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Regional musical chairs

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The talk of the composition of regional council has finally begun.

It has been nearly 20 years since the makeup of this body was last looked at, and it had been quite some time before that.

The case has been brought up in the past of Oshawa having too many seats on council – eight – while other municipalities, such as Ajax which has 20,000 less people, is down to three.

This means that each Oshawa councillor represents approximately 18,700, according to the latest census numbers. Those same census numbers have an Ajax councillor representing approximately 36,500 people. That’s nearly double.

In the past, Ajax mayor Steve Parish recommended that Oshawa reduce its core of councillors – both regional and city – down to seven.

The discussion of regional council’s composition in the latest meeting was a long one with significant time spent to the makeup of the committee that would be studying it and, comically, whether a letter sent to the region’s three post-secondary institutions should include a line mentioning what type of person they’re looking for to sit on the committee.

The fact that so much time was spent on what a letter should say just goes to demonstrate how bitter this process is going to be. Councillor Joe Drumm of Whitby, a veteran of the regional chambers, said just as much in the meeting.

And quite frankly, the reason many councillors will fight this tooth and nail is because they want to save their jobs or perhaps get their municipality a bigger chair at the table, depending on who you ask.

Looking out for self-interest is not going to get anywhere to effectively assist the people of this region.

Although he wasn’t speaking about this specific issue at the time, Regional Chair Roger Anderson said it best when he told The Oshawa Express in November the role of regional councillors.

“Even though they’re from Clarington or even though they’re from Brock Township or Pickering or anywhere else in between, as long as they can come in and say, ‘Look, this may not be good for Uxbridge (for example), but it’s good for the region, it’s good for the people of the Region,’ he said. “You’ve got to be able to look at things like that and sometimes that’s hard for councillors to do.”

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