Opportunity in our next municipal election

Ontario’s cities and towns will choose a new slate of civic leaders in October. Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford notwithstanding, this next election will have the most direct impact on our lives. And in terms of voting with influence, this is the moment where a citizen can create the greatest change.

Too few of us view it that way. That’s why more of us don’t run for office, why so many don’t bother to vote at all.

A larger percentage of voters exercise their franchise in federal and provincial elections than they do in municipal contests.

We’d rather elect members of Parliament than city councillors. Never mind that we are more likely to see our councillor down the road, attending a house league game, at the church bazaar or engaged in the minute details of daily city living that define our enjoyment of the place we call home.

For most of us, there is scarcely ever a need to engage with our member of Parliament. We view national affairs through the prism of the party leader. Queen’s Park is closer, yes, especially, geographically, for Toronto residents, but it is a place of policy pronouncements that is supposed to promote stability and surety, if not prosperity. (We’ll see if Ontarians have opted for fortune or folly with the selection of Ford as premier).

But city hall? Ah, it’s more than just the place where we ring in the New Year, salute sports champions, get married or protest. It represents the seat of local democracy.

So close to the people is our city government, figuratively and literally, that we can sit within mouth-frothing distance from city councillors as they duke it out over building setbacks and speed limits and frequency of garbage pickup and bike lanes and building heights and fluoride in the water and street food and street people and taxis versus Uber.

It’s where politicians argue over where to place group homes and the preservation of old buildings, set an example for green energy use and pioneer no smoking in restaurants, establish the blue box and green bin and push for a people-friendly downtown where hundreds of thousands of people live, not just work.

From city hall, in a career spanning 35 years, this reporter’s first out-of-town trip was to North Bay and Kirkland Lake, examining an abandoned mine that was proposed to house Toronto’s garbage. My next away trip was to New York, where three sets of highpowered bidders were making the case to the National Basketball Association to award a franchise to Toronto. Hello Raptors.

Soon I was travelling with the mayor and councillors to Amsterdam and Boston and London, looking at how they developed their waterfronts. Paris was the site of Toronto’s bid for the World’s Fair, Moscow the site for another failed Olympic bid. Los Angeles beckoned as an essential stop in order to prop up the city’s claim as Hollywood North.

I say that to show how city hall has its spoon in every pot. From birth to death, morning to evening, via city rules and regulations and permits, the city government affects our lives measurably. We ignore city hall at our disadvantage, if not our peril.

This year’s election is atypical in that so many council seats are open.

After what seemed like an eternity of the same city councillors ruling the roost — with few changes of head rooster — Toronto is poised to have a significant influx of new blood. Retirements and an increase in the number of seats are the reasons.

Everyone can see that there is little diversity in the ethnic or racial representation on city council. We boast that diversity is our strength, as if this is a completed construct. The declaration is a statement of intent, and how we follow through will define our future. And, as often is the case, city hall will show us how — with speed and élan, or grudgingly.

Toronto has emerged out of a period of shared culture and vision. The next era may be defined by the next batch of city councillors. Those around the horseshoe above Nathan Phillips Square should be our most motivated, passionate, smart, engaged, optimistic and resilient. And representative.

I think of the ones who fought the battles from the turn of the millennium to the dawn of this new digital age with its group dynamics that is at once counter-communal even as it links the world online. The councillors with the most impact were the ones who spoke truth to power, defended the weak and muted citizens, gave courage to the fearful and hope to the dispossessed.

Some of them, like former mayor John Sewell, still speak out fearlessly and eloquently for police reforms, probably the most difficult municipal nut to crack. Others, like Howard Moscoe, held court for so long and then just disappeared. But travel the University subway line north of the 401 and remember that Moscoe fought against the tide to include art installations and architectural wonder in our subway stations.

Before he was a federal NDP leader of great acclaim, Jack Layton was a fighter for the homeless and got a conservative-dominated city council to declare homelessness a national disaster.

What kind of councillor does Toronto need now, in 2018, as city council seats open up and invite in new blood? What is the narrative that must be formed and promulgated and fought for, day in and day out, if Toronto is to achieve its lofty ambitions and create new ones?

We’ll explore these themes in the four months leading to voting day.

Jack Layton was a fighter for the homeless and got a conservative-dominated city council to declare homelessness a national disaster