Election 2010 Discussion Paper # 1

June 2010

Governance in Toronto: Issues and Questions

1 Foreword

The Cities Centre is a multi-disciplinary research For further information, please contact: institute established February 2007 in response to one of the five major research priorities defined in Eric Miller the ’s "Stepping Up" plan. The Director mandate of the Centre is broad: to encourage and Cities Centre facilitate research, both scholarly and applied, on University of Toronto cities and on a wide range of urban policy issues, 455 Spadina Ave., Suite 400 both in Canada and abroad, and to provide a Toronto, ON M5S 2G8 Canada gateway for communication between the University and the broader urban community. T (416) 946 3688 F (416) 978-7162 Late last year, several of Toronto’s civic leaders met email: [email protected] with the Cities Centre to discuss the need for focused debate on strategic issues during the 2010 Municipal Election Campaign. A consensus was reached that All photographs and maps copyright by the City of Toronto, 2008-2010. the Cities Centre would mobilize academics from the University and other professionals to prepare Discussion Papers on six themes: governance, environment, transportation, housing, finance and equality. These Papers are meant to describe current issues in an objective and apolitical way, and to raise policy options that could spark focused debate among candidates for Mayor and Council in the 2010 Election.

This is the first Discussion Paper in the Cities Centre’s ‘Toronto Election 2010’ series. It summarizes a much more extensive paper prepared by: Richard Stren, Eleanor Rae, Frank Cunningham, Gabriel Eidelman, Andre Sorensen, and Mariana Valverde from the University of Toronto, Aaron Moore and Andrew Sancton from the University of Western , and Lionel Feldman, consultant. It is available at www.citiescentre.utoronto.ca/ and directly from the Cities Centre.

This Paper was edited and produced with the support of Chreod Group Inc. of Toronto.

2 Who Governs the City of Toronto... and How?

A short answer is: the elected Mayor and city councillors. But this is only one part of Toronto governance, and a small part at that. The City includes an array of commissions, boards, departments, divisions, and committees, the nooks and crannies of its operation often being so arcane that many citizens do not understand its workings and feel that they have little say in its policies. How can citizen involvement in Some citizens take advantage of what democratic access there governing Toronto be enhanced? is and organize themselves into groups such as residents’ associations, thus adding an informal dimension to city governance. But many people, if not most, simply accept or endure the results of policies influenced by the few who have mastered the City’s intricacies and who know which “buttons” to push. This highlights a core challenge: how can citizen involvement in governing Toronto be improved? How can the needs Another core issue relates to the size and complexity of Toronto. of the City of Toronto as a whole What is Toronto? The answer depends on whether one refers be attended to? to its present political boundaries or to loyalties inherited from history. People often refer to the “the former City of Toronto” to differentiate the area called Toronto before its amalgamation by the Provincial government in 1998 with the five adjacent cities and boroughs of , , , Scarborough, and York. These components themselves exhibit complex histories, since in the late 1960’s several other towns and villages (, Swansea, , and others) were incorporated into them. Councillors represent individual wards in this large complex (see Annex), but citizen involvement is typically focused on the yet smaller areas of their neighbourhoods. Quite naturally, these councillors and citizens are primarily concerned with problems in their particular areas of Toronto. This raises another core challenge: how can the needs of the City as a whole be better addressed? This Discussion Paper provides some pertinent facts about the structures, practices, and institutions of the City. It also raises some key questions on governance that candidates in the 2010 election need to address.

1 Improving Citizen Participation

There are several avenues for increased citizen participation in the City. Voting The form of participation with which most citizens are already Only 39% of eligible residents acquainted is voting for their city councillors, of which there are 44 voted in 2006. (one for each ward), and for the mayor. In the municipal election of 2006 over 1.5 million eligible electors could vote for 456 candidates at 1,637 different voting locations across Toronto. Just under 600,000 citizens, or 39% of those eligible actually voted. Many factors affect voter turn-out, but among them are the issues addressed in an election and the approach of candidates to them. Voter turn-out increases when: • issues at stake are clearly defined and seen to be important • candidates take clear stands on those issues • there are real distinctions among candidates’ positions so the outcome of an election will make a difference. The media can play an important role in drawing people to the polls, but the main responsibility is for candidates themselves, who should take clearly articulated stands on substantive matters. An important issue with the current voting system is who should Should immigrants who are not be eligible to vote in municipal elections. At present this includes yet Canadian citizens be allowed only residents (or property owners) 18 years of age or older who to vote in Toronto elections? have Canadian citizenship. Some groups propose to increase the current category of eligible voters to include permanent residents who are not yet Canadian citizens but who are equally affected by what goes on in the City. If immigrant residents who are not yet Canadian citizens could vote this would increase the number of voters by about 200,000. Proponents argue that immigrants who reside in the City are just as affected by how it is governed as anyone else and therefore should have the right to participate in civic elections. Community Councils In addition to City Council, Toronto includes four Community Councils (see Annex). These are comprised of the councillors from adjacent wards who meet once a month, separately from City Council as a whole, to hear from citizens. The councils make final decisions about some matters (for example sign or

