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VOCO PRESENTATION TO COUNCIL OF CANADIANS - PETERBOROUGH-KAWARTHA CHAPTER September 20, 2001 Belinda Wilson

For about 140 years, the 407,000 hectares of land to the west of here was known as Victoria County. Until lately, it was a two-tier system of municipal government, comprised of 17 individual municipalities, each of which had representation at the county level. The town of Lindsay, and the villages of Fenelon Falls, Bobcaygeon, Woodville and Omemee were municipalities unto themselves, while the other small villages were part of larger township governments.

Elsewhere in Ontario, the provincial government was beginning to implement forced amalgamations onto unsuspecting municipalities, but the threat seemed distant and irrelevent to life in Victoria County. Each of our municipalities went about the daily business of governing for its own citizens. Roads were fixed, streets were plowed, taxes were levied, concerns were dealt with - you know - the usual goings-on in small-town and rural Ontario. For the most part, these operated efficiently. And, as we all know, they had to be accountable - after all, municipal politicians are the most accessible of any level of government. Try phoning your MPP at 2:00 in the morning to complain about something!

Certain of these municipalities had avoided tax increases for the last 8 or more years, despite increased downloading from the province, and the escalating costs of doing business day by day. And, in fact, the County of Victoria had been without a tax increase for the last two years! Major miracles in the world of municipal politics, to be sure!

A few years back, as the rumblings of forced amalgamations grew stronger, two of our municipalities, the village of Bobcaygeon, and the surrounding Verulam Township, decided to beat the province to it, by forming their own amalgamation. It was felt that if the province saw an effort to conform with their mindset, then a countywide amalgamation might be avoided. Naturally, there were opponents to this union, but in the end, the politicians of the day felt that it was a relatively small sacrifice to make for the larger common good.

And, for a while, things did seem to settle down. The province pestered other communities, thankfully leaving us alone to tend to our own affairs, as we best knew how to do.

Then, the province reared its ugly head again, breathing amalgamation fire at us from a distance. Operating costs must come down - services must be streamilined - duplication must be eliminated - OR ELSE! And so, the legislators at the County level put their heads together to come up with a solution. And they began work on a proposal which they felt would answer the province's concerns, while still maintaining the municipal structure as we knew it. They decided to address the issue of roads - a big chunk of any rural budget. And the committee responsible for this came up with a plan that would save between 1 and 5 million dollars, depending on which option they chose. It involved job- and equipment-sharing within the municipalities, and more co-operation between the municipal and county levels.

Concurrent with this effort, three northern municipalities, namely Laxton-Digby-Longford, Somerville and Bexley, sat down to discuss strategies to merge, as it was felt that their concerns and affairs were similar, and that such a union would ultimately impact little on the citizenry. And, in the same vein as the Bobcaygeon-Verulam amalgamation, they thought that this might satisfy the province.

Then, 5 weeks from the completion of the roads study, all hell broke loose in Victoria County. An internal storm had been brewing between two municipalities - a power struggle of sorts - and in a split vote of 3 - 2, one of the municipalities called in a provincial commissioner!

And life in Victoria County stopped!

The province appointed Trent University's Professor Harry Kitchen, who blew into town on the crest of the hurricane that had been created when the hot air from Queen's Park, having overwhelmed Toronto, blew north and east, and collided with our clean country air.

Now, if I may be allowed a little editorial leeway here, I will tell you my thoughts on what exactly happened. Victoria County's sad excuse for representation at Queen's Park is Chris Hodgson, who, at the time, was chair of the Board of Management. Chris fancied himself to be the golden-haired boy, the successor to Mike Harris' throne, and was diligently worming - I mean working - his way to the top. But, there was another who eyed the crown - in the person of Tony Clement, who was Minister of Municipal Affairs.

