Looking Back at Amalgamation as the City of Kawartha Lakes Marks its 25th Anniversary

On January 1, 2001 in the face of vociferous public opposition, the townships, villages and town of the former Victoria County were amalgamated into the City of Kawartha Lakes. It was the most contentious political issue in the region’s history. Fenelon Falls Councillor Wayne Hutchinson recalls, “Half thought it was good. Half thought it was terrible.” Councillor Pat Warren, who represented Verulam Township and now sits on City of Kawartha Lakes Council observes that it is an issue that will linger: “It will be generational, because it was forced. Some will never get over it.”

For years there was so much acrimony that today a lot of people just don’t want to think or talk about amalgamation. It was a transformative event for how municipal government functioned, and the changes that were made would touch every local resident’s life in one way or another. Looking back on amalgamation it is clear that the experience and outcome was different for everyone and each has their own story to tell.

Up the 1990s, municipal government in Victoria County still reflected its nineteenth century roots. In many of the rural municipalities, the function of government was largely to look after the roads. The municipalities had few employees, many of the functions were performed by volunteers and everyone knew each other well. They were like a family. Many people felt perfectly comfortable going to talk to council if they were concerned about something. In Fenelon Falls, residents would visit Reeve Roger Bellwood’s garage to talk to him while he was fixing a car. Lindsay was different than the other municipalities, being larger and offering more services to its residents. Non-Lindsay residents had to pay to use the Lindsay Public Library—which was far larger than its village counterparts.

Municipal amalgamation had been discussed for years and in other parts of Ontario municipalities had voluntarily restructured. In 1995 Mike Harris’ Conservatives swept to power promising a Common Sense Revolution. Running on a platform that “the system is broken,” Harris promised to reduce personal income taxes by 30% while balancing the provincial budget, which had just reached a record deficit. Ontario made clear that it was going to drastically reduce the number of municipalities. Wayne recalls, “the first time that we heard about amalgamation was at a Rural Ontario Municipal Convention. Al Leach, Minister of Municipal Affairs, stood up and said half of you are not going to be here because we are going to amalgamate you.”

At the same time, the province was looking to save money, as it had campaigned on tax cuts. It sought to download services onto the municipalities to reduce provincial expenditures, as the federal government was downloading other services onto the provinces. This restructuring forced municipalities to change—the days when they largely just looked after local roads were over. As the Province sought to reduce its expenses, advocates for amalgamation claimed that by creating larger municipalities, they would be able to operate more efficiently which would reduce their expenses. But would it just allow the province to pursue lower taxes, by shifting expenses onto municipalities, which would force them to raise their taxes? Emily Reeve Joe McGuire remarked, “I didn’t believe for 10 seconds that it would save money.” He remembered how in a short period of time, the provincial funding was halved, while simultaneously downloading services like social services, police and roads.

The province’s message to municipalities was blunt: Amalgamate or we will do it for you. The stated goal was to reduce the number of Ontario municipalities in half. Most other municipalities in Ontario worked out their own solution. Some municipalities favoured restructuring. Woodville Reeve Len Thornbury recounts that as his village would have to pay for policing and a new water plant it was clear that “it was not sustainable. Several of us were feeling burned out, especially our clerk.”

Victoria County brought in facilitators to help the lower tier municipalities to find a way to restructure, creating a ‘Who Does What’ Committee. Joe recalled, “we came very close to coming up with a solution, based on having four areas with independent governing bodies. A lot of people liked that idea.” But it was not quite able to produce a consensus. There were some officials who just wanted the status quo. A few political leaders quietly said that there was one person (all identifying the same reeve) who was dead set against any form of amalgamation, and if it was not for that person, there probably would have been a local agreement on how to restructure Victoria County. An official appointed by the province said that it was well known that Victoria County Council was dysfunctional—there was a lot of conflict. Pat adds: “it was always said that Fenelon Falls and Fenelon Township would not work together.” Wayne (Fenelon Falls Councillor) says, “In my heart, I believe that the reason that things turned out the way they did,” creating the single-tier City of Kawartha Lakes, “was because the townships and villages couldn’t figure it out on their own. There were a lot of personalities that just didn’t get along.” A village of Fenelon Falls employee recalls, “We tried to work with Fenelon Township but they didn’t want anything to do with us. We had debt and they didn’t. But we had a water system to pay for and they didn’t.”

