Therrien platform a welcome contribution to election debate
Just over two weeks ago, Peterborough city councillor and mayoralty candidate Diane Therrien released her campaign platform. In it, she set out 39 commitments in eight policy areas. As I have written in this space, releasing a comprehensive and detailed policy platform is fundamental to voter education and candidate accountability during an election campaign; the Therrien team deserves credit for the effort.
While there is much to commend in the platform, there are a few overarching concerns. First, at her launch on May 3, Therrien indicated that her campaign would be focused on three pillars: jobs, taxes and infrastructure. While the platform includes some details on infrastructure, there is a noticeable disconnect in that there is no direct job creation initiative and no property tax policy.
Second, the platform contains no specific attention to seniors, youth, women, diversity, community services, public health, climate change, heritage preservation, annexation, cannabis stores, opioids or recreation.
Third, while Therrien’s launch speech was critical of undefined developments she called “vanity projects,” her platform urges a new multi-use sports arena, which might be interpreted by some as just that. Fourth, while it may be asking too much to fully cost a municipal platform – and this one is not costed – it should contain at least some financial strategy for taxation or debt that will be necessary to deal with the expenditures she is proposing.
On the whole, these concerns are not dire: the platform has a large number of smart and creative commitments that stand well on their own. The commitment to create a “community engagement charter” falls within this group and holds out the prospect of more rigorous, interactive and meaningful public engagement in city decision-making. So too does the commitment for a smart phone parking app to improve convenience for drivers. The commitment to create a new green bin program for organic waste to overcome the recent loss of provincial funding for a composting facility is ambitious and wise. I like the Therrien commitment to introduce on-street permit parking in selected areas of the city where residents have no other parking option. The commitment to encourage rideshare operations such as Uber or bicycle sharing is most welcome, increasing as it would competition and affordability in the sector.
The Therrien team also deserves support for the proposed update of the Central Area Master Plan, in that it will compel debate on the best regulatory means to increase downtown development and density, especially for housing. The commitment to use property tax dollars to expand the residential rent supplement program for people in need rather than rely primarily on the creation of social housing is the right thing to do, particularly with provincial austerity measures on the horizon. The “public works as public art” commitment, which builds on the popularity of recent mural work, is an excellent concept that offers great promise. Finally, the commitment to look at ranked balloting for the 2022 municipal election is both smart and progressive.
Most platforms presented during an election campaign will include commitments that are already planned or in progress. Therrien’s platform includes some of these, including road improvements, smart traffic light technology, secondary housing units and a councillor code of conduct.
There are also commitments that appear to me to require more careful thought such as the elimination of minimum parking requirements for new housing developments – an idea that would likely have the untoward effect of transferring the responsibility for parking spaces from private lands to public streets. Nonetheless, the Therrien policy platform is a solid piece of work that is a welcome contribution to the debates to come.