Rural revolution: De-amalgamation calls in Chatham-Kent growing

Residents in Wallaceburg, Bothwell and Blenheim have all started petitions to separate from the municipality. CTV Windsor’s Chris Campbell reports.

A movement to de-amalgamate certain communities within Chatham-Kent is gaining momentum.

Residents in Wallaceburg, Bothwell and Blenheim have started petitions to separate from the municipality, suggesting they feel marginalized under the current municipal structure.

“It’s definitely something that we can do here,” said Wallaceburg petitioner, Brendan Authier. “We’re a large enough town to have our own council, and I think that joining a nearby county such as Lambton County or reforming Chatham-Kent back into Kent County would be ideal and would help fill those gaps for services that we can’t afford ourselves.”

Authier said the petition highlights significant challenges faced by the community since amalgamation took place in 1998, including the loss of 3,500 jobs, population decline, increased property taxes and rising issues related to homelessness and substance abuse. Concerns that Authier said many residents across Chatham-Kent feel are being overlooked.

“We’ve only had worse delays in service. It’s a slog dealing with Chatham-Kent,” Authier explained. “I feel that when we create centralized communities, there’s less community connection.”

Authier continued, “The nail in the coffin that started making a lot of people mad across Chatham-Kent, not just in Wallaceburg, such as in Bothwell and Zone Township and Blenheim was the Community Hub project in Chatham, which is a brand new city hall that is in Chatham, and it costs a slated $60 million, although I expect it will be higher than that.”

The Wallaceburg petition is just shy of 500 signatures since it was launched on Jan.23.

“My goal, it’s quite a steep goal, but it’s around 5000, which is half the population of Wallaceburg, because then if we present that to the Legislative Assembly and hopefully, we get an MPP to do that, there’s no real way they can ignore that, as that would be going against the will of the people.”

However, South Kent Coun. Anthony Ceccacci believes de-amalgamation would be a challenge, noting funding for services has changed significantly since amalgamation began.

“We are definitely better as a whole. It would be very challenging for several of the outlying areas to de-amalgamate,” Ceccacci said. “I can’t even imagine the capital cost to de-amalgamate some communities. I think that the tax implications from homeowners and businesses would be astronomical.”

Ceccacci said, “unfortunately property taxes in the 90s paid for property tax items like your infrastructure, like your fire, like you’re policing. Now property taxes are being asked to essentially cope with social economical issues as well as provincial downloading when it comes to infrastructure as well.”

Ceccacci said provincial downloads have forced taxpayers to cover costs for other things not included before amalgamation, making local frustrations understandable.

“It’s important to recognize that a lot of the people that have concerns, they’re very valid, but some of the concerns are unfortunately out of the municipal scope of things,” said Ceccacci.

Lydia Miljan, a political science professor at the University of Windsor is skeptical of de-amalgamation efforts. She co-authored reports on municipal amalgamation and de-amalgamation that found the former didn’t save money.

“I think when people ask about it, even when they put in petitions, all we get is obstacles from the government,” Miljan stated. “And it’s regardless of which government is in power.”

Miljan told CTV News she believes it’s unlikely the provincial government would support initiatives to de-amalgamate, recalling the province historically favours amalgamations to streamline services and reduce costs.

“I would think it’s a lot of effort for no result,” she said. “The province has made it very clear that they’re not interested in these really tiny communities because they don’t think that they are very effective in terms of value for money.”

“Yes, you can de-amalgamate, but it’s a process and you’ve got to decide who owes what to whom. So, the break off communities might end up holding a debt, right? The larger municipality might say, well, wait a minute, we provided you these roads or these x, y, z services, and you owe us money. And so that again, would probably end any conversation about having de-amalgamation.”

“Think about it as a long-term marriage,” said Miljan. “If you’ve been together for 30 years, how do you know who paid for which piece of cutlery, never mind who paid for which road.”

Miljan added, “Local communities can sign as many petitions as they want. They can make a lot of noise at the municipal level, but at the end of the day, they’ve got to get the ear of the province. And I just don’t see any provincial government wanting to wade into this issue and saying it’s worth the hassle of allowing these small breakaway communities to want to go at it alone.”

Meantime, Chatham-Kent Coun. Michael Bondy said he believes de-amalgamation should be an election issue, saying he intends to run for mayor in the next municipal election with intentions to explore the idea.

“I think it’s worth a conversation. I think it’s something that could be looked into,” Bondy said. “Frankly, it’s been 26 years, and I for one don’t think amalgamation has worked well for us… I would campaign on at least deeply exploring de-amalgamation and see what it looks like. It’s not a promise to do it or a promise not to do it, but I would certainly be open to exploring it because I think in 26 years we just haven’t got there.”

CTV News reached out to Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff for comment but did not receive a response as of publishing time.

Bondy added, “I think these communities at least deserve the opportunity to have it looked at. Maybe it’s not something the province is interested in. Again, we don’t make that determination municipally, but we can certainly push it forward. And again, I think it is an election issue.”