A Fenelon Falls resident observes, “there was an opportunity for our communities to come together in a different way and our local governments did not recognize that opportunity. If local people had managed the amalgamation, they never would have created one giant polity. Imagine if they had taken Sturgeon Lake and County Road 8 as the boundary, with everything to the north as one municipality. We would have a great municipality, and we wouldn’t have all our taxes and the services going to Lindsay. People in Lindsay don’t like to hear that, but that’s what’s happening. There were a couple people (I can think of one in Fenelon Falls, one in Fenelon Township) that were very closed minded. They thought that by digging in their heels they could make the province change. It was the failure of local government that caused the forced amalgamation to happen.”

While Fenelon Township and Fenelon Falls could not find a way to work together, Verulam Township and Bobcaygeon agreed to amalgamate, which was approved by the province. Then on the same day that amalgamation was finalized, the request was made for a commissioner to come in and restructure the higher tier.

Emily Township had asked for the commissioner to be appointed for restructuring, recognizing that the small neighbouring municipalities were not always able to cooperate to solve problems. One issue that stuck with Joe was a deadly intersection on a boundary road. To address the problem, two municipalities would have to agree, but it was much more of a priority to one than the other. Quite reasonably, the one municipality might worry about where they could find the funds in their budget, while the other believed it was a necessary improvement. Joe explains: “There were similar problems all over Victoria County; councils were frustrated that they couldn’t find common solutions with neighbouring municipalities. That made me believe that there had to be a better way, and that some kind of amalgamation was necessary.” Pat remembers, “we were pretty upset,” because Bobcaygeon and Verulam had invested a lot in the amalgamation, and “it was working. I think it definitely would have been viable.”

Some leaders believed that their municipalities were succeeding, and that amalgamation was not necessary. Fenelon Township Reeve Faye McGee notes, “we had no debt and the township functioned quite well. We shared some services with Fenelon Falls, and had an agreement with Ops to look after the portion of Fenelon on the other side of the lake, while we maintained the part of Ops north of the lake. There had not been a tax increase in years.”

MPP Chris Hodgson (who later became the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing) says, “at the time, there was an opinion that the province should just let municipalities fail and then restructure. There was no political upside for the province to become involved in restructuring municipalities, particularly Toronto’s six municipalities.” However, the Ontario Cabinet felt that not restructuring Toronto would not benefit municipal tax payers. Other municipalities were encouraged to restructure, but a municipal council would need to request a commissioner to be appointed by the province. After the commissioner was appointed, his/her decision would be independent of political interference and final. It did not matter if all the local municipalities agreed on the request, once a request was received the minister would be appointed. Based upon the local request, vehemently opposed by other local municipalities, Harry Kitchen was appointed commissioner.

 “In mid-December of 1999, I received a call from a senior staff member in the Office of the Minister of Municipal Affairs,” Harry remembers. “The minister had decided to do a review of the municipal governing structure of Victoria County and he was inviting me to be the Commissioner. I was provided with a general terms of reference, similar to that used in other municipalities, but with a couple of additions. I was required to have one public meeting, produce a draft report, then produce a final report. I was told that the province would not facilitate or be involved in the process because it could be seen as influencing the outcome. In other words, I was on my own. I had no secretarial assistance, no provincial support staff, had to arrange my own meetings and handle all correspondence, had to find an accounting firm to do some costing studies and had to retain a municipal lawyer. I was given ninety days to produce a final report.” Harry’s life and Victoria County would never be the same again.

“People said I was a dictator, and it was true, I was a dictator. At the time I had more power over the matter than the premier. I could not be fired, there was no way they could get rid of me.” No matter what Harry decided, whether it was reasonable or not, it would happen. “I was a dictator. Think of what that means. In a country that values democracy, a dictator is coming in and telling you what kind of government you will have. Do you think there was pressure on me? There were all those letters to editors of local newspapers and a consistent stream of mainly angry correspondence. It was an extremely stressful time. That is when I started having blood pressure problems.” By the time the process was completed, Harry’s wife had spent a number of weeks in Florida while he was being escorted by an OPP security team. “I tried to be the benevolent dictator, but many people did not see it that way.”

Joe explains, “some people passionately hated Harry because of the report. I think that a lot of the problem was how it was done politically.” The problem was that it was dictatorial—but on the other hand it gave Harry, who had spent his life studying local government, the opportunity to do what he thought was best. The province could have chosen to make the final decision itself. One local resident asks: “Did they give Harry Kitchen dictatorial powers because they knew it was going to be controversial and they wanted him—not the politicians—to be the lightning rod?” When Harry was asked, if the final decision had been left to the province, would they have carried through in the face of all of the opposition? “It would have been shelved.”

Chris remarks, “The structure didn’t matter to me; the key was the people who were going to run it. I think it has worked out well, but that is not necessarily because of the structure – it is because of the people. I have seen great structures fail with the wrong people, and bad structures work well with good people… I did not know whether restructuring was a good idea at the time.”

