipalities first looked at the jurisdictions that they were sharing services with as potential consolidation partners (personal interview – 17 February 2012). These areas had long histories of cooperation and positive relationships at both the political and the staff level, making it much easier to envision them as one municipality.

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These amalgamations created larger governments on London’s borders – ensuring that future amalgamations would be more challenging – and reduced the number of representatives on Middlesex County Council. For the most part, however, London continued to have the dominant share of the area’s population – nearly 84 per cent of the population within the boundaries of Middlesex County live in London, setting up a disparity between the city and the county. While London has been quite adept at ensuring that population growth within the region falls within its boundaries, more recent growth has sprung up just outside of the city’s borders, in Middlesex Centre. The City of London is situated at the centre of the county, surrounded by the municipalities of Thames Centre and Middlesex Centre on its borders. London also borders Elgin County to its south.1 emerging issues and growth pressure

Despite the City of London’s past annexations of developing territory along its border, growth in the county has continued. Much of this growth has occurred in the area north of London, in the community of Arva, which is part of Middlesex Centre. In February of 2011, London City Council received a plan calling for London to expand Arva’s access to the city’s sewer system in order to facilitate its growth (Middlesex Centre 2011). In the 1990s, Middlesex Centre first approached London asking for access to the city’s sewage treatment plant, in part because the sewage in Arva was polluting nearby Medway Creek (Sher 2011). Even though the agreement was intended to avoid environmental contamination, the City of London was concerned about potential growth in Arva. A 2000 amendment to the original agreement limited the amount of residential and commercial development that could be brought onto the sewer system. Specifically, the amendment mandated that only ten new residential units per year could have access to the system. Commercial access was restricted to 1,000 square metres of new commercial floor space in any given year, without exceeding 4,500 square metres over a ten-­year period (City of London and Middlesex Centre 2000).

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A former London mayor explains that these housing limits were intended to control growth (personal interview – 8 March 2012). London’s interest in extending servicing to Arva was limited to its desire to help solve an environmental problem with Medway Creek (personal interview – 8 March 2012). If the environmental concern did not exist, it is very possible that the agreement would not exist. The former mayor of London states that the city wanted to reverse any environmental harm, but was unwilling to allow Middlesex Centre to benefit from any growth at London’s expense (personal interview – 8 March 2012). London was willing to help to an extent, but remained wary about future growth along its border. After responding to these early environmental concerns, the community no longer had enough capacity for future development. Middlesex Centre contended that this new proposal would facilitate growth, with Mayor Al Edmondson predicting that expanded access to London’s sewer system could allow the area to grow from 550 to 1,547 residents during the next two decades (Maloney, 2011[a]). The idea of such rapid growth near London’s borders resulted in mixed opinions on city council. Councillor Joni Baechler became the most ardent opponent of the plan, arguing that the proposal was “astonishing.” Citing an estimated $45 million in assessment losses if the plan was approved, Baechler argued that, “from my perspective, being good neighbours to the tune of $45 million doesn’t make sense to me” (Maloney, 2011[a]). Baechler found allies in the opposition to Arva’s proposal. Jim Kennedy of the London Development Institute argued that Arva’s development is “in direct competition with lots in the city” and that “London should look after London’s growth” (Sher 2011). Offering an opposing view, Councillor Joe Swan described the deal as “innovative,” arguing that Arva would get sewage extension from somewhere and that by expanding service from London, the city would receive a portion of the community’s expanded tax base (Maloney 2011[a]). Doug Weldon, a prominent developer who wanted to build 122 single-­family homes and 66 townhomes in the expanding Arva area, supported Swan. Weldon viewed the opposition to Arva’s proposal as short-­sighted, arguing that annexation was inevitable and that, “in the fullness of time, Arva will become a

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north end village in London” (Sher 2011). In the end, Swan and Weldon’s position lost out, with council voting against expanding sewer service to Arva.2 Edmondson expressed his disappointment with the decision, suggesting that the community would find ways to achieve future growth, with or without London’s cooperation (Maloney and Van Brenk 2011). The councillors who supported the motion believed that Middlesex Centre had just as much of a right to grow as the City of London and just as much of a right to an assessment base. Not expanding servicing to Arva would severely impede this right. More important, this group of councillors believed that it was important to be a good neighbour and allow Arva expanded access to servicing. Not following through with their request, they believed, sent the wrong signal to Middlesex Centre and the county, namely that city officials were self-­interested and unconcerned about the county’s prosperity. One councillor who voted against the motion to expand servicing argued that, “people would pay less tax in this area because they don’t have all of the amenities that we have and in turn we would continue to see tax increases in the decline in assessment growth and it would go to Middlesex Centre” (personal interview – 5 March 2012). For councillors opposed to the expansion, the decision was financial – they wanted any new residential development to occur within the city’s boundaries, rather than on its exterior where new homebuyers could benefit from lower tax rates and still use city amenities. Councillors from Middlesex Centre contend that Arva will get expanded servicing at some point (personal interview – 7 March 2012). Nevertheless, they remain unclear about where such servicing will come from. Some councillors speculate that developers will eventually fund the infrastructure necessary to expand sewer and waste water servicing into the Arva area, with some discussion about a developer building a sewage plant within the community already occurring. They admit that this step would give London officials some concern if it came to fruition since this would inevitably increase the size of the community, realizing the fears of London municipal councillors. Middlesex Centre politicians indicate that they do plan to approach London City Council again at some point in the future to ask them to reverse their decision (personal interview – 7 March 2012).

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Some London councillors believe that if Arva gets too large, annexation is a viable option to protect the city’s assessment base. According to a councillor present during the 29 August 2011 council meeting that discussed the expansion of servicing to Arva, some councillors brought up the issue of annexation.3 One councillor noted that “The table is completely set for that annexation discussion,” noting that the city will begin a discussion about bringing Arva into the city’s borders if it grows past a certain level (personal interview – 13 March 2012).4 This discussion about annexing Arva is not new. In fact, the issue was previously addressed at a 28 February 2011 city council meeting. Before the meeting, Councillor Sandy White, in an interview with the London Free Press, discussed the possibility of annexing Arva, arguing that, “We need to talk about this … people are concerned that we (would be) giving away our assessment base – so let’s look at annexation” (Maloney 2011[b]).5 London city councillors continue to discuss the issue of Arva’s annexation, with many expressing their belief that the expansion of the city boundaries northwards is inevitable. In the wake of London’s decision not to expand servicing to Arva, Middlesex Centre revised its official growth plan in 2011. This plan projected 20 per cent growth in Ilderton, just north of London, and in Komoka-­Kilworth, which lies on the city’s western edge. London is south of the municipality, the growing communities of Arva and Ilderton are along its northern border, and Komoka and Kilworth are to the city’s west. Middlesex Centre’s original official plan, published in 2010, classified Ilderton and Komoka-­Kilworth as “urban settlement areas” and designated Arva and Delaware “community settlement areas” (Middlesex Centre 2010, 28). In addition, the plan designated seven other communities – Ballymote, Birr, Bryanstone, Denfield, Lobo, Melrose and Poplar Hill and Coldstream – as hamlets. As the official plan explained, only Ilderton, Komoka-­Kilworth, and Arva are serviced with municipal water and sewage (28). Furthermore, the official plan noted that only the urban settlement areas – Ilderton and Komoka-­Kilworth – either provide or have the potential to provide

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full municipal services. Because of their ability to provide full servicing, the plan argues that growth would primarily come from these areas: “All new proposed development shall be fully serviced by municipal water and sewage disposal systems … urban settlement areas are expected to have the highest concentration and intensity of land uses, and will be the focus for future growth by accommodating a significant portion of expected growth” (29). Despite Arva’s only partial access to the sewer and water services through previous contracting with London, the official plan did not designate the community an “urban settlement area.” A Middlesex Centre politician explained that this was deliberate: “We would like to keep Arva the size it is … we want to make it a special place and keep it a quaint village” (personal interview – 15 February 2012). Middlesex Centre officials have consistently expressed this opinion and solidified it in their official plan, which is why they were baffled by the debate about growth that ensued on London City Council. Councillors on both sides of the debate – both those in favour of expanding servicing, such as Joe Swan, and those against expanding servicing, such as Joni Baechler – worked from the assumption that Middlesex Centre intended Arva to grow. Thus, despite Middlesex Centre’s contention that it wanted Arva to remain smaller than other municipal communities, London politicians expressed their belief that this was untenable. One councillor who voted against the motion to extend servicing noted that “There was no question in my mind that Arva would grow very fast because who wouldn’t want to live on the doorstep of the City of London and pay taxes to someone else at a lower rate and have the full amenities that the city offers?” (personal interview – 5 March 2012). A Middlesex Centre politician places the blame for this attitude on developers: “They don’t want 125 houses, they would like to see a whole lot more than this … they’d like to see development along the whole north end” (personal interview – 15 February 2012). County officials did not object to London’s decision, believing that London had every right to decide what to do with its resources and infrastructure. Further, they noted that Middlesex Centre did not raise the issue with county staff or politicians or ask them to intervene

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in the matter to persuade London to reverse its decision. Middlesex County’s CA O and warden indicated that even if they were asked to intervene on Middlesex Centre’s behalf, they would not, stating that it is a purely local matter between London and Middlesex Centre and not the responsibility of the county (personal interview – 2 March 2012). Although the issue itself was not formally brought up during county council meetings, councillors discussed the issue among themselves before and after meetings, provoking one county councillor to note that the other councillors did not fully understand the situation (personal interview – 8 March 2012). In October of 2011, Middlesex Centre planners released an amendment (No. 28) to the municipality’s official plan that dealt solely with the Ilderton and Komoka-­Kilworth areas. The amendment essentially enlarged the urban settlement areas of Ilderton and Komoka-­Kilworth and removed land from the settlement area boundaries in the communities of Arva, Birr, Poplar Hill and Coldstream, Denfield, and Melrose (Middlesex Centre 2011, 5). Areas in northern Arva, previously designated as residential, were converted back into an agricultural designation. At the same time, the plan added new employment and residential lands to the settlement areas in Ilderton and Komoka-­ Kilworth (7). The amendment states that this change in focus resulted from the failure to gain adequate levels of servicing necessary from the City of London (Middlesex Centre 2011, 6). Instead, the amendment calls for the expansion of the Ilderton and Komoka wastewater treatment facilities, the latter of which would extend servicing to the Delaware area. The amended plan also calls for the expansion of Ilderton to “accommodate both planned and future development”; however, the plan is unclear as to whether this growth is planned solely in Ilderton or would eventually be extended to Arva, an area close to Ilderton (Middlesex Centre 2011, 7). In the London Free Press, Edmondson described this shift in focus from Arva to Komoka-­Kilworth and Ilderton as logical, considering that Arva did not have adequate access to sewage services for future development (Van Brenk 2011). This growth projection caused London some concern, as city politicians requested that the town explain how it expected such a rapid rate of development in comparison to London (Van Brenk 2011). A

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staff report presented to council raised concerns about the revised growth estimates in Ilderton and Komoka-­Kilworth and how they might affect London’s assessment growth, concluding that: Planning Staff support the intent of this policy to direct urban growth to areas where full municipal services are to be provided, however, the extent of new urban growth contemplated for both Komoka-­Kilworth will result in significant opportunities for new residential development close to the City’s boundaries. While the Official Plan Review also identifies new lands for employment purposes, it is anticipated that many of the future employment opportunities for residents of the Municipality will be in London. This will continue to put pressure on the City’s transportation system, as well as potential pressure on the “soft services” such as libraries and community recreation facilities in London that may be used by residents of these areas outside the City … These concerns warrant further discussion between City and Municipality Staff. (City of London, 2011) Following this staff recommendation, city council voted almost unanimously to send Middlesex Centre a letter requesting clarification about the growth estimates.6 This letter, dated 30 August 2011, and addressed to Middlesex Centre CAO Michelle Smibert, was simply a copy of a resolution passed at council during its 29 and 30 August sessions. Middlesex Centre politicians, predictably, received this request negatively, including Councillor Frank Berze, who noted in the London Free Press, “If I showed up in the city of London and told them what to do, they would tell me where to go and how to get there” (Van Brenk 2011). The letter states that London had concerns about the revised growth projections in both Komoka-­Kilworth and Ilderton areas, although it does not state why.7 County staff interviewed for this project agree that the letter did not clearly state London’s motivations for questioning the city’s growth projections (personal interview – 2 March 2012). Although the letter requests council to direct its planning staff to meet with Middlesex Centre’s planning staff, it did not formally request the town to establish a meeting time or place. The

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letter ends by stating that London intends to advise the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing about the city’s concerns. London planning staff had previously spoken at a public meeting held by Middlesex Centre as part of the public consultation phase of the town’s new official plan. At the meeting, John Fleming, London’s director of planning, stated that the city had concerns about Middlesex Centre’s projections for growth. Middlesex Centre politicians requested that Mr Fleming thank London City Council for its concern and relay that Middlesex Centre had its own planning staff whose judgment they trusted. Further, since London has no jurisdiction in their municipality, Middlesex Centre councillors asked Mr Fleming to remind London City Council that they did not owe them an explanation of their growth projections (personal interview – 8 March 2012). London councillors interviewed for this project indicated that the growth in Komoka-­Kilworth was more worrisome from the city’s perspective than the growth in Ilderton. They attributed this to the proximity of Komoka-­Kilworth and their fear that residents working in the city might migrate to this area believing that they remained close enough to the city to continue using city services and facilities. One county councillor noted that the issue was not discussed at any county council meetings, saying that it was primarily the senior county staff and warden who handled this issue. County staff noted their concern about the letter; while the county did not have a problem with London’s decision not to expand servicing to Arva, they felt that London’s letter was unnecessarily antagonistic. Believing the letter to be “offside,” county staff noted that they would try to establish a meeting with city planners to explain their position (personal interview – 2 March 2012). Although the county would like to hold a meeting with London and Middlesex Centre officials to discuss the issue, they are waiting until London’s new CAO is in place.8 Middlesex Centre politicians agree, with one official commenting that London, “overstepped their boundaries” by sending the letter (personal interview – 15 February 2012). They continued, however, saying that “We can’t get too upset about it, but we’re still going to  go ahead” (personal interview – 15 February 2012). Another Middlesex Centre official described London’s stance as “myopic”

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and stated that council was “taken aback” by London’s position (personal interview – 5 March 2012). London’s letter seems to have genuinely surprised Middlesex Centre staff and politicians, especially considering that London traditionally has little contact with the municipality. The London Free Press attempted to draw parallels to the growth in Middlesex Centre with the growth of Lambeth and Glanworth – then called “parasitic” by London politicians – before the 1993 annexation. Middlesex Centre mayor Edmondson, however, rebuffed these suggestions, arguing that both jurisdictions had a good working relationship and that growth in Middlesex Centre was beneficial to London. “I don’t see the problem,” commented Edmondson in the London Free Press (Van Brenk 2011). Although Middlesex Centre politicians seem unconcerned about the possibility of annexation, other politicians throughout the county believe that Middlesex Centre may be unintentionally inviting London to expand its boundaries into their territory. Those who have been involved in county politics for many decades see a number of parallels between the growth in Komoka-­Kilworth and Arva and the growth in Byron that prompted London to expand its borders in the 1960s (personal interview – 16 March 2012). These politicians suggest that if the area comes under review, the province will inevitably determine that urban areas should be under London’s purview, an argument consistent with the original aims of city–county separation. One county politician noted that, “If you keep expanding the urban area around London it’s just going to naturally lead to an attempt by the city to move its boundary out” (personal interview – 16 March 2012). Middlesex County politicians tend to believe that while annexation may not be imminent, it is certainly inevitable if areas such as Arva and Komoka-­Kilworth continue to expand. Thus far, Middlesex County politicians have discussed annexation only informally. The issue has not been raised in county council nor do county staff seem concerned about the possibility of London expanding its boundaries into county territory. Informally, however, Middlesex Centre officials have been receiving some advice from some Middlesex County

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politicians. One county politician notes that “It would be wise for them to put the brakes on their urban development, but it’s probably too late to do that now” (personal interview – 16 March 2012). A second Middlesex Centre official similarly expressed the belief that London does not want to see growth along its borders, adding that, “I think they’ve kind of sat up and taken notice of our growth strategies … I think they’re kind of looking over the fence now and saying ‘Oh oh, what’s going on over there?’” (personal interview – 21 February 2012). Another official suggests that the municipality’s lower property tax rates are attractive to younger families hoping to receive a break from higher London property tax rates (personal interview – 21 February 2012).9 Thus, the concerns from London officials about this growth may be justified. Amendment 28 of Middlesex Centre’s official plan calls for the construction of more compact housing units in the Komoka-­ Kilworth area. Specifically, the new residential designations in the amendment call for 60 per cent low-­density residential (single homes, semi-­detached homes) and 40 per cent medium-­density residential (townhouses) (Middlesex Centre 2011, 14). During the interview process, I confirmed with municipal officials from Middlesex Centre that this was intended to attract younger families to the areas, whom they hoped would migrate from the city to buy their first home and take advantage of lower property taxes and home values (personal interview – 15 February 2012). Building up the Komoka-­Kilworth areas, then, would provide not only housing, but also a community setting close to London that takes advantage of the city’s amenities, such as its shopping centres and entertainment features.10 Much of this anxiety about growth comes from recent disparities in population growth rates between London and some of its surrounding communities. Table 3.2 demonstrates this growth disparity using population figures from both the 2006 and 2011 census for London and Middlesex County. Population data from Statistics Canada show a steady increase in London’s population, with the city experiencing a growth rate of 3.9 per cent between 2006 and 2011. This is below the provincial growth rate of 5.7 per cent, but fairly consistent with comparable municipalities with similar employment and resident bases, such as

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Table 3.2  Comparative population figures for London and Middlesex County Community

2006 Population

2011 Population

Difference

Adelaide Metcalfe

3,135

3,028

–3.4%

Lucan Biddulph

4,187

4,338

3.6%

Middlesex Centre

15,589

16,487

5.8%

North Middlesex

6,740

6,658

–1.2%

Southwest Middlesex

5,890

5,860

–0.5%

Strathroy-Caradoc

19,959

20,978

5.1%

Thames Centre

13,085

13,000

–0.6%

439

447

1.8%

352,395

366,151

3.9%

Newbury London Source: Statistics Canada.

Hamilton, which experienced a 3.1 per cent growth rate during the same period. The data also show a variety of growth rates among the lower-­tier municipalities in the county. Some municipalities, such as Southwest Middlesex, Adelaide Metcalfe, and North Middlesex – communities on the peripheries of the county – experienced negative growth rates. Other municipalities within the county – namely Strathroy-Caradoc, Middlesex Centre, and Lucan Biddulph – experienced growth rates greater than London. Two of these municipalities – Middlesex Centre and Lucan Biddulph – are situated north of the city, with Middlesex Centre directly on London’s border and Lucan Biddulph on Middlesex Centre’s northern border. This sort of rapid growth, however, is not a  new phenomenon. Between 2001 and 2006, the population of Middlesex Centre increased by 9.5 per cent, whereas London’s population only grew by 4.7 per cent. Although the growth of both communities has since slowed, Middlesex Centre’s population has consistently grown at a faster rate than London’s for over a decade, which perhaps justifies London’s unprecedented interest in the community. London’s growth concerns, however, do not seem to affect outlying communities, such as Strathroy-Caradoc, that are also experiencing rapid growth. In fact, London has neither spoken with officials in communities like Strathroy-Caradoc nor expressed concern about their growth rates. Accordingly, officials from Strathroy-Caradoc

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believe that London is concerned only about growth occurring along its borders. This suggests that London does not view outlying growth as a grave concern (personal interview – 21 March 2012). c o n c lu s i o n

Much like the process that led to London’s last annexation in 1993, rapid growth on the city’s periphery is occurring once again. Furthermore, officials from Middlesex Centre have not been shy about their ambitions. These officials hope to create an alternative to city living for residents in the region by developing infrastructure that will draw London residents to their communities. Finding the situation untenable, London officials have, thus far, denied Middlesex Centre Council’s requests for expanded access to their resources. London’s planning staff openly question the town’s planning decisions and have offered assistance in creating a planning document that is more in line with the city’s view of the region. When Middlesex Centre politicians rebuffed these overtures, some city councillors openly mused about annexing the Arva area so as to include any future development in the region within their borders. Furthermore, officials from communities around London are no longer content to remain rural. Officials from Middlesex Centre are actively pursuing development and are openly presenting themselves as a suburban alternative to the city. This is a new mantra from county officials. During the 1958 and 1989 annexations, the county had grave concerns about the potential loss of farmland. County officials stated, in the press and to the province, that they feared annexation would encroach upon prime agricultural land. Even during restructuring in the 1990s, county municipalities expressed a clear desire to remain rural and not allow consolidation to affect the county’s primarily rural composition. The county’s approach to growth has changed dramatically since the 1990s. Instead of concerning themselves with preserving farmland and the rural idyll, officials from Middlesex Centre are now pursuing growth, hoping to take advantage of their position near London to attract development. Where the community’s proximity to

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the city was once viewed negatively due to the growth pressures placed upon Middlesex County, it is now viewed as very much a positive and a key factor in the municipality’s long-­term prosperity, an incarnation of the new “urbanization on rural terms” mantra. This new mindset contravenes much of the rationale behind city– county separation, which specifically envisions the city as urban and its surrounding area as rural. Although regional government represents perhaps one way of managing growth in rapidly urbanizing counties – a process in which once-­rural areas have become suburban enclaves – London has largely avoided this situation throughout its history by regular rounds of annexation, creating a situation wherein the city is geographically dominant within the county’s borders. This expansion is perhaps one reason why London and Middlesex County avoided being converted into a regional government in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Sancton 1998, 163). In the absence of regional planning mechanisms, London officials have attempted to control growth around their borders by restricting the expansion of water and sewer infrastructure. City officials argue that if areas such as Arva do not have access to the city’s water system, they cannot grow. Unfortunately for London, politicians in Middlesex Centre have recently pledged to find alternative sources to facilitate the municipality’s expansion, making London’s strategy appear temporary and perhaps flawed. Without any formal control over planning outside of their borders, London officials are left with few alternatives if they hope to direct growth within the City’s boundaries. The situation in which London and Middlesex County find themselves demonstrates the importance of institutional fit and planning culture. City–county separation has created a clear institutional distinction between urban and rural, but growth has been spilling over the border of the City of London for many years, motivating city officials to absorb urbanizing territory through several large annexations. When county officials were content to remain rural, these annexations managed to preserve the logic behind city–county separation. However, rural officials have now been more inclined to accept a certain amount of growth and draw younger families away from the city to bolster their population and develop on revised terms.

