Governing Toronto Recommendations - REACTION

We provide this to enhance our member awareness on a topic of profound signficance. Things are happening from April to May that will change how the municipal government operates for a long time.

City Council has recommended the acceptance in principle the report and recommendations submitted by the Governing Toronto Panel subject to a public review.

Many of the main recommendations listed in the report (see SLHA website - with Resources/Links and News & Events) are very contentious as evident from citizen feedback. Some of the recommendations appear to be just common sense and you wonder why council(s) have not been foll0wing them as good meeting conduct/ business practice. Others such as the nature and composition of the proposed Executive Committee might be contributing to a city "democratic deficit" as some have pointed out.

A couple of SLHA members attended the March 6 meeting for the NYCC at the North York Library. The meeting was reasonablyl well attended both by interested and concerned citizens and most members of the NYCC. Mayor Miller was also there with many city staff who facilitated discussions of groups at tables.

Some of the citizen attendees had been at the other community meetings and were familar with the list of recommendations, the report behinnd them and some of the councillors. One indicated that citizen feedback was generally consistent at each meeting.

The meeting essentially asked for feedback on the many recommendations with the following groupings under 3 seperate discussions: City Wide Decision Making, Local Decision Making and Civic Engagement.

REACTION POINTS

Enhanced Status Quo - in many ways the Governing Panel has recommended an enhanced status quo with a "muscular mayor". If you follow Canadian politics the expansion of the powers within the Premier and Prime Ministers offices has been a doubtful democratice benefit. Toronto mayor's will see his power expand similarly.

Mayor Appointed Executive Committee - Yes the mayor is elected city-wide and receives more votes than any other elected politician in Canada. But voter turnout in municipal elections tends to be low; what will guide his "appointments" from the ward councillors; how transparent will council be; do we have to wait 4 years to indicate our disfavour....

Under some previous city governance models Toronto has had 2 tiered elected municipal reps. Ward councillors from each ward and a small group of city or district wide "councillors" . The latter formed a board of control or executive committee ensuring voter accountability.


3 or 4 Year Terms - Encumbents already have a major advantage and their advantage will only increase. The argument given for a longer term relates to "there is a 1st year learning and final year running for election with only the mid year for real production" . The evidence is that most councillors win re-election and some are acclaimed. The argument for 4 years doesn't match the evidence. Maybe we need term limits to ensure new blood and ideas.


"Party Politics" vs In/Out of Favour - Toronto councillors and major don't run as party candidates or even with well-conceived election platforms or views on needed municipal policies and programmes. However, the Liberal/Conservative/NDP leanings of each tends to be expressed in the media. The "IN" group tends to be favoured with better appointments (ABC's - agencies, boards, committees) while "OUT" with qualifications and experience become an alternative view or unofficial/non-united "opposition"

Most citizens don't appear to want traditional parties within our municipal government. However, the reality is an "in/out" grouping.

A key aspect of the new governance is an executive with creating and following a city wide proirity plan (policies and programmes). This is the substance of election platforms.

Surely, we need to know where all candidates stand on city needs and who they would support once elected BEFORE making our vote!

Surely we need capable people leading all committees with relevant experiences.

We also need to see a system that develops councillors in office and mayoral candidates for office.

Community Council Power - some of the recommendations give the local councils more direct control instead of a submitting report to the total city council for its decision. Good.

Some citizens would also like local councils to have policy initiation (bottom up rather than top down) powers that also extend to some discretionary local budget spending. Surely, all programmes need not be city wide (should a community have a choice on city leaf pickup vs sidewalk snowclearing, for example).

The city is implementing something called Zero Base Budgeting (ZBB). ZBB creates decision making on bundles of activities and resource uses. It would make sense for the city governance to build up its budgeting by district and citywide.

Ward Councillors should also have some "line" control versus having to accept or reject a total budget framework as submitted by an Executive Committee.