BETWEEN A VOTE AND A HARD PLACE
City clerk Ulli Watkiss has calmly weathered many political crises, but the mayhem now facing Toronto may be her greatest test yet
Deviating from her characteristic calm, city clerk Ulli Watkiss told council on Thursday that she is now at a “tipping point.”
With Premier Doug Ford’s ongoing insistence that the election be held with 25 wards, the veteran senior city official said she is no longer sure she can hold a fair election of any kind in the time frame she’s been given.
For the clerk who has weathered many crises at city hall, the situation Watkiss now finds herself in may be her greatest test.
Until now, the public may have only known Watkiss by her measured voice reading out the results of votes in the chamber, a key role she’s carried out thousands of times since her appointment in 2001.
Now, she’s become an active participant in the mayhem at city hall, apply- ing in court Friday, after retaining an outside law firm, to present her own evidence in a court case that will decide if the upcoming election will consist of 25 or 47 wards. It’s an unprecedented step for the clerk, who under provincial law is responsible for administering the election scheduled for Oct. 22. That en- tails printing 2.6 million ballots, testing equipment, overseeing polling locations and more.
The increasingly unclear question is: What election — one with 25 or 47 wards — is she supposed to prepare?
Behind the scenes at city hall, sources say Watkiss is known for taking her role incredibly seriously — a practised bureaucrat who cares immensely for the rules. They note she is currently under unprecedented stress. A common refrain lately between those paying close attention to the back-and-forth has been: “Poor Ulli.”
She’s also been placed in the middle of an ongoing court battle, as provincial lawyers use her earlier warning to council that she may not be able to return to a 47-ward election if the city were to win a legal challenge. Filings made with the court Friday outline she is no longer confident an election with either ward scenario is possible for Oct. 22.
Ford himself has named Watkiss recently, telling CP24: “Ulli Watkiss, the clerk, I have a great deal of respect for her,” while saying the province is providing support to make the 25-ward election happen.
Born in Germany and raised in Waterloo, Ont., Watkiss trained as a lawyer at York University and was called to the bar in both Ontario and Alberta. She completed her MBA in Vancouver while working as that city’s clerk from 1998 to 2001.
She was previously the clerk in Edmonton, where in1989 at the age of 34 she administered the city’s first “computer-counted” vote, the Edmonton Journal reported.
Since taking her post in Toronto in 2001, Watkiss has been responsible for five general elections, including the current one, serving under four mayors and administering the oath of office for every council member each term. She has also overseen many by-elections — nine in the past six years.
As clerk, she is responsible for many administrative tasks at city hall, including maintaining extensive, up-to-date council and committee records online and overseeing meetings with a large team of staff.
Her first council meeting came in December 2001 in the midst of a brewing scandal and talk of corruption that would become one of the worst in council’s history — the MFP Financial Services computer-leasing scandal that would end years later in a lengthy public inquiry.
“It’s politics,” a smiling Watkiss said at the end of that meeting about whether she regretted taking up the position, the Star’s Royson James reported. “You cannot take this, or yourself, too seriously. I mean, there are lots of people in this room who do. So, why would you add to it?”
Watkiss herself faced heat a year later when city hall refused to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples after an Ontario court found the existing definition of marriage unconstitutional. It saw a gay couple publicly confront Watkiss, who had not yet received legal advice about what she could sign off on, the Star reported.
When David Miller was mayor, Watkiss frustrated council over failed attempts to reform the electoral process, including creating a city-generated voters’ list after problems stemming from irregularities in the list that is, to this day, provided by a provincial body. At the time, Watkiss told council the city didn’t have jurisdiction to create or maintain the list and cited privacy concerns.
Watkiss’s office was also involved when former mayor Rob Ford came under scrutiny for meddling in the civic appoint- ments process. Bureaucrats did not push back or publicize the interference that was later spelled out in a scathing ombudsman’s report.
It was Rob Ford who created another major scandal under Watkiss’s careful stewardship that quickly went international and dwarfed the chaos that had surrounded the MFP contracts. In May 2013, news Ford was in a video smoking crack cocaine and that drug dealers were shopping it around to media outlets rocked the council chamber.
By November, a special meeting was called where councillors ultimately voted to remove most of Ford’s powers in a rare decision. That meeting saw Ford questioning Watkiss at length, apparently unclear what his own powers even entailed, ahead of her ultimately assuming responsibility for his office budget and staff in partnership with then deputy mayor Norm Kelly.
Watkiss has also been in charge of the clerk’s office during many advancements in transparency in nearly two decades at city hall, including the digitization of council records, live-streaming of council meetings on YouTube and making election materials like campaign donations and candidates lists available online.
“She’s worth her weight in gold,” said Councillor MaryMargaret McMahon.
“She’s one of the most humble, unassuming brainiacs who runs this town.”
Councillor Gord Perks called Watkiss an “unfailing champion for transparency.”
“During both the Rob Ford years and the early part of John Tory’s years, she has unfailingly and publicly emphasized that the power rests with council, not with the mayor,” he said. He added his greatest disappointment was Watkiss’s “reluctance” to help council develop a permanent voters’ list.
There have been election problems before.
In 2014, Watkiss had to remind Rob Ford of election rules when he showed up at advance polls. And at the beginning of this year she warned Doug Ford against early campaigning when he was still considering a mayoral rematch against Tory. Ford indicated he would ignore that advice.
Despite the recent strain, Watkiss told the Star she keeps active most days of the week (she gave up long-distance running after knee surgery but still swims, walks and does yoga).
“It’s essential,” she said of the head-clearing exercise. “Real stress relief comes from all of that and adventure travelling with a couple of great Edmonton friends all over the world” including kayaking in Antarctica, safaris in Kenya, hiking in Bhutan and sailing in the fjords of Patagonia.
The best part about being the clerk in Toronto, she said, has been her “amazing, dedicated, hard-working, democracy-driven staff” who “understand that we need to deliver trust and confidence in our government to the citizens of Toronto” amidst the “never-ending challenges” of working with council and the public.
Those same challenges, she said, have been the most difficult part of her job.
“The challenges are getting more serious as our society and politics gets more complicated and polarized.”
She still has no regrets over taking the post.
“None whatsoever,” she said. “It has been endlessly fascinating and rewarding — and it’s still all politics!”