Amalgamation would give Cowichan stronger voice
A new hospital. A new police station. A new high school. A hospice. A highway bypass. Affordable housing. Homelessness. Reduced crime. A cold weather facility for the homeless. Raising the weir. How long have the citizens of the Cowichan Valley been waiting for shovels in the ground on these and other projects? With one strong united voice for the Valley, we could get these moving forward. I believe amalgamation would help us kick start these things.
Sharon Jackson and Phil Kent, sorry, but I am calling you out on your hypocrisy. You have come out against amalgamation. But you have also come out in the past in favour of border restructuring. When I Google municipal border restructuring I find that the Province of Ontario defines it as being either one of two things: annexation or amalgamation. So, you would like to annex the parts of the CVRD that are south of Duncan and you would like to take the urban parts of North Cowichan that are North of Duncan but you are unwilling to join together with North Cowichan? You talk about North Cowichan having some kind of evil plan to take over Duncan — but you have had a plan in the past to take over parts of the Cowichan Valley?
Change. Whether it is positive or negative, a lot of people find change to be a scary thing. We all feel comfortable with what we are familiar with. Change contains a lot of unknowns. But change can be a good thing if you give it a chance. There is a lot bigger chance of success if you are positive about the impacts of change. The Negative Nellies of the world are often proven right because of the simple fact that they don’t give change a chance to succeed. If you are of the opinion that something won’t work, you are dooming it to failure before you even start and are often proved to be correct just because you have not supported the project. By working together in a positive manner, we can affect real impactful change in our community. Change for the better that will see a united community with one voice. I truly believe that amalgamation will be a good thing.
Some have commented that the pro side has falsely claimed that property taxes will go down after amalgamation. Actually, I don’t think the pro side has said that. What the pro side has said is that it believes there will be some cost savings for operating as one municipality instead of two separate municipalities. Will this mean lower property taxes for individuals? Probably not, as property taxes seem to go up every year. However, maybe, just maybe, lower operating costs will result in property taxes only going up one or two per cent instead of three or four per cent. Or maybe lower operating costs will result in the ability to provide some more services. Wouldn’t it be great if glass recycling were to happen in the whole area? Or maybe lower operating costs would mean that a new piece of fire fighting equipment could be purchased.
Will amalgamation be an overnight success? Probably not. It will require a lot of hard work and cooperation. But I believe it will be a long term success. Have there been examples of amalgamations that didn’t work? Yes. But a lot of those have been in cases where a province forced an amalgamation to happen in large urban centres like Toronto and Winnipeg, resulting in a lot of bad feelings. Have there been examples of successful amalgamations? Yes, Abbotsford/Matsqui for one and it was a citizen-led amalgamation. As stated in the technical report, the people there now have a hard time imagining it any other way. No, everything wasn’t all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. But, with a lot of work, they made it happen and have been better off for it. Cowichan, better together.
Lastly, I would like to give a tip of the hat to the pro leaning people of the Valley who have kept the discussion positive, forward looking, and factual. Working together as one people with one voice, we can continue maintaining the Cowichan Valley as one of the best places to live in Canada.
George Nielsen
North Cowichan