The Last Fenelon Falls Council Meeting, 2000
Fenelon Falls became a municipality to bring the railway to town. By the time the village was celebrating its 125th anniversary, the railway had become a recreational corridor. Municipalities had come to focus on roads and providing recreational services to their communities. Long gone were the days when local government had to be within walking distance, because there might not be any other way to travel to meetings. Municipalities throughout Ontario were amalgamating.
The village of Fenelon Falls was a lot like a family. Many decisions were made at Reeve Roger Bellwood’s garage. If a local resident wanted to raise an issue, they could drop by Memory Lane Motors and talk it over with Roger, no appointment needed. Everyone involved in running the village knew each other well, and much of the work was done by volunteers.
There were often public discussions about whether it would be better to amalgamate municipalities. Would it then be more economical to maintain and plow roads? Then in 1995, Mike Harris became Premier of Ontario and his Common Sense Revolution required fundamental changes in the relationship between the province and municipalities, as services were downloaded onto municipalities, as funding was cut. Municipalities were told to amalgamate or the province would do it for them—and it may have been inevitable in any case. Could each little municipality afford to pay all the services that were downloaded onto them, like policing, on their own?
The municipalities of Victoria County did not manage to agree on a plan to amalgamate and the province appointed Harry Kitchen as commissioner, instructed to draft an order that would create a new municipality. He decided on a single tier municipality, the City of Kawartha Lakes, which came into being on January 1, 2001. It was extremely controversial, leading to a non-binding vote on a minister’s question, where the majority of local residents voted to deamalgamate. But the province did not act on the popular will.
In December 2000, Fenelon Falls Council met for the last time. Wayne Hutchinson recalls that it “was sad or bittersweet.… We knew it was all over.” There was practical business to do, disbanding committees so the new municipality could create its own committees. “We had a farewell cake, and said to each other, ‘it’s been good knowing you.’” The government of Fenelon Falls had been close-knit, and “we really did stay in touch.” Though they no longer worked together on council, many of the former councillors and employees continued to volunteer together, supporting community organizations, as they continued their work of trying to make Fenelon Falls better for the people who lived there.