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In the case of London and Middlesex County, city–county separation has created a situation in which growth is seen as a zero-­sum game, whereby development in one area means a loss for another. There are no shared institutions between the city and county. Compounding matters is the fact that the dispute over growth has caused a significant amount of tension on both sides, meaning that the development of shared institutions that could provide for better planning may not be possible. In London and Middlesex County, the institution of city–county separation is ill-­fitting.

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4 Guelph and Wellington County

introduction

The relationship between Guelph and Wellington County stands in stark contrast to London and Middlesex in terms of growth.1 When it comes to growth, London and Middlesex Centre are currently embroiled in a dispute about development along London’s boundary, whereas Guelph and Wellington have had a much more amicable relationship. Wellington County has expressed a long-­standing desire to remain rural. Guelph, on the other hand, has wanted to remain urban. As such, the two have adhered to the original logic of city–county separation. In fact, Wellington County has allowed several annexations of land from its territory so that Guelph has the land it needs to grow well sensibly into the future. t h e e v o lu t i o n o f w e l l i n g t o n c o u n t y

Guelph was founded in 1827 (Johnson 1977, 53) when Guelph was a small settlement in Halton County, then a subsection of Gore District (Weaver 1913, 184). In January 1837, the District of Wellington was established, with Guelph as the county town. In March 1849, the District was divided into the Counties of Waterloo and Wellington (Byerly 1935, 3). Waterloo County was to include the townships of Waterloo, Wilmot, Wellesley, Woolwich, and the northern portion of Dumfries, whereas Wellington would include the townships of Guelph, Puslinch, Eramosa, Erin, Nichol, Garafraxa, Peel, Marybro, and the Pilkington Tract (4).

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The 1850s were a tumultuous period in the county’s history. In 1851, Guelph achieved town status and, along with neighbouring towns, such as Galt, Berlin, and Waterloo, began to industrialize and compete for commerce (Johnson 1977, 74). Each growing urban centre began agitating for a separation of the county. This internal growth led to the creation of the United Counties of Wellington, Waterloo, and Grey in 1852 (77). Over time, the councils of each county began to meet separately, providing an informal separation between each county, despite being officially joined (Byerly 1935, 4). Each major urban centre began the construction of county buildings and courthouses. Once complete, each was severed: Waterloo in 1852, with the construction of its courthouse, and Grey County in 1853. Wellington County was the last to be incorporated, in 1854 (Johnson 1977, 77). Guelph continued its steady growth and by 1857 the town’s population had reached 4,500 (Johnson 1977, 199). This growth created a sense within the town’s business community that greater administrative powers were needed to sustain and enhance economic and population growth. The Board of Trade determined that two main objectives needed to be achieved to maintain growth levels: civic improvement, to attract more customers to the stores and shops, and subsidization – direct and indirect – to aid manufacturers. When the population reached 9,918 in 1878, the town’s administration decided to apply for city status as a way of reaching these two objectives. On 23 April 1879, Guelph achieved city status and was formally separated from Wellington County (261). restructuring in guelph and wellington county

Guelph’s rapid growth has been the impetus for several boundary extensions throughout its history. The first two boundary extensions came before Guelph’s incorporation as a town, when it annexed 225  hectares of county land in 1840 and 1,032 hectares again in 1854. The city’s borders remained unchanged for nearly 100 years. In 1952, the city once again sought to expand and annexed 878 hectares of land to its north. The following year, Guelph annexed a smaller parcel of land, 105 hectares, on its northern boundary and an

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additional 30 hectares in 1959, to its north. The largest expansion in the city’s history came in 1966, when it annexed nearly 4,452 hectares of rural land to its east, west, and south to provide for future industrial and residential expansion. Two minor annexations occurred in 1968 and 1971, when nearly 20 hectares of land was annexed along the city’s southeastern boundary (County of Wellington 1994, 1). During the 1970s, Guelph and Wellington found themselves drawn into the province-­ wide shift toward regional government, mainly because of the growth of four new regional governments on their borders – Peel, Halton, Hamilton-­Wentworth, and Waterloo. Officials from Guelph and Wellington thought they might find themselves in a regional government when the Waterloo Area Local Government Review, chaired by Stewart Fyfe, did not preclude an examination of the boundaries of the former County of Waterloo, which previously included Guelph and Wellington (Ontario 1970, 22). In light of information gathered by Fyfe and submissions from the City of Guelph, the report concluded that there were not “sufficient interests in common to justify a common government.” The report continued by arguing that “the relationships between Guelph and the Waterloo Area would provide a rather weak foundation for effective local government unification.” Fyfe also noted that Wellington had more connections to areas east of it, such as Dufferin County, but particularly Metro Toronto, noting that “certainly large parts of the County are feeling a growing influence from the Toronto area … solutions to the problem of development in the Guelph area need to take into account what is happening in the metropolitan Toronto Region on whose fringes it lies” (Ontario 1970, 21). Guelph, like most cities in southern Ontario, was heavily influenced by developments in Metropolitan Toronto and the report was acknowledging that over time, partly because of geography and partly because of shifting labour patterns, Guelph would continue to be influenced by its surrounding jurisdictions to the east, rather than the growing Waterloo area to its west. After this study, the county and city created the Wellington-­Guelph Area Study Committee to review existing institutions within the region. The committee, headed by Howard Smith, had a wide mandate and purview and was even enlisted to examine “alternative

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possible reorganization of local government structure within and adjacent to the study area, having particular regard to the recommendations of local government reviews which have been or are taking place in the surrounding area.” Smith’s report, submitted in January 1971, spelled out five alternative structures for the county, ranging from the status quo to the creation of a new single-­tier county that would incorporate Guelph into its structure. Two “split county” options were suggested as well. These would see the southern part of the county reorganized as one large single-­tier municipality, which could one day join the Waterloo area, and the northern section of the county join neighbouring municipalities, to create a predominantly rural government. The final proposal called for establishing a regional government. In the end, no action was taken when provincial interest waned (Williams and Downey 1999, 179). In the 1980s and 1990s, the province instead sought to strengthen county government in Ontario and began to look at Guelph as a candidate for reform, rather than regional government. Spearheaded by reports such as Toward an Ideal County, the province laid out several principles for strong county government.2 One such principle was improving servicing and infrastructure between separated cities and counties. The report also pointed to the possibility of incorporating separated cities back into county structures as one method of achieving these goals. The report did acknowledge that this was not always possible, mainly due to the high population disparities between separated cities and counties found in some areas. Toward an Ideal County laid out many proposals for improving county governance, but stated that any reform would be initiated and carried out by the counties themselves. The province would allow each county to set their own priorities and propose restructuring solutions, as each municipality saw fit. The province would only be involved to fund individual county restructuring studies, if they were requested by the county itself. In 1990, Wellington County decided to examine its governance structure. The interim report, released in 1990, laid out two options for restructuring: (1) a partnership model; and (2) ending the separation of the City of Guelph. In the first option, a joint management board would be created, with equal representation from both Guelph

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and the county, that would oversee the delivery of different services (County of Wellington 1990, 28). The report, however, was not specific about which services would be under the purview of the joint services board. The second option would see Guelph reintegrated into the county. This, the report notes, “would be accomplished by assigning all uppertier purposes to a reconstituted Wellington Council which would have appropriate representation from both the County municipalities and City of Guelph.” The report, like Toward an Ideal County, did have the same concerns about the fate of rural county municipalities being included alongside more populated separated cities on reconstituted county councils, such as Wellington Council. The report noted that a new council could not reflect the different populations of both the county and Guelph (County of Wellington 1990, 28). The solution the report arrived at was to set a predetermined representation percentage that Guelph could not exceed, and suggested a figure of 40 per cent, which was similar to what Sarnia had agreed to when it rejoined Lambton County shortly before Wellington’s interim report was issued. The report, however, notes that the “City of Guelph Council appears to find this degree of population under-­ representation to be unacceptable” (29). The county’s final report, The Way Ahead, decided that bringing Guelph back into the county structure, and thus back onto county council, was not feasible. At this point, the county had a population of about 65,000, whereas Guelph had about 80,000 residents (County of Wellington 1990, 29). The report noted that “the fundamental problem is representation – the number and proportion of representatives that Guelph would require on the County Council in order not to severely violate the principle of representation by population … Guelph is simply too large in population related to the rest of Wellington County for the County Council to be effectively constituted with Guelph represented on it” (County of Wellington 1991, 64). b o r d e r c h a n g e a n d e x pa n s i o n

Although no significant changes to the county structure emerged in the wake of the county’s final report, the City of Guelph did find that

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it needed to expand its boundaries again to accommodate future population growth. The rationale for the expansion centred on water supply, specifically the Arkell Springs Water Supply Area, which, at the time, was located in Puslinch Township. The Arkell Springs supplied between 30 and 70 per cent of the City’s daily water needs and Guelph sought to “protect” the supply source by bringing the area into its boundaries (Proctor and Redfern Group 1988a, 1), something it had been intending to do for many years. After completing several studies, Guelph dramatically expanded its boundaries in three large annexations in 1990, 1991, and 1993. The need to annex this water source depended a great deal on projected growth figures for Guelph. A consulting firm, Proctor and Redfern Group, estimated in one report that the city’s population would reach 112,000 residents by 2011, a sharp 32 per cent increase from the 85,000 living in the city at the time (1988a, 4). The report argued that Guelph was growing and that its pace of growth was quicker than the rest of the province (Proctor and Redfern Group 1988b, 1). Taking mortality rates and migration levels into account, Proctor and Redfern estimated that the city would have a population of 100,100 by 2001 and 112,200 by 2011, with growth rates ranging from 1.09 per cent to 1.42 per cent during this period (1988b, 4). The report concluded that Guelph had enough residential land to provide for population growth until 2011, but needed an expanded supply of industrial land. It argued that density would be key to the city’s residential growth, stating that “historic evidence suggests that not all additional housing units are built upon the vacant land inventory … Guelph, like most of Ontario’s cities, has many more potential apartment sites than market demand warrants” (Proctor and Redfern 1988b, 17). Downzoning of certain lands, the report suggests, may be required to accommodate future residential demand, but the greater concern was that no industrial land was available within the city’s limits (20). The report concluded that Guelph would require a maximum of 390 more hectares of industrial land to meet growth demands by 2011 (21). Although the report began as an examination of the city’s water needs, it was dominated by Guelph’s need to absorb more industrial

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land. In fact, the report took an almost alarmist tone toward the situation, arguing that, “while the market and flexibility arguments for the additional lands suitable for residential use are oriented towards potential future needs, the industrial land market has an immediate need for additional lands … the additional land is necessary for Guelph to maintain a competitive position within other communities for new industrial development” (Proctor and Redfern 1988b, 27). If, the report concluded, Guelph did not secure new land, it would not be able to remain “in the industrial lands business” (28). It was decided that Guelph required 243 more hectares immediately to meet industrial requirements. The county wanted to be assured that there were no such lands available within the city already. The report argued that even if Guelph redeveloped and rezoned current lands, it would still be short of the amount of land needed. The report found there was land suitable for Guelph’s expansion to the south of the city and along its north and northwest boundaries (Proctor and Redfern 1989, 10). After examining several possibilities, the report found a parcel of land to the south of the city, adjacent to the Hanlon Parkway, that offered the best chance of providing the land for the city’s industrial expansion. A second set of lands to the west in the Hanlon Business Park offered the next best solution. The report concluded that in the short term, the city could expand immediately by annexing lands adjacent to its Northwest Industrial Park (22). A report prepared by Wellington County planning staff in response to Proctor and Redfern’s report largely agreed that Guelph required additional lands to expand. The report reassured Guelph that the county “intends to ensure that urban areas have adequate lands to support growth for the next 20 to 25 years” (Cousins 1990, 1). Wellington was willing to provide the city with the lands it needed to expand, but had concerns about the viability of the county and its municipalities in the future. The Wellington report wanted to see Guelph take on a more “compact urban form” in its future planning and “discourage a land use pattern on [its] fringe” (2). The report argued that Guelph would require 567 to 607 more hectares of industrial land if it wanted to expand until 2016 (Cousins 1990,

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6). However, the county recommended that Guelph should be provided as many as 1,214 hectares so that it had the “flexibility” it needed to allow for more rapid than expected growth (7): Projections are only our “best guess” at what the future will bring. If growth is slower than predicted, the urban areas will have a surplus of land at the end of the planning period, which it can simply use in the future. If growth is more rapid than predicted, the urban area will have a shortfall of land before the end of the planning period. This will cause the annexation process to be opened up at an earlier date than expected. One method of providing flexibility for the City of Guelph would be to provide more land than is needed for 125,000 people and try to accommodate, to as great an extent as possible, the high population forecast of 140,000 people. (Cousins 1990, 6–7) However, the county wanted to remain rural. Its concern with the annexation process lay primarily in its desire to preserve quality farmland. It recommended that the area south of Guelph be annexed rather than the areas to the north and west of the city. It was felt that the lands to the south were poorer agricultural lands than the north and west areas. Also, the areas to the south were closer to Highway 401 and the Hanlon Parkway, which Wellington felt were more “attractive to both business and residents who commute to work in the Toronto area” (Cousins 1990, 9). Although the report found lands to the south to be more desirable, it also argued that annexing lands in this area would have a negative impact on the community of Puslinch. The areas that the city wanted to annex – primarily for access to the Arkell Springs and for industrial expansion – represented 64 per cent of Puslinch’s commercial and industrial tax base, which in turn represented 10 per cent of the county’s tax base. The proposed area also contained the town office, a fire hall, a community centre, a sports field, a library, the town roads garage, and a county roads garage – all of which had been recently built (Cousins 1990, 10). The county worried that expanding into this area would sever Puslinch’s connection to these facilities.

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The Wellington report concluded that the areas to the east and west were more valuable as prime agricultural lands so did not favour their annexation, but expanding in the south would have a “devastating effect” on the viability of Puslinch as a community and would “weaken” the county (Cousins 1990, 10). It continued by arguing that there was no plan for expansion past 2016 and that further annexation of rural land was undesirable, noting that the Wellington County official plan discouraged development along the city’s boundaries because it hoped to create viable rural communities. The report therefore recommended creating a mechanism for cooperative planning within the area to ensure that Guelph had room to grow and to pursue greater density and protect rural communities well into the future (11). In the end, Guelph annexed 1,789 hectares from the county. Three hundred hectares came from Guelph Township, while the bulk –1,488 hectares – came from Puslinch (County of Wellington 1994, 1), greatly expanding the city’s southern and northern borders, and thus providing for additional lands for industrial expansion. With Guelph’s boundary extension complete, the county underwent its own restructuring process later in the decade. In the late 1990s, the Harris government began advocating that the province’s municipalities consolidate. Unlike the county reform era, Wellington would undergo significant changes during this period, with the county’s twenty-­four municipalities restructured into seven larger municipalities. With the amalgamation of Chatham-­ Kent, many municipalities across the province acted quickly to find restructuring solutions that would satisfy the province.3 In Wellington County, this process had started years earlier. For example, Erin Village and Erin Township had been discussing a merger before 1990. The two jurisdictions later amalgamated, but the experience of Chatham-­ Kent sped up the restructuring process in Wellington County. The county initially acted a facilitator in discussions, but negotiations soon broke down as a number of municipalities wished to remain intact. The county commissioned outside consultants (Douglas Armstrong and Harry Kitchen) to draft an “in Wellington” solution (Williams and Downey 1999, 181). Although one municipality in the county had indicated to the Minister of Municipal Affairs that it would require a commissioner

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to reach an agreement, the minister was hesitant and said that it would allow the consultants to do their job, but that if an agreement could not be reached, “I will have no other choice than to appoint a Commission in 1998” (Williams and Downey 1999, 181). In August of 1997, the county warden wrote to the mayors of the county municipalities and underlined “the importance of having a minister’s order in place prior to the completion of municipal elections which will avoid providing the province with the opportunity of appointing a Commission early in 1998 … this was indicated in a recent letter from the Honourable Al Leach and has the potential of having structures forced on our communities, such as happened in Kent and Chatham” (182). In October 1997, the County avoided having a commissioner appointed to restructure their community by accepting the recommendations of the Armstrong-­Kitchen Report, which proposed a modified, two-­ tier county consisting of six municipalities, with Guelph remaining as a separated city (Williams and Downey 1999, 182). The extent of this restructuring is outlined in table 4.1. The end result of the 1990s restructuring was seven constituent municipalities – the Township of Centre Wellington, the Town of Erin, the Township of Guelph / Eramosa, the Township of Mapleton, the Town of Minto, the Township of Puslinch, and the Township of Wellington North – and the separated city of Guelph. Two municipalities border the City of Guelph: Guelph Eramosa to the city’s north and Puslinch to its south. With the region’s borders set and designed to allow growth where needed, few border conflicts have emerged over the past decade. However, some officials report that Guelph has been very cautious about the type of development that occurs along its border. Two recent planning issues have pitted the City of Guelph against neighbouring Puslinch at the Ontario Municipal Board. In the first case, in the summer of 2010, the OMB heard a case brought forward by Guelph about a residential lot severance. Wellington County, Puslinch, and the Grand River Conservation Authority supported the landowner’s application, but Guelph objected, arguing that the proposed severance did not constitute good land use planning (Ontario Municipal Board 2010[a]).4 The second case involves the relocation of Millburn’s

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Table 4.1  Summary of 1990s restructuring in Wellington County Municipalities

New municipal name Type of restructuring Date

Erin Township, Erin Village

Town of Erin

Amalgamation

1 January 1998

Village of Drayton, Peel Township

Township of Mapleton

Amalgamation

1 January 1998

Town of Palmerston, Town of Harriston, Township of Minto, Village of Clifford

Town of Minto

Amalgamation

1 January 1999

Town of Mount Forest, Village of Arthur, Township of West Luther, parts of Mapleton, parts of West Garafraxa

Township of Wellington North

Amalgamation

1 January 1999

Township Amalgamation Town of Fergus, Village of Centre Wellington of Elora, parts of West Garafraxa, parts of Nichol Township, parts of Pilkington Township, parts of Eramosa Township

1 January 1999

Guelph Township, parts of Eramosa Township, parts of Puslinch Township

Amalgamation

1 January 1999

Township of Mapleton, Township of Township of Maryborough, Mapleton parts of Pilkington Township, parts of Nichol Township

Amalgamation

1 January 1999

Township of Wellington Township of North, Township of Egremont Wellington North

Annexation

1 January 1999

City of Guelph, Township of Guelph / Eramosa

Annexation

1 January 1999

Township of Guelph / Eramosa

City of Guelph

Auto from southern Guelph to Puslinch on a location on Brock Road, only 2.5 kilometres from the border between the two communities. Once again, Guelph argued that the development constituted poor planning (2010[b]).5 In both cases, the OMB ruled that Puslinch and the county had adhered to good planning principles. Puslinch officials argued that Guelph’s repeated objections to development within their borders “doesn’t build strong relationships” (personal interview – 13 April 2012).

