A tale of two letters

I was at work when all of this went down yesterday, but I’m going to try to provide the best overview I can of the events of yesterday.

First, at a Committee of the Whole meeting on Thursday, February 26, 2026, where – if I’m not mistaken – only one Councillor was absent (they were out of the country), Council passed a motion that included this resolution:

That Regional Council DIRECTS Chair Gale to refrain from any further action and utilization of any further Regional resources or staff time, with the exception of the above, in connection with a review of Regional governance or municipal amalgamation.

No one with whom I’ve ever spoken about municipal politics thinks the way we do things right now should stay as it is. However, as I’ve said before, I’ve also never spoken with any two people who can agree on what changes should be made.

While we restricted Bob Gale from taking any further action on his own, Council also agreed to undertake a governance review, and several of the mayors, supported by their CAOs and senior staff, set to work to get the ball rolling on that.

At 5:02pm yesterday, the following letter landed in my Regional e-mail inbox:

Then, at 5:07pm, this letter landed in my Regional e-mail inbox:

Now, I think that Bob Gale thinks he’s being crafty here in that he didn’t send the letter on Regional letterhead, and he didn’t sign off as the Regional Chair. However, I will note that he did sign off as a Regional Councillor, which he is not. He relinquished his Regional Council seat when he was appointed Chair. He also sent this letter from his Regional e-mail account, and we all know that there’s no chance he wrote this letter himself or outside of Regional headquarters.

Further, he discusses things he did in his role as Chair – calling meetings, receiving phone calls and e-mails, and having other meetings (with whom, we don’t know) to come to the conclusions he recommends in his letter.

There’s also the question Mayors Grant and Junkin and Lord Mayor Zalepa. Are we to believe that while they were signing the joint letter above, they were also agreeing to have their names added to the letter from Bob Gale? That could be what’s happened here, but it needs to be addressed clearly by all involved.

Another big sticking point for me in Bob Gale’s letter is this:

I have also heard from several major private‑sector employers, representing more than 12,000 employees across Niagara, who have written in support of streamlined, more decisive local governance. 

My question is: So?

The private-sector employers who represent more than 12,000 employees is nowhere near a majority of employers, given the very large number of small and medium-sized businesses we have in Niagara. Further, those employers (if they are even residents of Niagara, and some of them won’t be) would have had their chance to engage in a proper public consultation if Bob Gale cared at all to hear from the people of Niagara that these changes will impact the most.