Now the way I see it, when the request for a commissioner came to Queen's Park, Mr. Clement saw the perfect opportunity to put the screws to poor Mr. Hodgson. So, and this is the general opinion of many of us, Professor Kitchen was given his orders - namely, to force the amalgamation of Victoria County - told to come up here and do the dog and pony show for three months, and then ride out in a blaze of glory that would leave Victoria County in ashes, and Chris Hodgson's reputation in ruins.

And it pretty much worked that way. There were the obligatory public meetings, and the ho-hum of inviting written submissions from the citizens at large. And so we attended the meetings. And we wrote the letters. Professor Kitchen received over 600 written submissions (never have there been more than 150 or so), and 74% of those submissions stated, in one way or another, "Thank you very much, but please leave us alone!"

The sentiment at the public meetings was the same. But our protests were met with contempt and disregard. I think that while people were pleading with this man to go away, he was making plans on how to spend the $80,000 that he was being paid to squeeze the life out of our county. He justified the plan by saying that it was going to save us $3.5 million - of course it was going to cost us $5 million in transition costs, but apparently he uses a different system of math than most of us, because he couldn't understand why we didn't think that this was such a hot deal.

And where was our golden-haired MPP? Well, Chris stepped forward just long enough to say, and I am quoting here "If it doesn't save money, it won't happen!" He then retreated, smug in the ambiguity of his statement, and not wanting to ruffle Mikey's feathers, lest he lose his place as heir apparent.

Well, the citizenry was beginning to get nervous - our local politicians seemed divided on the issue, and our MPP was obviously more interested in furthering his own interests than in defending ours. Our opinions were falling on the obviously deaf ears of the commissioner. But there were some who refused to go down without a fight.

A petition was circulated - more about the author of that in a minute - and over 800 signatures were taken down to Queen's Park, asking that this terrible thing not be allowed to happen. Of course, this was an effort in futility - the Harris Tories had set us up like bowling pins, and Harry Kitchen had knocked us down.

The death knell was sounded for Victoria County - we were to be amalgamated - into a one-tier system of government, the same system that Harry Kitchen, renowned expert on municipal politics, had decried in many published articles. These same articles were quoted in an issue of Municipal World which did a report card on amalgamations, and which, in the matter of saving money, gave them a grade of D. Across the board, no exceptions - Amalgamations do not save money!

And to add insult to injury, Mr. Kitchen, in a move that clearly went beyond his mandate, said that our new municipality was to be called The City of Kawartha Lakes! Oh, it will be wonderful, he said. You will be the largest city in the world by land mass. What a marketing opportunity - what a coup!

"What a crock!" is what we said!

Imagine - a city whose northern boundary is in line with the south end of Algonquin Park, and from its southern limits you can see Lake Ontario! It takes almost 2 hours to get from the top end of Carden-Dalton to Pontypool, and with the exception of a few villages there is nothing but cows and trees! A city? I don't think so.

But, the provincial government is nothing if not single-minded. Their mantra is this: Forget the people. Never mind what they think. We know best. And they will grow to accept this, and in a little while, it'll all be forgotten.

Well, they obviously underestimated their opponents. Remember the petition? Well, the author of that, Lynne Boldt, is here tonight. Ms. Boldt and some others decided it was time to get the citizens involved in their government. They decided to hold town hall meetings, like in the old days, when people felt like they were in control of their own affairs. And in the midst of this, they decided to come up with a name for their newly-formed organization, one that would ring, one that would mean something.

And they came up with VOCO - Voices of Central Ontario. But it also comes from the Latin meaning "I call" or "I command". They felt this was apt, considering that their plan was to command the provincial government to listen to the people of Victoria County.

The final decision from Harry Kitchen came down in March of 2000, with a transition board installed to make up all the rules in time for January 1, 2001, when Victoria County would surrender to The City of Kawartha Lakes.

Professor Kitchen, before high-tailing it out of Victoria County, gave us one more slap in the face. It seems that the $80,000 that he had agreed to was not quite enough. He had the gall to put in a bill for an additional $12,000. And while the County was still in power, it voted not to pay. One last defiant act for a proud people? Not hardly!

