Redekop warns ‘pseudo-democratic’ Niagara council could outvote Fort Erie

Outgoing Mayor Wayne Redekop left Niagara’s regional council for the last time at Thursday’s meeting with a warning for Fort Erie: Niagara’s biggest city mayors could soon outvote the town.

Ontario’s Better Regional Governance Act eliminates Fort Erie’s elected regional councillor seat by shrinking Niagara’s regional council from 32 members to 12 mayors and an appointed chair. Mayor-elect Tom Insinna, who defeated Redekop in the October 26 election, becomes Fort Erie’s only voice at Niagara Region.

“It has the potential for two or three municipalities and the appointed regional chair to make significant and serious decisions that will affect the 600,000 residents who live in Niagara,” Redekop said at regional council Thursday.

The province’s proposed formula of one vote per 20,000 residents would give the mayors of Niagara’s three largest cities 15 of 25 mayoral votes, but leave Fort Erie splitting the remaining 10 with eight other municipalities.

Fort Erie council unanimously asked the province in April to consult Niagara’s municipalities before imposing any weighted voting system.

Ontario has not yet appointed Niagara’s new regional chair, who will gain power to veto bylaws that conflict with provincial policy unless two-thirds of council votes to override.

“I have misgivings about granting extraordinary powers to any head of government, whether it’s a mayor or a chair,” Redekop said. “Even more so when it’s someone who’s not elected, but someone who’s appointed.”

Redekop argued that cutting 19 elected regional seats leaves Niagara residents with fewer elected representatives to contact about regional services.

“I don’t think it appreciates the workload that these 12 individuals will be taking on,” Redekop said.

Redekop congratulated the incoming council and his successor, but called the structure they inherit “a pseudo-democratic model of governance for Niagara.”

A council-led review of Niagara’s governance, which Redekop proposed with St. Catharines Councillor Laura Ip earlier this year, is one alternative Redekop has offered to what he called Premier Doug Ford’s “fuzzy notion that bigger is better.”

Grimsby Councillor Michelle Seaborn, whose regional seat also disappears, shared Redekop’s concern, saying the new model leaves “no elected councillors to help with the municipal needs, only the 12 voices to lead us for the next four years.”

Redekop thanked Fort Erie residents for electing him mayor of his hometown for six terms, from 1997 to 2006 and again from 2014 onward.

“That’s a privilege of a lifetime for anyone, as many of you know, and some of you will learn,” Redekop said.

Insinna and Niagara’s 11 other mayors meet for the first time as regional council on November 26.

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