It’s time the County of Haliburton and its four lower-tier municipalities hire someone to oversee elimination of waste – from having five governments and 32 political positions in an area with just over 20,000 residents.
County CAO Gary Dyke told councillors at the last meeting of 2024 he wanted to have a good look at the service delivery review delivered in late 2020, to see if the file could be further advanced.
Good intent, but Dyke has enough to do. No CAO has been able to really crack the recommendations in the review. As such, it has largely occupied the corner of a desk or two. As municipalities grapple with their 2025 budgets, it has become abundantly clear County taxpayers can’t afford the way their governments operate anymore. Tax increases are outstripping wage increases. There is too much dipping into reserves and taking on added debt. And the hand is being held out not only by townships and the County, but the school board, province and federal governments, too. Something has to give.
While governments may have little say over how much they must collect, when it comes to local government, it can have a say. Let’s look at Minden Hills for example. A consultant just told them they have assets valued at more than $300 million. Collectively, our townships have hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of assets. Are there efficiencies to be had? Of course there are. In what universe does it make sense that Minden Hills meets on Milne Street while the County meets a stone’s throw away? Do we really need two council chambers in that town? Of course not.
I get that some would argue you need five council chambers due to the geographic size of the County. However, with virtual meetings remaining the norm, do we really need all of this infrastructure?
We don’t. However, while our townships have done a better job in the past four years of playing in the sandbox together, they are still a long way from being efficient.
Take in point Dysart et al mayor Murray Fearrey talking about developing a new curling club, arena and… gasp… swimming pool on the CR21 site. Once again, we need to look at a project like this from the vantage point of all municipalities. It will take five governments to pay for a swimming pool. We’ve seen Minden Hills task its ratepayers with its Minden ice palace facility. There was not enough County-wide vision back when that plan was being prepared. We need to ask tough questions. Do we need a new arena in Dysart? Can the needs of our hockey and ice skating community not be met by the current arena, and the ones in Minden and Wilberforce?
For the future of this community, we must finally drive a stake through the parochial hearts of Haliburton and Minden, and to a lesser extent, Wilberforce and Dysart. Our politicians must look beyond their borders. But the only way I see this happening is an impartial staffer who can come in, resurrect the service delivery review, adapt it to what is achievable, and get on with it. I would mandate that person to report back in a year with their suggestions. By then [April 2026 for arguments’ sake], we will be heading into a fall municipal election with the hope of voting in some progressive councillors who can finally find the efficiencies that we all so desperately need.