Harry Kitchen began public consultations, but many of those attending came to believe the result was a foregone conclusion. John Panter (later a prominent figure in the Voices of Central Ontario movement) says, “I think he knew ahead of time what the desired outcome was. He structured his findings to go along with what the province wanted.”

John and Anne Panter were among the many people who attended Harry Kitchen’s public meeting in Bobcaygeon. Trevor Harrison and John stood up to make a presentation, but despite all of the people who were expressing strong reservations, they believed that regardless of what was said at the public consultations the process would go forward. When Len realized that the commissioner favoured creating one single-tier municipality, Woodville supported the proposal. “It would benefit a small municipality like us. Villages had a smaller tax base, but were providing more services. Many of the townships had a lot of money in reserves, that they had carefully saved up over the years and were afraid of losing them. Some councillors would also have a hard time imagining that the municipalities that they loved and had served for years would no longer exist.”

Many people who attended the public meetings left with the understanding that the argument to create one single-tier municipality was because it was going to save money. But could it possibly be true that replacing volunteers (who were performing so many functions for the small municipalities) with paid staff was going to save money? Plus, there was an expectation that the new municipality would not lay off any employees. Wayne says, “the true reason, I thought, was the province was tired of dealing with so many municipalities.” Before Harry Kitchen was appointed commissioner few people, other than municipal councillors, had given much thought to what structure was best. Once he was given such dictatorial powers, it seemed like EVERYONE had an opinion—and its still debatable today!

In some communities the meetings were not particularly memorable. Joe observes that in Emily-Omemee, “I thought that the community centre would be packed. But there were just 30 or 40 people there. They said very little. We presented them with the options for change, or: Stay as we are? These are the problems we are having: What are the solutions? Should we amalgamate into 4 or 5 municipalities? We encouraged people to make their comments, but there was very little feedback.” The public was encouraged to vote on which option was best for them. The result was mixed, and only two people wanted a single-tier municipality. The results of that meeting were relayed to Harry.

Wayne would say that the meeting with Harry was the craziest political meeting he ever saw, as the room bubbled with emotion: “Two or three people got up and said, ‘You son of a bitch, I’m gonna shoot you!’ We left the council chamber for the municipal office in the next room and called the police. They sent two cruisers down and cleared the room. After that the police escorted Harry Kitchen to the meetings… he would arrive in a cruiser and they would stay with him. There was no need to threaten him. Harry was just giving his report that he was well paid for. I felt sorry for him the way he was treated.”

Harry remembered, “I got a call early on from the OPP in Lindsay.” They asked Harry to come and meet with them. When he arrived, they asked about his plans to hold public meetings. He explained that though the terms of reference called for one meeting, he planned to hold four. The officers sat there and stared. After a pause, one replied “You might want to be careful about holding a meeting in the north. There are some pretty dedicated people up there, and they might cause trouble for you.” But Harry dismissed this concern because he believed it was only fair to consult the public as widely as possible and the meeting was held.

Harry continues: “John Panter took me on every chance he had.” Often accompanied by one or more of his friends, “I recall, in one meeting with his group, one member saying crazy things such as there will be riots in the streets if the structure is changed and something about the United Nations being called in to restore peace—really weird stuff.” Faye McGee, the Reeve of Fenelon Township, was another strong opponent of the process. “She was never hesitant to voice her opinion on the process but her comments and assertions were never as extreme as the one cited above.” After amalgamation, these critics became the leaders of the Voices of Central Ontario.

“That night in Bobcaygeon there were between 200 and 300 people at the meeting. It was obvious that something was up, but “I couldn’t figure out what was going on.” Some came with placards, all of them emblazoned with messages against Harry Kitchen. Many presentations were anti Harry Kitchen and some were inflammatory. “One woman associated with John Panter’s group stood up and said in her presentation – The only choice you should be making is how you want to die. Firing Squad? Lethal Injection? Hanging?’ About half the crowd stood up and applauded. I was stunned but maintained my cool and thought to myself, if I play this right, I can get this crowd or a portion of it on my side. After all, reasonable and responsible people will not tolerate this behaviour – surely there are some in the room.” A couple of constables walked through the crowd and calmed things down.

