Will PCs force Niagara amalgamation should they win reelection?

When Doug Ford triggered the provincial election on January 27th, he claimed it was necessary to hand him a “stronger mandate” to deal with the prospect of hefty tariffs imposed on Canadian exports to the United States by President Donald Trump. On February 8th, while in a hangar at the Niagara District Airport, he peppered his speech with reference to the claim critics have labelled as bogus. 

“I am asking everybody for a strong stable four-year mandate to build Ontario’s economy, a mandate to keep us competitive, a mandate to clean up our streets and deliver better care. I am asking for a strong, stable mandate to protect Ontario.”

Conspicuously absent from Ford’s request to voters was any reference to forced amalgamations, something Wayne Gates, who has served as the Niagara Falls MPP for the NDP party since 2014, says are certainly on the table if another PC government comes to pass. 

“Local Conservative politicians have been pushing Doug Ford and the provincial government to unilaterally amalgamate Niagara’s cities and towns in a bid to consolidate power,” he says. “There’s reason to believe that Ford will act on those calls if reelected, as evidenced by the fact that he has aggressively pursued amalgamation schemes in other parts of the province. In those cases, municipalities experienced significant tax increases despite the empty promise of cost savings.”

There is history that gives credence to Gates’s concerns.

Shortly into his first term as premier in 2018, Ford moved to unilaterally slash the size of Toronto City Council from 47 members to 25 and cancel Regional chair elections, including in Niagara, while municipalities were in the midst of local election campaigns. 

In 2019, while being interviewed at an event in Burlington, Ford described the number of politicians in Niagara as “ridiculous”.

A series of questions sent to the Ford campaign team by The Pointer on the possibility of municipal amalgamations in Niagara has gone unanswered.

Ford’s campaign locally has been buoyed by endorsements from the mayors of the three largest Niagara municipalities, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland. Niagara Centre NDP candidate and incumbent, Jeff Burch has suggested that the mayoral support may be strategic.

The mayors of Niagara Region’s three largest municipalities have endorsed Doug Ford in the Ontario race.

(Doug Ford/X)

“We know these PC party mayors have advocated for forced amalgamation and a four city governance model for Niagara,” Burch told The Pointer.

The Ford campaign also did not address whether, if amalgamation is pursued, would the mayors of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland be appointed to lead three of the amalgamated municipalities in Niagara in a possible four-city model. 

What a four city model could look like in Niagara. 

(Niagara Region)

Municipalities are considered “creatures of the province” under the Canadian constitution. Provinces have the constitutional authority to enact laws related to municipal institutions. Nonetheless, when the Ford government unilaterally reduced Toronto City Council representation, the mayor at the time, John Tory, cried foul. 

In a letter to the premier, Tory argued that the issue was not raised during the election campaign “by any party and therefore in my view, no party has a mandate for such unilateral action.” Ford also, controversially, threatened use of the notwithstanding clause in his effort to reduce Toronto City Council’s size.

The issue of municipal governance in Niagara has been long discussed and debated. However, since the institution of regional government in 1970, Niagara has remained a two-tier system with the upper-tier Niagara Region and twelve lower-tier municipalities. 

Although there have been minor tweaks in representation over the years, there are currently 126 elected municipal representatives in Niagara; the majority serve on a part-time basis. The number of elected representatives in Niagara has been a source of criticism, especially for those who espouse a reduction in the number of municipalities in the region.

The threat of amalgamating Niagara’s municipalities was most strongly felt in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s when the PC government of Mike Harris decreased the number of municipalities down to 444, which is still the total in Ontario.

Discussions among local politicians for a “Made in Niagara” solution have never led to any consensus on what municipal reform should look like in Niagara, whether it be the status quo; one Niagara; the elimination of the regional level of government; or a three or four-city model centred around Niagara’s largest lower-tier municipalities of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland. 

Since the election of Ford in 2018, in addition to the cutting of Toronto council size and cancellation of various Regional chair elections, provincial officials under PC direction have launched efforts related to municipal reform that have not resulted in any formal action.

In 2019, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing at the time, Steve Clark, appointed former long-time Waterloo Region Chair Ken Seiling and Michael Fenn, a past deputy minister, as special advisors to assist with a regional government review. Between March and May of that year more than 8,500 written submissions were received and nine in-person sessions that heard from almost 100 individuals and organizations were conducted.  However, in October 2019, Clark decided not to act on the so-called Fenn-Seiling report, which has never been released publicly.

The lack of disclosure of the Fenn-Seiling report prompted current Regional Councillor and 2022 PC candidate in Niagara Centre, Fred Davies, to introduce a successful motion at Regional Council calling on the Province to release the report. The PC government never formally responded to the request.

Clark was to appoint facilitators to oversee the review of municipal governance in September 2023 but his resignation, as a result of the flawed process surrounding the removal of lands from the Greenbelt, lead to his successor, Paul Calandra, requesting the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy take over the review. 

The brief to the Standing Committee was to answer the query “if the two-tier government in these regions (Niagara, Durham, Halton, Waterloo and York and Simcoe County) is supporting or hindering the construction of new homes and the provision of effective local governance more generally?”

