PROVINCIAL VERSUS MUNICIPAL POLITICS

Tomorrow's Woolwich Observer (out today) describes the Cultural Heritage Landscape designation proposed for West Montrose that was discussed at Tuesday evening's public meeting held in Woolwich Council Chambers. In particular I enjoyed Steve Kannon's editorial (pg. 12) particularily his analysis of where the gravel pit application(s) are currently at. Steve suggests that under the current arangements, there is little in the way of incentive or positive outcomes which would encourage municipalities to readily accept, much less encourage local gravel extraction. He is absolutely correct. The norm is for the municipalities costs to rise via road maintenance, their citizens quality of life to fall and the environment, here in Waterloo Region that often being the Grand River to suffer negative consequences. Why then do local councils so routinely agree to gravel pit applications albeit with token unenforced "conditions" put on them? The answer is in the old political maxim " Lower tiers of government should not provoke or antagonize higher tiers of government". The reasons for this include higher levels of government (Provincial/Federal) tending to remember who's been naughty versus who's been nice at grant allocation time. Secondly any municipal politician with higher ambitions wanting a party nomination to run provincially or federally had better play nice with these folks ahead of time. For the last number of decades our municipal politicians here in Woolwich have played ball with their provincial counterparts to the extreme detriment of the local citizens. At long last we have a Council who may actually put the interests of Woolwich citizens ahead of their own and ahead of their provincial counterparts.