I have long been in favour of establishing a regional municipality tier of government for at least London and St. Thomas, and possibly also including Strathroy. The various municipalities of the London CMA politically exist in silos:
- City of London
- City of St. Thomas
- Middlesex County
- Elgin County
- Municipality of Thames Centre
- Municipality of Central Elgin
- Municipality of Middlesex Centre
- Municipality of Strathroy-Caradoc
- Southwold Township
- Adelaide Metcalfe Township
There is no regional planning strategy for the London-St. Thomas area. A regional municipality replacing both Elgin and Middlesex Counties and encompassing all of the above (including the separated municipalities of London and St. Thomas, and possibly neighbouring communities such as Lucan) would allow for much more regional-level planning, regional-level transit, regional-level infrastructure, regional-level policing, and so forth. I would not support a single tier municipality as was done in Chatham-Kent, but rather a model similar to Waterloo Region. With the amount of growth in the London region, and possibly an acceleration of people moving from Toronto to London as a result of the pandemic and no longer being tied to the GTA for work, it's worth further study.
(Although my scenario is fairly specific, any municipality within Middlesex or Elgin that didn't join my hypothetical RM could potentially join a neighbouring county such as Lambton, Kent, or Huron. My experience has been that areas like Glencoe tend to be equally or even more connected with Chatham than with London.)