The Standing Committee held six public hearings in the various regions in January 2024. A promised second series of hearings never occurred and no report was produced before the calling of the February 27th election.

Wayne Gates has been the Niagara Falls MPP since 2014. He believes the PC government could force amalgamation onto Niagara Region’s municipalities if reelected.

(Wayne Gates/X)

The issue of municipal governance reform never seems to go away in Niagara. A 28-page report before the Regional Council in 2020 outlined the numerous motions and efforts for reform locally since 2005.

Reviewing the party platforms, only the Green Party explicitly mentions municipal governance in their campaign policy document, promising that they would prevent inappropriate interference in local democracy by the provincial government and remove strong mayor powers.

Many PC candidates in the provincial election are not participating in debates or media interviews where they might be posed questions on municipal governance. In Niagara, only Niagara West PC candidate Sam Oosterhoff, the incumbent with more than eight years experience as an MPP, has engaged in media interviews and participated in the candidates debate held by Your TV Niagara.   

The three other Niagara PC candidates, Bill Steele (Niagara Centre), Sal Sorrento (St. Catharines) and Ruth-Ann Nieuwesteeg (Niagara Falls), despite all having municipal council experience, have not participated in any media interviews or candidate debates.

Local radio station 105.1 the River reported that a request for Nieuwesteeg to appear on a local talk show was rebuffed, with a spokesperson indicating that the candidate would not be doing any media until after the election. 

The local PCs candidates have varying degrees of social media presence but none appear to be engaging directly with members of the electorate on their platforms. Questions to Nieuwesteeg from local residents to state her position on issues have been removed from her campaign Facebook page.

Despite the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy not producing any report, the public hearing in Niagara on January 10, 2024 provides a snapshot of the position of many of the Niagara players in the current Provincial election campaign and of the three mayors that have endorsed Doug Ford.

Current Niagara West PC candidate Oosterhoff, being a sitting MPP at the time, was able to ask questions of the various municipal council delegates during the hearing. He fixated on the number of Niagara politicians noting that there were 126 for a population of approximately 450,000, while the Provincial legislature seats 124, serving a population of 16 million. 

Delegates, such as Regional Chair Jim Bradley, pushed back at the comparison. Bradley noted that amalgamations had not led to cost savings and the cutting of Toronto Council actually meant greater costs for the additional support staff required by councillors, whose ward size effectively doubled. Oosterhoff indicated that he was not attempting to “go over the numbers” but was questioning the “decision making capacity” of having “too many cooks in the kitchen.”

The delegate at the Standing Committee hearing who, arguably, voiced the strongest concern about municipal amalgamation was Bill Steele, Mayor Of Port Colborne, who is the current PC candidate in the Niagara Centre riding. 

“I want to be clear, I am concerned with any potential changes to the current municipal structure or any proposal to amalgamate Niagara municipalities. As Brock University political scientist David Siegel stated, there has never been a municipal amalgamation that has saved money,” Steele stated.

Steele noted that despite having fewer politicians than Niagara, Hamilton spent $6.5 million on their politicians, while the total price tag for politicians of Niagara’s thirteen municipalities was only $4.5 million. 

In response to a question from Jeff Burch, who is now his opponent in the Niagara Centre race, he also questioned whether there would be any reduction in municipal staff: 

“With (an amalgamated) fire department, you’re going to have a chief, you’re going to have X amount of deputies, each deputy is going to have a layer under them and there’s going to be a layer under them. It doesn’t work.”

In a response to Oosterhoff, Steele conceded that “things needed to change” but that any change in municipal governance needs to come from the local level and not be imposed by the Province.

The Pointer has reached out to Steele’s campaign on what his current position is on the possibility of municipal amalgamations in Niagara. There has been no response as of publication.

Niagara Falls PC candidate and current City Councillor, Ruth-Ann Nieuwesteeg did not appear at the Standing Committee, but she espoused her position on municipal amalgamation at the January 21, 2025 Niagara Falls City Council meeting—a week and a half before Ford called the Provincial election and named her as a candidate.

Nieuwesteeg seconded a motion calling on the Province to conduct a municipal governance review. While there was no formal resolution on the agenda that evening, what was eventually produced by the municipality conveyed the “hope” that such a study would lead to the “stopping of the duplication of services by lowering the number of politicians and staff currently working in all of Niagara for long-term fiscal sustainability.”

Nieuwesteeg commented at Council that evening that, “we have to stop everything and start looking at building from scratch. Everything’s double layered and completely mixed up.” 

She appeared to lament that Niagara had not been the recipient of previous provincially imposed amalgamations and argued that Niagara’s tax burden exceeded other Regions due to the number of politicians, a supposition that has been debunked. 

Nieuwesteeg did not offer her preference of an ideal governance structure but mused that amalgamation could be determined by geography or be “skills-based”. She stressed that any changes to municipal governance should only occur after an “in-depth study.”  

The Niagara Falls Council position and Nieuwesteeg’s comments spurred her NDP opponent in the Niagara Falls riding, Wayne Gates, to clearly state his position on the issue in media outlets and on his social media platform.

