Premier Doug Ford is dismissing an idea from Markham’s mayor to amalgamate York Region’s nine municipalities.
“We just aren’t in favour of it,” Ford told reporters during a Thursday morning press conference.
Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti sent a letter this past Wednesday asking the province to combine the municipalities of York into one city.
York region consists of nine municipalities: Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, King, Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill, Vaughan and Whitchurch-Stoufville.
Scarpitti wrote the merger would save money by reducing budgets.
“We need an updated governance model from the one established over 50 years ago,” he said.
But Premier Ford said there needs to be widespread support for the idea.
“This is up to all the mayors, not one mayor,” he said, adding one mayor can’t go out and “say, you know, you want to build your empire.”
In a statement to Humber News, York Region Chairman Wayne Emmerson said York Regional Council has not even discussed this issue nor taken a position on the idea.
After announcing it would dissolve Peel Region last month, the province said it would name facilitators to work with other regional governments to review their two-tier governance arrangements.
Victoria Podbielski, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, said facilitators will be named “for the upper-tier municipalities of York, Durham, Halton, Niagara, Simcoe and Waterloo in the coming weeks.”
Podbielski said these facilitators “will ensure municipal governance structures can effectively respond to the issues facing Ontario’s fast-growing municipalities.”
Nevertheless, “the province has no intention of unilaterally imposing amalgamations on municipalities in these areas,” she said.
That’s the same message Ford had at his press conference.
“We listen to all the mayors. And so we are doing it,” Premier Ford said.