Time for a mega-city in Metro Vancouver? What amalgamation could look like

Every time the municipal elections roll around, the idea of whether to merge the Lower Mainland into one mega-city resurfaces, though this time the discussion is a little different.

Every time the municipal elections roll around, the idea of whether to merge the Lower Mainland into one mega-city resurfaces, though this time the discussion is a little different. 

Vancouver is the only major Canadian city that hasn’t annexed any of its suburbs and amalgamation has been discussed on and off for years, but public opinion has continued to shift in favour of the idea; there are also other factors that could change maps in the metro Vancouver region.

Over the summer, Research Co. conducted opinion polling and found a slight majority of residents in Vancouver (52 per cent) and Surrey (53 per cent) supported the idea of merging all the municipalities into a single civic entity, but the smaller communities did not. 

“There’s a significant appetite for amalgamation, as long as you live in one of the two biggest municipalities,” said pollster, Mario Canseco, pointing to the District and City of North Vancouver, as well as the Township and City of Langley. “But there are other areas where you could conceivably do something like this -- Burnaby and New Westminster, for instance, or having the Tri-Cities as a specific entity.”

In 1998, Ontario’s provincial government forced the merger of six municipalities into a singular City of Toronto with the idea that it would save money and lead to better services for citizens; that hasn’t been the case.

“Some argue it’s been revenue neutral but also that it’s sort of created side benefits in terms of improving Toronto’s international reputation,” said Simon Fraser University political scientist Sanjay Jeram, who pointed out numerous studies that tried to gauge the impact couldn’t come to a consensus as to whether there was a net negative or benefit to the mega-merger.

“I think the problem is some people see it as an ‘all or nothing’ case here, like all of Metro Vancouver or nothing, but that’s not how Toronto amalgamated,” he said, since there were six boroughs that formed first, and were then united under the current city boundaries.