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For the most part, the Puslinch officials contend that Guelph does not object to development well inside the township’s borders, but development on or near Guelph’s boundaries does cause city officials to take notice (personal interview – 13 April 2012). Officials believe this could be because Guelph has plans to annex this area in the future and wants to control the type of development that occurs in the area (personal interview – 13 April 2012). Guelph officials do see this development as somewhat problematic. For the most part, they would like to see development within Puslinch’s borders but some councillors view outlying development as a challenge to the city’s long-­term goals. Although only a handful of OMB challenges have resulted from this concern, one former Guelph councillor argued that development within the county close to the city is “a conflict in the waiting” (personal interview – 2 May 2012). c o n c lu s i o n

Unlike London and Middlesex County, Guelph and Wellington have tended to agree on growth and development. Wellington County is content to remain rural, in fact, prides itself on being predominantly rural. Guelph, on the other hand, is happy to remain urban. On this front, the two have adhered to the original logic behind city–county separation. Wellington County officials have even agreed to Guelph annexing a large part of their territory to provide Guelph with enough land to expand and develop. Wellington’s prime concern during this period was that good farm land could be annexed. The county has even encouraged the city to pursue density and a more “compact urban form,” further abiding by the original bargain under city–county separation. While city–county separation seems to be working for two jurisdictions – at least when it comes to planning and development – it has not stopped Guelph and Wellington from searching for alternative institutional structures. Fyfe’s study found that they had little desire to join with the Waterloo area. Various institutional arrangements were proposed in the report of the Wellington-­Guelph Area Study Committee, including ending city–county separation. The Way Ahead report, however, found the problem of Guelph’s representation to be

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Guelph and Wellington County 107

too large a hurdle to overcome. Guelph remained independent even after the wave of restructuring across the province in the 1990s. Guelph and Wellington have tended to fall victim to the representation disparity addressed in various provincial reports during the county reform area: there has been no way to reintegrate Guelph back into the county structure while providing it with adequate representation on a reconstituted two-­tier council. Without concessions from Guelph or the county accepting a diminished representation formula, it appears that the two will never again be part of a two-­tier system. When it comes to growth and planning, however, this does not seem to be detrimental. The county is content to remain rural and approached potential growth and development with that attitude for decades. Critics may point out that officials in Middlesex Centre held the same attitude for many years as well and that it is very possible that the lower tiers bordering Guelph, some of which are closer to Highway 401 and already have urban settlement, could switch their growth mentality and pursue development. This is very possible, but has yet to happen. It remains to be seen how long this will continue, but Guelph and Wellington’s planning and approach to development has not been hindered by their guiding institutional arrangement. On the surface, Guelph and Wellington appear to adhere very closely to the original institutional design behind city–county separation: pushing urban growth toward urban areas, allowing rural areas to remain rural. Despite the boundary expansion in question happening nearly twenty years ago, personal interviews for this project show that many of the same attitudes about growth are still in place. What the County demonstrated quite clearly in its response to Guelph’s annexation request was that it was concerned that the city was not sufficiently committed to density. It suggested the city have a “more compact urban form” and demanded that a land use analysis be completed before annexation to ensure that there was no existing land within the city that could be rezoned. With that document, the County established an implicit bargain. It would allow an annexation, as long as Guelph officials pursued density more vigorously in the future. For the most part, Guelph has done so; it has not made another annexation request since then.

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Since this last boundary expansion, growth pressures have not been as heated as in the case of London. This can be attributed to the fact that both sides adhere to the logic of city–county separation, but also because outward urban growth is not as intense as in other areas. As demonstrated in the previous chapter, urban growth, in London for instance, is pressed against the city’s northern boundary with the county. The last annexation in Guelph has allowed for a buffer between the city’s border with the county. The situation between Guelph and Wellington, then, is much different. If Guelph and Wellington were facing the same pressures as London and Middlesex, perhaps the situation would be similar. In any case, we can see the importance of rural officials’ attitudes toward growth. For the time being, they wish to remain rural. When and if that changes, the institution of city–county separation may just come into question.

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5 Barrie, Orillia, and Simcoe County

introduction

The Simcoe region is one of the fastest growing regions in the province. Driven by commuter populations and light manufacturing in the south, a growing tourism sector in the northwest and anchored by Barrie, one of Canada’s fastest-­growing communities until a few years ago, Simcoe County has received a great deal of attention from provincial officials in recent years. The province has been examining ways to control the rapid growth in the region, in the process creating new layers of alliances between rapid-­growth and slow-­growth municipalities. Traditional city–county relationships are marked by growth pressures emanating from the city; Simcoe has both internal and external growth pressures. Barrie is growing rapidly, as are its southern neighbours New Tecumseth, Bradford-West Gwillimbury, and Innisfil. In the north, Orillia, Midland, and Penetanguishene are growing steadily, while Collingwood and Wasaga Beach are sought-­after tourist destinations. This, coupled with what is widely considered to be a county structure too weak to address the many pressures the region is facing, has created a unique dynamic in Simcoe County. The differences between rapid and moderately growing areas of the county have caused divisions on county council and made internal long-­term planning challenging, while external growth pressures have culminated in very public disputes over prime land and space for future employment.

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growth pressures and restructuring in simcoe county

Simcoe County has grown dramatically since its inception. Barrie is one of Canada’s fastest growing communities and its rapid growth has placed a great deal of pressure on its relationship with Simcoe County. This growth pressure has led to a number of boundary adjustments in south Simcoe, and attracted the attention of Queen’s Park policy-­makers, who want to control growth in the area and officiate boundary disputes. Orillia, the county’s other separated city, has grown at a much slower rate. Despite being separated like Barrie, Orillia has developed in the shadow of its much larger, much more populated counterpart. Simcoe County’s borders have remained relatively stable since its inception. The only major alterations to the county’s exterior borders came on 1 January 1974 when the Townships of Mara and Rama agreed to transfer from the former County of Ontario to the new Regional Municipality of Durham (Craig 1977, 283). The modern internal boundaries of the county and its separated cities are mainly the result of post-­1990s restructuring, whose main impetus was the arrival of the Honda assembly plant in Alliston, leading a number of municipalities to request annexation to the rapidly expanding community (personal interview – 5 June 2012). In 1990, John Sweeney, then Minister of Municipal Affairs, announced that the province was proceeding with amalgamation in south Simcoe in order to address rapid population growth. Sweeney announced that Cookstown and Innisfil would be merged into one municipality, Bradford and West Gwillimbury into another and, finally, Alliston, Beeton and Tottenham, and Tecumseth into a third. Sweeney stated, “South Simcoe is on the fringe of the fastest growing areas in the county,” while noting that Barrie and South Simcoe had experienced a 90 per cent population growth since 1970, a staggering figure when compared with the 25 per cent growth rate experienced elsewhere in the province (Municipal World 1990, 33). The minister believed that restructuring would create municipalities with sufficient land and financial bases to accommodate the increased growth rates.

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Table 5.1  Summary of post-­1990 restructuring in Simcoe County Present municipality

Restructured components

Year

Bradford-­West Gwillimbury

Town of Bradford, Township of West Gwillimbury

1992

Clearview

Town of Stayner, Village of Creemore, Townships of Nottawasaga and Sunnidale

1994

Essa

Part annexed by Innisfil

1994

Innisfil

Township of Innisfil, Village of Cookstown, part of Township of Essa and part of West Gwillimbury

1991

Midland

Annexation involving Township of Tay, Town of Penetanguishene

1997–98

New Tecumseth

Towns of Alliston, Beeton, Tottenham, Tecumseth

1995

Oro-­Medonte

Township of Oro, Township of Medonte

1994

Penetanguishene

Annexation involving Township of Tay, Town of Midland

1997–98

Ramara

Town of Rama, Town of Mara

1994

Severn

Towns of Coldwater, Washago, Severn Falls, Marchmont, Maclean Lake, Hawkins Corners, Ardtrea

1994

Tay

Annexation involving Towns of Midland and Penetanguishene

1997–98

The bulk of the 1990s restructuring was the result of 1993’s Simcoe County Act, which reduced the number of municipalities in the county from 33 to 16. Under the Act, the County was also given responsibilities for land use planning, solid waste management, emergency services, and health and social services, while the lower-­ tier municipalities retained responsibility for services including local planning and development, public works, recreation, and policing (Dillon Consulting 2006, 6). Table 5.1 summarizes the boundary changes experienced during this era. The amalgamation process within the county evolved slowly, taking place from as early as 1991 in the south to 1998 in the north. Although the main driver of amalgamation in the county was the rapid growth of the south, municipalities in north Simcoe were included in the provincial proposal

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and did not have much trouble finding suitable partners for consolidation (personal interview – 5 June 2012). What is most interesting about the 1990s restructuring of the county was that negotiations originally involved bringing Barrie and Orillia back into the county structure. For the most part, politicians in both separated cities supported the idea, believing that returning to the county structure would be financially beneficial (personal interview – 5 June 2012). The separated municipalities believed that rejoining the county could be one option to relieve financial strain. Many of the county lower tiers, however, did not feel the same. Barrie and Orillia were asked to leave the restructuring discussions, as it was believed that the population disparity of both municipalities would have adverse effects on county governance by altering representation within the area (personal interview – 5 June 2012). While there has been a significant amount of restructuring within the lower ­tiers in the county, the rapid growth of Barrie has prompted several boundary changes. Since the mid-­1990s, Barrie’s population has grown by about 65 per cent. Since 1954, Barrie’s borders have been changed nine times through annexation of lands from neighbouring townships in order to accommodate this rapid population growth (Birnbaum, Nicolet, and Taylor 2004, 19). Barrie’s first municipal restructuring occurred in 1897 when it merged with the Village of Allandale (Innisfil 2002, 4). When it was incorporated as a City in 1959, Barrie annexed 1, 0277 hectares from Vespra and Innisfil Townships. In 1964, Barrie further annexed 709 hectares from Vespra, followed by two more annexations of 242 hectares in 1967 and 40.5 hectares in 1968, also from Vespra for the designated purpose of industrial expansion and the creation of Georgian College. In 1970, Barrie annexed 40.5 hectares to construct the Molson Brewery (Innisfil 2002, 5). In the 1970s, Barrie pursued its largest annexation from its southern neighbours, later being awarded 1,392 hectares from the surrounding towns of Oro, Vespra, and Innisfil by the Ontario Municipal Board (8). Most of these annexations were due to population growth and increased industrialization in and around the city. During the 1970s, the province also selected Barrie as a growth centre through the

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Toronto Centred Region and Simcoe Georgian Area Task Force Reports, setting the city up for rapid expansion. The reports suggested that Barrie could reach a population figure of 125,000 people by 2011, with 500,000 in the “multi-­centred” Simcoe-­Georgian Bay areas of Orillia, Midland, and Collingwood (Innisfil 2002, 6). As such, Barrie was given land it needed to facilitate this rapid population growth. While Barrie has grown at a dramatic place since its incorporation as a city, Orillia has been a much different story. Orillia was incorporated as a city and formally separated from the county in 1969. In the years leading up to Orillia’s separation, the town’s focus was on growth. Orillia tried for many years to become a city. The first effort came in 1917 by annexing small, adjoining parcels of land. Mayor Ben Johnson tried in the 1930s to expand the town’s borders to reach the 10,000 resident population requirements to separate but was unable to do so. Other attempts in the 1940s and 1950s failed as well, largely because of the town’s same inability to absorb the necessary population coupled with existing residents’ fear that the town might lose its “small-­town identity” if it were to separate. In 1952, the town was able to annex approximately 44 hectares to the north and west of the city. It annexed two smaller parcels of land in 1956 and another parcel in 1959 (Richmond 1995, 110). Most of these annexations came at the expense of Orillia Township (now Severn Township). Over time, new residential and commercial development began to grow along the town’s borders, forcing the Town of Orillia to address the issue of development outside their borders, in Orillia Township. In 1965, Orillia Town Council commissioned a study to explore growth in the area. The study found that Orillia’s population would grow to 30,500 people by 1985 and that 3,000 hectares of land would be needed to accommodate demand. Orillia Mayor Isabel Post suggested that Orillia Township “hand over the land quietly, without a fight.” Predictably, Orillia Township was not receptive and in 1966 the matter was referred to the Ontario Municipal Board (Richmond 1995, 110). The ensuing hearing was very confrontational, with township officials suggesting that Orillia clear its “slums” in its south before pursuing annexation (Richmond 1995, 110). In September 1966, the Ontario Municipal Board ruled in favour of Orillia, recommending

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that Orillia annex 3,000 hectares as the area under question would be better served by “an urban administration.” The annexation doubled Orillia’s geographic area and increased its population from 15,000 to 20,000 people. While the town now had a large enough population to petition for city status, municipal officials were not in a rush to do so. Eventually, Orillia Town Council commissioned a study to examine the issue. When the report came back, it recommended the separation of Orillia from Simcoe County to decrease the city’s tax burden (Richmond 1995, 111). A Toronto accounting firm eventually found similar results: separating from the county would reduce taxes for Orillia residents. In 1968 the town decided to apply to the Ontario Municipal Board for city status. This was approved on 6 May 1968. Orillia officially became a city on 1 January 1969, with the belief that it would continue to grow and develop at a similar rate as Barrie (112). Most of these boundary extensions were intended to pave the way for further population growth. Over time, however, this growth never materialized, as most of the region’s growth occurred further south, in Barrie. Figures released from the 2012 census showed that from 2006, Orillia’s population increased by only 1.1 per cent, a total of 327 people. Simcoe County’s growth rate, on the other hand, was 5.7 per cent (Ross 2012). This growth rate was panned in Orillia’s local newspaper, the Packett and Times, which described the city as a “disaster of growth” when compared with its neighbours, especially neighbouring Severn Township, and noted that this disparity “puts the City of Orillia to shame.” The problem, the paper argued, was the city’s inability to attract immigrants – who comprise barely 1 per cent of the city’s population – and new employment. The paper concluded that “if we can’t get people to move here, locals better start having babies – and lots of them” (Langpeter 2012). Orillia’s growth has now slowed to the point where it is no longer the second-­largest municipality within the Simcoe region. Historically, Orillia has kept pace with Barrie. For example, in 1971, Barrie had a population of 27,676 whereas Orillia’s population was 24,040. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Barrie expanded rapidly, whereas Orillia did not.1 Over time, the population in municipalities in the

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south has slowly caught up to Orillia. The second largest municipality in the Simcoe region is Innisfil, with a population of 33,079, followed by Orillia, with a population of 30,586. Two other southern municipalities closely follow Orillia: New Tecumseth (30,234) and Bradford-­West Gwillimbury (28,077). This disparity has even led some municipalities to question the continued separated status of Orillia. While Orillia achieved its separated status in 1969 and the province has since closed the book on city separation, it has not stopped some rapidly-­growing communities to explore the idea. In the south, New Tecumseth City Council has informally discussed the idea of separating from the county and asking the province to change its status to reflect its growth and stature within the county and region (personal interview – 30 May 2012). The discussions have gone no further than informal conversations and staff have not been asked to explore the possibility nor has the county been informed of any plans to separate, but it’s clear that some of the southern municipalities are beginning to question their place – and the place of Orillia – in the county’s current governance structure. The disparity between Barrie and Orillia’s growth can be partially explained by the overall growth in the southern portion of Simcoe County and the slower growth in the north. Growth rates for each municipality in Simcoe County, along with Barrie and Orillia between 2006 and 2011 are presented in table 5.2. Led by strong growth in Bradford-­West Gwillimbury, Innisfil, and New Tecumseth, municipalities in the south of the county grew an average of 8.12 per cent between 2006 and 2011. In comparison, four municipalities in the north of the county experienced negative growth. The northern municipalities in Simcoe County grew an average of 3.14 per cent. With the fast-­ growing tourist communities of Collingwood and Wasaga Beach removed from the equation, however, the remaining northern communities only experienced a growth rate of 0.73 per cent, far below the provincial average and even further behind the municipalities to the south. These differences in growth rates have created some voting divisions on county council: the more rapidly growing south attempts to outvote the more moderately growing north on certain measures

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Table 5.2  Comparative population figures for Barrie, Orillia, and Simcoe County Community

2006 population

2011 population

Difference

Bradford-­West Gwillimbury

24,039

28,077

16.8%

New Tecumseth

27,701

30,234

9.1%

Essa

16,901

18,505

9.5%

Adjala-­Tosorontio

10,695

10,603

–­0.9%

Innisfil

31,175

33,079

6.1%

Ramara

9,427

9,275

–­1.6%

12,030

12,377

2.9%

9,748

9.736

–­0.1%

16,330

16,572

1.5%

Severn Tay Midland Penetanguishene

9,354

9,111

–­2.6%

Wasaga Beach

15,029

17,537

16.7%

Collingwood

17,290

19,241

11.3%

Clearview

14,088

13,734

–­2.5%

Springwater

17,456

18,223

4.4%

Oro-­Medonte

20,031

20,078

0.2%

Tiny

10,754

11,232

4.4%

Orillia

30,259

30,586

1.1%

Barrie

128,430

135,711

5.7%

– especially items addressing infrastructure and economic development (personal interview – 30 May 2012). The north’s economy is primarily rooted in agriculture and tourism, whereas the south is growing primarily because of its close proximity to the Greater Toronto Area.2 This has led to accusations that the south, and particularly Barrie, receives undue attention from the county and the province (personal interview – 1 June 2012). According to some county councillors from the north, southern municipalities are “hooked on growth” and county policy and council discussions inevitably revolve around that subject (personal interview – 8 June 2012). The southern portion of the county has many commuters. Many of these are younger families who are new to the county, which some county councillors believe creates a different outlook toward county governance for councillors from the south (personal interview – 8 June 2012). The north’s population, by

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contrast, is mostly retirees, cottagers, and those who are more established within the county and have lived there for many years (personal interview – 8 June 2012). As one northern Simcoe mayor noted, “We’re just not looking at life through the same lens … there’s tremendous divergence in the discussion around the table” (personal interview – 8 June 2012). The divide between the north and the south has led some northern municipal respondents to argue that they often absorb financial burdens from the county. One more recent example is leaf and yard waste pick-­ups. The northern municipalities were forced to provide leaf and yard waste pick-­ups despite the fact that they felt their residents had no use for it and they had few resources to pay for it (personal interview – 8 June 2012). The southern municipalities, however, did want the program and because of the county’s vote weighting system, the northern municipalities were forced to accept it.3 A northern Simcoe mayor argued that the municipalities from his area of the county were “dragged kicking and screaming” to providing leaf and yard waste pick-­ups (personal interview – 8 June 2012). The northern Simcoe municipalities do meet before council meetings to decide what to support and vote as a bloc on items that would have an impact on them (personal interview – 31 May 2012). One northern Simcoe mayor described some of the rationale behind this strategy: “Any policy that is centred on growth or dependent on growth that is supported in the south Simcoe municipalities is not likely to be supported in our municipality or in north Simcoe in general” (personal interview – 8 June 2012). The county’s vote weighting system, however, does work against these areas, as the more populous south is usually able to outvote the more sparsely populated north, but the level of organization that is evident among northern municipalities is much higher, especially because there is no similarly organized effort in the south. Some, however, insist that the division in the county goes further, and takes the form of area divisions. To many within the county, there are four distinct areas, each with their own economic bases, goals, and voting blocs: the south (Adjala-­ Tosorontio, New Tecumseth, Bradford-West Gwillimbury, Innisfil, and Essa), the northeast (Ramara, Severn and Oro-­Medonte), the north (Penetanguishene, Midland, Tay,

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and Tiny) and the northwest (Collingwood, Clearview, Wasaga Beach, and Springwater). Each of these areas mainly vote together on county council and have separate goals. The northeast is largely rural and agricultural, the north is a burgeoning tourist area along Georgian Bay, with some small manufacturing in and around Midland, the northwest is the more established tourist communities and, finally, the south is largely influenced by the growth in the Greater Toronto Area and its own growing manufacturing base. The disparities between both the north and the south have caused some to muse about severing the county between the north and south, leaving the more rapidly growing areas in the south to align themselves with Barrie or York Region (personal interview – 8 June 2012). These suggestions have mostly come from northern Simcoe mayors, who believe that severing the southern municipalities may benefit the northern areas, as it would free them from growth-­centric policies (personal interview – 8 June 2012).4 Severing the county is not a new idea, however. The concept was also addressed in a 2002 report prepared by Meridian Planning Consultants. The report argued that the rapidly growing municipalities in the south should be converted into three separated municipalities. The borders of Adjala-­Tosorontio, New Tecumseth, Innisfil, and Bradford-­West Gwillimbury would be re-­aligned, Barrie and Innisfil to create one municipality; Bradford-West Gwillimbury would stand as a separated city; New Tecumseth would be amalgamated with the Adjala area of Adjala-­Tosorontio to create a third municipality. The Tosorontio area of Adjala-­Tosorontio would be amalgamated with Essa and this new municipality would remain within the county structure. Orillia would remain separate from the county (Meridian Planning Consultants 2002, 5). This composition would create a largely rural county fairly uniform in its policy demands. These ideas were, of course, not implemented. Growth within the region has created two tiers of municipalities: those that are growing fast and those that are growing slowly. The south has experienced rapid increases in employment, population, and development, whereas the north, with the notable exception of tourist areas such as Collingwood and Wasaga Beach, has remained relatively stagnant. The same types of trends have been seen with the

