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October
1999 Newsletter
The
provincial government has declared that it is going
to restructure municipal government in Hamilton-Wentworth
in order to "reduce the number of politicians and
increase efficiency". It is also expected that one
level of government will be eliminated. While Friends
of Red Hill has not adopted a position on restructuring,
two things are worthy of note.
The
experience of Red Hill suggests that multiple levels
of government and decision-making provide important
benefits. The expressway project is on hold and may
well be stopped precisely because we have several levels
of government in Canada.
The
city level abandoned its responsibilities and willingly
sold the valley to the regional government to facilitate
the expressway. The provincial government looked the
other way and exempted the project from environmental
assessment.
Fortunately,
there is a fourth level of government, which is both
prepared to uphold the law and far enough removed from
local power-brokers to be able to take an objective
view.
Local
politicians call this "duplication" and claim it is
inefficient. According to them, subjecting Hamilton-Wentworth
to Canadian law constitutes "interference". In essence,
they are angry that our political system has some built-in
checks intended to prevent local fiefdoms from doing
whatever they please.
The
move to reduce the number of politicians is even more
dangerous than eliminating levels of government and
their overlapping decision-making powers.
There
is certainly no shortage of politicians who need to
be removed from office, but this problem will only get
worse if we have fewer MPs, MPPs and councillors.
Politicians
are the only representatives people have. The fewer
there are, the less representation for the public, and
the harder it will be to replace bad politicians with
good ones.
A
review of campaign contributions in the 1994 Hamilton
elections showed six companies provided money to at
least 8 of the 16 elected councillors. What happens
if restructuring eliminates 8 councillors?
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©
Friends of Red Hill Valley 1991-2005
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