Should it really be front page news when a politician announces they’ll follow the law?

Peter Fassbender, the BC Minister for municipalities, was in Victoria this week to speak to the local Chamber of Commerce. Naturally, the question of amalgamation came up – Greater Victoria has 13 separate city halls and, last year, residents across the region voted for a study on amalgamating many of them.

Fair enough. A study would be a good thing and would hopefully address some of the concerns we have about amalgamation – including what the menu of shared services should include, how to minimize labour costs, and how to keep tax competitiveness.

In his speech, Fassbender said: “It is not the role or the intent of the government of B.C. to force anything on local communities that the local communities don’t want themselves.”

This landed on the front page of the Times Colonist, with the headline “B.C. ‘won’t force’ capital region amalgamation, minister says.”

Fair enough.

However, this isn’t really “news” as much as it is THE LAW. Twelve years ago, the BC Liberal government passed the Community Charter which includes this section called “No forced amalgamations” (Section 279):

If a new municipality would include 2 or more existing municipalities, letters patent incorporating the new municipality may not be issued unless

(a) a vote has been taken in accordance with section 8 of the Local Government Act separately in each of the existing municipalities, and

(b) for each of those municipalities, more than 50% of the votes counted as valid favour the proposed incorporation.

If the 13 Greater Victoria municipalities are going to amalgamate, they’re going to have to convince their taxpayers of the benefits.