VOCO held town hall meetings, with speakers like Mike Colle, then the Liberal Municipal Affairs Critic, and Professor Andrew Sangton, whose knowledge of municipal government is second to none. Hundreds of people came out to hear the message of how the Tories had run roughshod over not only us, but other municipalities in Ontario.

And the people began to ask questions. Questions like "How did this happen to us?" and "What can we do to get out of this?" and "Is anybody listening to us?"

In October, downtown Lindsay, which was the County seat, was witness to a funeral - the strangest funeral I'm sure anyone had ever seen. Mourners followed pall-bearers carrying a rough pine coffin, accompanied by a lone drummer, down the main street of Lindsay, from the Armoury, to the park at the river, where a funeral service was held for Victoria County.

Rev. David Reeve conducted the service, and as each municipality was laid to rest, a eulogy was read in its honour. By the time the service was completed, 17 headstones, one for each municipality and one for Victoria County, stood on the grass on the hillside, with the flower-bedecked coffin. Tears were shed as the people assembled came to realize that their history was about to be torn from them.

Meanwhile, the Transition Board was busy, putting together the master plan that was to be the new City. But, oddly enough, transition costs had ballooned from $5 million to $19.5 million. And, oh so sorry folks, but that $3 million that you were supposed to save? Well - not gonna happen!

By now, people were seeing red! We had lost our county, lost our name, and now it looked like we're going to lose our collective shirts! And we were not going to go gentle into that good night!

The November election was a terrible thing to watch. Families and neighbours were divided on the whole amalgamation issue, some fighting desperately against the inevitable, some doing the Canadian thing - you know - give it a chance, it might work out alright.

Where once we had 16 individual elections going on, with candidates vying for 5 seats in each, now we had 16 wards, with only 1 seat in each ward. And in yet another attempt to divide and conquer, Kitchen had changed the boundaries of the old municipalities.

Now, some people who had always been in, for example, Bexley Township found themselves part of the ward which was comprised largely by what had been Fenelon Township, and so on.

Dedicated politicians, who had, for the most part, served their communities well, were now campaigning against fellow politicians, forced into the dirty game of electioneering in a desperate effort to get that one chance to represent their area. It was an ugly scene, from beginning to end, with far too many people, with years of invaluable experience, left unable to make a contribution.

And the hefty new salary that was, at the time unspecified, but rumoured to be in the neighbourhood of $35,000, brought a new breed of political wanna-be's out of the woodwork - the word Carpetbaggers springs to mind.

When the dust had settled, and the ballots had been counted, it was a curious assortment of people who had won their respective ward seats. Veterans and rookies, split about even, with the last mayor of Lindsay emerging victorious as the first mayor of the City of Kawartha Lakes, made up the new Council.

As January 1, 2001 rolled around, and the new Council was installed, another petition was being circulated. This petition demanded that the provincial government rescind the amalgamation of Victoria County, and restore our former two-tier system of government and our 16 municipalities. No-one seems quite sure where it came from, but in a short time, VOCO was approached to co-ordinate it, in order to take advantage of our growing reputation. Volunteers set out, and signatures poured in.

And the City of Kawartha Lakes Council, in one of its earliest blunders, revisited the issue of the additional money requested by Harry Kitchen - the $12,000 that the County had already said no to - and decided to pay it! They also decided to do their own dog and pony show, by making a grand show of revisiting the name issue. Citizens took the time to put together presentations, explaining why they felt it was important to keep the name Victoria County. But in the end, the Council moved to adopt the hated City of Kawartha Lakes moniker. That move set the scene for the next 9 months. But we'll get to that later.