“I distinctly remember the next presenter. He was a retired English professor from the University of Toronto, who started by saying he was not here to denigrate or belittle me but he had a number of specific questions about the three options. This was welcome relief. As I recall, there were a few more solid presentations. By the end of the meeting, I simply asked: “Do you want to know what I heard tonight? The room which at times had been raucous and loud, almost unruly, was frighteningly quiet. You could have heard a pin drop. My initial reaction was this is perfect – now, I have their attention! I said I was impressed by their passion, interest, concern and participation in the restructuring initiative. I had never seen anything like it in any other place or any other study. However, I would not be writing a report based on threats or intimidation, so I’m simply going to ignore them. I had hoped we were beyond this type of behaviour. And then the other half of the room stood up and applauded. I thanked everyone, and the meeting adjourned.”

“By this time, there was a constable standing behind me. He told me ‘Your car is OK, a policeman in a police car has been watching it. The chief of police is waiting for you on the shoulder of the highway and he will lead you to Peterborough County. I will follow you in another car until I am certain that no one is following.’ Wow, what was this? I was surprised, perhaps stunned by his comment and asked why this was being done. At that point he informed me that the OPP had an unmarked car tailing me ever since I started the study. In fact, he showed me a partial list of my travels and even cited an incident when I dropped into a Tim Horton’s in Bobcaygeon. When I returned to my car, there was a copy of a local newspaper, with an article that was extremely critical of the study, stuffed under my windshield wiper. He said the person who put the paper on my windshield was stopped when he left the parking lot and deemed to be harmless. I remember saying to the constable, you would have known if I was having an affair. His response was, you didn’t have time. Further, he said, we could have ticketed you for numerous speeding violations but we didn’t want you to know that we were tailing you. They were able to follow me because my agenda re: meetings and consultations was public knowledge. They knew when and where I would be travelling. Finally, he told me they were going to keep an eye on me until the study was completed.” But by this time, however, the public input was almost over and final report now had to be written. “I had accepted the challenge and was committed to seeing it through. I consistently focused on developing a structure that would be the most beneficial for the future of the County.”

Harry decided to create a single tier municipality, believing it would be the most cost-effective option. But that did not mean that taxes would go down, because the Province was downloading services onto the municipalities at the same time. Also, the new municipality would tend to bring all the services up to a certain standard, but would tend not to reduce the services that were already in place for some, but not all, regions.

After Harry retained municipal lawyer Bob Packenham to draft the order, “One of the first things he said to me was ‘You have to name the municipality, but the newly elected council can change the name if they wish.’ Apparently, I could have called it Harrietville or Kitchen’s Corners or whatever.” Harry was surprised and only had 3 or 4 days to decide. “If I didn’t have to make the choice, I would not have named it.” He chose the name City of Kawartha Lakes, which immediately became controversial.

Pat remarks: “Everyone was scared that they would lose their community identity. I really didn’t like the ‘City’ name. … John Panter used to say there were more cows than people. The name ‘City’ didn’t fit with the tourism, agriculture and retirement living that were so important to the area, it was not an economically smart thing to do. Now it seems the word ‘City’ is in the background, and it is often not featured as prominently officially. A lot of people are here because they don’t want to be in the city.”

“I fully anticipated that they would change it,” Harry said. But, before the new council could make a decision, the City of Peterborough asked it to change the name, because they wanted ‘Kawartha Lakes’ reserved for them. Harry wonders if Peterborough’s insistence irritated enough councillors to inspire them to keep the name. For years afterwards, Harry did not visit the municipality that he had played such a prominent role in creating. For about three years, he wouldn’t even stop to fill up his car when driving through, “I didn’t want to get in a debate with anybody.”

Faye says “the Mistake happened in 2000,” but other former reeves helped to move the process forward. Len Thornbury became the chair of the transition board. “There were a lot of decisions that needed to be made: Should the smaller libraries remain open? Where should the municipal service centres be? They had to hire directors to oversee all the new departments. In 4 or 5 months, they had to figure out how all the services, offered by all the municipalities could be managed by the new City of Kawartha Lakes. The big picture of the structure of the City of Kawartha Lakes has not changed much since then.”

The transition to the City of Kawartha Lakes meant that staff would be paid a reasonable wage for the work that they were doing. In Woodville, Len remembers that “sometimes Heather Muir was working 14 hours a day, just because she wanted what was best for the community.” One employee from a smaller community remembers, “the plus was that we suddenly got benefits and pension. But the amalgamation was rough for employees in Lindsay, because they were being paid more, and their pay came down. We had the sense that they considered us second-class citizens. Amalgamation was good for our facility. We could offer better services, we became automated—the village could not have afforded to make those changes. It was definitely better for the public.”

