Toronto News

Toronto needs party politics

A recently released report suggested making changes to the way that Toronto City Hall operates.

Some of these suggestions are long overdue. One is to delegate more minor decision making to either city bureaucrats or standing committees. The report correctly notes that it is inefficient for the entire council (or those who bother to show up) to have to decide such minor matters as whether or not to install a new stop sign at a residential intersection. Removing these types of minor matters would free up councils time to concentrate on the more pressing issues that face our city. And by leaving the minor matters to other people or bodies would lighten the agendas of the elected councillors. Hopefully, this would avoid a repeat of the recent fiasco where some councillors voted themselves a hefty pay increase without knowing that they were doing so. They didnt have time to read what they were voting on so they just read the document heading that indicated that it concerned a raise for non-union city workers and said nothing about increasing the salaries of elected officials, ie themselves.

Another suggestion that the report made was to have a full time speaker and deputy speaker to control the unruly mob that constitutes our municipal government. While putting a speaker into the current council chamber may seem a little like putting one in a pre-school playground, it may accomplish the goal of making council sessions at least appear more "grown up". As raucous and childish as proceedings in the House of Commons and provincial legislatures can get, meetings of Toronto City Council sometime appear to be downright infantile. Many of the councillors go on and on and on and say absolutely nothing. The addition of a permanent speaker and deputy speaker, who does not vote unless there is a tie, would do much to add some decorum to the council chamber. There is really no downside except perhaps the added cost of a speaker, but then cost has never been a big concern of the city mothers.

The report also suggests the creation of a cabinet to assist the mayor. Although the creation of a cabinet sounds good, David Miller and the mayors that preceded him were surrounded by compliant councillors who function much like a cabinet does. Adding a cabinet structure would tend to make the decision making at city hall at least seem more formal and might help in getting things done if certain "cabinet ministers" had responsibilities for different areas. Then again there is the matter of cost--members of the cabinet would inevitably have to receive remuneration on top of their base council salary. But money is seldom a consideration in our municipal government.

If Toronto City Council really wants to become more formalized and more like provincial and federal governments, we need to throw party politics into the equation. And, like in some other cities, these parties would not have to be the traditional parties that compose Parliament or our provincial legislatures.

The way things are now, it is almost impossible to get rid of an incumbent mayor or councillor. Many Torontonians dont have a clue as to who their councillor is and voter turnout is low. A councillor, who can make a few of his or her constituents happy, can count on them to go to the polls to re-elect them. People usually do not go to the polls to vote against a councillor whose name they dont even know. For many Toronto City Councillors, re-election is a mere formality.

Party politics would gain the attention of those who dont necessarily pay much attention to individuals. If residents dont like the way the city is functioning, they can vote the governing party out of office and bring in another party that they have more faith in. Its easier to follow the activities of a party than it is an individual councillor. The introduction of party politics would make for a better functioning democracy.

Party politics would also act as an incentive to politicians to work harder for their constituents in order to attempt to avoid losing the next election if their party is falling out of favour with the public. Party politics would raise the importance of municipal elections and they would cease to be the virtual non-races that many councillors face at election time.

Adding structure to Toronto City Hall without having a party system would accomplish little other than to formalize the informal structures that now exist at an added cost to the taxpayers. Until such time as party politics comes to City Hall, only its appearance will change.

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