Early in May, a busload of eager VOCO supporters came with us to Queen's Park, where we distributed the petition's 5,000 signatures amongst the members of the 2 opposition parties, all of whom have been extremely supportive in this exercise. That day, when Mike Colle stood up and introduced the people of Victoria County to the assembly, as the opposition members cheered and applauded us, Chris Hodgson wouldn't even acknowledge our presence. And as the half dozen or so members presented their pages of the petition, reading out the wording, and announcing the number of signatures contained in their submission, the Tories collectively grew more defiant, and busied themselves with matters infinitely more important than what was going on across the floor.

And over the next 7 or so weeks before they recessed for the summer, the opposition members stood up on a regular basis, and presented pages of the petition to the House. The strategy here was that if the petition was submitted at one time, then it would get one mention and that would be the end of it. By having it brought up week after week, the body of the petition had to be read each time, and it then went into the Hansard records. And each time that happens, the minister responsible is obliged to respond.

And guess who now held the unlovely portfolio of Minister of Municipal Affairs? Our own Chris Hodgson, not nearly so golden-haired anymore, and somewhat less cocky, having had his wings clipped in a mysterious turn of events that has left him sadly on the outside, looking in - our poor boy had been given the hot potato of the decade - and was now in the unfortunate position of having to deal with the very issue which he had maintained all along was beyond his control.

At any rate, on the day of our visit to Queen's Park, the opposition hounded poor Chris until he finally deigned to meet with us for 10 minutes. During that 10 minutes, he was arrogant, evasive and defensive. He answered our questions with the same thing he has said since the beginning - "you people asked for the commissioner, and you got what you asked for". There were a few choice comments from those assembled, and when he was asked if he would agree to a meeting at his constituency office in Lindsay, he told us that he saw no point in meeting with us. As we got up and collectively walked out on him, he was heard to say "You people should have stayed home to bake bread and eat cake!" That would come back to haunt him a few months later.

And the word we were getting from our friends in the Liberals and the NDP was that the Tories were starting to get nervous. Never had anyone fought back after the i's had been dotted and the t's been crossed. In all the other forced amalgamations, the people had just given up. Sure, there had been petitions and meetings and the usual uprisings during the course of the amalgamation process, but when all was said and done, there had never been any more said or done.

This was new territory for a government whose very reputation had been established by unilaterally ramming their decisions down the throats of whatever group happened to be standing there with their mouths open.

Meanwhile, VOCO was busy planning another town hall meeting. VOCO's indefatiguable chair, Ms. Boldt, had made connections with many high-profile people sympathetic to our plight. Most noteworthy among those was John Sewell, former mayor of Toronto, and chairman of C4LD - Citizens for Local Democracy - who had led the fight against that City's amalgamation. Mr. Sewell graciously agreed to speak at our next town hall, which we held in May. 500 people came out to hear him tell us that we were not crazy to be fighting back. He told us that we were on the right track, and he told us not to give up - to fight and keep on fighting.

Larry DeShaw, a former councillor from Calendar-Edwardsburg, which had been forced into its own mega-amalgamation situation, drove 4 1/2 hours to our meeting, to tell us to keep fighting, and that they were watching us and supporting us.

Citizens of Victoria County took their turn at the microphone, telling their own stories of how they were affected by this amalgamation. One elderly gentleman cried as he told how his wife had passed away in December, and how glad he was that she was able to die in Victoria County. We were all saddened when he himself passed away this summer - in The City of Kawartha Lakes.

People began donating money to us, in order to allow us to keep fighting. And, taking our cue from something that John Sewell told us, we began to plan the next battle in our fight to de-amalgamate.

We began a rolling referendum campaign. The question on the referendum is this: "Do you want to de-amalgamate, and restore Victoria County and your former municipalities? Yes or No." Over the course of the summer, and still in progress, we have gone to each of the "former" municipalities, set up outside the "former" municipal office, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and invited people to participate in the first chance that we, the citizens, have had to voice our opinion in a democratic fashion. And up to and including the results from the two referenda held last weekend, 97% of the voters are saying YES to de-amalgamation! 97%!