An employee who worked in one of the village offices recalled: “I loved my job when I was working for the village. You saw people that you knew all the time. The people that I worked with were nice and friendly, and we tried our best to help everyone that came in. It was one-on-one and we got to know everybody. The village employees had been there for years, and they knew their jobs so well. If there was a pot hole on one of the village streets, it was fixed the same day. When amalgamation happened, we were offered a package that we could work for the City for one year and that’s what I did. Instead of seeing people in person they put me in a call centre. You couldn’t just talk to someone from Roads and get the pothole fixed right away. It was totally different and I did not like working for the City.”

Many people would not forget that amalgamation was supposed to save money. The total tax revenues of all municipalities of Victoria County in 2000 was $37.6 million. To meet all of their obligations, the City of Kawartha Lakes began phasing in tax increases. By 2004, total tax revenues had increased to $59.9 million, then $147 million in 2024. From the last year of Victoria County to 2024, per capita taxes increased from $544 to $1755, adjusted for inflation, this represents a 92% increase.

As taxes as a whole were going up, they were also being evened out over all the former municipalities. Lindsay offered more services and had higher tax rates. The biggest increases were in rural areas—the ones that were seeing municipal jobs and services transfer to larger settlements. People were talking about how their taxes doubled or even tripled after a change that was supposed to save money—and to top it off, now the new City was talking about closing local facilities. In one memorable incident, volunteers had finally fundraised enough money to buy an expensive lawnmower to be used in their village, only to see it get reallocated to Lindsay. Did the Town of Lindsay really not have a lawnmower? What a bitter day it was for some volunteers who had worked so hard to keep organizations going in the small communities! For some it was a disappointment that would stick with them for the rest of their lives.

A village resident remarks, “all of the small communities have lost something through amalgamation. There has been a consistent effort on the part of the City to minimize our small communities and try to replace that with the Kawartha Lakes brand. We pay more taxes and yet receive less services, in terms of the kind of practical services that people need on a daily basis. Like snow removal. You can see that the sidewalks and streets in downtown are full of snow. That reflects a lack of personal responsibility to the small communities and overall a lack of personal pride in our communities on the part of staff. Our staff are no longer a part of our communities, they are now a global phenomenon. You read in the news that the City’s solicitor moved to Nicaragua and hasn’t been to her office in over two years! Before amalgamation, the people working in your village and making the decisions were part of the community. You went to church together, met at the coffee shop or went curling together. They took pride in their village, they were personally accountable and tried to do the best for their community that they could. That’s gone now.”

As soon as Harry’s intentions became clear, a well-organized opposition coalesced, backed by elected officials of some of the municipalities and many others who played a prominent role in local affairs. Amalgamation was more popular in Lindsay, and vehemently opposed in some of the surrounding communities.

The opposition to amalgamation organized into the Voices of Central Ontario (VOCO). Anne Panter remarks, “it was so anti-democratic to dictate that we would not longer have town councils,” Anne explains. “The existing villages had been working well. Sturgeon Point didn’t even have to pay their councillors. All the councils consisted of people who were really engaged, they were doing it for their communities. The local councils were really important to day-to-day life. For the province to come in and decide to get rid of all those volunteers was deeply offensive to a lot of people.”

Faye continues, “At an average meeting there were between 10 and 70 people in attendance, the public meetings often attracted 300 to 400 people.” Many of the advertisements included a coffin for democracy, implying the death of democracy that came with amalgamation. Anne’s mother appeared as Queen Victoria at many public events. VOCO clearly had a lot of public support, and began holding their own unofficial referendums.

After much lobbying, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Chris Hodgson, who also happened to be the local MPP, proposed that a Minister’s Question should be polled at the time of the 2003 Municipal Election.  As a Minister’s Question it was not a referendum and it was not legally binding—though many people took it to be a binding referendum. Since there would be a provincial election before the local vote would happen, VOCO leaders recalled reaching out to the leader of the opposition, Dalton McGuinty, and he gave them “a letter to the effect that they would respect the results of the referendum,” John recalls. “We were elated. We had been pushing for a referendum for a long time, and now we had something to work towards.”

“I said at council, that it was unfair to put that on the election ballot as a question!,” Pat recalls as she describes being at Council with Chris Hodgson when it was announced. “I remember thinking it is going to really divide people…. I thought it would be very difficult to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Everything was already reallocated and three years had passed. … What people don’t understand, is that a municipality exists at the pleasure of the province… and there was no way that the province was going to allow us to go backwards.”

The results of the vote were tabulated by the wards of the City of Kawartha Lakes. In total, 16,802 people voted YES to deamalgamate, opposed by 15,918 who chose NO—51.4% to 48.6%. The four wards that contained Lindsay voted strongly to keep the City of Kawartha Lakes: 69%. The rest of the former Victoria County favoured deamalgamation: 58%. The only mayoral candidate running on a deamalgamation platform, Barbara Kelly, was elected, after VOCO helped with her campaign.

