Where is your councillor when it comes to votes on Toronto council?
Some give reasons for absence, others choose not to miss a day
Councillors Michelle Holland and Giorgio Mammoliti missed half of all the recorded council votes taken in 2017.
The suburban representatives from Scarborough and North York topped the list as most-truant out of 45 members of council.
It is a familiar ranking for Mammoliti this term. He was behind only former mayor Rob Ford in 2015, who was at the time receiving cancer treatments. Mammoliti was again the second most absent councillor in 2016 behind former councillor Ron Moeser, who had also been diagnosed with cancer.
Mammoliti was more frequently absent in 2017, missing 49.2 per cent of votes in 2017 compared to 38.8 per cent in 2016.
In a statement to the Star on Tuesday, Mammoliti suggested it didn’t matter whether he was absent.
“Vote or no vote, it makes no difference under this administration,” he said in an email that stated the current administration is “plagued by mismanagement and abysmal communication” and that his efforts are “better placed working directly with residents.”
The email referred to the King St. transit pilot, which was voted on in July. Mammoliti missed all of the related votes. Earlier in the term, Holland missed about a third of council votes. In 2017, she missed 50.8 per cent.
She was named by Mayor John Tory as the city’s advocate for the innovation economy at the end of 2016.
“There have been absences as a result of the significant number of meetings, events and conferences that I have been attending on behalf of the city,” Holland said in an email. “These events have taken place in many parts of the city and also outside of Toronto. This is also important work as the innovation and technology sector is creating jobs within our city at a significant rate and we are competing with many other jurisdictions around the world for this investment.”
What percentage of recorded votes did council members miss last year?