Public pushes back on plan to cut Simcoe County council in half

Several concerns were voiced at a public meeting about the proposed size reduction of Simcoe County council.

The County of Simcoe’s composition was once again the talk of council, and this time, it was the public’s turn to weigh in.

On Tuesday, council heard from members of the public, both with written and oral statements, on the plan to reduce its size from 32 members to 17.

If approved, 16 of those 17 members would be made up of only the mayors from each of the County’s lower-tier municipalities. The 17th member would be an appointed full-time warden who would exclusively serve the County.

Bradford West Gwillimbury town councillor Jonathan Scott was the first of two people to speak to council.

Scott urged council to revaluate how votes are weighed, stating that reducing its size would not necessarily fix what he said, is its current challenge.

“The problem in Simcoe County is not that there’s too many of you, the problem is that the votes of our residents are not equally valued,” Scott said. “Bradford West Gwillimbury, with a population of 50,000, has the same two votes as municipalities with a population of less than 10,000. That is not fair. That is not democratic and that is not what effective representation means.”

Dave Ritchie, president of Simcoe County Federation of Agriculture and former member of Tay Township council, also told council it needed to reevaluate its reduction plan.

However, Ritchie’s concerns were in opposition to the Bradford town councillor, stating that reducing its size would not drown out the voice of larger communities, but instead, the County’s smaller ones.

“Our concern is when you move numbers down to 17 with the weighted vote we will lose the rural and agricultural component in these chambers,” he said. “That’s a big concern for us.”

A summary of the public’s feedback will be brought back to council at its next meeting on March 25. Staff will also bring a final version of the composition bylaw for council to consider.

Should it pass, the bylaw will then move to all 16 lower-tier municipalities, where it will need “triple majority” approval to pass. That means at least nine of the 16 municipalities must approve the bylaw and of those nine, the population of the electorate must exceed 50 per cent of the County’s population to pass.

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