In eastern Ontario, there’s talk among rural dwellers of de-merging in Kawartha Lakes and in the new city of Ottawa.

In Ottawa, property taxes have increased 16 per cent since amalgamation and there is increasing frustration among rural dwellers. A recent EKOS poll shows that rural dwellers are least likely to be satisfied with municipal services, while there are simply fewer councillors to listen to their concerns. Prior to 2001, rural residents had a handful of councillors they could approach with a problem. Now they only have one and that councillor is only one vote among 21.

The new Ottawa boundaries mean there are now about 1,450 farms in our capital city, where the only change that dairy farmer Fred Stuyt noted was, "my taxes went up."

The 11 rural townships that joined Ottawa in 2001 often have different interests from Ottawa residents. Last year farmers were barred from using a neighbour’s biosolids as fertilizer. The ban was dropped recently but only because the city figured it could save $400,000 by selling biosolids produced at its waste treatment centre.

A Quebec company wants to build a hog barn at Sarsfield, east of urban Ottawa, and has satisfied all provincial requirements to do so. Flouting the law, the city of Ottawa has spent more than $1 million to block construction. Who needs this kind of interference from one’s own government?

The challenge with local government is the same everywhere. People want to know they can get a quick and straight answer with a phone call, feel that their concerns are taken seriously and have some freedom of enterprise. That can happen in a can-do culture and when residents can put a face to a name. It happens less frequently as bureaucracy increases, moves farther away and ensures that your interests will compete with many others.

A simple concept called "subsidiarity" should have been considered from the outset. It holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization, which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler one.

More simply, it is the belief that government should only operate in the case of initiatives that exceed the capacity of individuals or private groups acting independently. This gives dignity to the person and places all forms of society at the service of the human person. But it also places responsibility in the hands of the individual, who has a much better chance of results than a crowded bureaucracy, which today has assumed entitlement to perks and power.

Subsidiarity is a principal defence for limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy of the welfare state and with those who stand to gain from a power grab so characteristic of current government maneuverings at all levels.

True democracies don’t sap people’s energies through disempowerment. True democracies empower them through involvement, starting at the local level. For this reason alone, all philosophical discussions of local government should consider the practical social concept of subsidiarity.