Does Niagara have too many municipal politicians?
This is an excerpt from a policy brief which will be published soon by Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory.
A great sense of relief fell over the eight governments that were the targets of the provincial governance review when the provincial government announced there would be no forced restructuring, but that municipalities were free to address changes they would like to consider.
This is an opportunity for Niagara. There are continuing complaints about the system of government in Niagara region. What should Niagara do to improve its governance system and the quality of service delivery to residents?
We have heard quite a bit about Niagara having too many councillors. With 126 councillors, Niagara has more than Halton and Peel, two regions with much higher populations.
Let’s look at some context around the magic number of 126. Niagara has 13 municipalities. That means that Niagara’s municipalities have an average of fewer than 10 councillors per municipality. The number of councillors in the area municipalities ranges from four (Wainfleet) to 12 (St. Catharines, Welland). These numbers are in line with the number of councillors in other municipalities across the province — Barrie, 10 councillors, not including the mayor; Burlington, six (which some residents feel is too few); Guelph, 12; London, 14; Peterborough, 10; Windsor, 10. It should not be surprising that municipalities gravitate toward these numbers. Ten or 12 councillors make a council large enough to provide adequate representation and small enough to allow for good discussion around the council table.
Regional council has 32 members, 12 of whom are mayors who also serve on the area municipal councils. There is general agreement that this number is too large to promote free and effective discussion around the council table. (In truth, there is not a council table; councillors sit around two horseshoeshaped tiered tables which means that they cannot all see one another comfortably). To a significant extent, council has compensated for this by the use of an effective committee system.
Whether the topic is the 126 total councillors or the 32 regional councillors, there is a feeling the number should be reduced. Is there a downside to reducing the number of councillors?
Councillors fill two very important roles. First, they are the access points for residents; many residents know their municipal councillors personally through neighbourhood activities, sports associations, religious connections, and so forth. This gives residents a feeling of closeness and accountability with local governments they do not experience with other levels of government.
Second, it is beneficial that the composition of council reflects the community it serves. Ideally, a council would be representative in terms of gender, ethnicity, occupation, lived experience and so forth. The smaller the size of a council, the more difficult it will be for it to reflect its community.
What is to be gained by having a smaller council? Large councils do not function well as debating and decision-making bodies. This is clear on the 32member regional council — more on this later. However, the largest councils among the area municipalities have 12 members; this is clearly not beyond the optimum size for good discussion.
Reducing the number of councillors would save money. However, councillors in Niagara are paid fairly modest sums reflecting their part-time duties. Eliminating two or four councillors would hardly make a dent in the total municipal budget.
In fact, reducing the number of councillors in a municipality with a ward system would necessitate the redrawing of ward boundaries which is an expensive, time-consuming, and tension-evoking process. Is it really worth it to save a minimal amount of money?
As mentioned above, the regional council is the outlier. It is generally agreed it is too large to function well as a debating and decision-making body. The size and composition of regional council has evolved based on four principles, some factual and some cultural:
1. Niagara has 12 area municipalities of widely varying size.
2. Every municipality is entitled to at least one seat on council (not shared with another municipality).
3. All mayors should have a seat on regional council.
4. There should be some attempt at representation-by-population
Unless we choose to change at least one of those principles, there is little possibility of reducing the size of regional council by a significant amount. The first three points mean that council starts with at least 12 members. The widely varying size of municipalities with the smallest municipality entitled to one member means that rep-by-pop generates a significant number of councillors. In fact, the 19 elected councillors mean that, by a strict application of mathematics, the largest municipalities are significantly under-represented. If we were completely serious about rep-by-pop, council would be about twice as large as it is now.
So why does Niagara regional council have so many more members than Halton or Peel? Halton has four area municipalities and Peel has three. If Niagara chose to have fewer area municipalities, it would then have fewer councillors. That idea is continually being floated but seems to have little broad support.
Unless we are willing to vary one of the four principles stated above, Niagara will always have a relatively large number of councillors, and there seems to be little appetite to change any of those principles. Therefore, we should stop carping on the presumed evils of the number 126 unless we are willing to make the difficult decisions involved in moving away from one of the four principles.
Any municipality that wants to increase or decrease its number of councillors, or change the method of election, or revise its ward boundaries should feel free to do so, but no municipality should feel coerced to make changes because of the fear of some magic number like 126. Do what’s best for your municipality.