HALDIMAND—Before she was elected Ward 1’s councillor on April 10, 2025, Debera McKeen had appealed Haldimand Council’s decision to create a seventh ward to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT).
“I did this before the election, not knowing whether or not I was going to win,” she said.
McKeen has now received notice that her appeal has been accepted, and a tentative date for a hearing with the OLT has been set for later this summer.
She noted that Haldimand County has an opportunity to request a reschedule, or to agree to mediation.
The ward boundary review process began May 2024 with a goal to better balance ward populations for more equitable representation.
According to data from 2021, Ward 3 (Caledonia) had 13,379 residents compared to Ward 5’s (Byng, Port Maitland, and Lowbanks) 5,767 – a gap that has only been growing given Caledonia’s ongoing population boom.
Watson & Associates Economists Ltd. (WAE) was hired to lead the review and facilitate public consultation. The company held two in-person and one virtual public meeting.
Its preliminary report was released in October 2024 and discussed by Council in November.
It contained four possible options, all of which saw Haldimand maintaining six wards. The frontrunner option was to split Caledonia and merge the existing Dunnville-area Wards 5 and 6.
At the time, Ward 5 Councillor Rob Shirton asked how seriously the review had considered adding a seventh ward, and WAE Managing Partner Jack Ammendolia responded, “When we looked at seven or eight wards, maybe that’s for the future, but right now, in terms of achieving that population parity, anytime we added more than six, some of the areas got even more difficult.”
WAE’s final report was presented to Council in February 2025. It contained two options: merge Wards 5 and 6 while splitting Caledonia, thus maintaining six wards; or, split Caledonia by adding a seventh councillor, leaving the other wards largely the same.
The latter option was chosen in a 4-1 vote, with Mayor Shelley Ann Bentley opposed.
McKeen and Brad Adams – later elected as councillor for Ward 4 – presented as delegates at the meeting, both as declared candidates who opposed adding a seventh councillor.
Speaking with The Press on June 16, 2025, McKeen said that Haldimand’s ward boundaries “definitely need to be updated, because Caledonia has double the number of people of any (other ward)” and it “will continue to grow,” but she remains opposed to adding a seventh councillor.
Part of her opposition is the added cost.
The February 2025 staff report noted that adding a seventh councillor would require a one-time capital cost of approximately $5,000 for technology related equipment, and the annual tax supported operating costs would be increased by approximately $100,000 – an additional cost that “I believe, according to the presentation that we had (from WAE), is not necessary at this point,” McKeen said.
She also doesn’t feel that residents had sufficient time or – in the cases of Wards 1 and 4, which were waiting for byelections following the deaths of Councillors Stewart Patterson and Marie Trainer respectively – means to weigh in on the idea.
At the February meeting, McKeen, Adams, and Bentley all asked that the vote on the ward boundary decision be deferred until after the byelections. County Clerk Chad Curtis said the County was “on the fringes of an acceptable timeline” to make sure the ward boundary system would be in place by January 1, 2026 – a requirement for it to be in effect for the next municipal election, scheduled for October 26, 2026.
Curtis noted at the time that anyone could file an appeal up to 45 days after the vote, and that process takes time to complete.
With Haldimand Council going into summer recess shortly, McKeen wants to make sure residents are aware that the ward boundary decision is going to be heard by the OLT. She’s urging residents to reach out to all members of Council to make their voices heard.
“I don’t know if the general population had enough notice before the vote was taken (in February) to inform their councillors how they feel about it,” she said, adding that she’s heard from her own constituents that “they would have voiced their opinion that they were against having seven councillors.”