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historical development of Orillia and Barrie. While both had similar populations through most of their histories, Barrie’s growth increased rapidly through the 1980s and 1990s. Orillia did not follow the same trajectory and its population stagnated for many years. This has led to unequal gains from growth within the region, creating hostility and resentment from some areas along the way. barrie–innisfil boundary dispute

In 2002, city planners informed Barrie City Council that the city was quickly running out of employment land and required more land to sustain internal employment (personal interview – 14 June 2012). Since city planners had previously encouraged a policy of density to avoid further suburban expansion within the city’s boundaries, they argued that this should continue for residential housing and development although additional industrial land was necessary (personal interview – 1 June 2012).5 Expansion offered the best opportunity to realize this future growth. The city commissioned the Greater Barrie Local Government Review, which ultimately called for Barrie and its neighbouring community of Innisfil to form a single city separate from the county (Birnbaum, Nicolet and Taylor 2004, 19). The report also looked at more realistic proposals, arguing that annexation was inevitable and the “moratorium lands” established in the wake of Barrie and Innisfil’s 1981 annexation provided the best opportunity for Barrie’s expansion (Meridian Planning Consultants 2002, 4). Innisfil, predictably, rejected this proposal in a report released in response to Barrie’s commission later in 2002. Deflecting Barrie’s advances, the report recommended that Barrie pursue densification in its planning and concluded that “the City of Barrie needs to look at opportunities for managing growth within its current boundaries before it looks outwards” (Innisfil 2002, ii). In 2008, the City of Barrie introduced a proposal to annex 518 hectares of industrial land south of the city, in Innisfil. With a 2008 population of 180,000, Barrie wished to accommodate a population of 220,000 in order to make upgrades to its sewage treatment plant more affordable. In exchange for the land, Barrie proposed to

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extend servicing to approximately 188 hectares of the Innisfil Heights community. Innisfil initially rejected the proposal, with Mayor Brian Jackson arguing, “We found it not acceptable for the following ­reasons: the development charges would result in us having a devel­ opment charge 50 per cent higher than Barrie, which would make us uncompetitive; there was an imbalance in the exchange of lands, with Barrie receiving twice as much land as it would service; there was no commitment when we could have the additional 188 hectares serviced” (Watt 2008a). Although a provincial development facilitator attempted to resolve this impasse, talks soon broke down (Watt 2008b). When Simcoe County released a revised growth plan that envisioned industrial growth along the Highway 400 corridor south of Barrie, the city criticized it for misplacing regional priorities. Barrie councillor Barry Ward argued, “The plan encumbers the City of Barrie’s ability to achieve the expectations set out for it as an urban growth centre.” The plan envisioned 228,000 more area residents over the next twenty-­five years, of which Barrie would receive only 10,000. Most of this population growth would occur along Highway 400 outside of the city, in growing population centres such as Alliston where an expanded Honda plant was expected to increase the population and create economic nodes along provincial highways in Bradford-­West Gwillimbury and Innisfil (Watt 2008c). Barrie argued that these projections were not supported by current growth trends and that population growth should be directed toward the city itself, where density could be better achieved and public transportation more easily provided. While the county’s growth projections intensified Barrie’s desire to annex industrial land in Innisfil, a report by the bond-­rating agency Standard and Poor added additional urgency to their expansion plans. In the summer of 2008, Standard and Poor released a report arguing that Barrie’s economic future was directly linked to its ability to expand (Watt 2008d). During this 2006 debate, the province released a growth report under the title Places to Grow, a plan intended to better control the development in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Finding rapid rates of development in the Simcoe area, the province decided to examine

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the region’s growth trends in more depth to better accommodate future development. Simcoe County was, according to the report, under “intense development pressures” (Ontario 2009, 1). Places to Grow is an expansive plan, of which Simcoe is only one part. The report suggests that, left unchecked, growth in the Simcoe region could increase the population to over one million people by 2031. Using proper planning practices, the report projects a healthy estimate of 667,000 inhabitants and an employment forecast of 254,000 jobs (Ontario 2009, 5). To achieve these development goals, the province focused on the creation of “urban nodes” in the  five largest communities in the Simcoe area: Barrie, Orillia, Collingwood, Alliston, and Bradford-­West Gwillimbury (9). By directing growth to these areas and encouraging density, the province hoped to avoid unrestrained growth and sprawl into the more rural parts of the county. Much of the report was focused on Barrie. Specifically, the report argues that Barrie had the greatest opportunity to bring density to the area, noting, “Barrie will be recognized as the anchor node of the Simcoe area, and will continue to function as the primary location for new population and employment growth and regional services … Barrie will also have the strongest focus in the Simcoe area on intensification and higher density development, and should achieve transit and pedestrian-­friendly urban form in all of its communities.” To reach its growth targets, the plan required the city to achieve or exceed a downtown density of 150 combined residents and jobs per hectare, a greenfield density of fifty combined residents and jobs per hectare, and an intensification of at least 40 per cent of annual development inside the existing built-­up area. To match these goals, the report noted, Barrie would require “a sufficient supply of land to accommodate future growth” – a notion that undoubtedly did not sit well with opponents of Barrie’s proposed annexation in Innisfil (Ontario 2009, 9). The other areas designated as “urban nodes” were not given the same amount of attention, although the report did note that they were part of a “hierarchy of settlement” within the area. As such, these areas were prioritized for growth over other, more rural communities, which the province wanted to remain available for farmland and

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agricultural production (Ontario 2009, 10). The report’s final priority was the development of land along the Highway 400 corridor for manufacturing, another key aspect of Barrie’s internal growth plans (18). In February 2009, Barrie’s Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP), Aileen Carroll, wrote a letter to her cabinet colleague, Jim Watson, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, arguing that it was time for the province to intervene and complete the annexation process. In her letter, Carroll states, “The viability of Barrie’s future as an urban growth designate in Central Ontario is at play … with the importance of Barrie’s future growth at stake, and with the option of a local solution completely exhausted, I urge the Province to intervene to resolve this matter” (Watt 2009a). Innisfil and county politicians responded negatively to Carroll’s letter. Following a joint meeting hosted by Watson, the county came to support Innisfil’s position that an annexation was unnecessary. Believing that the province was supporting Barrie’s position, Innisfil refused to resume discussions. Innisfil mayor Jackson confirmed this sentiment, arguing, “Barrie has gotten the ear of the province … we’re trying to do the same thing, but it’s troublesome” (Watt 2009b). County Warden Tony Guergis also echoed Jackson’s feelings about Carroll’s letter, stating, “Aileen Carroll’s message is clearly not respective [sic] of the fact that the province asked us to work together – and Barrie did not.” Guergis also felt that Barrie’s criticism of the county’s growth plan was unnecessary, arguing that Barrie had been invited to provide input into the plan’s creation but chose not to participate, creating the impression that the city was not interested in actively cooperating with its neighbouring municipalities and the county. Guergis continued by arguing, “This is about a bad political decision – rewarding the only municipality that does not co-­operate with its neighbours” (Ward 2009c). After waiting one year to discuss the proposed annexation with provincial officials, Jackson got an opportunity to meet with Watson in February 2009. Jackson’s main goal was to convince Watson that the current agreement did not benefit both communities, declaring, “I’m not about to sell out my municipality … this needs to be a win-­ win situation.” Jackson also stated his belief that Barrie was waiting

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for the province to unilaterally change the city’s boundaries, to the detriment of Innisfil, and that Carroll, along with other Barrie politicians, did not want to find a local solution. Jackson publicly proposed an alternative agreement that would see one acre of its employment zone in Innisfil Heights on the Highway 400 corridor serviced by Barrie for every acre that it gave the city through boundary adjustment (Vanderlinde 2009a). During their meeting, Watson stated that the province wanted to see a resolution soon and would not allow the situation to drag on for another year. Moreover, if both sides were unable to reach a compromise, the province would “do it for them” (Vanderlinde 2009b). Watson reiterated his desire to see a local solution to the boundary dispute in a 5 March letter addressed to Barrie mayor Dave Aspden, Innisfil mayor Brian Jackson, and Simcoe County warden Tony Guergis. In this letter, Watson stated, “Based on our discussions, I believe we all share the view that there is a need to address this issue in a timely manner and that a resolution is required to allow all parties to move ahead with important planning, investment and governance decisions” (Watt 2009d). Despite Watson’s insistence on finding a local solution to the boundary dispute, Barrie continued to lobby the provincial government to solve the disagreement. In response, Simcoe County Council passed a resolution urging the province not to “reward” Barrie for refusing to work with its neighbours and plan for growth. Innisfil summarily passed two resolutions criticizing the proposed boundary changes. In response to the two resolutions, Jackson stated, “It’s time we stand up … taking a significant portion of lands away would cripple the town for future development” (Watt 2009e). Guergis was equally pointed in his comments, stating, “the message Barrie is sending out is that they know better … that’s really scary” (Watt 2009f). Innisfil began a public relations campaign in May 2009 to persuade Barrie to re-­enter discussions. Naming their efforts the “Fair Growth” campaign, Innisfil officials contracted a Toronto public relations firm to design radio, print, and web advertisements publicizing their position in the dispute. Their first radio advertisement had a clear message, asking: “What are the politicians in Barrie up to? Did you know they want to double their population and take thousands

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of acres from Innisfil to do it?” (Watt 2009g). As a result of the campaign, Barrie councillors received hundreds of angry emails from county and city residents (Watt 2009h). On 28 May the Fair Growth campaign culminated with a demonstration at Queen’s Park. The campaign bussed more than two hundred demonstrators to the provincial legislature while representatives from the town and county held a press conference. Guergis argued, “We’re asking the province to insist Barrie come back to the table and bring forward realistic expectations as to where growth will go … we’re asking for a local solution” (Hain 2009). Carroll was critical of the demonstration and press conference, arguing that the impasse and the “antics” of Simcoe County politicians were costing the area jobs and slowing its economic progress. Carroll again called on her provincial colleagues to impose a solution while denouncing the Fair Growth campaign, arguing, “They’re deliberately and wildly inflating numbers to position themselves politically for an inevitable outcome – the province finding a remedy … it’s regrettable it’s come to this” (Watt 2009i). On 3 June, the MPP for York-­Simcoe, Julia Munro, introduced a petition calling on the government to allow a local solution to emerge. Munro, whose riding covers Innisfil and large parts of southern Simcoe County, argued that “a locally negotiated solution that fairly distributes population and employment growth ensures everyone wins” (Munro 2009a). On 4 June, the province eventually proposed a solution that awarded Barrie nearly 2,300 hectares of land, enlarging its land base by approximately 30 per cent (Vanderlinde 2009c). While introducing the Barrie-­Innisfil Boundary Adjustment Act, Jim Watson argued, “all local options have failed and this government is prepared to act, and to act decisively, because this issue has dragged on for too long” (Watson 2009). In a later debate, Watson reiterated the need for the province to act immediately: This has been going on since 1981: almost 30 years of bickering back and forth. The time to act is now because there was clearly a polarized position between Innisfil and Barrie. Simcoe was not able to resolve it; the province was not able to resolve it. We

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actually brought in the provincial facilitator to help, and he was not able to resolve it …. so this bill has not been rushed. In fact, if anything, previous governments should have dealt with this sooner. We’re taking a leadership role. We’re moving on it after 30 years. Enough is enough. Let’s get back to economic development, smart growth, good planning and creating the jobs of tomorrow for the people of Barrie, Innisfil and all of Simcoe County. (Watson: Hansard, 23 September 2009) On 8 December, the provincial legislature approved the Barrie-­Innisfil Boundary Adjustment Act.6 Importantly, the decision did not provide Barrie with all of the land that its officials had initially requested, an aspect that Innisfil mayor Brian Jackson credited to the town’s Fair Growth campaign: “I think the campaign has been effective … it sent a clear message to the province, a clear view of what we expected.” Although Barrie was awarded a significant amount of land from Innisfil, it did not receive the Innisfil Heights area – which the province recognized as a clear growth area for Innisfil, designating it an enterprise growth zone – a victory in the eyes of Innisfil and county politicians. The land that Barrie was awarded was primarily rural and located around the Highway 400 corridor south of the city, affecting approximately 300 residents. Ironically, one of the 300 residents affected by the boundary change was Brian Jackson, an ardent critic of the annexation proposal. To the press, Jackson said he was “sad” that he would be a Barrie resident at the beginning of the new year, when the Act took effect (Vanderlinde 2009c). In December of 2009, county councillors passed two resolutions that effectively ended the dispute and attempted to reconcile its relationship with Barrie. Despite the long process, both groups ultimately decided to attempt to repair their relationship. Their efforts resulted in the creation of a growth nodes committee, which included not only the county growth nodes of Bradford, Alliston, and Collingwood, but also Barrie and Orillia. This committee was intended to communicate and coordinate growth goals and strategies in an effort to avoid the same type of confusion and hostility that had resulted from the divergent growth strategies of the county and Barrie two years earlier. County politicians were mostly willing to put the dispute

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behind them, with Tiny Township mayor Peggy Breckenridge blaming the province for dividing both communities: “It’s the province that pitted us against each other … it’s the province that pitted us against the City of Barrie” (Watt 2009j). Much like London, Barrie officials were concerned about development, namely, the city’s supply of good-­quality industrial land and its ability to create jobs within its boundaries in the future. However, unlike London, the land Barrie officials sought was from a municipality that was no longer rural. Although the municipalities around Barrie were primarily rural with agriculturally focused economies when Barrie initially separated from Simcoe County, these municipalities – including Innisfil – had gradually become suburban. Due to their location south of the county, residents slowly migrated to these areas with the intention of commuting during the week to areas within the Greater Toronto Area (GT A ) for work. No longer was there a clear distinction between urban Barrie and its neighbouring rural communities. When the province intervened to bring a resolution to the dispute, it did so in a very different environment than in London. While the province used similar logic to approve an urban boundary expansion – namely promoting and developing an urban economy – it also explored promoting several other urban nodes throughout the county in its Places to Grow legislation. Although Barrie was established as an “anchor node,” the remainder of the county was not designated as solely rural. In fact, certain parts of the county were being allowed – and, in some cases, even encouraged – to become more suburban. Innisfil now has a larger population than Orillia, the county’s other separated city. Two other southern Simcoe municipalities – Bradford-­West Gwillimbury and New Tecumseth – are also slowly rivalling Orillia’s population figures. The rapid rate of suburbanization in Simcoe County is blurring the distinction between the criteria that once led to city–county separation. Several areas within the county have become suburban communities, with many in the south now key destinations for commuters in the Greater Toronto Area. The province helped facilitate this expansion and even encouraged certain areas to grow rapidly in its Places to Grow legislation. This is largely why the boundary dispute between

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Barrie and Innisfil intensified so quickly, since both had designs to develop and further attract industry and residents. Innisfil is no longer content to be rural and the ambitions of both communities now conflict, resulting in a very public, drawn-­ out dispute over land primed for future industrial and commercial expansion. places to grow and the simcoe response

Few counties in Ontario have received more attention from the province over the past decade than Simcoe. Aside from its direct involvement in the Barrie-­Innisfil boundary dispute, the province has taken a keen interest in the region’s growth. Rapid growth – mainly in the county’s south – has caused the province to believe that unrestrained suburban expansion will inevitably occur unless strict growth restrictions are placed upon the region. These restrictions have been met with mixed responses and, in the process, created new intergovernmental dynamics throughout the region. Ontario’s Places to Grow Act is the most recent example of provincial involvement in the region. The process, initiated in 2006, identified rapid growth rates in Simcoe County and created policies to redirect growth to certain areas of the county in an effort to avoid unsustainable development (Ontario 2009, 1). The first report on the Simcoe sub-­area of the Greater Golden Horseshoe argued that, if left unchecked, Simcoe could have a population of over 1 million people by 2031. However, the province estimates that, with proper planning practices in place, a healthy estimate is 667,000 inhabitants and an employment forecast of 254,000 jobs (5). To achieve these development goals, the province wants to focus on the creation of “urban nodes” in the five largest communities in the Simcoe area: Barrie, Orillia, Collingwood, Alliston, and Bradford-­ West Gwillimbury (Ontario 2009, 9). The Towns of Midland and Penetanguishene were later added as additional growth nodes in a 2012 revision of the Places to Grow plan (Ontario 2012, 65). By directing growth to these areas and encouraging density, the province hopes to avoid unrestrained growth and sprawl into the more rural parts of the county.

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Table 5.3  Summary of population distribution under Places to Grow plan Community

2011 population 2031 projections Percent change

Barrie

135,711

210,000

54.71

Orillia

30,586

41,000

34.48

Adjala-­Tosorontio

10,603

13,000

22.6

Bradford-West Gwillimbury

28,077

50,500

79.86

Clearview

13,734

19,700

43.44

Collingwood

19,241

33,400

73.58

Essa

18,505

21,500

16.18

Innisfil

33,079

56,000

69.29

Midland

16,572

22,500

35.71

New Tecumseth

30,234

56,000

85.22

Oro-­Medonte

20,078

27,000

34.47

9,111

11,000

20.73

Penetanguishene Ramara

9,275

13,000

40.16

Severn

12,377

17,000

37.35

Springwater

18,223

24,000

31.63

Tay

9,736

11,400

17.09

Tiny

11,232

12,500

11.28

17,537

27,500

56.81

443,911

667,000

50.25

Wasaga Beach Total

Identifying growth nodes within the county creates both challenges and opportunities for Simcoe municipalities. Areas not identified as growth nodes now find it challenging to live within the confines of the legislation because they have been offered such a limited framework within which to grow. Much of the projected growth in the county must adhere to existing water and sewage servicing – areas referred to as “settlement boundaries” – which limit the amount of growth that more rural areas can establish. Table 5.3 lists the population distribution figures for the region. The plan specifies that some areas – such as those areas with growth nodes like New Tecumseth and Bradford-­ West Gwillimbury – will intentionally grow at a rapid rate, whereas other areas – primarily in the north – will grow at a greatly reduced rate. Tiny is one example of a municipality expected to grow at a much reduced rate. It is forecasted to grow only 11.28 per cent over the next thirty years. Nevertheless, many view these figures as both unrealistic and financially unsustainable.