But over and above the results, which are themselves astounding, and much more decisive than we had dared hope for, was and is the response from the people. Good people who had thought that all hope was gone, suddenly saw a tiny light at the end of the tunnel. And when they come to vote, they thank us. They grab our hands and they thank us. They cry and they thank us - for fighting for them, when they were so beaten that they couldn't fight for themselves.

If you could just see them as I saw them on the day of the very first referendum, Bobcaygeon-Verulam - lined up 15 and 20 deep for their chance to have their say.

If you could see the brave man who, aided by 2 canes, proudly refused the offer of having the ballot brought to his car at the Fenelon Township vote. It took him 10 minutes to get to the polling area, but he was adamant that he was going to get there under his own steam.

You have to understand that we ourselves have been forced to operate under less than ideal conditions. The actual municipal buildings were not made available to us, but we were allowed to use the grounds. So, with tents and folding tables, lawnchairs and lanterns, with makeshift ballot boxes and hand-painted signs, we have come. And on the door of each of those municipal offices has been a disclaimer issued by the CAO of the City of Kawartha Lakes, announcing to one and all that the referendum is not in compliance with the Ontario Municipal Act, and that the City takes no responsibility for VOCO's actions. This disclaimer even appeared as a paid advertisement in the newspapers - it would appear that they were beginning to get nervous.

And yet, undaunted, we continued to hold the referenda, and the people continued to come. A 98 year old woman, helped by her two elderly sons, came out to vote in Somerville.

At the Bexley vote, we had to take the ballot over to a man who was unable to walk, but who had insisted that his daughter get him into the van and drive him to Coboconk, so that he could cast his ballot.

In Carden-Dalton, we got kicked off the grounds, for it seems that some of the directors of the Carden Fair, which was using the property for the weekend, thought that our very presence there would plunge their little event into ruination. And so we sat on the edge of the road, and the people still came.

Everywhere we set up the referendum, we meet wonderful people. People who spend the bulk of that day bringing others out to vote. There is invariably a line-up at 7:45 a.m., as they eagerly line-up to be the first to cast their ballots. And there is always another line-up 12 hours later as they scurry in, desperate not to miss their chance.

We have two more referenda to conduct - this weekend in Ops Township, and next weekend in the Town of Lindsay. Then, due to the overwhelming number of requests, we are devoting Thanksgiving weekend to a make-up referendum, where we will station ourselves in 6 locations in the County, and allow anyone who missed their vote to come out and cast a ballot.

And in the midst of putting together the manpower and details of all these referenda, the Petition has continued to grow. We held 2 county-wide petition blitzes over the summer, as well as distributing petitions to individuals who volunteered to take it around to friends and neighbours. And, responding to the many phone calls, we have even been visiting shut-ins who called, desperate to have a chance to sign.

We set up outside almost every major event in the County over the summer, with the petition available to those who wished to sign it. And, hearing that our MPP was to make a special appearance in Fenelon Falls to open the Highland Games, we took advantage of that opportunity not only to have the petition outside the gates, but also a loaf of homemade bread and a cake. We explained the significance of these to all who came by, and even tried to convince Chris Hodgson to partake, but oddly enough, he declined - but the signal was received.

And we have now garnered another 5,000 signatures, which will make their way to Queen's Park amid a convoy of buses. Imagine - 10,000 signatures against an issue that Chris Hodgson told us we asked for!

Yet another, more passive campaign was also launched by VOCO amid the swirl of petitions and referenda - the yellow ribbon campaign. Yellow has traditionally been the symbolic colour of a vigil, and to show support for the uphill battle of restoring democracy to Victoria County, the public has been flying yellow ribbons from car aerials, tying yellow ribbons around trees and mailboxes and lampposts, wearing yellow ribbons on their lapels and in their hair - yellow ribbons are popping up everywhere in Victoria County.

Coincidentally, the guest speaker at our August town hall meeting in Manvers was Joe Cooper, who is a columnist for the Toronto Mirror, and who still has his yellow ribbon on his fence from the Toronto fight against amalgamation.

