Town & Country Prospects 2.1: A New, Distinctly Canadian Harmony
Original Kitchener, May 11, 2024
The headline cannot be accurate: Surely Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe is not alone in thinking that a devolution of regional responsibilities to the seven ground-level municipal structures that operate adjacent to one another here in Waterloo Country is the best way to move forward.
Surely almost anyone who is public-spirited enough to want to see a sustainable, equitable, prosperous and harmonious future for our region and all its constituent elements stands with Mayor McCabe on this matter. If we move away from working together in areas like land use planning, the only beneficiaries will be a few petty local potentates and various private interests in fields like greenfield development, aggregate extraction and real estate speculation.
What McCabe is saying here is, basically, that we need to stay together and hold the line. But does this relegate her, and those of us who stand with her, to the “One Big City” camp? I don’t think so. “Better together” doesn’t have to mean we’d be better off absorbed into a single, undifferentiated whole.
The fact is, it can just as easily go in the opposite direction: It is the big, all-encompassing regional government that is paying a private sector consulting firm from Mississauga to pressure farmers in Wilmot to give up their land under threat of expropriation.
It was interesting to hear voices from the traditional, 401-oriented KW business establishment — Toronto Waterloo Corridor types — applying the same arguments for assembling industrial lands in Wilmot that they used to advocate for 1970s-style, “One Big City, One Voice” amalgamation not so long ago: Hamilton got its act together; we didn’t, they say. As a result, we lost Schneiders after it was absorbed by Maple Leaf Foods. Their conclusion: KW needs to absorb the rest of the region, and if they don’t like that prospect out in Cambridge or in Wilmot, well they can just get lost.
About a year ago, another group of six, in this case Regional Councillors representing K and W who are not mayors, “seized the moment” and held a news conference to declare their support for the absorption of city and township powers by the region. The columnist seems to be suggesting that by not standing with the separatist-leaning “Les Six” of 2024, Dorothy McCabe must be siding with “The Six” of 2023.
The problem with this report is that, as so often happens, not only from this particular commentator but from the public at large, it reduces infinitely complex issues with myriad considerations to a two-way, this or that, yes or no proposition. And that is never, ever helpful, other than in situations where not much really matters, like choosing who to cheer for at a hockey game or soccer match.
If we can't free ourselves from the limitations of a binary, yes vs no, us vs them, left vs right, right vs wrong approach to any challenge or opportunity that comes along, we'll leave ourselves with just those two options for our political future: When go to the polls in 2026, we can end up standing with either The Six of 2023 or Les Six of 2024. A plurality will opt for one way or the other and start running things their way. But there’s no need to worry, this is a democracy: We can always change our minds and decide to go in the opposite way in 2030 or 2034.
If that's where we're headed, Waterloo Country could become a microcosm of how the Confederation of Canada has evolved so far: petty provincial devolutionaries in never-ending conflict with One Big Country nationalists, with the prevailing trend towards disintegration. But it could also go the other way: We could become Ontario in miniature, with her cities, towns, townships and counties always at odds with the provincial powers that legitimated them, with the prevailing trend towards total dominance by metropolitan powers and interests – public, private and institutional – a kind of re-colonization process, led by a domestic leadership establishing themselves as “masters in their own house.”
There are, of course, a lot of old-fashioned, One Big City proponents who do stand with The Six of 2023 -- folks who still believe, like provincial planning authorities have tended to do until recently, that a centralized, rationalized approach is the progressive one. This has been the prevailing trend on all fronts, including how our schools, colleges, universities, conservation authorities, hospitals, towns and cities function, and how private business has tended to evolve: through a never-ending process of annexation, acquisition and greater control from the top down, always with the promise of greater efficiencies, but rarely with actual improvement for those affected, especially not for the people doing the work and for those being served.
It is only very recently that Doug Ford and his administration have started applying their “government is the problem” approach to the other end of the peculiar two-tier municipal structure their predecessors imposed on us here 50 years ago. And they may be onto something: large-scale greenfield tract developers, aggregate extractors, highway builders and real estate speculators are likely to have an easier time getting what they want if we have seven separate local interests competing with one another rather than an integrated regional planning order: Hence Bill 185, the “Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act,” which, if it becomes the law, will strip the regional municipality of its responsibility for “holding the line.”
I stand with Dorothy McCabe, not as a “One Big City” supporter, but for an integrated municipal order that is in turn part of a harmonious confederal order. This new, distinctly Canadian harmony that I’m imagining is best achieved by coming together whenever it is necessary and appropriate, but never in a way that ignores or eradicates differences. It is an order in which we can all feel we belong, as individuals and as members of any collective identity, especially minorities of one kind or another.
What I have in mind is not compromise. I’m not talking about a negotiated settlement between opposing interests. I’m recommending that we think things through until it becomes clear that difference is not an obstacle to reaching agreement, but actually a necessary precondition for harmony. It is an undifferentiated, monotonous unity that is inherently oppressive, destructive and totalitarian. If there’s tension between working together on the one hand, and being true to ourselves on the other, the way forward is to apply them like we use our left foot and then our right when we walk. If you treat one foot as the right way and the other as the wrong way, you’ll either go around in circles or fall flat on your face.
The way things are structured, with municipal orders considered “creatures of the province” and devoid of any measure of autonomy whatsoever, achieving a harmonious order of this kind is not in our power here on the home front. Things are even further out of our reach in the broad confederal sphere. The best way forward is to think expansively, embrace the complexities involved, talk openly and honestly, taking every possible consideration into account, until what may seem like a utopian order initially starts to feel comfortable, understandable and achievable.
Binary reductionism is lazy thinking. The end result is confusion, and inevitably, conflict. An open, honest, considerate approach requires a measure of patience, and some courage. Diligence is more important than expertise. Keep going, and eventually the reward will be clarity and assurance. The ultimate objective: a genuine common sense, balanced with a sense of commons.
There’s no shortcut to wise, considered decision making. But there’s no need to rush: Since we are not permitted to decide and act for ourselves, our only recourse as citizens resident in any Ontario city, town, village or neighbourhood is to imagine what is possible, and to patiently stand ready to make it real when the time is ripe. That won’t be until we’re liberated from obstacles to progress like a local business establishment and a provincial government with mindsets that are stuck in the 1970s.
This clip from a recent promotional message from the Waterloo EDC shows how the KW Old Guard idea of “inventing the future” lines up with what the province has in store for us: “Make Ontario Great Again,” they seem to be saying; “Let’s Go Back to 1972.” The image makes it clear what kind of logic drives the Wilmot farmland expropriation debacle.
We know better, and we can and must do better than this. The separatist Les Six of 2024 have got it backwards. The Six of 2023 were impetuous and inconsiderate. Mayor Dorothy McCabe is The One to watch, and to applaud.
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Previous posts in the Town & Country Prospects series:
Part 1.2: Bigger Isn't Always Better
Part 1.4: Residents, Citizens, Ratepayers