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Many of the areas labelled as slower growth areas argue that the province has been inconsistent in the way that it has allocated growth. On the one hand, the overall population figure of 667,000 is described as a final number; yet, on the other hand, the province has informed areas not identified as growth nodes that they will be able to grow beyond their allotted population distributions as long as growth remains in designated settlement areas. According to one mayor from a county lower-­ tier municipality, this is causing confusion about which restrictions affect which municipalities (personal interview – 31 May 2012). Areas not identified as growth nodes believe they are being purposely disadvantaged through the Places to Grow legislation. Some county officials question how their municipalities will be able to have a suitable assessment base if they are prohibited from growing (personal interview – 31 May 2012). One mayor from a rural Simcoe municipality commented, “Unless I can grow in a well planned out manner, I’m never ever going to be cost effective, I’m never going to be able to recover the cost of the infrastructure I’ve had to place in the ground because the province has said I needed to do it” (personal interview – 31 May 2012). County officials and representatives from areas slated to grow have been sensitive to this aspect and worked to find a solution. One mayor from a southern municipality in the county, argued, “When the province says you can only grow to 667,000, including Barrie and Orillia, who gets that population [will lead] to an inevitable dispute” (personal interview – 31 May 2012). Another lower-­tier official agreed, noting, “It’s hard to satisfy so many people … of the 16 municipalities, some of them are very happy with the way things are going, many aren’t and they [the province] are saying that only so many people can come up and grow, so it makes some competition to get those numbers” (personal interview – 8 June 2012). County politicians contend that if all of the official plans from the county’s lower tiers were examined, their population figures would add up to 707,000. However, since the province was unwilling to adjust the Places to Grow plan to this figure, each area was forced to fight over future population distribution. Many municipal officials in the county argue that the Places to Grow legislation creates winners and losers; consequently, slower growing municipalities will be forced

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into financial strain because of the province’s restrictions (personal interview – 31 May 2012). Furthermore, other officials express doubt that they will be able to maintain their assessment base, creating a “financial burden” for their taxpayers. County officials note that this decision led to “a lot of grief and anxiety” within the county (personal interview – 31 May 2012). The county was not highly involved in the process that ultimately created the Places to Grow plan. In fact, county respondents note that despite the county having some responsibility over planning functions, much of the consultation was conducted directly with their lower-­tier municipalities, with little input from the county itself (personal interview – 8 June 2012). There was also very little input from the county’s MP P s, who report that much of the government’s action on this initiative was unilateral (personal interview – 15 June 2012). However, the Places to Grow plan did create alliances among areas intended to grow more heavily. Municipalities established as urban growth nodes have come together to hold regular meetings discussing common issues. The mayor of one growth node municipality noted that during their initial meeting, the urban nodes agreed to invite the county warden to be part of the group since the county felt isolated from the group and hoped to be a part of it (personal interviews – 30 May 2012). Barrie and Orillia initially expressed concerned about including the county in the group. However, they eventually relented with the understanding that the county warden “did not control the group” (personal interview – 30 May 2012). Nevertheless, officials from these rapidly growing areas indicate that they have more in common with each other than with the more rural areas of the county (personal interview – 31 May 2012). One mayor from this group stated that these new designations as growth nodes have also increased the interaction between these areas and the separated cities of Barrie and Orillia (personal interview – 30 May 2012). Identifying the county’s growth nodes and creating the growth nodes group have increased cooperation among these communities. When Alcona – a community within Innisfil – was added as a growth node to the Places to Grow plan, Barrie officials contend that they began discussions with the town to extend municipal transit service to the area to help facilitate its objectives under the provincial plan

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(personal interview – 14 June 2012). Barrie officials also note that they are beginning to discuss extending utility services to the Collingwood area (personal interview – 14 June 2012).7 Many of these areas identified as growth nodes are not natural partners for cooperation – particularly Barrie and Collingwood, which are far apart – but have been brought together because of their common identification as sites of growth and development. Much of the report’s attention centred on Barrie, viewed by the province as the best place to bring density to the area, referring to the city as the region’s “anchor node” (Ontario 2009, 9). Consequently, most of the growth within the region is slated for Barrie, creating some tension between Barrie and the county areas designated for more moderate growth. Furthermore, some county officials believe that Barrie has received undue attention from the province and has been prioritized above other communities within the county (personal interview – 31 May 2012). Municipalities slated to grow under the Places to Grow plan tend to like the legislation, while municipalities not intended to grow tend to dislike the plan. Areas such as Barrie, Orillia, Bradford-­ West Gwillimbury, New Tecumseth, Innisfil, Collingwood, Penetanguishene, and Midland will benefit from this growth because they have the necessary infrastructure in place and have previously planned for high levels of growth and development. These areas appreciate the newfound legislative authority behind their ambitions. However, more rural areas not identified as growth areas resent the legislation, believing that they have been put in an unfair position by having their growth, and thus their assessment base, capped well into the future. Even though officials from slower growth areas have clearly stated their desire to remain rural and avoid large-­scale housing or industrial development, they resent having to plan within the province’s vision for their municipalities. The provincial initiative has also created a new layer of intergovernmental relations within the region: urban and rural, rather than county and city. Communities identified as growth nodes have more reason to cooperate with each other than the more rural areas of the county because they have aligned interests that are nearly absent at the county level. They vote together at county council, usually to the

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detriment of the north, and have established independent growth nodes groups to discuss their newly elevated role within the region and in the eyes of the province. By introducing Places to Grow, the province created many urban and suburban areas around Simcoe County. Its overall objective was to direct growth toward urban areas – with the goal of curbing sprawl. This was the original purpose of separating cities from their counties: to maintain the distinction between urban and rural areas. However, directing growth toward the county’s two separated cites, Barrie and Orillia, has become increasingly challenging since the Simcoe region is one of the fastest growing in the province. In fact, between 2001 and 2006, Barrie held the distinction of the fastest growing municipality in the entire country. In this type of environment, growth cannot be neatly contained within the borders of the county’s separated cities. However, the Places to Grow legislation entrenched and legitimized Simcoe County’s rapidly growing suburban areas. As such, the province has moved away from the logic behind city–county separation and moved toward the same type of thinking that created regional government: managing growth throughout the area rather than confining it solely to urban areas. c o n c lu s i o n

Perhaps more than any other county in Ontario, Simcoe County has received an inordinate amount of attention from the provincial government. From the report of the Toronto-­Centred Region and the Simcoe Georgian Area Task Force in the 1970s, to the Simcoe-­ specific restructuring in the 1990s to the new Places to Grow plan, few other regions in the province have come under closer examination. With the amount of growth in the area, this is not surprising. The growth rates in the area have been dramatic, but the province’s persistent attempts to govern this growth stem largely from the puzzling nature of this growth. The southern portion of the county is growing rapidly. The north is not. One of the county’s separated cities – Barrie – is growing rapidly. The other, Orillia, is not. Dotted throughout the county are new “growth nodes” – areas designated for high growth – which stand in stark contrast to areas

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not selected as growth nodes. This rapid growth eventually caused the very public, nasty feud between Barrie, Innisfil, and the county over Barrie’s proposed annexation. Officials in Barrie heeded the warnings of their planners that the city was running out of land for internal job creation. The city’s growth had long been fuelled by residential development, mainly by commuters who drive into the GTA for work. Politicians have searched for a way to reverse these demographic trends and create more employment within their borders. Annexation was seen as a way of accomplishing this. Innisfil, however, had very similar designs. Growth in the southern part of Simcoe County – including Innisfil – had also been fuelled by residential growth spurred on by those commuting into the G T A for work. For generations, southern Simcoe County was rural and agrarian, an area that prided itself on its agricultural history. Although these municipalities grew at a much slower pace than Barrie for years, its current growth now outpaces their separated neighbour. A change in leadership in many southern Simcoe county municipalities has created a change in mentality around growth. Many of the mayors of these southern Simcoe municipalities now reflect their changing populations: they have young families, they are new to Simcoe county and, perhaps most important, they commute to the G T A every day for work.8 The new political class in many of these municipalities does not identify with the “rural idyll” of Simcoe’s past. They are focused on development and growth, which is why the boundary dispute between Barrie and Innisfil became so heated: both municipalities had the same intentions for the same land. Both wanted to grow and develop on their own terms. Encompassing this growth puzzle is an institutional arrangement that does not connect the disparate parts of the region. The uniqueness of the separated cities is eroding, with southern county lower tiers such as New Tecumseth and Bradford-­West Gwillimbury containing populations greater than separated Orillia. Without connections to the faster growing parts of the county, the separated cities of Barrie and Orillia are having difficulty managing the rapid growth and development in their communities. Provincial growth management strategies have attempted to link these growth areas, but have also furthered

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divisions between rapid-­and slow-­growth communities, further dividing the north from the south. More than any other county in the province, Simcoe has outgrown the institution of city–county separation. The south is growing rapidly and without institutional connections to the separated cities. The province has created ad hoc connections through the growth nodes in the Places to Grow plan, but without an institutionalized forum to discuss and manage growth, future disputes surrounding development may be unavoidable.

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6 Designing Institutions that Work

introduction

In the introduction of this book, it was argued that linking urban and rural areas was one of the great challenges of municipal governance. The two areas have traditionally been seen as distinct. Not only do they possess vastly different economies, labour trends, and ways of life, they are also seen as having different sets of values. Ontario created separate urban and rural areas to uphold this distinction. Thus, when an urban area of a county became classified as a city, it was automatically separated politically from its surrounding county. Initially, this was seen as mutually beneficial. Urban areas would be freed from the more narrowly focused politics of rural life and rural areas would not have any institutional linkages to the urban areas that, historically, they viewed with suspicion. Separated cities were thus institutionally free from their counties, but remained geographically linked, placing them in the awkward position of being both absent and present in the political life of the county. For decades, the Ontario government used city–county separation as a key policy tool to organize their municipalities. Beginning in the 1950s, rapid suburbanization forced the provincial government to re-­evaluate how it saw urban and rural. During this period, forms of regional government became dominant. Where past organizational thinking had viewed urban and rural areas as distinct, regional government saw them as fundamentally linked. Much of this had to do with the rise of peri-­urban communities on the edge of Canada’s

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largest cities. As urban and rural values began to shift, policy-­makers began to see the two as related. Regional governments recognized that urban areas needed to work with rural areas on planning matters; as a result, linking urban and rural – and, by then, suburban – areas through common institutions would extend the economic benefits of urban life to surrounding areas. Despite the popularity of regional government as the province’s main organizational tool from the 1950s until the 1970s, eighteen cities and towns, as noted earlier, remain separated from their counties. Growth has greatly affected the continued use of city–county separation in many counties across the province. This book has introduced three case studies of separated cities and counties from across the province: London and Middlesex County, Guelph and Wellington County, and Barrie and Simcoe County. Table 6.1 is a summary of these cases. Each area is experiencing growth pressures which are challenging the institution of city–county separation as never before. Guelph’s growth pressure is internal, whereas London’s and Barrie’s are external. The response from surrounding county governments has been varied. Wellington County allowed Guelph to move forward with a proposed boundary expansion because officials there wished to remain rural. Middlesex and Simcoe County officials, on the other hand, reacted much differently. In both cases, municipal leaders saw themselves as competing for growth and development with their associated separated cities. These trends are not confined only to Simcoe and Middlesex Counties. Rural officials, who once resisted growth, now embrace it. As a result, development is overstepping the boundaries of separated cities, finding a welcoming home in once-­rural neighboring municipalities, and the institution of city–county separation is not capable of addressing growth conflicts. Because of the institutional separation between separated cities and county lower-­tier municipalities, there is no way for separated cities or county lower tiers to benefit from growth in another jurisdiction. Growth, then, becomes a zero-­ sum game and competition over development inevitably ensues. Much of this shift is cultural. Rural inhabitants once saw urban municipalities as dirty and dangerous. Urban growth, then, was naturally resisted and contained through institutional divisions. As we

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Table 6.1  Key findings in case studies Case

Key findings

London-­ Middlesex

• • • •

•

Guelph-­ Wellington

• • • •

•

Barrie-­ Simcoe

• • • •

•

Growth around the city’s periphery has caused tension between city and county officials Officials in Middlesex County have sought to create an alternative to city living outside London’s border London officials have refused to cooperate on service extensions out of fear of facilitating growth outside their border County officials are no longer content to remain rural, blurring the distinction put in place by the institution of city-­county separation Importance of institutional fit and planning culture City and County were able to come to agreement on urban expansion County wishes to remain rural and is content to see Guelph expand in order to preserve their identity Unclear how this situation would change under more intense growth pressure or a change in county political culture County has demonstrated a belief that the City is not sufficiently committed to density Importance of political culture and growth intensity Subject to a great deal of provincial attention Tremendous growth rates that are unevenly distributed throughout the county; very fast growing south and a slow growing north Clash of growth and development ambitions between Barrie and its immediate neighbours New-development-­focused politicians in southern Simcoe county leadership positions Importance of leadership, development ambitions, and institutional design

discussed in chapter 2, we have witnessed an urban / rural convergence in recent decades. Urbanization is viewed very differently than it once was. No longer viewed as victimization, urbanization is now a directed process adopted on rural terms. This cultural shift can help explain why the mindset around growth has changed so much in counties surrounding separated cities. When the cultural underpinnings of urban and rural shifted, policy-­ makers were not exactly sure how to respond. Regional government was a helpful start, as it connected urban, rural, and peri-­urban. Where regional government could not be easily implemented, institutional change was abandoned. The institutional separation between urban and rural endured, but the cultural separation between the two waned.

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This book has made the argument that institutions matter and that the flexibility of our institutions plays a central role in dictating the course of policy and the relationship between municipalities. City–county separation, by definition, is inflexible; the institution creates clear distinctions between urban and rural. Generations ago, the difference between rural and urban was clear. Over time, peri-­ urban communities were created as urban inhabitants moved to the fringes of our cities, taking with them the amenities of urban life, but finding the individuality and peace traditionally associated with the “rural idyll.” These areas expanded with a resulting convergence of urban and rural values, economies, and culture. From the case studies presented in the preceding chapters, it is clear that city–county separation has likely outlived its usefulness in many regions where it is still in use. Why, however, has it existed so long? Why has the use of city–county separation persisted, especially since the provincial government has demonstrated a clear preference for institutions that link, rather than separate, urban and rural areas? c i t y – c o u n t y s e pa r at i o n a s an enduring institution

Over time, increased suburbanization has gradually blurred the distinction between urban and rural, replacing the logic behind city– county separation with the notion that urban and rural needed to be linked. This shift largely occurred in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s with the introduction of regional government. Beginning with the creation of Metropolitan Toronto, the province established a series of regional governments to help coordinate many of Ontario’s rapidly urbanizing counties. Two key reports in the 1960s led to the creation of regional government: the report of the Select Committee on the Municipal Act and Related Acts and the report of the Ontario Committee on Taxation. The Select Committee on the Municipal Act and Related Acts argued that growth and development was no longer confined to Ontario’s urban centres because areas around cities, especially around the province’s separated cities, were gradually becoming more suburban. This, the committee noted, created serious governance problems:

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“Not only have our cities developed a new vigour but population has spilled over into rural areas which are neither financially or politically equipped to deal with the resulting problems” (Ontario 1965, 167). The report referred to these newly suburbanizing communities as “dormitory municipalities” to their larger urban neighbours (168). The Ontario Committee on Taxation found similar results, arguing that the southern part of the province was rapidly urbanizing and that the provincial government needed to create municipal structures that could properly address the needs of these areas (Ontario 1967b). In the 1980s, the province turned its attention toward these areas, finding similar trends of urban growth as cities. Patterns for the Future, a 1987 provincial report, agreed that Ontario’s counties were experiencing rapid growth rates. The report argued, “Few municipalities are now predominantly rural in nature,” and that suburban development would likely lead to increased annexation disputes (Ontario 1987, 19). These problems placed the viability of the separated city–county system in doubt. Two more reports found similar trends. In 1988, County Government in Ontario argued that, “the distinction between the rural and urban communities in counties is no longer as clear as it once was … this change has placed new requirements and demands on a government system designed for a primarily agricultural society” (Ontario 1988, 1). In this case, it appeared that Ontario was outgrowing its old county system, necessitating changes to adapt these structures to the new reality of population growth and settlement. Toward an Ideal County, published in 1990, recommended reintegrating separated cities back into county structures as a way of overcoming the problems associated with increased urbanization. Despite this series of reports, city–county separation remains a part of Ontario’s municipal landscape to this day. Yet the urbanization that each report describes has also not abated; in fact, in some areas, it has only grown stronger. The previous chapters on London, Guelph, and Barrie highlight this: officials from lower tiers on the outskirts of some separated cities are no longer content to allow their municipalities to remain rural. Rather, they hope to attract residential, commercial, and industrial development and expand their assessment base.

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Furthermore, in some instances, such as in Middlesex County, politicians from these areas are not shy about their ambitions to become suburban enclaves to the separated cities they border. These aspirations are the antithesis of the logic that first created city– county separation in the province: rural areas were to remain rural and separated cities were to remain urban. In many of these areas, however, the implicit bargain between urban and rural is effectively broken. Shifting population and settlement patterns have blurred this formerly clear distinction. Ultimately, the authors of Patterns for the Future were correct: few municipalities remain predominantly rural, especially in Southern Ontario. This fact has created tensions between some separated cities and their surrounding areas. Officials from cities that want to ensure that most of the development and growth around them occurs within their borders must now compete against newly ambitious politicians from rural municipalities. Separated cities commonly use annexation to control development. London, Barrie, and Guelph have all expanded their borders incrementally, usually with the help of the province. London has undergone fifteen major boundary expansions, and Barrie has expanded its borders nine times since 1954. There have been eight rounds of annexation in Guelph as the city expands outwards. Provincial officials have facilitated these expansions, using the justification that each city must expand to facilitate development. In some cases – most notably in London and Barrie – these annexation disputes became hostile, requiring provincial intervention to resolve the conflict. City–county separation remains most enduring in areas where urban areas want to remain urban and rural areas want to remain rural. Guelph’s most recent annexation, for example, was aided by the desire of county officials to remain rural and provide the city with the land it needed to grow. On the other hand, London and Barrie’s experiences have been more negative because the desire of city officials to expand now conflicts with the desire of their once rural neighbours to grow. Nevertheless, city–county separation remains in place. This is due largely to the following three factors. First, many counties with a separated city, though not entirely rural, are still mostly rural. Some areas such as Simcoe County are experiencing rapid growth rates in various areas, whereas other regions, such as Renfrew County, Lanark

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County, or the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, remain predominantly rural and experience very modest rates of growth compared with their separated cities and other rural municipalities. In these instances, there is not much need for institutional change since the original intention of city–county separation is being maintained and, by most accounts, functioning well. Second, reintegrating separated cities is, in some cases, entirely unfeasible. The problem identified in the 1980s reports recommending an end to city–county separation remains: there is no clear way to reintegrate large cities back into county life without severely curtailing the representation of smaller communities on reconstituted county councils. Each report stated that the distinction between urban and rural was rapidly breaking down, but none could offer concrete recommendations on how to manage this newfound reality. The pragmatics of reintroducing a separated city into its county are daunting – and the experiences of trying to reintegrate Guelph, Barrie, and Orillia back into two-­tier structures highlight exactly how daunting this can be – demonstrating that institutional change may not always be feasible. Finally, for decades the province of Ontario has allowed separated cities to expand outward, ensuring, by continuously absorbing urbanizing territory into separated cities, that city–county separation remains an institutional practice. Despite provincial policy-­makers’ insistence in the 1980s that city–county separation needed to be stopped, the province has continuously maintained city–county separation through this incremental expansion. This type of expansion is similar to other Canadian municipalities, most notably Calgary, which has slowly annexed unincorporated territory and rural municipalities since its inception (Foran 2009). Through this incremental annexation process, Ontario’s separated cities, much like Calgary, have grown enough that city borders now comfortably contain much of the region’s urban growth. Despite the desire of some neighbouring rural municipalities to grow and expand, the province has allowed developing territory to be annexed, thereby re-­enforcing and maintaining the institution of city–county separation. Although separated cities have commonly used provincially supported annexation to control growth, these boundary extensions are  sometimes controversial. Before the provincial push toward

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consolidation in the 1990s, large separated cities were more easily able to annex the smaller bordering communities. As Williams and Downey (1999) demonstrate, the provincial government’s amalgamation agenda in the 1990s created larger municipalities with larger populations. As a result, it then became more difficult to annex larger communities since they were now stronger governmental actors. Thus, although Innisfil – a growing community bordering Barrie – was recently subjected to an annexation, its increased size allowed it to fight against the broader boundary expansion. Barrie eventually received a smaller annexation than requested, in large part because Innisfil officials made a convincing case against Barrie annexing more of their land. Thus, the province’s preferences for consolidation sometimes work at cross-­purposes: while consolidation traditionally facilitates the preservation of the system of city–county separation by allowing separated cities to expand their borders to take in more urbanizing sections of the county, the provincial push for consolidation in the 1990s also created stronger municipalities on the edge of separated cites, making further annexations more challenging. Since rates of urbanization continue to grow, some counties with a separated city – such as Simcoe County – could make a strong case for why they should be converted into regional governments that could help with items such as regional planning. In the absence of these types of conversions, the province has attempted to fill the gap, acting as an arbiter in annexation disputes and helping to regulate land use and development in certain areas. Whatever direction the province chooses to take, the fact remains that in many areas, the weakened distinction between urban and rural has wide-­ranging effects, particularly in policy areas such as planning and service delivery. Rural communities could avoid many of these consequences by choosing to remain solely rural. However, in many cases, rural communities are encouraging urban growth to the detriment of cities that continue to adhere to the original logic of municipal organization in their region. t h i n k i n g r e g i o n a l ly ? t h e p r o s p e c t s o f r e f o r m

The province’s motivation for redesigning local institutions was to better control growth. For example, as we saw in chapter 1, regional

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government was created largely as a response to rapid rates of development. The province needed some mechanism to allow for regional planning and service delivery and regional government was seen as the answer, building connections between the central city and the rapidly growing surrounding areas. This mindset stands in stark contrast to the institution of city– county separation. In counties with separated cities, the institutional connections between urban and rural are severed. Without these linkages, there are no formal mechanisms to control for growth, and these regions must thus rely on voluntary means, such as inter-­local service sharing and contracting, to manage growth.1 In Ontario’s counties with a separated city, there were 283 lower-­ tier municipalities before 1995 and 131 after 2000 – 53.7 per cent fewer. Much of this results from the province’s push toward amalgamation, as discussed in chapter 1. However, during this period there were also 115 individual boundary expansions in counties that have a separated town or city.2 By comparison, only eight boundary changes occurred within Ontario’s regional governments during the same time period. Many of these changes include the wholesale consolidation of the Region of Hamilton-­ Wentworth, Metropolitan Toronto, the Region of Ottawa-­Carleton, and Sudbury Region, and the separation of the Region of Haldimand-­Norfolk.3 Aside from these larger conversions of regional governments into single-­tier municipalities, there have been few boundary changes in Ontario’s regional governments from 1995 onwards: Region of Peel and Halton Region: In January 2010, Mississauga and the Region of Peel agreed to an annexation plan with the Town of Milton and Halton Region that saw close to 405 hectares in the “Ninth Line” community transferred from Milton to Mississauga so that the city’s borders adjoined Highway 407. Mississauga and Peel paid $3,290,000 in compensation to Milton and Halton in exchange for the land (City of Mississauga 2009). • Region of Waterloo: On 1 September 2008, the province approved a very minor annexation of 29 hectares from North Dumfries to the City of Cambridge in order to bring consistent zoning to a •

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proposed housing development (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing 2008). • York Region: In July of 2001, a minor annexation of half an acre was approved that transferred land slated for a subdivision in the Town of Aurora to the City of Richmond Hill to ensure consistent zoning for the proposed project (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing 2001). Each of these annexations was minor, with the largest transfer occurring between Mississauga and Milton. This annexation was challenging primarily because it involved transferring land from one regional government to another. The two other annexations were also minor and involved land transfers that were already enclosed within the same regional government. In comparison with Cambridge and Richmond Hill, North Dumfries and Aurora are more rural municipalities. In both cases, it was sensible from a zoning perspective to make the development projects within each municipality consistent. This prompts an important question: Why have so few boundary expansions occurred in Ontario’s regional governments? Upper-­tier government assumes the responsibility for regional planning matters and transportation. As Fyfe (1975) argues, regional government is designed to provide urban centres with more control over their immediate hinterland. In regional governments, urban areas are able to express their opinions about the development that occurs around them, mainly by participating on regional councils. This is not the case in areas with separated cities and counties. Since there are no institutional ties linking a separated city to its county, there is no connection between the growth that occurs within the city’s boundaries and the growth that occurs outside its borders. Any development in the county falls outside of the city’s borders and, as a result, cannot be assessed by the city. The county provides no regional planning to ensure that there is an equitable division of costs to maintain roads or infrastructure. This explains why separated municipalities tend to be more proactive in ensuring that they control new development and potential employment lands. Existing research on voluntary cooperation is extensive. From a theoretical perspective, the new regionalism paradigm has been popular.

