Bratina says amalgamation should be questioned

Hamilton mayor Bob Bratina gave his fourth and final state of the city address for this term of office. Most agreed it was a good and positive speech that highlighted all the good trends and economic gains Hamilton is experiencing right now, and all the good media attention the city is getting from outsiders.

But the room itself was controversial before the address even got underway. That’s because the mayor’s office contributed $5,000 to the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce event, just so they could hold it on the 21st floor of the Stelco Tower. The 360 degree views of the city were stunning, and chamber head Keanin Loomis told me those views are helping promote the city.

City staff have said there was nothing wrong with the $5,000 or the $2,100 that Ontario Lottery and Gaming contributed to the event. The OLG spokesperson says it makes donations like that regularly.

The other part of the mayor’s speech that raised some eyebrows had to do with amalgamation. Bratina ran on de-amalgamation during the last civic election.

“Municipal governments tend to be less volatile and subject to change than the others. We have to rebalance this relationship because their comfort zone involves a ‘top-down’ approach, which in far too many cases has not worked, and here’s an example. The biggest imposition of a top-down or you might say cookie cutter solution to municipal government’s problems in recent memory was the amalgamations of 2001 created by the provincial government of the day.”

“It is very reasonable and perhaps critical to ask the question more than a decade later, ‘so how has it worked?'”

CHCH News asked Bratina about his statement. He refused to answer, saying there will be a media conference this afternoon where a Western University professor will present his findings on municipal amalgamation.

Councillor Brian McHattie – who is running to replace Bratina – said council has spent a lot of time trying to bring Hamilton together since amalgamation in the early 2000s and he was surprised the mayor brought up amalgamation. He said the mayor also missed talking about small businesses and the arts community, adding he thinks Bratina took a bit too much credit for Hamilton’s boom.