The big town hall meetings that we organized were complemented by a series of mini town halls in individual communities. Sometimes 10 people showed up, sometimes 100. But it was always the same - people wanted to know what is going, and what we could do about it.

At one such mini town hall at the Miller Memorial Church near the tiny community of Port Hoover, I had the pleasure to talk with an articulate older gentleman after the meeting had wrapped up. As usual, we had our donation jar, which is actually a chamber pot, as well as our brochures and yellow ribbons. As we spoke, this gentleman was opening his wallet, and he said to me "You know, I came here tonight thinking that everything was more or less alright, but now I see that there is a lot that needs to be looked after. Thank you for looking after us." And with that, he dropped a $100 bill into the chamber pot. Shocked and amazed, I thanked him profusely. But he waved away my thanks. He said "No, I have it spend, and I don't spend it on much, so you are welcome to it!"

Lynne received a phone call from a veteran, disabled and unable to get to one of the meetings. He wanted to make a $20 donation to our cause. Lynne thanked him kindly, but said that that wasn't necessary. He explained to her that he had fought in WWII, and had spent time in a Nazi concentration camp. He told her that he never thought that he would ever have to fight that kind of dictatorship again, but he reckoned that what we were forced into here qualified as the same kind of evil control by a few over the helpless masses. Then, he tearfully said "I am on a small disability pension. But if you told me that you needed $200, I would go without food to see that you got it."

That, my friends, is what the people of Victoria County think about what has happened to us. The allusion to Nazi Germany has been made to us many times by those who fought against it so many years ago. Those too young to have been touched by the war have decried the loss of our basic democratic rights.

And where does our local government stand? Well, you have to understand that through all of this, Lindsay stood to gain the most, and according to the operating and capital budgets, that is the case. And, including the mayor, there are 5 Lindsay reps sitting on Council. And there are enough rookies in the ranks to follow the politics of the Lindsay gang. We have a couple of shining lights on that Council - a few voices of reason trying to combat the bureaucratically-controlled city administration. Bureaucrats who were, for the most part, hired from outside the County, and whose sole concern is their own self-serving interests.

Our Council has ignored the protests and the presentations of countless deputations on countless issues. They have been berated by the public for turning a deaf ear to the very people whom they have been elected to serve. And they continue on, blinded by the grandeur of a brand-new city rising up around them. The only problem is, we can't afford to pay for their dream.

And, most damning of all in this whole sordid mess, was the pronouncement by the Harris government, 2 months after the City of Kawartha Lakes was born, that "There will be no more forced amalgamations. It has been found that the expected savings aren't there, and that increased efficiency is not attained in the exercise!"

While we have been busy with our own de-amalgamation campaign, we have not done so unnoticed. We have been contacted by other areas, who have been wrestling with their own amalgamation longer than we have, and who want to know what we are doing. They had given up all hope until they heard about VOCO, and the fight to save Victoria County. And so now the groundswell of support has burst through the geographical seams, and soon, I dare say, VOCO may be an acronym known from one end of Ontario to the other as the voice of democracy and governmental accountability.

For now, we have our own fight to finish, but that is not to say that in the meantime, we can't start a fight somewhere else.

We are currently a small core group of about 20 or 30 - it's difficult to know, because there is no fee to join, and we don't issue membership cards. Everyone who lives in Victoria County is a member of VOCO, and we welcome them all. We don't ask people for money - they just give it to us, because it is their way of fighting back. They feel as if they are part of the solution when they can wear their yellow ribbon, and tell all who ask about it, just what it means.

And maybe some day, I will be able to take off this yellow ribbon of mine. It is starting to look tattered and worn, but it is held together by my Victoria County pin. I like the symbolism - for as tattered and worn as we all feel in the course of our battle, it is Victoria County herself that holds us together, and holds us up. We get the courage to continue from her, and from her people - for her and for them, we cannot, and will not, give up.

Thank you.

Belinda Wilson

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