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Proponents of new regionalism emphasize the use of governance – which they describe as the creation of flexible networks that address regional problems through mainly voluntary means – as opposed to government, which new regionalists see as the traditional, hierarchical structure of formal institutions. As such, new regionalists advocate for voluntary linkages between jurisdictions as well as including non-­governmental actors in regional governance, creating complex networks of linked functions. When metropolitan and regional government were created in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and consolidation techniques were used on a wide scale in the 1990s, “government” was emphasized. Despite the provincial shift toward regional government, counties with separated cities remain a significant governance structure. Although parts of the county – namely, rural areas – fall under a traditionally tiered government model, the urban area of the county is institutionally distinct. The county government regulates many of the functions of the area, except for the relationship with its largest and most populated jurisdiction. This emphasized the need for “governance” models to link institutionally distinct rural and urban areas. Effective governance, new regionalists would remind us, can be achieved through cooperative arrangements between governing units (Salet, Thornley, and Kruegels 2003; Savitch and Vogel 1996; Vogel and Harrington 2003). The new regionalist paradigm emphasizes easily reached, voluntary ways of cooperating. Table 6.2 provides a summary of the tools used to coordinate government activity like service sharing and contracting within metropolitan areas. New regionalists advocate using the tools listed in the “easiest” category, which are usually voluntary and flexible. Of particular interest to this study are these types of cooperative mechanisms. The more structurally challenging mechanisms, such as those listed in the “middling” and “hardest” categories, would involve more “government” – the use of formal institutions to create policy – rather than “governance.” Few counties with separated cities have adopted many of the tools listed in the “easiest” category to manage growth. The institutional structure of many of these areas does not provide mechanisms to discuss growth and development, so creating voluntary methods

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Table 6.2  Regional governance approaches – Walker’s Classification1 Approach

Summary description

Easiest Informal cooperation

Collaborative and reciprocal actions between two local governments

Interlocal service agreements

Voluntary but formal agreements between two or more local governments

Joint powers agreements

Agreements between two or more local governments for joint planning, financing, and delivery of a service

Exterritorial powers

Allows a city to exercise some regulatory authority outside of its boundary in rapidly developing un-incorporated areas

Regional councils /  councils of government

Local councils that rely mostly on voluntary efforts and move to regional agenda-definer and conflict-resolver roles

Federally encouraged single-purpose regional bodies

Single-purpose regional bodies tied to federal funds

State planning and development districts

Established by states in the 1960s and early 1970s to bring order to chaotic creation of federal special purpose regional programs

Contracting (private)

Service contracts with private providers

Middling Local special districts

Provides a single service of multiple related services on a multijurisdictional basis

Transfers of functions

Shifting or responsibility for provision of a service from one jurisdiction to another

Annexation

Bringing an unincorporated area into an incorporated jurisdiction

Regional special districts

Region-wide districts providing services such as mass transit or sewage disposal

Metro multipurpose district

A regional district providing multiple functions

Reformed urban county

Establishment of a charter county

Hardest One-tier consolidation

Consolidation of city and county

Two-tier restructuring

Division of functions between the local and regional

Three-tier restructuring

Agencies at multiple levels of government that absorb, consolidate, or restructure new and / or existing roles and responsibilities

1  Adapted from Walker (1987)

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would be seen a natural step if both partners were concerned about managing and restricting growth. If city–county separation is currently not working in certain areas across the province, what would an alternative institution look like? Several institutions designed to promote cooperation were presented above. Walker’s classifications range from “easiest,” such as informal cooperation and inter-­local service agreements; to “middling,” such as the creation of local special districts and annexation; and finally to “hardest,” such as one-­tier consolidation or two-­tier restructuring. Below, alternative institutional arrangements are presented as they would appear on the spectrum provided by Walker. Easiest: Informal Cooperation / Inter-­Local Cooperation At one end of Walker’s spectrum is informal or inter-­local cooperation. In such an arrangement, two or more municipalities would enter into an agreement on a certain policy area – in this case, planning. Each municipality’s commitment would vary. Formal agreements usually have legal protections binding each partner to the arrangement. Informal agreements do not have binding aspects or anything holding each partner to the agreement. These types of arrangements have found a prominent place within academic literature on metropolitan governance, namely in the work of new regionalists. As noted earlier, proponents of new regionalism emphasize the use of governance as opposed to government, which new regionalists see as the traditional, hierarchical structure of formal institutions. New regionalists thus advocate using voluntary, flexible linkages between jurisdictions as well as including non-­governmental actors in regional governance, creating complex networks of linked functions. Despite the new regionalists’ more flexible approach, the paradigm does have its critics, most focusing on the unlikelihood of governing units cooperating (Frisken and Norris 2001; Norris 2001). To critics, new regionalists underestimate the nature of metropolitan politics. They argue that interjurisdictional conflict is rife, so expecting voluntary cooperation between municipalities is wishful thinking. Cooperation, they note, achieves the same result as government.

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As cooperation between governments is challenging on a variety of issues, government can be the tool to accomplish ends unreachable through voluntary means (Norris, Phares, and Zimmerman 2009, 12). Critics also note that until there is a clear appetite for cooperation among the electorate and a clear incentive structure for local politicians, cooperation may be impossible on all but a handful of issues (Gainsborough 2001). An examination of the Canadian context reveals similarly disheartening results for new regionalists. Exploring the validity of the new regionalist paradigm, Frisken (2001) examines Toronto and finds that the provincial government – not the metropolitan or municipal government – was responsible for initiating or implementing most of the policies that helped to shape the region during the second half of the twentieth century. These policies tended to be driven by provincial agendas that often had little to do with regionalist arguments and objectives. These findings led Frisken to conclude that senior governments, even those with undisputed authority, have political and financial agendas that may not coincide with the tenets of regionalism (2001, 538). Sancton (2001) argues that while new regionalists could learn from the performance of Canadian regional institutions, their findings would not necessarily support new regionalist assumptions about the ability of regional structures to end city–suburban conflicts, contribute to regional economic development, or improve faltering urban cores. In Ontario, the province has historically discouraged the use of inter-­local agreements between separated cities and counties. Patterns for the Future described the use of inter-­local agreements as problematic. Noting that inter-­local agreements can be “time-­consuming to negotiate, can foster dispute, and can create confusion about accountability,” the report argues that these agreements create uncertainty about the county’s role as a policy-­maker (Ontario 1987, 62). Furthermore, they cause public uncertainty about what level of government is responsible for what service. Inter-­local agreements, the report continues, do not necessarily provide stable administration since their terms and conditions are subject to periodic renegotiation, thus detracting from a serious consideration of the county’s ability to deliver a service (Ontario 1987, 65). As such, for many

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years separated cities and counties operated in an environment that dissuaded the use of inter-­municipal agreements. Ontario’s separated cities and counties signed 275 inter-­municipal agreements between 1995 and 2011 across the province (Spicer 2014). When agreements with a mandatory element are removed, only 102 truly voluntary agreements exist, far less than the thousands of agreements typically found in large American metropolitan areas (Shrestha 2005; Thurmaier 2005; LeRoux and Carr 2007; Andrew 2008). We could conclude that Ontario’s separated cities are using inter-­local agreements sparsely. Only one separated city (discussed in the section below) actually uses inter-­local agreements for any joint planning functions. For the most part, these agreements are for servicing continuity between two or more jurisdictions. Separated cities and counties have not used inter-­local agreements very much for regional planning. Since all separated cities and counties practise some form of inter-­local cooperation4 and have inter-­local agreements in place, officials on both sides are aware of the process, but choose not to cooperate on land use issues. This reluctance to cooperate on planning issues can be traced back to the zero-­sum mentality around growth in counties with a separated city. The transaction costs are simply too high to overcome when cooperating on planning issues. Inter-­local agreements may also not be the right tool to facilitate a long-­term relationship on planning issues, mainly because of the temporary nature of inter-­local cooperation, even if it is formalized. Agreements can be broken or abandoned, furthering the gap between both partners and entrenching the idea that growth is a competitive endeavour. While new regionalists insist that voluntary cooperation can link regions, often inter-­local agreements are used in conjunction with existing institutions. From this perspective, inter-­local agreements could theoretically be used to bridge the institutional gap between separated cities and counties. However, as we have seen above, existing Canadian research has not provided a great deal of support for this notion. Inter-­local cooperation is often ad hoc and temporary. And in areas where there is a great deal of cooperation for growth, voluntary cooperation is unlikely to lessen these ambitions – the same pressures placed upon city–county separation would still be

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present and there would still not be any institution compelling cooperation on development. In the absence of institutional change, voluntary cooperation may be able to better manage growth and policy continuity between separated cities and counties, but likely only in places where two or more municipalities have an existing cooperative relationship. Middling: Creation of Local Special Districts /  Transfers of Functions As mentioned above, growth in counties with a separated city is often viewed as a zero-­sum game. Because there are no institutional connections between the city and the county, there is no way for cities to benefit from growth outside of their borders. In many cases, separated cities view this growth as parasitic. County lower tiers hoping to grow also view development as a zero-­sum game: growth within a separated city is a net loss for their municipality. Only in city–county relationships where the county wishes to remain rural can these types of scenarios be avoided. One possible way to avoid this zero-­sum mentality is to build connections between both areas by creating joint planning bodies. Under such an arrangement, the planning departments of several municipalities would be merged or partially merged. Growth would then be viewed on a more regional scale. The placement of development would be a mutual decision and could be designed to benefit more than one jurisdiction. Such an arrangement already exists in Ontario. The separated city of St Thomas and its neighbouring lower tiers in Elgin County are part of a planning collective. Unlike other separated cities, St Thomas has some control over development outside of its borders. The city’s planning staff takes into account the demand on the city for servicing and growth, along with the demands on adjoining communities. A joint board makes decisions over land use planning with representation from each municipality, established to administer planning activities. This arrangement evolved over several decades. Despite St Thomas being a separated city since 1881, it has always been included in the

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county’s planning exercises. Joint planning boards, however, were only formally created in Elgin County during the 1960s. In 1966, the “Elgin County Planning Area” was established, with St Thomas included as a “subsidiary planning area.” In 1969, the arrangement changed and the county was divided into three separate planning areas: west, central, and east. The City of St Thomas was included in the Central Elgin Planning Board, along with the Villages of Port Stanley and Belmont, and the Townships of Yarmouth and Southwold. Under the Planning Act, the Board was established as an incorporated body with decision-­making responsibility for planning matters (Central Elgin Planning Board 2007). A new Planning Act introduced in 1983 dissolved all of the joint and subsidiary planning boards and areas across the province, calling instead for local councils to be directly responsible for planning matters. The five members of the Central Elgin Planning Board wished to continue their arrangement and therefore entered into an inter-­local agreement that formed the Central Elgin Planning Advisory Committee (CEPAC) whose representatives came from each of the member municipalities. Planning staff became employees of the City of St Thomas with the understanding that they would comply with CEPAC’s vision. In accordance with the new Planning Act, participation in CEPAC was voluntary. After province-­wide consolidation, the central planning area was altered to include St Thomas, Southwold, and the newly amalgamated Town of Central Elgin (Central Elgin Planning Board 2007). In 2006, Southwold gave notice that it would no longer participate in CE P A C . Planning staff say that this decision was given without explanation, surprising many in the organization (personal interview – 4 May 2011). Southwold was an original member of the planning collective and had previously agreed it would continue to maintain its voluntary agreement with CE P AC after changes to the Planning Act in 1983 and following the amalgamation of 1998 that reduced the group from five to three members. Southwold politicians claim that the township was not receiving a “fair shake” from the planning arrangement (primary interview – 22 April 2011). They contend that in spite of the fact that the

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township was spending approximately $80,000 a year on the arrangement, planners were focused on development in St Thomas and Central Elgin and excluding Southwold, the smallest partner in the arrangement (primary interview – 22 April 2011).5 One Southwold councillor argued, “We thought the planners were looking more at St Thomas and Central Elgin for development and we weren’t getting our share of that and development is what you need to grow, so we thought we would go on our own and see how we would do on our own” (primary interview – 22 April 2011). The presence of a joint-­planning board is perhaps one of the main reasons why St Thomas has so easily succeeded in expanding its boundaries. Officials from both the city and county report that their relationship has been successful because both Elgin County and their lower-­tier municipalities around the city have been able to give “each other room to breathe” and permit boundary changes that allow St Thomas to grow (personal interview – 14 April 2012). The city has been able to accomplish several mutually beneficial land-­ for-­servicing arrangements, the most recent in 2010. Thus, while C E P A C has successfully managed growth in and around St Thomas, it has also experienced steep challenges, the largest of which has been Southwold’s departure. CE P AC was unable to manage the expectations and complement the growth ambitions of both large and small members. Southwold’s view of this relationship gradually changed. Too much development was directed toward St Thomas, ignoring the aspirations of Southwold’s new council and administration to see the community grow. In this case, common planning institutions between separated cities and their neighbouring rural areas seem feasible only when both rural and urban areas have similar objectives to remain rural and urban. Here, the main obstacle remains the cultural convergence between urban and rural. As we have seen, a planning collective can be successful, but only under certain circumstances – namely when there is an implicit understanding that urban growth would be directed toward an urban area. A planning collective would certainly work in a region such as Guelph-­Wellington, but city–county separation also appears to work. The question is, could a planning collective solve some of the problems experienced by Simcoe or Middlesex County?

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Designing Institutions that Work 153

As long as there is competition for development, a successful growth collective will be challenging to find. Unless ambitions are properly managed, rural areas hoping to attract development may never feel they properly align with the goals of larger urban members. As it stands, the intense competition for growth around London and Barrie would likely not create ideal conditions for a growth collective to be successful. The first step to establishing a successful growth collective is likely a joint planning vision document and some agreement over sustainable growth. If two municipalities could first achieve a common vision when it comes to regional development, the decisions of a growth collective would find much more support among both urban and rural members. Without such a shared vision, however, it is unlikely that planning collectives could find long-­ term support in places such as London-­ Middlesex or Barrie-­Simcoe. Hardest: Single-­Tier Consolidation / Two-­Tier Restructuring Few things in government are more challenging than institutional change. The restructuring of municipal institutions has proven challenging in a host of jurisdictions. As demonstrated in chapter 1, Ontario is one of the jurisdictions where municipal restructuring has encountered a great deal of resistance. The move to two-­tier regional government was, at one time, controversial, and steadfastly resisted in some areas. The creation of regional government in Ontario required eliminating some governments, adding new layers of government, and, of course, rebalancing powers and responsibilities between new and old orders of government. Creating a single-­tier government would be equally challenging, because the consolidation of municipal governments always attracts controversy, but the vast distance between existing governments in counties like Simcoe, Wellington, and Middlesex would naturally warrant questions about the efficiency of such large regions. It is easy to understand why this type of institutional change was listed in Walker’s “hardest” category. This type of restructuring could be achieved in three ways: reintegrating separated cities back into county structures, creating regional governments, or consolidating the entire county, including the

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The Boundary Bargain

separated city, into one single-­tier government. The province pursued large-­scale restructuring in the 1960s and 1970s to provide more coordination and regional planning mechanisms to rapidly growing areas, primarily in southern Ontario, believing that common institutions were the only way to control this rapid growth. Reports written in the county reform era found the same type of rapid growth around many separated cities. Regional government, then, appeared to offer the most promise in controlling growth around separated cities, as upper-­ tier government would assume responsibility for regional planning and transportation, providing the central city with more control over its immediate hinterland (Fyfe 1975). This is not the case in areas with separated cities and counties, as there is no connection between the growth that occurs within the city’s boundaries and the growth that occurs outside its borders. Any development in the county falls outside of the city’s purview and, as a result, remains inaccessible to the city in terms of assessment. The county provides no regional planning to ensure that there is an equitable division of costs for the maintenance of roads or infrastructure. This explains why separated municipalities tend to be more proactive in ensuring they control new development and potential employment lands. Despite the promise that two-­tier government holds for regional planning, the same barriers to reunification identified in Patterns for the Future, County Government in Ontario, and Toward an Ideal County still exist today: the disproportionate size of separated cities would skew representation on many reconstituted upper-­tier councils. Because the province has continued to allow separated cities to expand outwards through various rounds of annexation, separated cities have much larger populations than their surrounding counties. On the one hand, separated cities are largely unwilling to accept a diminished standard of representation, as we saw with Guelph’s reluctance to rejoin Wellington County in the 1990s. On the other hand, county municipalities are unwilling to sit on an upper-­tier council that is dominated by urban municipalities, as evidenced by Simcoe County’s reluctance to Barrie and Orillia rejoining the county during restructuring in the 1990s. The divide on Simcoe Council is evidence of the types of problems that can occur between fast-­growth and slow-­growth communities when common policy is applied.