John was at Lindsay Town Hall when the ballots were counted. The outgoing mayor, Art Truax was also there, and as the results came in, he said, “’well, I guess that is that,’” John recalls. In that moment there was a sense that something big had just happened. “I was quite elated, got in my car and drove home.”

Chris observes, “If I had stayed around, I would have implemented the will of the referendum, but the McGuinty Government ignored that, which may have been good thing in the long run.” But by the time the vote had happened, Chris had retired from politics and the Liberals come to power. John Gerretsen, the incoming Minister of Municipal Affairs would only commit to meeting with Mayor Kelly and listening to her concerns.

Ignoring the result “was the path of least resistance. There is always an excuse to do nothing, but sometimes it takes courage and integrity to do the right thing. Looking the other way was the easy way out. There would have been expense in deamalgamating,” John remembers. “After we won, I was talking to Fred Brecht. He had been a reeve before amalgamation, and I asked him what we should do, whether we should send a letter to the government, asking them to respect the results. He replied, ‘Let’s not assume they are going to do the wrong thing. Let’s assume they are going to do the right thing.’ I still regret that we did not push the issue more in the days after the vote. After while, it became clear they were not going to do anything, so the issue was left to wither and die on the vine. I can just imagine the cabinet saying that if we deamalgamate them, then other municipalities are going to want to deamalgamate too, so let’s just forget the whole thing, and that’s what they did.” A City staff member who started out working for one of the villages remarks, “they should not have ignored the will of the people.”

Once it had become clear that the results of the referendum were not going to be respected, VOCO took up the cause of making sure that the province could not just look the other way and fail to notice the results of the vote. They started a postcard campaign, with their new slogan “Here Lies McGuinty.” But they are best remembered for the red casket.

VOCO took a coffin to an auto body shop and had it painted bright, Liberal red. One side was emblazoned “Here Lies McGuinty,” another “RIP Democracy.” They took the casket on the road, visiting many MPPs offices, including Laurie Scott, Jeff Leal and, of course, Dalton McGuinty. They also took the casket to Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill. Some members of parliament would come out and politely listen to them, others did not. At Queen’s Park, John and Lynne Boldt were allowed to hold a press conference from one of the rooms at the legislature. “People reacted very favourably, except the MLAs we took it to.”

In the end, the amalgamation debate proved anticlimactic. After she was elected, Mayor Barbara Kelly proved not to be the supporter that VOCO had hoped as they helped her election campaign. After being elected “we learned she liked being Mayor of the City of Kawartha Lakes.” So VOCO protested at City Hall too. Before council met, they would stand out front and sing, The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be. “It got the point across… you have to have a bit of humour,” John recounts.

More than two decades have passed since the residents of the former Victoria County voted to de-amalgamate—plenty of time for it to become clear that whether they are Conservative or Liberal, provincial politicians have no more interest in reversing the commissioner’s order to create the City of Kawartha Lakes than they did in making the decision in the first place. It is also time enough to see that it would impact everyone’s life in a different way.

Looking back Harry says: “Because there was so much negative feedback, it forced me to rethink my decision. After mulling it over a number of times, I am more convinced than ever that I made the right choice. I still feel proud of it.”

Chris Hodgson has a different perspective than he did in 2003 when he was the Minister of Municipal Affairs who called the vote on deamalgamation: “I thought that the small-town history was being overlooked, the people who had made it great were not being listened to, and I think I made my point pretty clear. In hindsight, I think it has worked out really well. There are good roads, the garbage gets picked up, and there is professional staff. They have the budget to afford the best. Business wants to move to the region, and there are clear rules for development and protection of the natural environment. Maybe Harry was right, and to his credit, he did a fantastic job. He set up a structure with a road map that the new council could follow. Toronto did not have as good of a road map and they still haven’t sorted it all out. Harry spent a lot of time on the HR of the new government, and that made it a lot easier for the new council to manage it.”

City of Kawartha Lakes Mayor Doug Elmslie remarks: “Amalgamation was a contentious time as people generally dislike change. It was sold on how much money would be saved; the reality was the money wasn’t saved at the municipal level, but rather at the provincial level, and this could be a reason why there has been no personal income tax increase since then. Over time, and as shown in dissertations by Adam Found and John Beddows, single-tier municipalities are more efficient and operate more cheaply than two-tier municipalities. There are both advantages and disadvantages to amalgamation.

