Dear Editor:
Kudos to Wellington County councillors Steve O’Neil and Campbell Cork for their small reduction in expenses for the final county budget. They have the right attitude for fiscal accountability, even if not large results. Too bad Centre Wellington does not have a finance committee like the county.
Recently, there has been an editorial and flurry of letters admonishing the county election process for the selection of warden and chair positions on committees by implying deep structural discrimination of women and minorities.
If we look at the evidence of the last 25 years since township amalgamations, this is not an accurate description of reality.
There have been two female wardens: in 2004, county councillor Lynda White, who served over 12 years on county council before getting the nod, and in 2008, Centre Wellington Mayor Joanne Ross Zuj.
In the last 25 years, 12 out of 13 wardens have been mayors. That means 92.3% of the time the warden will be picked from the mayoral candidates and councillor Lynda White was the exception to the rule, probably because amalgamation was more work for mayors at the time.
If you look deeper, first-time mayors generally don’t get to be warden either, but must be re-elected for a second term and at least serve as chair for finance and/or planning.
I can definitely say that mayoral experience is different from a councillor’s experience, with more public and administrative responsibilities that match the warden’s responsibilities.
Statistics Canada data from 2001 for Guelph and Wellington County showed 96 per cent of the population is of European heritage and 4% non-European. In 2023 this changed to 80.6% European and 19.4% non-European. Most of that change (75%) has been in Guelph.
It generally takes a second generation of non-European heritage to apply for elected positions and would be even more rare to become the mayor. This is not discrimination but natural organic demographic evolution of our great Canadian mosaic.
Finally, rather than projecting immature categories of resentment, grievance and conspiracy of the ideological sort onto reality to foster division, we need to get back to what I would call MACIE (merit and competence, intelligence and excellence) in public service and all citizens’ representation, especially taxpayers.
Is the county perfect? No, but it is not structurally discriminatory.
Stephen Kitras,
Centre Wellington