Why this rural-urban mixed municipality shrunk its council and altered ward boundaries

In a move some say perpetuates a longstanding perceived rural-urban divide, Chatham-Kent is shrinking its number of councillors and tweaking ward boundaries.

It's a first for the municipality since it was born out of amalgamation in 1998 — spanning a large geographical area of southwestern Ontario. For context, Chatham-Kent is in Canada's top 10 in terms of size for municipalities. 

That big swath of land is made up of roughly 110,000 people, with less than half of the population residing in its main urban community: the city of Chatham, which sits virtually in the middle of the municipality. 

Chatham-Kent council recently voted to move ahead with reducing the number of councillors from 17 to 14, and to move around governance and boundaries in a handful of wards. That will result in one fewer representative in the current South Kent (Ward 2), East Kent (Ward 3) and North Kent (Ward 4) areas. 

Larger communities such as Chatham and Wallaceburg will scoop up addresses and residents currently on their outskirts. The changes will also result in the existing six wards growing to eight — including three in Chatham with two councillors in each. Currently, Chatham has one ward covered by six people.

A bylaw is set to come before council March 3 for final approval. Rate payers can also appeal the decision to the province. 

The new boundaries and council size are set to take effect for the 2026 municipal election.

Chatham-Kent's chief administrative officer calls the moves a "passage of time" to balance the resident-councillor ratio and representation based on community and population expansion.

Michael Duben cites growth in places like Chatham, Wallaceburg and Tilbury — along with developments in Ridgetown and Blenheim that will show up in the census in a few years.

"It's the type of thing that you need to look at all the time," he said.

"And when it starts becoming imbalanced where you have one councillor representing way less, then it makes sense to have a look at it." 

Duben says people assume the mayor will always come from Chatham but that may not always be the case.

"It may very well be that … at some point [they] come from another part of the municipality. We'll see what the next couple of elections bring us."

According to Duben, the consultant hired to analyze the municipality's makeup and provide recommendations put a heavy focus on its large geographical size.

"To expect one councillor to be able to cover from around Wallaceburg down to near Tilbury? The distance is just so, so large. I think that factored into their calculations as well."

'Changing of the fabric of our … community'

Anthony Ceccacci represents one of the affected wards in the southern part of the municipality, which includes communities such as Blenheim, Shrewsbury, Dealtown and Cedar Springs.

Under the soon-to-be revised mapping and governance, the current Ward 2 councillor's area will see it gain places to the east like Ridgetown, and lose some south Chatham addresses and neighbourhoods toward the Thames River.

Ceccacci, who voted against the changes, says it alters the fabric of all the impacted communities.

"It has been completely realigned," he said. "This wasn't about cleaning up boundaries. This is about a significant changing of the fabric of our South Kent community where Ridgetown and Blenheim are going to be augmented and represented significantly differently." 

According to Ceccacci, he's afraid it could result in a lack of rural representation.

"I definitely respect the will of council, I just think that there was a collective effort by the urban representation to strengthen the decision making process and … shift the weight more to the urban areas."

"Instead of listening, what we have done is we've actually reduced the the rural vote significantly."

'Least offensive' choice

Emery Huszka is pushing for his pocket on Chatham-Kent's far east side near Bothwell to de-amalgamate, stand as its own municipality, and fall under the umbrella of Lambton County.

The farmer lives in nearby Florence also owns land in Zone Township.

He's one of the people behind a petition. Similar petitions have popped up in other communities including Wallaceburg and Blenheim.

Huszka said the "final straw" was when he heard about the prospect of changing council's composition.

And now that the restructuring has been passed, he says it's the definition of "rural-urban divide."

"It was probably the most acceptable or least offensive choice of all the choices that they had in front of them," he said. 

Huszka says in wards like his, in East Kent, it's going to be a real challenge for a "part-time" position of one councillor — instead of the current two.

"When your constituents potentially call you … but now you're carrying the larger geography and you're still dealing with the everyday aspects. There's more area of road to be aware of. There's more diversity in fire responses. You're going to overlap several different jurisdictions within the same ward, potentially."

'Smaller, effective council will be better'

Ward 4 Coun. Rhonda Jubenville voted in favour of the changes, which includes the number of councillors in her area dropping from two to one.

North Kent includes communities such as Dresden, Dover Township, Mitchell's Bay, Pain Court and Grande Pointe.

"I'm excited because I think this is going to be a good thing for Chatham-Kent," said Jubenville.

"Not that I don't like any of my colleagues. I just think having a smaller, effective council will be will be better for Chatham-Kent."

Some of her ward will now be scooped up into Chatham proper boundaries — geographically where addresses are already connected to the city.

"That was a big thing for me," she added. "And that also pertained to Wallaceburg proper again, back when amalgamation took place. The town limits were smaller. But since then they've grown. But the outlying areas .... they were in my ward ... which is a rural ward. It was just very confusing for a lot of people."

Jubenville says while she understands some residents might be concerned about the changes, it doesn't necessarily mean they will be underrepresented.

"I think they don't feel that they're being heard. It wouldn't matter who the councillor was." 

"Urban Chatham and rural Chatham-Kent. They are very different. It's a bit of a struggle to try to find a common ground."