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Designing Institutions that Work 155

Creating a single-­tier municipality is equally challenging. First, the concerns of rural municipalities would have to be overcome. Consolidation would most likely receive the most criticism from those living in rural areas of the county since the purpose of city– county separation is to create an institutional divide between two jurisdictions marked by cultural distinctions. Having municipal boundaries delimiting urban and rural territories is still very important to many county lower tiers. Even if there was restructuring at the upper tier it would probably still be preferable to being joined together as a common municipal jurisdiction with a large urban area. The dispute over amalgamation in the 1990s shows how many smaller communities will protest consolidation. Second, the representation problem with reinserting separated ­cities back into their counties is also found when creating single-­tier consolidated municipalities. Ensuring representation for rural and urban areas would be just as challenging and finding a solution would undoubtedly encounter steep opposition from either side. Finally, geography is a major challenge. Consolidating the municipalities in a county the size of Simcoe into a single-­tier government would inevitably raise questions about efficiency and economies of scale. The above review has a common theme: institutional change is difficult. Finding the right balance between urban and rural areas is a long-­term policy problem that has stymied many policy-­makers. On one edge of the institutional spectrum are easy to achieve solutions, such as voluntary inter-­local cooperation, which do not require institutional change. Municipalities within separated cities and counties can cooperate on policy items right now. Research, however, has found that, largely, they are not (Spicer 2014). On the other side of the spectrum is institutional restructuring. Considering the amount of power the province holds in municipal affairs, creating two-­tier regional governments or single-­tier consolidation would, theoretically, be easily achieved. However, these changes are often vigorously opposed. With this in mind, how should we approach the persistent policy challenge posed by city–county separation? Perhaps the best course of action is to address institutional reform on a case-­by-­case basis. There is no one-­size-­fits-­all solution to address the current challenges of city–county separation in certain areas of the province. Middlesex

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County and Simcoe County highlight the need for an asymmetric response. As mentioned above, some counties with a separated city function well and most county municipalities are content to remain rural. It is those that are not that are putting the institution of city– county separation at risk. In such areas, city–county separation is no longer viable. Institutional change cannot be uniform across the province, however. Middlesex County is quite small compared with London. Although the growth around London’s boundaries is affecting the long-­term viability of city–county separation within the region, placing London back within a two-­tier structure would cause a large imbalance in representation on an upper-­tier council. In this case, a planning collective, similar to London’s neighbour to the south in Elgin County, could prove useful in coordinating much of the area’s development. As mentioned above, however, such a change would need to be accompanied by a shared planning vision. Achieving such consensus would be challenging, but necessary to carry out any type of planning collective. In Simcoe County, regional government would be better suited to address the area’s growth challenges. Simcoe County resembles York County before its conversion to a regional government – a slow-­ growing north, a rapidly growing south, and various strong growth nodes throughout the territory. The multi-­nodal nature of growth in Simcoe suggests the county could benefit from greater regional cooperation. The large population increases in areas outside of Barrie show that many of the representational challenges that London-­ Middlesex would encounter would not happen in a reconstituted Simcoe upper tier – though challenges of representation between the northern and southern parts of the county would likely remain. The province should evaluate the institutional fit of each system on a case-­ by-­case basis. There are no easy solutions, but what is clear is that an asymmetric approach is best suited to approach the problem. c o n c lu s i o n

Separated cities and counties are peculiar institutions. Once a hallmark of Ontario’s municipal system, their steady conversion into regional governments transformed them into relics. This change in mentality from separating to linking urban and rural areas occurred

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Designing Institutions that Work 157

slowly and, as a result, only a handful of separated cities remain in Ontario. Many of the province’s separated cities were reintegrated with their counties either through the creation of regional government or through amalgamation. Since provincial policy-­makers ended the practice of city–county separation, little research has been done to explore the nature of governance in these areas. This project has thus attempted to shed some light on this old institutional practice and its impact on growth and development. As the communities around many separated cities become suburbanized and, in some cases, developed into cities of their own, the provincial government’s consolidationist agenda in the 1990s enlarged these municipalities, making them harder to absorb. Notwithstanding this trend, the province has, however, allowed separated cities to expand. In the three case studies included in this project, many rounds of annexation enabled London, Barrie, and Guelph to take in developing territory, ensuring that each city remained the dominant urban municipality within their regions. This has also worked at cross-­purposes as the province attempts to promote density. By allowing annexations, the province allowed separated cities to avoid difficult decisions about intensification. Instead, it gave separated cities motivation to further expand horizontally, as opposed to pursuing density and expanding vertically. This further encouraged growth that spread outwards to the county. While annexation has been the traditional response of separated cities facing rapid development along their borders, this may become increasingly hard to enact in the future. Two of the case studies included in this project, London and Barrie, have rural neighbours that are deliberately attempting to attract residents and development. Officials from these areas no longer see their neighbouring separated cities as the lone destinations of growth. They harbour their own desires to expand. After being enlarged by the provincial push for annexation in the 1990s, these once-­rural municipalities have become stronger intergovernmental actors, making annexation an increasingly more difficult prospect for separated cities. It remains to be seen whether annexation will be able to address these growth problems effectively in the future. What does the future hold for city–county separation as an institutional practice? Change is unlikely. Several reports in the 1980s

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strongly recommended reintegrating separated cities back into their counties, believing that this would allow for better regional planning and coordination while reducing conflict between urban and rural areas. However, the challenges of such a broad institutional change was – and remains – too great. Some cities, such as Sarnia, were brought back into their counties, but hurdles remained in other areas. Population differences between cities and counties ensured that urban areas would control any reconstituted county council, an obstacle too large for most regions to overcome. Since those same challenges exist today, this type of institutional change is as unlikely now as it was in the 1980s. City–county separation has always been predicated upon a deep-­ seated belief in cultural differences between urban and rural. There was never any institutional imperative to formally separate the two. Rural areas were afraid of a spread of distinctly “urban” problems, such as poverty, disease, and crime, to their idyllic rural communities. Institutional separation provided a safeguard against this urban “contamination.” Preserving rural areas was given high priority by county policy-­makers, largely because they saw this as the easiest way to preserve perceived traditional rural values. Directing growth toward urban areas, then, made sense. This long-­held belief in the rural idyll has been slowly replaced by a convergence of urban and rural values, motivating some rural officials to pursue development. We should not be afraid to pursue institutional change because of long-­held cultural notions about what constitutes urban and rural. Instead, institutions should be built around need and place value on coordination and cooperation. The growth pressures that many separated cities face from their counties did not exist when Robert Baldwin created the infrastructure for Ontario’s municipal system. More than a century after Baldwin’s landmark Act, the time has come to re-­evaluate the institutional fit of city–county separation across the province. Many counties with separated cities would likely benefit from the type of joint planning and decision-­making bodies that regional governments tend to create. Unless separated cities and counties can find ways of addressing the conflicting development goals that both communities have, increased urbanization will continue to challenge the relevance of city–county separation as an institution.

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appendices

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Appendix A

List of Separated Cities and Counties

Simc oe C o unt y • Barrie and Orillia • Collingwood, Tiny, Ramara, Severn, Essa, Midland, Penetanguishene, Clearview, Wasaga Beach, Springwater, Oro-Medonte, Innisfill, Tay, Adjala-Tosorontio, New Tecumseth, Bradford-West Gwillimbury Essex Co unt y Windsor • Amherstburg, Essex, Kingsville, Lakeshore, LaSalle, Leamington, Tecumseth •

Wellingto n C ount y • Guelph • Erin, Minto, Centre Wellington, Guelph / Eramosa, Mapleton, Puslinch, Wellington North Middle se x C ount y London • Adelaide Metcalfe, Lucan Biddulph, Middlesex Centre, North Middlesex, Southwest Middlesex, Strathroy-Caradoc, Thames Centre, Village of Newbury •

Fron te nac C o unt y Kingston • Township of Frontenac Islands, South Frontenac Township, Central Frontenac Township, North Frontenac •

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162

Appendix A

Peter b oro ugh C o unt y • Peterborough • Asphodel-Norwood, Cavan Monaghan, Douro Drummer, Galway Cavendish and Harvey, Havelock Belmont and Methuen, North Kawartha, Otonabee-South Monaghan, Smith-EnnismoreLakefield R en fr ew C o unt y • Pembroke • Amprior, Deep River, Laurentian Hills, Petawawa, Renfrew, Adamston, Bromley, Bonnechere Valley, Brudnell Lyndoch and Raglan, Greater Madawaska, Head-Clara-Maria, Horton, Killaloe, Haggerty and Richards, Laurentian Valley, McNabbBreaside, North Algona, Wilberforce Township, Whitewater Region The U n i t e d C o unt i e s of L e e ds an d G re n vi l l e Brockville, Gananoque, and Prescott • Athens, Augusta, Edwardsburgh Cardinal, Elizabethtown Kitley, Front of Yonge, Leeds and the Thousand Islands, Merrickville Wolford, North Grenville, Rideau Lakes, Westport •

The U n i t e d C o unt i e s of Sto r m o n t, D u n das a n d G le nga r ry • Cornwall • North Dundas, North Stormont, North Glengarry, South Dundas, South Stormont, South Glengarry La n a r k C ount y Smiths Falls • Beckwith Township, Town of Carleton Place, Drummond / North Elmsley, Lanark Highlands, Town of Mississippi Mills, Montague, Perth, Tay Valley Township •

Elg in C o unt y St Thomas • Bayham, Central Elgin, Dutton / Dunwich, Aylmer, Malahide, Southwold, West Elgin •

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Separated Cities and Counties 163

Hastin gs C ount y • Belleville, Quinte West • Bancroft, Carlow / Mayo, Centre Hastings, Desoronto, Faraday, Highlands, Limerick, Madoc, Marmora and Lake, StirlingRawdon, Tudor and Cashel, Tweed, Tyendinaga, Wollaston Perth C ount y Stratford, St Mary’s • North Perth, Perth East, Perth South, West Perth •

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Appendix B

Interview Listing by Case Study

Region

Municipality

Position

Date

Middlesex

London

Director, Intergovernmental and Community Liaison

6 Feb 2012

Middlesex

London

Ward 3 Councillor

13 Feb 2012

Middlesex

North Middlesex / Middlesex County

Mayor / County Councillor

14 Feb 2012

Middlesex

Middlesex Centre / Middlesex County

Mayor / County Councillor

15 Feb 2012

Middlesex

Southwest Middlesex

Administrator /  Clerk

17 Feb 2012

Middlesex

Middlesex Centre

Ward 3 Councillor

21 Feb 2012

Middlesex

Lucan Biddulph

CAO / Clerk

21 Feb, 2012

Middlesex

Middlesex County

CAO

2 Mar 2012

Middlesex

Middlesex County / Thames Centre

Mayor / County Warden

2 Mar 2012

Middlesex

London

Ward 5 Councillor

5 Mar 2012

Middlesex

Middlesex Centre

Ward 1 Councillor

5 Mar 2012

Middlesex

Middlesex Centre

Deputy Mayor

7 Mar 2012

Middlesex

Adelaide Metcalfe / Middlesex County

Mayor / County Councillor

8 Mar 2012

Middlesex

London

Former Mayor

8 Mar 2012

Middlesex

Middlesex Centre

Ward 5 Councillor

8 Mar 2012

Middlesex

Middlesex Centre

CAO

13 Mar 2012

Middlesex

London

Ward 14 Councillor

13 Mar 2012

Middlesex

London

Former CA O

15 Mar 2012

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Interview Listing by Case Study 165

Region

Municipality

Position

Date

Middlesex

Southwest Middlesex

Mayor / County Councillor

16 Mar 2012

Middlesex

Strathroy-­Caradoc

CAO

21 Mar 2012

Middlesex

Strathroy-­Caradoc

Mayor /  County Councillor

4 April 2012

Wellington Wellington North

Mayor / County Councillor

12 April 2012

Wellington Minto

CAO

13 April 2012

Wellington Puslinch

CAO / Clerk-­Treasurer

13 April 2012

Wellington Puslinch

Mayor / County Councillor

16 April 2012

Wellington Centre Wellington

Mayor / Former County Warden

16 April 2012

Wellington Guelph / Eramosa

Mayor / County Warden

26 April 2012

Wellington Guelph

Ward 2 Councillor

30 April 2012

Wellington Guelph / Eramosa

Ward 4 Councillor

30 April 2012

Wellington Puslinch

Councillor

2 May 2012

Wellington Guelph

Ward 1 Councillor

2 May 2012

Wellington Guelph

Former Ward 4 Councillor

2 May 2012

Wellington Guelph

Ward 4 Councillor

2 May 2012

Wellington Erin

Former Mayor / Former County Councillor

10 May 2012

Wellington Guelph

Ward 5 Councillor

10 May 2012

Wellington Mapleton

Mayor / County Councillor

16 May 2012

Wellington Guelph

Ward 3 Councillor

17 May 2012

Wellington Wellington-­Halton Hills

Member of Provincial Parliament

18 May 2012

Wellington Guelph

Former Ward 3 Councillor

25 May 2012

Wellington Guelph / Eramosa

CAO

4 June 2012

Wellington Erin

Mayor / County Councillor

4 June 2012

Simcoe

Tay

CAO

23 May 2012

Simcoe

Wasaga Beach

CAO

25 May 2012

Simcoe

Springwater

Mayor / County Councillor

29 May 2012

Simcoe

Collingwood

Mayor / County Councillor

29 May 2012

Simcoe

New Tecumseth

Mayor

30 May 2012

Simcoe

Adjala-­Tosorontio

CAO

30 May 2012

Simcoe

Orillia

Ward 3 Councillors

30 May 2012

Simcoe

Orillia

Deputy C A O  /   C F O

30 May 2012

Simcoe

Bradford-­West Gwillimbury

CAO

31 May 2012

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166

Appendix B

Region

Municipality

Position

Date

Simcoe

Penetanguishene

Mayor /  County Councillor

31 May 2012

Simcoe

Tay

Mayor / County Councillor

31 May 2012

Simcoe

Severn

Mayor / County Councillor

31 May 2012

Simcoe

Bradford-­West Gwillimbury

Mayor / County Councillor

31 May 2012

Simcoe

Orillia

Ward 4 Councillor

1 June 2012

Simcoe

Barrie

Ward 2 Councillor

1 June 2012

Simcoe

Oro-­Medonte

Mayor / County Councillor

1 June 2012

Simcoe

Oro-­Medonte

Deputy Mayor / County Councillor

1 June 2012

Simcoe

Orillia

Ward 4 Councillor

1 June 2012

Simcoe

Simcoe North

Member of Provincial Parliament / Former County Warden / Former Mayor

5 June 2012

Simcoe

Barrie

Ward 8 Councillor

5 June 2012

Simcoe

Tiny

Mayor / County Councillor

8 June 2012

Simcoe

Collingwood

Deputy Mayor / County Councillor

8 June 2012

Simcoe

Adjala-­Tosorontio

Deputy Mayor / County Councillor

8 June 2012

Simcoe

Springwater

Former Mayor / Former County Warden

8 June 2012

Simcoe

Barrie

Mayor

14 June 2012

Simcoe

Midland

Mayor / County Councillor

14 June 2012

Simcoe

York Simcoe

Member of Provincial Parliament

15 June 2012

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Interview Listing by Case Study 167

I conducted interviews in Elgin County and St Thomas during the initial research stages of this project. These interviews are listed below. Jurisdiction

Position

Interview Date

Elgin County

Chief Administrative Officer

5 April 2011

Elgin County / West Elgin 

Regional Councillor / Mayor

12 April 2011

St Thomas

Chief Administrative Officer

14 April 2011

Southwold

Chief Administrative Officer

15 April 2011

Elgin County / Bayham

Regional Councillor / Mayor

19 April 2011

Central Elgin

Councillor

22 April 2011

Southwold

Deputy Mayor

22 April 2011

St Thomas

Councillor

23 April 2011

Bayham

Chief Administrative Officer

26 April 2011

Elgin County / Malahide

Warden / Mayor

28 April 2011

St Thomas

Mayor

4 May 2011

St Thomas

Director, Planning

4 May 2011

St Thomas

Manager, Economic Development

4 May 2011

Elgin-­Middlesex-­London

Member of Provincial Parliament

27 May 2011

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Notes

introduction

1 Originally quoted in Sweet 1999. 2 Counties are not used in northern Ontario. 3 Pelee Township is also a separated municipality. Created as separate from Essex County in 1869, Pelee Township is a small island community located midway in Lake Erie and approximately 26.5 kilometres from the Town of Leamington. Access to the island is by a 1.5-­hour ferry trip or by air. There are fewer than 100 permanent households on the island, which is primarily a seasonal destination in the summer months. Though still within the geographic territory of Essex County, Pelee Township has no relation to other municipalities within the county or little reason to cooperate with mainland jurisdictions. As such, it was not included in this study, because it did not have the standard relationships typical of other separated municipalities. chapter one

1 Despite these rapid rates of urban population growth, Canada was still a primarily rural nation. As late as 1851, only 13 per cent of Canadians lived in cities. By 1900, this number had increased to 35 per cent. This rapid increase, combined with the dominance of rural Canada, provided political motivation to separate the two areas. The majority rural population wished to remain distinct from the growing urban population. For more information, see Harris 2004.

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170

Notes to pages 53–61

2 Although it did not occur within the county reform era, Owen Sound rejoined Grey County in 2001, as part of a large-­scale consolidation of municipalities within the county. The end result of this restructuring saw the number of municipalities in the county reduced from 27 to 9, with Owen Sound re-­entering the county structure, largely to facilitate an expansion of its borders that would have affected the county’s assessment base. In this sense, there are many parallels between the re-­entry of Owen Sound and Sarnia back into their counties. As of this writing, Owen Sound is the last separated city to rejoin its county in Ontario. For more information, please see County of Grey / Owen Sound 2000. 3 The power and responsibility of American counties varies significantly, with some counties – largely those in New England – having a very minimal functional scope and acting mostly as geographic designations. In other areas of the United States, counties provide a variety of services, such as courts, public utilities, libraries, hospitals, public health services, parks, roads, and law enforcement. American counties’ broadest functional scope is in western and southern states, where some counties are also responsible for social services, such as mental health services, welfare, and family and elder services. For more information see Menzel 1996; Duncombe 1977; Johnson, Ogden, Castleberry, and Swanson 1972. 4 In the Virginia municipal system there are several different classifications for municipal corporations. Municipalities with fewer than 5,000 residents are classified as towns, while municipalities with more than 5,000 residents are classified as cities. Cities are distinguished on the basis of population between second-­class cities (those with 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants) and first-­class cities (those with more than 10,000 inhabitants). First-­class cities are independent of any county structure whereas second-­class cities retain some linkages to their counties, namely sharing the same circuit court and certain attendant officers. For more information, please see Bain 1967. 5 Virginia presents a unique case. Chester Bain (1967) argues that Virginia’s system was not imported directly from Great Britain, but evolved through state legislation. He also notes the system’s complete absence from neighbouring states, such as West Virginia, indicating that it is a phenomenon unique to Virginia. Author E. Lee Sheppard believes

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Notes to pages 63–87

171

this too, arguing in 1977 that the Virginia General Assembly had created so many individual distinctions between their counties and their urban areas that city–county separation was already an established practice by the 1800s. chapter two

1 The concept of the rural idyll is enduring and usually envisions rural areas as places of peace, tranquillity, and simple virtue (Woods 2011, 21). 2 Author Michael Woods describes these terms as “messy and slippery” and that it “eludes easy definition and demarcation” (2011, 1). chapter three

1 To the south of Strathroy-Caradoc are three First Nations reserves – the Chippewas of the Thames 42, Munsee Delaware 1, and the Oneida 41 – each of which is also separate from the county. Respondents indicated that these First Nations groups are “insular,” self-­sufficient, and do not actively participate in county affairs. 2 Council voted against the motion 8 to 6, with Councillors Polhill, Swan, Orser, Van Meerbergen, Brown, and White voting for and Councillors Armstrong, Baechler, Branscombe, Brown, Hubert, Henderson, Usher, and Bryant voting against. The vote was taken on a 29 August 2011 meeting of council. 3 The issue of annexation is not found in the minutes for the 29 August 2011 meeting of council. The minutes, however, are not a complete transcript of the meeting and video footage of the meeting is unavailable. 4 It was not made clear what that “level” was, however. 5 While Councillor White did indicate publicly that she intended to introduce a motion to the same effect at Council, the minutes of Council meetings around this period do not show the motion being introduced. Officials from the City of London Clerk’s Department have confirmed that the motion was not introduced at a committee meeting either. 6 The vote passed 13 to 1 at the 29 August 2011 City Council meeting, with only Councillor Usher voting against the motion.

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7 While the formal letter to Middlesex Centre did not state why London was concerned about the increased growth projections, Middlesex Centre officials interviewed for this project stated their belief that the city’s concerns centred around losing its assessment base to another municipality. Much of this was outlined in the staff report (quoted above), which is publicly available through the City of London’s website. This information would have been available to Middlesex Centre officials as well, even though it was not directly listed in formal correspondence between both municipalities. 8 Jeff Fielding, London’s former city manager, resigned in December 2011 to take the position of city manager with the City of Burlington. In May 2012, the city announced it had hired Art Zuidema as the new city manager after a lengthy search process. Interviews for this project were completed before Zuidema’s hiring. 9 The total residential property tax rate for London is 1.4 per cent, while it is 1.1 per cent in Middlesex Centre. A 2012 London Free Press article demonstrated that the property tax on an average London bungalow is $3,079, and $2,556 in Middlesex Centre. However, the London Free Press also found that the per capita assessment for Middlesex Centre is $142,300, much higher than the $84,000 for London. The average per capita assessment for Ontario is $122,000. For more information, please see DeBono 2012. 10 Middlesex County planners recently estimated the driving times from many communities within Middlesex Centre to the city centre of London. Komoka-­Kilwort, only 20.3 kilometres away from the city core of London, has an estimated drive time of 24 minutes, which proves ideal for commuting for work or coming into the city for shopping or entertainment. Other drive times for communities in Middlesex Centre are as follows: Arva: 8.8 kms, 14 minutes; Ballymote: 11.6 kms, 17 minutes; Birr: 17.3 kms, 21 minutes; Bryanston: 18.5 kms, 22 minutes; Delaware: 20.4 kms, 29 minutes; Denfield: 28.2 kms, 30 minutes; Ilderton: 28.2 kms, 30 minutes; Lobo: 14.3 kms, 22 minutes; Melrose: 17.9 kms, 25 minutes; and Poplar Hill and Coldsteam: 25.7 kms, 32 minutes. chapter four

1 The relationship between Guelph and Wellington County was strained for many years because of a disagreement over social service funding.

