Don’t fight council reduction, focus on real reform

The legal challenge to the legislation that will reduce the size of Toronto’s city council is a waste of time and taxpayer’s money and isn’t “the right and responsible thing to do,” as Mayor John Tory has stated.

We’re about to see the most massive change since amalgamation in the 1990s. Just as it was hard then, it will be difficult to adapt to a city council reduced by nearly half. However, a legal battle makes no sense when considering the best use of political and financial resources.

Is Toronto “the most dysfunctional political arena in the country” as Premier Doug Ford has expressed? Hardly. But things in our city aren’t working as well as they could.

As the co-chairs of the ABC Residents Association — one of Toronto’s most active volunteer organizations in the community bounded by Avenue Rd. to the west, Yonge St. to the east, Bloor St. to the south and the CPR tracks to the north — we have witnessed the exponential growth of the city over the years and the challenges that accompany this growth.

Many of these challenges are attributable to the impacts of intensification, which aren’t experienced uniformly across Toronto. Planning and infrastructure have not kept up, and for some areas this has meant a strain on public services.

In others, it has led to a decrease in affordable housing and a reduction in green spaces. Merely downsizing city council won’t address these issues and how we manage them. What is required is bold thinking to encourage new ideas and greater civic participation.

While many are focusing on reversing Bill 5, we believe there should also be other changes.

Introducing 10 to 12 citywide council seats chosen by a simple ranked ballot would ensure that these representatives vote and act in the best interests of the entire city and not just in favour of the constituents of a limited geographic boundary.

Citywide representatives would also reduce the deadlocks presently impeding the decision-making process.

We also advocate for term limits. With over one-quarter of our current councillors holding office for 20 years or more, the opportunities for new faces and fresh voices to challenge incumbents are severely restricted. These two ideas will help to inject new vigour into city council and enable greater representation from marginalized communities.

Change is inevitable, even if a smaller city council is impossible for those favouring legal recourse to fathom. Bill 5 will happen. So let’s not waste any more time and money discussing how to stop this.

Let’s instead take this opportunity to make change happen in the context of a broader and more inclusive dialogue of how we can become a better, more effectively managed city.

This is a time to be open to new ideas and innovative ways of thinking about how we can further democratize the way we are governed. This is also a time to make Toronto municipal politics about the possible, not the impossible.

John Caliendo and Ian Carmichael are co-chairs of the ABC Residents Association.