A step backward for democracy
Confusion reigns in Niagara over this fall’s municipal elections. And it’s due solely to newly-elected Premier Doug Ford and an unfathomable, apparently last-minute decision to scrap the at-large election of Niagara’s regional chair.
News of the decision came out Thursday night due to a story in the Toronto Star and was confirmed at a news conference Friday morning, on literally the same day nominations were due to close for municipal elections. The news conference predictably focused on Ford’s decision to reduce the size of Toronto city council, but in there was also the announcement that regional chair elections in Niagara, York, Peel and Muskoka will not take place. Those in Durham, Halton and Waterloo will.
The province will introduce legislation next week in order to put this plan into place. The next Niagara regional chair, if Ford’s legislation is passed, will be appointed by councillors as has happened in the past.
The previous Liberal government announced in 2016 that regional chairs would be elected going forward.
Why this different approach for different regional municipalities? Who knows.
The best voters got on Friday came from Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark, who is pushing the socalled Better Local Government Act.
Clark stressed, in a story written by the Star’s Robert Benzies, that “when it comes to the regional governments in York, Peel, Niagara and Muskoka — we are ... taking a pause.”
“We’re going to return to the appointed system that existed before 2016. The other, more mature regional governments that were in place in Durham, Halton and Waterloo will not be impacted by these changes,” said Clark.
We’re not sure what Clark’s reference to maturity means, but if it refers to the level of political maturity among local politicians, a direct election would have been a good way to help restore it (or create it) in Niagara. Retaining the existing appointment system only serves to perpetuate the backroom political shenanigans that have become such a boil on the body of Niagara regional government.
“The last thing the families, businesses, municipal leaders in these regions need is another layer of politicians. Another layer of dysfunction,” Ford said on Friday.
Actually, the direct election of a regional chair in Niagara would have done none of these things described by Ford, who himself was planning to run for Toronto mayor against incumbent John Tory until the downfall of former provincial Tory leader Partick Brown. (As it happens, Brown had entered the regional chair’s race in Peel and there’s some speculation Ford’s decision is at least partly motivated by a desire to deliver political payback to his former foe.) No extra layer of bureaucracy would have been added in Niagara, no extra politicians by the direct election of the chair. Ford’s press conference was largely a political two-step.
He went on at great length about the need to reduce the number of politicians — 44 to 25 — in Toronto, which has a population rapidly moving into the three million range. But when asked how that squares with the City of Ottawa having 23 councillors for a municipality with a much smaller population, Ford said it was like comparing “apples and oranges,” and never answered the question.
Let’s look at Niagara, where the number of regional councillors remains untouched, 32 of them representing a population of just under 450,000. And that doesn’t count the lower-tier councils.
There are no savings from Ford’s move, it adds no hope of better governance or leadership over the next four years. All that’s been done in Niagara is the removal of the ability of the Region’s residents to select who their regional leader would be, a step backward for democracy, not a step forward.