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173

This resulted in both sides ending communication and created a very hostile environment. The positive relationship between Guelph and Wellington described in this chapter refers to growth and development. 2 Chapter 1 provides a more detailed history of provincial efforts to improve county governance in Ontario. 3 Chapter 1 provides a more detailed history of province-­wide consolidation. 4 For more information on the case, please see OMB Case Number PL100035. 5 For more information on the case, please see OMB Case Number PL091041. chapter five

1 Throughout the 1980s, Orillia even experienced negative growth before rebounding to growth rates between 7 per cent and 9 per cent throughout the 1990s. 2 Mayors in the southern part of the county also believe that their communities have benefited from the implementation of the Greenbelt, whereby they argue that developers have begun “leapfrogging” over Greenbelt-protected land in York Region to build homes in the southern edge of Simcoe County. 3 On recorded votes, Simcoe County uses a weighted vote system based on population, meaning that the votes of the representatives from more populous Southern municipalities have more impact. The exact vote weight for each municipality is set based on the number of voters from the community at the time of the last election. The formula for vote weighting is established in Simcoe bylaw 4,789, in which each municipality is entitled to a minimum of three votes and each local municipality with more than 5,000 municipal electors is entitled to one more additional vote for every 2,000 electors over the 5,000 threshold. 4 The idea of proposing a severance of the county has been discussed informally among mainly northern mayors, but the consensus seems to be that the proposal is not realistic and would face many challenges with the province that would have the ultimate say about the structure of the county. 5 A report by Meridian Planning Consultants, commissioned by Barrie in 2001, echoed the predictions of city planners. The report argues, “The City of Barrie will continue to be the major centre of population and economic growth in the region … it lacks a sufficient land base to meet

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Notes to pages 125–52

growth requirements in the short terms.” It continued by arguing that, “combining the city’s additional land need for both residential and employment uses, a minimum of 750 hectares of land beyond the current boundaries is required to meet growth needs to 2021” (Meridian Planning Consultants 2002, 4). 6 The Act passed with 59 members – mainly Liberals – in favour, and 27 members – mainly opposition party members – opposed. 7 The discussion of extending utilities is primarily centred on PowerStream servicing Collingwood. PowerStream is the second-­largest municipally owned electricity distribution company in the province and is jointly owned by Barrie, Markham, and Vaughan. PowerStream already provides electricity to other Simcoe communities, such as Alliston, Beeton, Bradford-­West Gwillimbury, Penetanguishene, and Tottenham. 8 The current mayor of Bradford-­West Gwillimbury partially attributes his victory to the fact that he, like many of those living in his community, commutes to the G TA for fulltime employment. chapter six

1 The lack of institutional connection between separated cities and counties means that these areas must use voluntary measures for most policy areas. Our discussion, however, is limited to growth. 2 I obtained this information from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s Municipal Restructuring Activity Summary Table. 3 Some authors, such as Williams and Downey (1999), argue that much of the restructuring during this period occurred in Ontario’s rural areas, where smaller towns and villages were consolidated to eliminate what politicians perceived as inefficiencies. This may partially explain the large differences in the number of boundary changes between county and regional governments in the province. 4 There are a variety of forms of cooperation between municipalities, the most basic being informal information sharing between municipal departments or municipal officials (either elected or staff), ranging to informal agreements over policy issues and formal inter-­local service agreements. See also Hulst and van Montfort (2007). 5 Records from the planning department show that Southwold was responsible for a contribution of $54,822.56 for 2007. For more information, please see Central Elgin Planning Board, 2007.

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Index

Adelaide, Township of, 80 Adelaide Metcalfe, Township of, 80, 91 Adjala-Tosorontio, Township of, 116–18; Places to Grow, 128 Ailsa Craig, Village of, 80 Allandale, Village of, 112 Alliston, Town of, 111; as urban node, 121, 125, 127 Ardtrea, Town of, 111 Armstrong, Douglas, 103 Arthur, Village of, 105 Aspden, Dave, 123 Association of Counties and Regions of Ontario, 44 Aurora, Town of, 144 Baechler, Joni, 82, 84 Baldwin, Robert, 21–2, 158; time spent in Great Britain, 25 Baldwin Act (1849), 10, 17, 23–5, 30–1, 37, 47, 158. See also Municipal Councils Act (1849) [Upper Canada]

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Baltimore, 13; separation from county, 61 Barrie: 16, 35, 109, 112, 118; boundary dispute with Innisfil, 119–27, 133, 142; city–county separation, 136–41, 153–4; growth and development, 112– 13, 116; Places to Grow, 128– 32; separation from county, 10, 27; urban node, 127 Barrie-Innisfil Boundary Adjustment Act, 124–5 Baton Rouge, City of, 13; coterminous with county, 61 Beckett Committee, 36–9. See also Select Committee on the Municipal Act and Related Acts Beckett, Hollis E., 36 Beeton, Town of, 111 Belleville, 10, 19, 27 Belmont, Village of, 79, 151 Berlin, Town of, 95 Berze, Frank, 87 Biddulph, Township of, 80

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Bradford, Town of, 110–11 Bradford-West Gwillimbury, Town, 109, 120; amalgamation, 110– 11, 118; growth, 115–17, 126, 133; Places to Grow, 128, 131; urban node, 121, 125, 127 Brampton, 35 Brant County, 27 Brantford, 27 Breckenridge, Peggy, 126 British Columbia, 61 Brockville, 10, 19, 27 Calgary, 6 Cambridge, City of, 27, 143–4 Caradoc, Township of, 80 Carleton, County of, 27–8 Carroll, Aileen, 122–4 Central Elgin, Town of, 151–3 Central Elgin Planning Advisory Committee, 151–2 Central Elgin Planning Board, 150–1 Centre Wellington, Township of, 104–5 Chatham, City of, 27; amalgamation with Kent County, 56–8, 79, 103–4. See also Kent, County of Chelsea Green, Town of, 76 city–county separation: 18, 36, 60, 63, 66, 69; alternatives, 142–56; challenges, 14, 135–7; endurance, 138–42; history, 3–4, 6–10; justification, 30–1; legislative base, 27–8; reference in Beckett commission report, 38–9; reference in

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Patterns for the Future, 45–7; stoppage of practice, 54 City of Toronto Act (1996), 58 Clearview, Town of, 111, 116, 118; Places to Grow, 128 Clifford, Village of, 105 Coldwater, Town of, 111 Collingwood, Town of, 109, 113, 116–18; as urban node, 121, 125, 127; Places to Grow, 128, 131 Common Sense Revolution, The, 55 Corners, Town of, 111 Cornwall, 10, 19, 27 Cookstown, Village of, 110–11 counterurbanization, 67–8 counties, Ontario, 17, 23; county reform, 10, 44–55; growth and development, 48–9 County Government in Ontario (1988), 44, 47–51, 53, 60, 139, 154 Courts of Quarter Session, 19–21, 26 Creemore, Village, 111 Croll, David A., 33 Davis, Bill, 71 Delaware, Township of, 78–80 Denver, 13; coterminous with county, 61 District Councils Act (1841), 20–4, Drayton, Village of, 105 Dufferin, County of, 97 Dumfries, Town of, 95

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Durham, County of, 28 Durham, Lord, 20, 22 Durham, Regional Government, 6, 41, 110 Durham Report, 20 Ealing, District of, 76 East Williams, Township of, 80 Eastview, City of, 27 Edmondson, Al, 82–3, 86, 89 Edmonton, 6 Egremont, Township, 105 Ekfrid, Township, 80 Elgin, Lord, 22 Elgin County, 81; joint planning body with St Thomas, 150–3, 156 Elora, Village of, 105 Eramosa, Town of, 95, 105 Erin, Town of, 95, 103–5 Erin, Village of, 103, 105 Essa, Town of, 111, 118; growth, 116–17; Places to Grow, 128 Essex, County of, 28 Fergus, Town of, 105 Fewer Municipal Politicians Act (1999), 58 Fleming, John, 88 Frontenac, County of, 28 Fyfe, Stuart, 97, 106 Galt, Town of, 27, 96 Gananoque, 10, 27 Garafraxa, Township of, 95 Glencoe, Village of, 80 Gore, District of, 95

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Grand River Conservation Authority, 104 Grandmaître, Bernard, 45 Grey, County of, 28, 96 Greater Barrie Local Government Review, 119 Greater Golden Horseshoe (ggh), 73, 120, 127 Greater Toronto Area (gta), 6, 16, 34, 48, 71, 116, 118, 126 Greenbelt (Ontario), 73 Guelph, City of, 16, 152; annexation of adjoining territory, 96–7; annexation with Wellington County, 99–106; city–county separation, 136–41, 152; city separation, 10, 27, 96; founding, 95–6 Guelph, Township of, 103, 105 Guelph/Eramosa, Township of, 104–5 Guergis, Tony, 122–4 Guide to Municipal Restructuring, 58 Haggerty, Ray, 45 Haldimand-Norfolk, Regional Government of, 6, 41, 52; restructuring, 58, 143 Halifax, 6 Halton, County of, 95 Halton, Regional Government of, 6, 41, 97, 143 Hamilton, City of, 19, 23, 27, 35, 58, 91 Hamilton-Burlington-Wentworth Local Government Review Commission, 42

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Hamilton-Wentworth, Regional Government of, 6, 41, 97; amalgamation, 58, 143 Harris, Mike, 55; as premier of Ontario, 58–60, 72, 103 Harriston, Town of, 105 Hastings County, 27–8 Hawkins, Town of, 111 Henry, George S., 32 Hume, Joseph, 25 Ingersoll, Town of, 27; reintroduction to Oxford County, 52–3 Innisfil, Town of, 109, 118; amalgamation, 110–11; annexation with Barrie, 112; boundary dispute with Barrie, 119–27, 133, 142; growth, 115–17; Places to Grow, 128, 131 Jackson, Brian, 120, 122–3, 125 Johnson, Ben (Mayor), 113 Kennedy, Jim, 82 Kent, County of, 27; amalgamation with City of Chatham, 56–8, 79, 103–4. See also Chatham, City of Kingston, City of, 10, 19, 23, 28 Kitchen, Harry, 103 Kitchener, City of, 28 Knollwood Park, Town of, 76 Lafontaine, Louis-Hippolyte, 22 Lambton, County of, 28; reorganization, 52–3, 99 Lanark County, 28, 140–1

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Leach, Al, 104 Leeds and Grenville, United Counties, 27–8, 141 Liberal Party, Ontario, 73 Lincoln, County of, 28 Lobo, Township of, 80 London, City of, 16, 79, 81, 91, 106, 108, 126; airport, 78; annexation of surrounding Territory, 76–9; city–county ­separation, 136–40, 153; concern with Arva’s growth, 81–7; request for clarification on growth projects from Middlesex Centre, 87; separation from Middlesex County, 10, 28, 75–6; water agreement with Middlesex Centre, 81–3 London, Township of, 77–8, 80 London East, Town of, 76 London West, Town of, 76 London-Middlesex Act (1992), 78–9 Loyalists, 18 Lucan, Village, 80 Lucan Biddulph, Township, 80, 91 Maclean Lake, Town, 111 Mapleton, Township, 104–5 Mara, Township of, 110–11 Marchmont, Town of, 111 Maryborough, Township of, 95, 105 McGillivray, Township of, 80 McKeough, Darcy, 43 McNabb, Sir Allan, 22

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Medonte, Township of, 111 Metcalfe, Township of, 80 Metropolitan Toronto, 6, 10, 17, 40, 44, 71, 79, 97, 138; amalgamation, 56, 58–9, 143; creation, 31–5; council, 34; servicing responsibility, 34 Metropolitan Toronto Act (1954), 34 Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, 71 Meyboom, Peter, 56–7 Middlesex Centre, 80–1, 91–2; amendment to official plan (no. 28), 86–7, 90; growth in Arva, 81–7, 93; growth in Ilderton, 84–92; growth in KomokaKilworth, 84–92; request for further servicing cooperation with London, 83–4; revision of official growth plan, 84–6; water agreement with London, 81–3 Middlesex County, 28, 74, 88–90, 92–3, 106, 108; amalgamation of lower–tier municipalities, 79–80; annexation dispute with London, 78–9; city–county separation, 136–8, 140, 152, 155–6; county council, 80; separation of London, 75–6 Midland, Town of, 109–11, 113, 118; growth, 116–17; Places to Grow, 128, 131; urban Node, 127 Milton, Town of, 143–4 Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, Ontario, 73

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Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Ontario, 50, 77, 88; Minister of, 56, 104, 122 Minto, Town of, 104–5 Mississauga, City of, 143–4 Montreal, 6 Mosa, Township of, 80 Mount Forest, Town of, 105 Municipal Act (1866) [Upper Canada], 25 Municipal Act (1896) [Ontario], 25 Municipal Amendment Act (1903) [Ontario], 25 Municipal Councils Act (1835) [Great Britain], 21, 24–5 Municipal Councils Act (1849) [Upper Canada], 22, 24–5. See also Baldwin Act Munro, Julia, 124 Nashville, City of, 13; coterminous with county, 61 New Democratic Party, Ontario, 71 New Orleans, City of, 13; coterminous with county, 61 New Regionalism, 14, 144–6 New Tecumseth, Town of, 109; amalgamation, 110–11, 118; growth, 115–17, 126, 133; Places to Grow, 128, 131 Newbury, Village of, 91 Newmarket, City of, 35 Niagara, Regional Government of, 6, 41 Niagara, Town of, 19 Niagara Falls, City of, 28

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Niagara Local Government Review Report, 42 Nichol, Township of, 95, 105 North Dorchester, Township of, 78–80 North Dumfries, Town of, 143–4 North Middlesex, Town of, 80, 91 Nottawasaga, Township of, 111 Nova Scotia: county system, 13 Oak Ridges Moraine, 72 Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan (2002), 72 Ontario Committee on Taxation, 43, 47; report, 36, 39–40, 138–9 Ontario, County of, 110 Ontario Municipal Board, 33, 46, 77, 104–5, 113–14 Orillia, City of, 10, 28, 109, 112, 126; city–county separation, 141, 154; growth, 113–19, 133; Places to Grow, 128–32; urban node, 121, 125, 127 Orillia, Township of, 113 Oro, Township of, 111–12 Oro-Medonte, Town of, 111; growth, 116–17; Places to Grow, 128 Oshawa, City of, 28, 35 Ottawa, City of, 28, 58 Ottawa-Carleton, Regional Government of, 6, 41, 45; amalgamation, 58, 143 Owen Sound, 28 Oxford County: reorganization, 52–3

Parkhill, Town of, 80 Patterns for the Future (1987), 44–7, 50, 53, 139–40, 148, 154 Peel, Regional Government of, 6, 41, 97, 143 Peel, Township of, 95, 105 Pelee Township, 28 Pembroke, City of, 10, 28, 162 Penetanguishene, Town of, 109–11; growth, 126–7; Places to Grow, 128–34; urban node, 121–7, 130 Perth, County of, 28, 58 Peterborough, City of, 10, 28, 59 Peterborough County, 28, 162 Peterson, David, 71 Philadelphia, City of, 13; coterminous with county, 61 Pilkington, Township of, 95, 105 Places to Grow (Ontario), 73–4, 120–1, 126; Simcoe County, 127–32, 134 Planning Act (Ontario), 72, 151 police villages, 23; elimination in Ontario, 49 Port Hope, Town of, 19 Port Stanley, Village of, 151 Post, Isabel, 113 Pottersburg, Town of, 76 Prescott, 10, 28 Progressive Conservative Party, Ontario, 55, 58, 60, 72–3, 79 public choice theory, 14 Puslinch, Town of, 95, 100; annexation with Guelph, 102–4; restructuring, 104–5

Palmerston, Town of, 104 Parish and Town Officers Act, 19

Quebec, province, 61; city–county separation, 13

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Quebec City, 6 Quinte West, 10, 28 Rae, Bob, 71–2 Rama, Township of, 110–11 Ramara, Town, 110–11; growth, 116–17; Places to Grow, 128 Rebellion of 1837, 20 regional government, Ontario, 6–7, 10–11, 17, 61; creation, 35–44; re-organization of Oxford County to avoid regional government, 52 Renfrew County, 28, 140 Richmond Hill, City of, 143–4 Riverside, City of, 28 Robarts, John, 42–3, 71 rural–urban convergence, 5–6 ruralization, 68–9 San Francisco, 13; coterminous with county, 61 Sarnia, City of, 28; re-introduction to Lambton County, 52–3, 99 Sarnia, Township of: amalgamation with City of Sarnia, 53 Saskatchewan: rural municipalities, 13 Savings and Restructuring Act (1996), 56–7, 79 Select Committee on the Municipal Acts and Related Acts, 43, 47; report, 36–8, 138. See also Beckett Committee Severn, Township of, 111, 113; growth, 116–17; Places to Grow, 128 Severn Falls, Township of, 111

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Simcoe County, 16, 27–8, 74, 109; boundary dispute with Barrie, 120–7, 133; city–county separation, 130–4, 136–8, 140, 142, 152, 154–6; formation, 110; growth disparities, 115–19; Places to Grow, 127–32; separation of Orillia, 114 Simcoe, John Graves, 19 Simcoe County Act (1993), 111 Simcoe Georgian Area Task Force, 113, 132 Smart Growth Secretariat (Ontario), 72 Smibert, Michelle, 87 Smith, Howard, 97 Smith, Lancelot J., 39 Smiths Falls, 10, 28 Southwest Middlesex, Municipality of, 80, 91 Southwold, Township of, 151–2 Springwater, Town of, 116, 118; Places to Grow, 128 Stayner, Town of, 111 St Catharines, 29 St Louis, City of, 13; separated from county, 61 St Mary’s, 10, 29 St Thomas, 10, 29; joint planning body with Elgin County, 150–3 Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry, United Counties, 27 Stratford, 10, 29 Strathroy, Town of, 80 Strathroy–Caradoc, Township of, 80, 91, 161, 165 Sudbury, Regional Government of, 6, 41; amalgamation, 58, 143

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Sunnidale, Township of, 111 Swan, Joe, 82, 85 Sweeney, John, 50, 110 Sydenham, Lord, 22 Tatham, Charlie, 47 Tay, Township of, 111; growth, 116–17; Places to Grow, 128 Tecumseth, Town of, 111 Territorial Divisions Act, 23 Thames Centre, Municipality of, 80–1, 91 Tiny, Township of, 116–17, 126; Places to Grow, 128 Trenton, 28 Toronto Centred Region Report, 113, 132 Toronto, City of, 20, 23, 28, 34–5, 58; early annexation, 32; interlocal agreements, 32; reference in Beckett Commission, 39 Tottenham, Town of, 111 Toward an Ideal County, 45, 50–2, 60, 78, 98–9, 139, 154 Upper Canada: 21–2, 24; district administrations, 19, 21; early colonies, 18–19 urbanization, 66–8 Vancouver, City of, 6 Victoria, County of, 58 Virginia, state: practice of city– county separation, 61 Wasaga Beach, Town of, 109, 116, 118; Places to Grow, 128 Washago, Town of, 111

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Ward, Barrie, 120 Wardsville, Village of, 80 Waterloo Area Local Government Review, 42, 97–8 Waterloo, City of, 28, 95–6 Waterloo, County of, 27–8, 95, 97 Waterloo, Regional Government of, 6, 41, 52, 97, 143 Watson, Jim, 122–4 Weldon, Doug, 82 Welland, City of, 28 Welland, County of, 28 Wellesley, Town of, 95 Wellington County, 58, 74; annexation with Guelph, 99–103; city– county separation, 136–8, 152, 154; consideration of regional government, 97–8; founding, 95–6; restructuring, 103–6; separation of Guelph, 96 Wellington, District of, 95 Wellington–Guelph Area Study Committee, 97–8, 106 Wellington North, Township of, 104–5 Wellington, Waterloo, and Grey, United Counties, 96 West Garafraxa, Township of, 105 West Gwillimbury, Township of, 111 West Luther, Township of, 105 West Nissouri, Township of, 78–80 West Williams, Township of, 80 Westminster, Township of, 77–8 White, John, 44 White, Sandy, 84 Wilmot, Town of, 95 Windsor, City of, 10, 28

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Winnipeg, 6 Woodstock, City of, 28; reintroduction to Oxford County, 52–3 Woodstock, County of, 27–8 Woolwich, Town of, 95

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Yarmouth, Township of, 151 York, Regional Government of, 6, 41, 118, 144 York, County of, 28 York, Town of, 19

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