2018 Municipal Election: Toronto Council Races

[DSC]

So much for her tearful retirement.

To be fair, she resigned because she was running in the Provincial election - unlike others (e.g. Denzil M-W) who kept on collecting his City salary while campaigning she did the 'honourable thing' and resigned. She was not elected so, not unreasonably, is trying to return to City Hall.

 

[christiesplits]

I actuality think Mihevc will not run in this race he getting up in age now and he is not used to campaigning.

Assuming he runs vs Matlow however I think he loses...

Mihevc says he's all in.

@joemihevc
Whether it's 47 or 25, I want you to know: I'm running.
#StPauls #TOpoli https://mailchi.mp/9ab09c886daf/my-intentions-for-this-october …

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

Mihevc says he's all in.

@joemihevc
Whether it's 47 or 25, I want you to know: I'm running.
#StPauls #TOpoli https://mailchi.mp/9ab09c886daf/my-intentions-for-this-october …

Oh really Mr. Mihevc? You were fooling no one

 

[christiesplits]

Court hearings this morning.

What do you think the chances are of Ford's shenanigans being overruled ? I feel like it's less than 20%

 

[Richard White]

Court hearings this morning.

What do you think the chances are of Ford's shenanigans being overruled ? I feel like it's less than 20%

It depends really. If the judge has common sense enough to realize that Ford is only doing this as a political vendetta, and takes both his personal and family municipal council voting record into account it will likely be overturned or delayed.

There is an even greater chance of this going against Dougie if they consider the rhetoric him and his brother were spouting for years. Keep in mind as well that Bill 5 only affects Toronto and not any other municipality in Ontario. There are places like Sarnia and Durham which are much more over-represented than Toronto is. I believe Chatham-Kent has 105,260 people and something like 18 Councillors. which would under Bill 5 had required 1 councilor. That means Chatham Kent as a region has 1 Councillor for ever 5845 people.

Places like this are not being touched and if the judge takes that into consideration there is also the chance that other municipalities may be forced to cut Councillors in an effort to make the legislation fair and balanced. If that happens I can seem them repealing Bill 5 to prevent an all out lynching. I can see someone arguing that if Chatham Kent can have 1 Councillor for 5848 people and 18 Councillors total for 105 thousand people how can Toronto with a population 20 times that not have 47 councillors.

Using Chatham Kent as a reference (Chatham-Kent has one councilor for every 5848 people) Toronto should require 479 councillors.

If nothing else I can see them delaying the changes until 2022 so there is enough time to prepare. Don't overturn it but delay it until there is more time to implement it.

 

[steveintoronto]

^More than likely case(s) win. Just reading the Judge's prior decisions, and what they were based on gives an excellent indication of probability. I've got to say that the Province' case is missing the Constitutional aspects that this will win on. Be prepared for the decision to be scathing, the Judiciary has been rightly reactive in protecting Constitutional Rights in this nation lately.

See:
PRB 08-50E

Electoral Rights: Charter of Rights and Freedoms
James R. Robertson
Sebastian Spano
Law and Government Division

Revised 29 September 2008

PDF (306 Kb, 57 pages)


https://lop.parl.ca/content/lop/ResearchPublications/prb0850-e.htm

 

[DSC]

If nothing else I can see them delaying the changes until 2022 so there is enough time to prepare. Don't overturn it but delay it until there is more time to implement it.

This would have been the way to proceed but we do not live in an 'ideal world". The City could remain organised in the same way if the number had been left at 43 or even reduced to, say, 35, but changing the number of Councillors in such a major way (from 43/47 to 25) means that the whole structure needs to be looked at. How many committees to have, role of community councils, councillors sitting on boards, number of constituency staff needed etc etc. These questions do not have obvious answers and getting them right will, or should, be given time.

 

[BurlOak]

Court hearings this morning.

What do you think the chances are of Ford's shenanigans being overruled ? I feel like it's less than 20%

Ford has many things going for him:

1. Constitution allow him to have power of municipal legislation.
2. Consultation with the public was done. (see below).
3. Implementation in 4 years time would lead to chaotic Toronto Council for the next 4 years and it is in public good to act immediately.
4. Toronto is a unique entity and even has it's own Toronto Act.

That said, one never knows when you get to court. Many judges view activism as their role and not upholding the law.


Consultations

New Wards for Toronto - Toronto Ward Boundary Review (May 2016).
According to that,

During Round One of the TWBR civic engagement and public consultation process, there was little support for reducing the number of wards to 25 to mirror the new federal ridings.

Stakeholder group responses were in favour of following provincial or federal riding boundaries.

I don't know if there is an obligation to listen to the results of the consultation or not.
Some could say the short listing process was a means of not listening.
With Council and consultant influence, it is clear that the selected option was not the desire of the majority.

 

[Thorns_Embrace]

Ford has many things going for him:

1. Constitution allow him to have power of municipal legislation.
2. Consultation with the public was done. (see below).
3. Implementation in 4 years time would lead to chaotic Toronto Council for the next 4 years and it is in public good to act immediately.
4. Toronto is a unique entity and even has it's own Toronto Act.

That said, one never knows when you get to court. Many judges view activism as their role and not upholding the law.