Advantages:

• Emergency services are more efficient and cost effective
• Parks and Recreation services are the same and provide consistent services for parks, arenas, community centres, tennis courts, ball parks, and cemeteries
• Public Works provide standard road repairs and operations
• Engineering provides a standard across the community
• Human Services provide a centralized, efficient, and consistent suite of services
• Planning and Building provide consistent services across the City
• Waste Management provides consistent and universal services
• Council is smaller with fewer elected officials

Disadvantages:

• There is more downloading from the province, especially roads
• It takes longer to get things done
• There is difficulty in managing the system and knowing who to talk to
• It is more bureaucratic
• There can be infrastructure gaps”

One local resident observes, “today there is a process-oriented mentality, where we used to have communities governing themselves in a way that they were directly responsive to their citizens.” When asked what has changed, practically all of the councillors interviewed who served the former municipalities agree that the culture of government has changed, as Len remarks, “the one thing we have lost is local government representation. It is a lot harder for people to go to the council chamber in Lindsay and ask to make a deputation to have an issue brought up—it is certainly intimidating. When council was reduced to 8 members, it made it less accessible. The whole city is a big geographic area for eight people to cover. We have lost the connectivity between the residents and the councillors.” Today, very few people would feel comfortable walking into City Hall to talk to the clerk about their concerns. Pat adds: “The nice thing about a small township council was that you could come, pull up a chair, sit around the table and easily talk about your issue. It was more relaxed, because it was smaller, and everyone knew each other.” Practically all of them also agree that reducing council from 16 to 8 members made council less responsive to its community.

A volunteer events organizer has found, “there is definitely more paperwork in your applications. It is more of a struggle. It makes it hard for many people to be able to contribute to their communities. Not everyone is an expert, with professional training in administrative procedures. They make everything so complicated, that you just don’t understand everything. It can make trying to do something nice for your friends and neighbours overwhelming. There are days when it feels like the City does not want there to be events anymore because of liability and insurance.”

Another volunteer remarks, “the City of Kawartha Lakes’ administrative priorities are pretty frustrating—they often don’t reflect what is best for the people that live here. I think that the problem is that the City is just too big and too complex, and the people setting the priorities never see the consequences of their decisions.”

A Fenelon Falls resident observes, “When we were growing up no one was expecting Verulam Township to provide Yoga classes. If you wanted to play tennis, you went to the tennis club and paid for your membership. Now tennis players expect their municipality to provide a court for them. But so many of these services are in Lindsay. Fenelon Falls has a beautiful new arena that could be open in the summer, and residents would appreciate it. But the arena staff are sent to work in the park in the summer so the arena closes. Before amalgamation, volunteers operated the arena, and that would never be allowed now. So, a very valuable community asset sits empty in the summer, because of staffing decisions.”

Faye remarks, “Fenelon Township had it right, this was a mistake. It was efficient and run by council. It was small enough that the right hand knew what the left hand was doing. People didn’t have to wait a year to get an answer on a building permit application, they were generally attended to within a few days. We represented the people we were put there to represent. In the good old days of Victoria County they got the job done with less than 400 employees, none were in the Sunshine Club, and now there just under 22000 employees. How many are in the Sunshine Club? We hired local people who cared, now they bring in people from outside the community, who often don’t stay. Today firefighters earn $25 or $28 per hour. It used to be $10.49 per hour and they were responding with their own vehicles, because they loved what they were doing. It is a bureaucracy now and a nightmare. People have moved away because the taxes are too high, and the debt is too high too.” Since amalgamation, “everything has gone down hill.”

Joe suggests that amalgamation has made better services possible: “Fire facilities have been improved immensely. Now there are fire stations located near communities, and it no longer matters whether they were built in one township when they are needed just over the boundary in the next.” Amalgamation has made planning and zoning much more practical. It took place just as the area was beginning to face significant development pressure. “There would be a lot of demand for subdivisions, in urban centres or maybe in a field somewhere. Without a long-term plan those developments could have taken place in a haphazard manner.” Amalgamation made possible taking a long-term perspective for the region as a whole. “In 20 years, Lindsay is going to look a lot different than does is now. There will be a need for long term planning for parks, recreation, trails, infrastructure, protecting farms and wetlands, and those needs will only be amplified moving forward.”

Len observes how the City of Kawartha Lakes made infrastructure improvements possible in Woodville that this village could not have afforded on its own, for instance repaving roads and putting in new sidewalks. “The million-dollar arena upgrade is something that Woodville could never have paid for, without a major grant from the province—and that was being cut in the 1990s. Today we have a lot higher level of service.”

“I represent the former Somerville Township, Bobcaygeon and half of Verulam Township,” Pat explains. “Before amalgamation each municipality had five councillors, so today I represent the same area where there were once 12 ½ councillors.”

