Normally, I'd be the first to support amalgamating all the small municipalities that constitute metro Victoria. The excess costs are daily evident, the politicians too numerous, and the planning squabbles depressing.
But I've lived in Ottawa and Toronto, where across-the-board amalgamation only increased costs. The reason is that the highest of any of the pre-existing costs became the cost base for each service in the new municipality. So if suburb A had a terrific but expensive garbage service, that was the one that became the norm for the new city. If suburb B had a well-led union doing parks maintenance at high cost while others contracted out their work, all parks work became unionized.
In Ottawa, the more recent case, savings were calculated on keeping the unit costs of the various services the same as before amalgamation, but the local politicians could not stand the heat from organized employees.
Costs rose overall, and the economies of amalgamation were eaten by an expanding workforce.
This suggests that Victoria might look at the natural scale for each of its major services. We already do this with an excellent regional library system, with a single major landfill and, coming soon, one monster sewage-treatment system.
Where we are glaringly short is in region wide transportation planning and police services.
Why not go at this step by step, starting with services that cry out for broader vision and offer genuine economies of scale and scope?
Harry Swain
Victoria
