Amalgamation

[Rainrider22]

The Gong Show is the idea of changing what inst broken by Ford.  The small efficiencies that will be gained financially will be lost on  the amount of money that will be spent to change over forms, addresses, websites, street signs, Every emergency and operational plan... the follow out is huge. for what ?  This isn't just about Waterloo Region, this is 82 upper and lower tier municipalities.   You are talking about reprogramming addresses in emergency communications systems, reprogramming all the RMS systems at all levels, hospital, coding for payments, coding for OHIP, coding for birth certificates.....  This is not a small change for some savings of a few millions dollars....  the list and impacts will go on and on ....

You can read myriad studies of the impacts of the extremely extensive municipal restructuring in the '90s, and see that, in at least some cases, efficiencies really were found.

Additionally, the costs you are talking about are one-time costs. The efficiencies, to the extent they can be realized, would be ongoing.

Yes, in some cases.  Are these efficiencies worth the loss of self identification and pride in community.  Then there is the loss of fair representation of local issues and even the ability to address more localized problems.  This is why we have local government.  To deal with local issues.  City issues vs rural issues are often opposing or conflicting...