In speaking to The Pointer regarding the Niagara Falls Council resolution, Gates states,"There's always a reason why certain councils will raise these type of issues.” 

Pressed on whether he believes that the timing of the resolution was not coincidental, he replied:

“I don’t want to speculate what Niagara Falls City Council is doing. What I'm saying is that amalgamation has been on the table in Niagara for many years. My opponent is supporting amalgamation and I don't agree that it's in the best interest of my riding.”

Gates outlines concerns that amalgamation of the three municipalities in the Niagara Falls riding (Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie) will not lead to any cost savings as purported by proponents, the smaller municipalities (Niagara-on-the Lake and Fort Erie) will be “swallowed up” by the interests of the bigger municipality (Niagara Falls) and that the historically significant municipalities like Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie would be stripped of their distinct identities and local decision-making power.

Gates is steadfast that a “big decision” like municipal amalgamation should not be decided by politicians who are not from the local communities. He points out that if the issue is the number of municipal politicians in Niagara, lower-tier municipalities already have the authority to reduce their number of councillors, as Niagara Falls did in time for the 2003 municipal election.

During the Your TV Niagara debate, Burch outlined his thoughts on municipal reform.

“We should be looking at the region and cost savings that can be created with different utility models. We should not be cooking up deals behind closed doors so that municipalities like Thorold get swallowed up by municipalities like St. Catharines.”

The Your TV Niagara debates provided some detail on the position of the local Liberal candidates on municipal governance in Niagara.

Robin McPherson, the Liberal candidate in the St. Catharines riding and current city councillor, called on the Ford government to release the previously completed studies so that a Niagara-based solution on municipal governance could occur. She pointed out that her party leader, Bonnie Crombie, had called for the elimination of the upper-tier Peel Region, when she was Mayor of Mississauga.

MacPherson did not voice a preference for any particular governance model but lamented that the system was not working. Her debate opponent, Jennie Stevens, the incumbent NDP candidate and former St. Catharines City Councillor, was of the opinion that the current system works fine.

Damien O’Brien, the Liberal candidate in Niagara Centre, during the Your TV Niagara debate, reflected back to the amalgamations under the Harris PC government. 

“Municipal voices were stifled under structures that served to benefit the Progressive Conservative party. If there is going to be a change it ought to be one that municipalities have a say, that there's consultation and that it (amalgamation) is not done for them.”

All three mayors who endorsed Ford—Frank Campion in Welland, Jim Diodati in Niagara Falls and Mat Siscoe in St. Catharines—expressed support for a four-municipality amalgamation at the Standing Committee hearing in January 2024.

Campion argued that while Welland was more nimble and could address issues much more quickly than a larger municipality, when pressed by Oosterhoff Campion said if amalgamation were to occur, he would prefer a four-city model with the elimination of the Region.

Diodati was also opposed to “one Niagara” offering an analogy at the Standing Committee hearing, “If you had a barn and you had problems with mice and I gave you a choice: Do you want one fat cat to help you out or do you want four hungry cats? What’s going to be more effective?” 

In supporting a four-city model, Diodati stated that it would respect “the uniqueness and commonalities” of Niagara’s municipalities. He also argued that the local home builders were not building houses because of “governance and red tape.”

Gates pointed out at the hearing that despite any perceived red tape, Niagara Falls had approvals for many houses (14,768), so “shovels could be put in the ground tomorrow.” 

Siscoe, who like his counterpart Campion had unsuccessfully ran for MPP in 2014 under the PC banner, was of the opinion that the four-city model centred around the three urban centres of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland, with the more rural western municipalities making up the fourth city, was the “best option” for governance in Niagara. Siscoe argued that creating four large cities would allow for major efficiencies to build homes faster.

Jennie Stevens, then a sitting NDP MPP, at the Standing Committee hearing, asked Siscoe if he envisioned himself playing a pivotal role in the governance of “this new possible expanded municipal structure”. Siscoe responded that he served at the pleasure of the community and they would determine if he continued.

Ruth-Ann Nieuwesteeg, the PC candidate for Niagara Falls, will not be taking any questions from the media throughout the campaign, according to a spokesperson.

(Ruth-Ann Nieuwesteeg/Facebook)

The local NDP candidates have made the argument that any fiscal inefficiencies at the municipal level have not been the result of the existing structures or too many local politicians but from successive provincial governments downloading services to municipalities.

With the Province facing pressing issues of health care, lack of housing, tariffs and mental health, homelessness and opioid addiction, the governance of Niagara may pale in comparison, though Gates indicates he has heard it as a concern from his Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie constituents. 

Burch is calling for complete transparency on the issue.

"All citizens in Niagara and especially those in smaller municipalities like Thorold, Port Colborne and Fort Erie deserve to know if a deal has been cooked up with Doug Ford, and what role these three mayors are playing in that deal.”

When The Pointer asks if he has any reason to believe that another PC government would act on amalgamation, Gates is unequivocal that Ford will proceed with forced amalgamations “just like he has done elsewhere”. 

“This is about power, not efficiencies. Conservative politicians are pushing amalgamation to consolidate control, not to help the residents”.

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