By Ann Lang and Joseph Quesnel
So, again, is the single city saving money now — and will it in the future?
The answer is not a simple Yes or No. The answer lies in a series of Ifs.
If the city had stayed still and not grown after the merger, there might have been a saving.
If people hadn’t demanded better city-wide services such as more ambulances, expanded public transit and more library funding, there might have been a saving.
If the province hadn’t downloaded costs like ambulance services and public housing administration without sending the money to pay for them, there might have been a saving.
If we knew the final cost of harmonizing collective agreements in the single city, we might be able to assess savings.
If residents weren’t pressuring not only for continuance of the best services they had in their “old” municipality, but also for the best services residents had in other municipalities — the ‘harmonizing-up’ effect — there might have been a real saving now, or later.
If residents of the new single city were satisfied with services based on the lowest level from each of the “old” municipalities, there would be a real saving — now and later.
Conclusion: A single city that is better to live in than any of its 11 constituent parts will cost more.
A single city that is worse to live in than any of its 11 constituent parts will cost less. What is not possible is a single, unharmonized city maintaining all of the characteristics and service levels of the “old” municipalities. If this happened, it would not be a real single city but a collection of wards with different levels of service.
It would, in effect, be the pre-amalgamation situation—the status quo.
So it comes down to quality of life. All residents of the new city will get what they all pay for —- or they will all pay for what they all get.
At the end of the day, it seems you can’t get the best of both worlds without paying the price.