Local councillors in Niagara are reacting to governance changes that were announced on Thursday.
The Minister of Municipal Affairs says there will no longer be any directly elected councillors at the regional level.
Instead the council will be made up of the 12 lower tier mayors and one provincially appointed regional chair, reducing the size of council from 32 to 13.
Regional councillor Laura Ip voiced her concerns on CKTB’s The Drive.
“We keep hearing there’s too many politicians, there’s all this red tape, we’re not given any good solid examples of what the actual problem is. Too many politicians say ‘if we get rid of some we’ll save money.’ Minister Flack today said that this was not about saving money, and he is not anticipating any savings.”
“If we look at Hamilton and Toronto for instance, they are much larger cities and they do have many fewer elected officials, but they pay quite a lot more for their respective councils. The argument that there are 124 MPPs and there are 126 elected officials in Niagara is not an excellent argument because the reason there are so many elected officials in Niagara is because there are so many municipalities.”
All changes will take effect for the upcoming term of council.
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