Give us more choice
Thank goodness the province didn’t listen to the City of Toronto.
In 2015, in a shocking display of crass self-interested, a majority of city councillors voted against fundamental democratic reform — shamelessly reversing what the previous council had done two years earlier.
Not only did councillors oppose giving voters more choice in municipal elections, they urged the province to adopt the same retrograde stance and block reform in all other cities.
Queen’s Park delivered its response on Monday and, to the government’s credit, it opted in favour of the ranked balloted system that Toronto councillors had set out to undermine. In doing so, the province put in motion a process that might well change the face of municipal politics, as soon as the elections scheduled for 2018.
Instead of choosing only one candidate, a ranked ballot system allows each voter to list candidates according to his or her preference — first, second, third, and so on.
Any candidate who gets more than 50 per cent of first-choice votes automatically wins. But if no one scores a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated; the second-place choices on that person’s ballots are allocated, and a fresh total is tabulated. The process of elimination and redistribution continues until one candidate crosses the 50-per-cent mark.
It’s more complicated than the current first-past-the-post system, but ranked balloting makes local elections more fair and less polarizing. Negative campaigning is reduced because it’s in a candidate’s interest to reach out to a rival’s supporters. Newcomers have more opportunity to win office, and voters have an enhanced sense that their ballot matters.
Other welcome legislative changes announced Monday include giving all municipalities the right to ban corporate and union donations. Only Toronto currently has that power, and it brought in a ban just over six years ago.
Toronto city councillors, determined to kill innovation, can still block local introduction of a ranked ballot system. It’s up to each municipality to decide if it wants this reform. But self-serving politicians who insist on sticking with the status quo should realize this will become an issue in the next election.
When people go to the polls in 2018, ranked ballot advocates won’t let voters forget who robbed them of democratic options. The point will be especially acute if other cities undertake reform. Councillors who vote to limit people’s choice should be prepared to answer for their regressive action.