jn_12
Senior Member
Party politics would be horrible at the municipal level. It's already bad enough at the provincial and federal level whereby it completely eliminates local representation, which is the foundation for our government system. Municipal politicians in a ward system are meant to represent the people of their respective ward. Under a party system they can't do that due to party loyalty. It also creates divisions and pits "us versus them", which has been the biggest problem with this current mayor. The best governments are minority governments that involve consensus building and compromises. Politics iss not about who wins or loses (which is exactly what party politics is about and is the biggest problem with our current democracy in this country). It's about ensuring that the most voices and the best solutions are taken into account and emerge.Perhaps party politics in municipal government is the solution. That way it would be a more unified goverment that could make better decisions for the long term benefit of the city, instead of relying on trading favours and votes between councillors. In mostly Liberal or NDP Toronto, I am sure Ford could not have got in under the PC banner.
Put it this way, the sanity that has prevailed over Ford over the last few months would never have happened in a party system without some sort of revolt within the party. Toronto would be in a much worse position and we should be thankful that our politicians have the ability to be flexible, to think for themselves (for the most part) and to listen to their constituents.