With the recent news overload — yet another war in the Middle East, rising fuel costs, another municipal mayoral race — not to mention the flood of news from Queen’s Park (a new mega-convention centre on Lake Ontario, moves to let bigger passenger jets on an expanded island airport, and legislation to increase secrecy within the highest levels of provincial government), you might be forgiven for missing yet another bit of news.
In what has become a tradition for failed mayoral candidate and current Progressive Conservative premier Doug Ford, there’s another move to disrupt local democracy, this time in Niagara Region. Since his party was elected to government in 2018, Premier Ford has been busy tinkering with local governance. First was the sudden interference in Toronto’s municipal election, introducing election to force the city to reduce the number of elected councillors from 47 to just 25. That was soon followed by the cancellation of new open elections for regional chairs in Peel, York, Niagara and Muskoka Regions (who are normally appointed by those councils), the introduction of “strong mayor” powers, the aborted dissolution of Peel Region, the consolidation of conservation authorities, and the takeover of elected school boards.
In the last few weeks, the Ford government set its sights on Niagara Region, pushing for the quick amalgamation of its 13 municipal governments ahead of municipal elections this coming October.
Niagara Region is one of eight regional governments in Ontario, a specialized level of government introduced by an earlier Progressive Conservative government in the 1970s, following on the success of Metropolitan Toronto created in 1954. Regional governments had more powers and responsibilities than counties, including regional planning and the provision of water and wastewater systems deemed essential for smart urban growth. Most regions formed their own police services, and many took on responsibility for household waste management and public transit (Durham, Waterloo, York, and most recently Niagara). Other services, such as fire departments, libraries, local planning, parks and recreation, and local public works remained the responsibility of the cities, towns, and townships.
The Mike Harris-led PC government, elected in 1995, was a big proponent of municipal amalgamations. After amalgamating the City of Toronto in 1998, it replaced regional governments in the Hamilton, Ottawa, and Sudbury areas with amalgamated cities in 2001, and broke up the former region of Haldimand-Norfolk creating two stand-alone municipalities. Dozens of other amalgamations took place in those years, including Chatham-Kent and Kawartha Lakes (formerly Victoria County). On top of that, provincial costs were downloaded to those new creations, including social and health services and thousands of kilometres of provincial highways.
That era of drastic municipal change came to an end in December 2003, when a new Liberal government was elected, with relative calm for nearly fifteen years, until June 2018. During that time, the status quo prevailed, without a full review of the operations, finances, and role of municipal governments that would inform good faith reforms.
Niagara Region is made up of twelve lower tier municipalities: the cities of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Welland, Thorold, and Port Colborne, the towns of Fort Erie, Grimsby, Lincoln, Niagara-on-the-Lake, and Pelham, and the townships of Wainfleet and West Lincoln. The current region is a result of that earlier wave of regional government establishments in much of Ontario; prior to 1970, Niagara was made up of two counties — Lincoln and Welland — with fifteen townships and nearly a dozen smaller cities and towns between them.
As with all remaining regional governments, Niagara Region Council is made up of municipal politicians who also sit on their local city or town councils. Each mayor sits on the regional board, and to make up for population disparity between urban centres and rural townships, the larger municipalities send additional councillors who already sit on their local councils. Though some regions have chairs elected by the region’s populations, others have a non-elected chair, typically chosen by the regional council.
The Niagara problem started when the provincial government used its new authority to appoint its own preferred chair to Regional Council after the previous chair, former Liberal MPP Jim Bradley, died in office in late 2025. Bob Gale quickly promoted regional amalgamation, backed by Premier Ford, citing tax increases and too many local politicians. The idea is unpopular amongst Niagara residents, especially those in smaller communities such as Niagara-on-the-Lake, which under a four-municipality model, would be joined with Niagara Falls (whose mayor backed the idea).
Repeatedly, it has been shown that municipal amalgamations fail to save taxpayers’ money but only make municipal government more distant to the residents it serves. Though the number of municipal politicians would decrease (there are 126 across the 12 lower-tier municipalities), in smaller towns and rural townships, these are part-time positions. In Toronto, the moves from seven councils down to one in 1998 and from 44 councillors down to 25 in 2018 failed to save operating funds, as the number of paid employees to support each councillor increased to manage their greater workloads. Even the conservative Fraser Institute found no tax savings when studying the effects of amalgamation on smaller Ontario municipalities. Furthermore, with many services already the responsibility of the region, what savings could be had if police, transit, social services, housing, and major roads are already amalgamated?
For now, the idea of amalgamation in Niagara Region is stalled, but not because wiser heads prevailed. Chair Bob Gale resigned just three months into his term after local anti-hate organizations found he had in his collection of historical artifacts a copy of Mein Kampf signed by its author, Adolf Hitler.
One of the other problems with a quick amalgamation of such a large area is that there is no study on what boundaries actually make sense. Does the combination of 12 municipalities into just four actually work? Should the new boundaries just lump existing towns together, or more intelligently redraw existing boundaries completely? For example, should the City of Thorold be just thrown in with a neighbour as is, or could be split into three, with the urbanized area joining St. Catharines, the area east of the canal joining Niagara Falls, and the southern rural area joining Pelham and Welland?
Unfortunately, as hospitals face funding and staffing crises, as students face increasing debt loads to complete post-secondary education, and the economy continues to face headwinds, Doug Ford manages to get bogged down into distractions like shiny new buildings on Toronto’s waterfront, municipal restructurings, and needless new highways. The next provincial election will not come for another three years, and yet the premier wants to play mayor.
Sean Marshall 