Langford will wait to see what other municipalities do before deciding whether to put an amalgamation question on November’s municipal ballot.
“We’ll probably put it [the question] on if the majority of other municipalities put it on,” said Deputy Mayor Denise Blackwell.
“I think the bigger municipalities have to work on that before the smaller ones get involved.”
The non-profit group Amalgamation Yes is asking municipalities to consider putting a non-binding referendum question on the ballot during the next local election, asking voters if they favour “reducing the number of municipalities in the capital region through amalgamation.”
Of the Capital Regional District’s 13 municipalities, so far only Colwood and Victoria have agreed. Victoria has also forwarded the issue to the CRD board, suggesting it ask each municipality to include the question on the ballot.
Langford Mayor Stew Young, while not necessarily a supporter of amalgamation, said he favours putting the question on the ballot to, if nothing else, put the matter to rest.
“The public needs to get this off the table. I’ve heard it for 20 years,” Young said, adding that key to any discussion will be an independent analysis of costs.
“There’s nothing wrong with discussing it in the proper forum,” Young said.
He said he doesn’t want to see a ballot question cost the municipality anything and he wants the province to step up and do an analysis if amalgamation gets a positive vote.
He said he doubts whether a realistic study of amalgamation would suggest significantly lower costs.
“The reason why people say we should amalgamate isn’t to make it better service for the people, it’s to make it cheaper. But in every case I’ve looked at, the costs are more,” he said.
Amalgamation Yes members say the referendum question is needed to gauge public opinion to determine whether there is a public appetite for formal community discussion on amalgamation. If there were support, the hope would be that it would lead to a second, binding vote.
Over the years, a variety of models have been suggested to replace the capital region’s local governance model. Those suggestions have ranged from lumping everyone into one large municipality to three municipalities or even six.