While conducting the interviews to write this story, it became clear that some of the political leaders who were involved in the debates surrounding amalgamation have a tendency to demean the people that they disagree with. Even 25 years later, some still assert that their position was correct and do not come across as having made the effort to understand those who have a different perspective. For instance, one councillor refers to John Panter as “John Ranter.” Another elected official says (off-the record) that the results of the vote on the minister’s question do not truly reflect the views of the people, because of course VOCO got all their people out. Apparently we are to assume that there is a large block of voters (who for some reason chose not to vote) who truly reflected the views of the people—so we should discount how people actually voted. Some of these political leaders also implied that their opponents’ point of view should not be included in this article. Could it be that the reason why amalgamation was so contentious in Victoria County, was because there were some political leaders (but not all of political leaders, others did try to build bridges) who did not find common ground with their colleagues who had a different point of view?

“Many other municipalities found a way to amalgamate without having to have the Province do it for them,” a local resident says. “There was a time when we really needed our politicians to set aside their own interests and agendas and do what was right for the people who lived here. But some of them just didn’t do that. That’s why Harry got appointed and it’s never good when someone else has to step in to solve your problem for you. Then for years afterwards, some of those same political leaders kept pushing their agendas, making people hate their opponents. That’s why there was so much conflict. In the end, all of that needless conflict is their legacy.”

For many years around 2000, there was a heated public debate about the structure that municipal government would take in Victoria County. Some of the political leaders in this era focused on the structure—as many people came to have strong opinions about whether the status quo as represented by Victoria County or the new City of Kawartha Lakes was a better structure. As these debates dominated public discourse related to municipal government locally, it obscured the fact that municipal government was changing all across Ontario in response to the changes that the Province made to how if functioned, as the world around it changed. As local debates focused on whether municipal government of days gone by was better or worse than what came after, many of the changes that people came to associate with ‘the City’ were happening all across the province—they didn’t necessarily have anything to do with whether government was one tier or two tier.

There are as many stories of the legacy of amalgamation as there are people in the City of Kawartha Lakes. Everyone has had their own experience. So, how has the City of Kawartha Lakes impacted your life?

Councillor Pat Warren’s Statement on Amalgamation:

There was a fear back in 2001 that the “city” would water down the flavours of all our towns and villages. That has not happened and, if anything, there is more local awareness and pride in our communities.

With a one-tier municipality, decisions can be made more quickly—we don’t have to go through all the lower tier decisions first. This is seen with environmental decisions in planning and committees. We have an environmental Advisory Committee, an Agricultural Advisory Board, a Heritage Committee and, soon to happen, Active Transportation Committee. There are many other places too where the public can have their input heard.

I was worried that the relaxed atmosphere of a township Council would be lost, that a farmer who before could just come in and chat around the table about their issue would be lost. Some of that has happened but people have still been able to voice their concerns to the specific Council committees.

Another positive is the water and waste water systems. Walkerton happened around that time, so many small systems in small towns and villages would have had a huge if not impossible challenge to upgrade to the new standards. Shortly before amalgamation, the water and waste water services were downloaded to the municipalities by the province. Now the larger systems have helped the smaller systems to upgrade and become sustainable.

However, because CKL has 21 water plants and 6 waste water plants, this is also a challenge for ratepayers across the board.

I have experienced a township Council, a town Council and now a city Council. I think roads are the biggest challenge with amalgamation. We are the second largest municipality in land mass in Ontario. Before, every lower tier municipality had a roads’ crew and they received road grants from the province. I now see smaller municipalities in other jurisdictions able to maintain their roads. In CKL, we have so much infrastructure and few taxpayers.

In township days, there were more councillors to deal with issues. We halved the number of councillors again and now it so busy for councillors to keep up with issues. There is now an issues system to help deal with complaints.

Also, because we are so big with fewer Councillors, staff have had to take on larger roles in decision making that previously was dealt with by elected officials. That being said, the power of Council is in the decisions made when they meet at Council.

When I served on the newly amalgamated Bobcaygeon Verulam council in 1999-2000, I was told that, because I was interested in the environment, I was now in charge of overseeing the contract with OCWA that managed water and sewers in Bobcaygeon. I was told that “we are a working Council”. I certainly would not be able or shouldn’t be doing such a thing now.

All and all, I believe that Council and staff have made improvements in the last 25 years dealing with all the challenges that amalgamation has brought.

This story is based off memories and nobody’s memory is perfect. Perspectives are inevitably subjective and some of the facts stated are not 100% accurate. The intent of the story was to capture many different perspectives on amalgamation.