Municipal term limits worth considering

In Canada, there are no term limits for the number of times an individual can be elected, be it city councillor, mayor, MLA or MP. Although mandatory retirement applies to senators, judges and many other professions, there is no legal impediment to the age or the length of time an individual can serve in office, so long as they continue to be reelected by voters.

It might be time to consider term limits and mandatory retirement in Canadian politics, particularly at the municipal level.

Incumbents have an obvious advantage in any election because they are the known quantity.

Voters, particularly ones who can’t be bothered to inform themselves on issues and policy, tend to stick with the devil they know if they aren’t too mad at those in office. The long-standing truth of elections is that voters are motivated by only two things: change and anger.

Politicians lose elections, rather than winning them, because voters get mad and want someone — anyone — else. It doesn’t matter if that anger is warranted or the change is for the better. The voters decide and that's that.

Term limits, however, take some of that power away from voters.

In the United States, there are term limits for some posts, most noticeably for president of the United States. After Franklin Roosevelt died in office in 1945, having been elected president four times in a row, a constitutional amendment was passed, limiting a person to winning just two presidential elections. In normal circumstances, that would be eight years in office, although if Lyndon Johnson had run again in 1968 and won, he would have served two terms, plus an extra year after he was sworn in as president in the wake of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

The rationale for the presidential term limit was a product of the Second World War era from which it came. After seeing how fascists had swept to power in Germany and Italy, eliminated their enemies and centralized power permanently, Americans wanted to make sure there was no prospect of a president for life, even for one as popular and benevolent as Roosevelt, particularly now that the United States had nuclear weapons in its arsenal.

Furthermore, the prevailing post-war belief on both sides of the political divide was that government power eventually corrupted those who held it, no matter how pure and noble of heart, because once they hold power, they are reluctant to let it go.

Term limits force change. So do mandatory retirements.

In Prince George, Mayor Lyn Hall has revealed he will run for reelection for a second four-year term. He was a city councillor for one term before becoming mayor in 2014.

Six of the eight city councillors have also said they will run again. Two of them — Susan Scott and Terri McConnachie — are first-term councillors, but the other four councillors who have revealed their intentions — Frank Everitt, Albert Koehler, Murry Krause and Brain Skakun — have all served multiple times. Everitt and Koehler are both seeking a third go-around at the council table while Skakun and Krause are letting their name stand for their sixth consecutive term. If Skakun and Krause win in October and serve out their terms, they will both have been city councillors for 20 straight years. It should be noted that Krause has three more years on council because he won a three-year term in 1996, lost his bid for reelection in 1999 but got back on council in 2002, the year Skakun was first elected.

Both men have been excellent city councillors and local residents owe them a great deal of gratitude for their service.

And hopefully neither man will let their name stand on the ballot four years from now.

Not because politicians are like diapers and should be changed regularly and for the same reason, as Bruce Strachan once colourfully put it. Not because they are undeserving. Not because power has changed them for the worse.

Because, after 20 years, it's time for new voices and fresh perspectives in their place.

Institutional knowledge is mostly a good thing, but it does come with its disadvantages, particularly in politics. They ask fewer questions because they know procedure so well. Newcomers ask lots of how and why questions and are not satisfied with “that’s the way we've always done it” answers.

Veterans have formed solid working relationships with bureaucrats, so are quicker to defend and slower to criticize than their less experienced colleagues.

Veterans often see issues and decisions through the lens of the past (“this is just like that time when...”) while newcomers can more easily recognize historical precedent while still judging a present case for its unique qualities.

Twenty years on city council, consecutively or over a lifetime, whether as mayor or city councillor or a combination of the two, should be the limit.

That would work well for MLAs and MPs, as well.

As honourable as two decades of political service is, the other noble thing to do would be to mentor a new generation of leaders and then step aside for them to take the reins of power.

Neil Godbout is managing editor of The Prince George Citizen. To contact the writer: ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca.