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The City of Toronto is inviting the public to an information session regarding the Toronto Ward Boundary Review.
The largest city in Canada and the fourth largest city in North America, Toronto is an ever-growing city with a substantial influx of new residents every year. As a result, the populations of Toronto's wards have become uneven, resulting in a lack of equitable representation for the wards in the city. The variances in population in Toronto's wards were challenged at the Ontario Municipal Board, which forced the city to review and alter the wards lest the OMB enforce a new ward structure without City Council's approval or involvement from Torontonians.
As the City of Toronto Act (COTA) grants city council the authority to make changes to its ward boundaries, City Council has appointed third party consultants to objectively reassess the sizes and shapes of Toronto's wards.
The City of Toronto's website says some of the city’s wards are 30 per cent to 45 per cent above average for a Toronto ward. Effectively, if every ward across Toronto is similar in size, it will result in equal representation and fair voter parity. By equalizing the ward populations as much as possible, the City of Toronto will ensure that the votes of those in highly populated wards are not given less political weight than the votes of those from less populous wards.
For the past two years, the appointed consultant team which includes the Canadian Urban Institute, Beate Bowron Etcetera, The Davidson Group, and Thomas Ostler, has been reviewing the city's wards. They will be presenting the information and insight they have gathered at a public information session, outlining the boundary review process and sharing recommendations for changes that will be considered by the Executive Committee.
The options proposed need to accommodate the population growth trajectory over the next 15 years while developing wards with populations that fall within 10 per cent plus or minus of the expect ward population average for 2026.
The Toronto Ward Boundary Review Report will be presented at a public information session, on Monday, May 16th at 1:30 PM in Committee Room 2 at Toronto City Hall. The recommendations made by the consultants will also be posted on the city clerk's web page on the same day as the presentation.
