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Electoral changes are needed

March 3, 2014   ·   0 Comments

IF THERE WERE ANY lingering doubts as to the need for changes in Ontario’s municipal election laws, recent developments in Toronto must surely have eliminated them.

The entry of John Tory and Karen Stintz into the mayoralty race last week pretty well ensured the re-election of Rob Ford.

And even the absurd warfare the mayor and his brother Doug have been waging against Police Chief Bill Blair will likely only galvanize support for Rob Ford among the mesmerized members of Ford Nation, who seem to give the mayor credit for anything positive that’s happened and ignore all his personal foibles and the divisions he has caused within the 44-member city council.

If the framers of the City of Toronto Act had anticipated what has been transpiring in recent months they would have minimized the risk of the occurrence by taking two steps.

One would be to have potential runoffs for the mayoralty, which routinely is sought by 30 or more candidates, most of whom get only a handful of votes.

This time, the most likely result next October will be the return of Mr. Ford with all his warts, thanks to the fact there will be at least three other good candidates – Mr. Tory, Ms. Stintz and Olivia Chow, widow of former NDP leader Jack Layton.

Recent polling suggests that of the declared candidates, Mr. Ford and Mr. Tory each have similar support, but not quite as much as Ms. Chow would get if she ran.

In the circumstances, it’s entirely possible that Rob Ford would go back for another four-year term with the support of barely one voter in three.

However, if the law required a successful candidate for mayor to have the support of at least 50 per cent of the voters, such a result would trigger a run-off election with only the top two or three candidates competing (ideally just two).

Another electoral reform that we see as needed in a city the size of Toronto, and possibly in any city large enough to have wards, would be a city-wide vote for deputy mayor.

If nothing else, that would deal effectively with the bizarre situation in Toronto  that saw Mr. Ford able to complain that only he had city-wide electoral support, since Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly had been elected only in Ward 40, Scarborough-Agincourt.

We’ve never seen any explanation why deputy mayors should not be elected in city-wide voting, just as is the case in smaller cities and towns. (In cases like Toronto’s, the wise council decision to hand many of Mayor Ford’s powers and  responsibilities to Deputy Mayor Kelly must have made it a lot more difficult for Mr. Kelly to attend to his duties in Ward 40.)

Yet another change we’d like to see in Ontario’s municipal elections would be a return to more frequent elections.

There was a time when municipal elections were held annually, with new councils starting their work each January.

More recently, the council terms were extended to two, then three, and now four years, which means municipal politicians in Ontario have terms twice as long as the two years given members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Perhaps the best idea would be to provide a blending of continuity and voter power by having half the seats in any municipality up for grabs every two years, with the mayors and deputy mayors in cities and large towns being picked in alternating elections.

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