Consultations

New Wards for Toronto - Toronto Ward Boundary Review (May 2016).
According to that,


I don't know if there is an obligation to listen to the results of the consultation or not.
Some could say the short listing process was a means of not listening.
With Council and consultant influence, it is clear that the selected option was not the desire of the majority.

This is the point about consultation people miss. Governments can consult all they want they are under no legal obligation to listen to the result of the consultation. If they were we might as well remove politicians and just have bureaucrats run everything.

 

[JGHali]

Ford has many things going for him:

1. Constitution allow him to have power of municipal legislation.
2. Consultation with the public was done. (see below).
3. Implementation in 4 years time would lead to chaotic Toronto Council for the next 4 years and it is in public good to act immediately.
4. Toronto is a unique entity and even has it's own Toronto Act.

That said, one never knows when you get to court. Many judges view activism as their role and not upholding the law.

1. Section 92 has been subject to numerous rulings and interpretations over the years. The question, moreover, is whether the power to make legislation over "municipal institutions in the province" overrides other law, such as Section 3 of the 1982 Act. Sections 91 and 92 do not imply that either Parliament or the provincial legislatures have unrestricted scopes to their areas of jurisdiction. Parliamentary supremacy has never been a prominent feature of Canadian politics and was substantially affected by patriation and the Charter in 1982.

2. Consultation was done as part of the previous process that resulted in the 47 ward system. That is not a legal argument.

3. What? The "public good" is a political question and this is again not a legal argument.

4. That makes the so-called Better Local Government Act no less arbitrary.

 

[Videodrome]

I really hope that Mammo loses. He is embracing Trump tactics.

 

[EagleEye]

Though that's a battle of the enthusiasts (her vs Crawford)

Crawford is not well liked at all. I think if it comes down to it she will win. They are both suck ups to whoever happens to be mayor, but I think he's worse. He was in tight with RoFo - remember the painting he did of Rob for Diane? Now he's in tight with Tory.

There are a handful of people running against him, and one guy actually rented an old, derelict restaurant and painted over a mural a local artist did with horrific purple paint. Talk about pissing the locals off when they saw what he did!

 

[jje1000]

Yet another call for the implementation of Community Councils:

Community councils could be answer to Toronto’s slashed municipal wards

By going to the federal/provincial electoral boundaries, the average ward size will encompass about 110,000 people, nearly twice the old size of 60,000. At the municipal level, which deals with day-to-day service delivery and where the local councillor is a primary conduit for resident concerns and wishes, this is too large.

This was recognized more than 20 years ago when the province amalgamated six cities into the so-called megacity. Community councils were set up to deal with local issues in each of the former cities, in what scholars Alexandra Flynn and Zach Spicer have characterized as an afterthought to placate people angry about the loss of local autonomy.

Those community councils never became high functioning, and the original six were reduced to four. Even further back, 64 years ago, the province created Metro Toronto, a landmark reorganization of municipal government unique in North America. Twelve cities, towns and villages around the city of Toronto were amalgamated into Metro Toronto, each having one member on the new Metro Council, and the city of Toronto itself was awarded twelve members. This established a two-tier government with the metro tier looking after city-wide operations and the local tier, essentially the remaining governments from the amalgamated municipalities, looking after more local matters.

Shared between the two tiers were things that relied on existing infrastructure. The general consensus was that the Metro form of government worked well. It lasted until 1997, when the province forced another form of amalgamation by eliminating the lower tier and creating the City of Toronto from what was formerly Metro Toronto.

In 2018, as Toronto faces a dramatic reduction of its council by provincial fiat, the city might consider reverse engineering Metro to fit the current circumstance. It might construe the 25-member council as an upper tier, like the old Metro Council, to take care of the city-wide issues. It might then establish a robust set of community councils to act as the old lower tier, focused on local matters. The City of Toronto would not have to seek permission from the province to establish a new lower tier, and would be free to determine its size. It could construct an election process for the community councils, even mirroring the old metro system of simultaneous elections to the upper and lower tiers on the same ballot.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/con...swer-to-torontos-slashed-municipal-wards.html

 

[Richard White]

Crawford is not well liked at all. I think if it comes down to it she will win. They are both suck ups to whoever happens to be mayor, but I think he's worse. He was in tight with RoFo - remember the painting he did of Rob for Diane? Now he's in tight with Tory.

There are a handful of people running against him, and one guy actually rented an old, derelict restaurant and painted over a mural a local artist did with horrific purple paint. Talk about pissing the locals off when they saw what he did!

There really is not a good candidate the replace the two. I know Sharif Ahmed but he really is not capable of being a councilor. The rest are fringe candidates.

It would be interesting to see if they split the vote and someone else wins.

 

[DSC]

"Community councils could be answer to Toronto’s slashed municipal wards" - well, of course they could but doing so and 're-balancing' the work and authority between 25 Councillors, x Community Councils and the 'main' Council is not something that can or should be done in a few weeks. It is a very complicated matter with several alternatives that need to be properly examined.

If Doug Ford REALLY wanted to ensure the City ran more smoothly he would have announced that the 2018 election was the last that would elect 47 Councillors and that future elections would be based on a 25-Ward model (or more generally one Councillor per Federal constituency). The next election could have been left at 2022 or even brought forward to 2020 or 2021. To totally change how the City is governed with NO advance preparation is SO wrong and will probably ensure that the City is governed worse not better.