2 fence bylaw exemption), but on most issues they can only make recommendations to City Council. Not all citizens are aware of the existence or role of the community councils, so another way to involve more people would be to publicize them more effectively. How could Community Councils Almost since their establishment in 1998, there have been be made more responsive to discussions about improving these councils. There could be more local needs? of them, since four Councils in a city of 3 million people does not provide for much consultation with communities. The scope of issues over which the councils have discretion could be enlarged to include more substantive matters (for example, granting or withholding liquor licenses or patio extensions to restaurants). Membership on the councils could be expanded to include people who are not elected officials. The result would be similar to what exists in some other jurisdictions, such as New York City’s Borough of Brooklyn. Those who resist such proposals fear they would create another level of municipal government, thus making an already complex situation more complicated. Public hearings Public hearings need to be The includes seven Standing Policy taken seriously, and held before Committees on: Community Development and Recreation , agencies’ positions are set. Economic Development, Government Management, Licensing and Standards, Parks and Environment, Planning and Growth Management, and Public Works and Infrastructure. There are also a large number of administrative bodies working in areas such as city planning, waste management, transportation services, children’s services, and public health. To these are added other agencies, committees, commissions, and quasi-judicial tribunals, such as the Parking Authority and the Police Services Board. These bodies all hold regular meetings at which citizen participation is encouraged, to varying degrees. As well, extraordinary meetings are held on selected, important topics. For example, the Toronto Transit Commission recently held hearings on how to improve its services, and the Planning Department held meetings to solicit feedback on a plan to harmonize the City’s zoning by-laws. These hearings afford citizens an opportunity to participate in city governance, whether as individuals or as members of advocacy groups. Of course, enthusiasm for such involvement requires that citizen voices are taken seriously, at the earliest possible time, and that both the availability of the hearings and the results of their deliberations are widely publicized.

3 Citizen membership on City agencies Some of the standing committees, agencies, commissions, and Are more citizen representatives boards include ordinary citizens as members. But the membership needed in City agencies? of citizens is too often quite limited. For instance, only one of seven members of the Police Services Board is a citizen. There are no citizen representatives on the Toronto Transit Commission. The Board of the powerful agency is almost entirely composed of representatives from the business community. A way to enhance citizen participation in governance would be to include a significant number of citizens in all such agencies and to draw them from a broad range of communities of interest. Transparency Citizen participation in City agencies, whether as members or in Transparency is not consistent hearings, is encouraged to the extent that the activities of these across City agencies. Should bodies and their decisions are known. Many of the reports of common standards be set? decisions and notices of hearings found on The City of Toronto website, which is comprehensive, can be a chore to navigate and understand. Notices in newspapers also publicize; they might be supplemented by notices on radio and television and in neighbourhood papers and on resident association websites. Also, some agencies report their deliberations and decisions more extensively than others. For example, details of the police budget (which accounts for one-quarter of the entire City budget) are not made public. Civil Society Organizations Civil society groups include charitable and voluntary groups, neighbourhood associations, social service providers, arts and culture institutions, environmental advocacy groups, sports clubs, business associations and lobby groups, and dozens if not hundreds of others. They perform a range of key functions that make cities more livable. Some also engage directly in urban governance processes. Examples are environmental advocacy groups, social housing advocates, bicycle activists, lobby groups such as Canadian Automobile Association, and business associations such as the Toronto Board of Trade. These organizations enable citizens to participate in informal governance in the City, and they provide venues for collective action as pressure groups and as collaborators with City agencies in joint projects.

4 Residents’ Associations Toronto has a long and strong Ratepayers or, as they are more commonly now called, residents’ history of civic engagement associations, are the most widespread of civil society groups through residents’ associations. in the Toronto governance process. These civic groups are organized around a shared sense of place. Membership comprises residents of a specific neighbourhood and is voluntary. The main governance function these associations perform is to intervene in City planning processes to improve or protect aspects of their neighbourhoods, including attention to parks, environmental sustainability, and the appropriateness to a neighbourhood of building and development proposals. Often this entails interacting with the Committee of Adjustment and the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). They expend much effort and The Committee of Adjustment is a City of Toronto body that time intervening with the City’s considers appeals for exemption from a bylaw (e.g. governing Committee of Adjustment and building height, parking rights, property set-backs, and the like). the OMB. The OMB is a provincially appointed board which originally had only modest power. Today, however, it overrides, without right of appeal, decisions of the City’s Committee of Adjustment. Developers and associations often turn to the OMB to appeal decisions of the Committee of Adjustment with which they disagree. Residents’ associations, These appeal bodies provide opportunities for citizen input to developers, and the City decisions about important features of the city. But there are down government generally agree that sides. Many decisions on urban planning and development are the OMB is dysfunctional. made in an ad hoc and piecemeal manner based on decades of accumulated decisions by the appeal boards. The effectiveness of residents’ associations is uneven, with those from middle-income neighbourhoods usually having more success than others. The associations are often charged with being NIMBYs (motivated by a Not-In-My- Back-Yard attitude), who ignore the good of the city as a whole. OMB appeals are time-consuming and expensive: larger development corporations can much better afford large legal and expert witness fees than most individuals or associations. Communication among chairs of the four panels of the Committees of Adjustment would help to coordinate their decisions. Citizen input to deliberations aiming at common criteria to be used across the Committees would also help, as would provision of resources for associations in less affluent neighbourhoods.

5 Addressing City-wide Needs

The problem of how to preserve local participation, on the one hand, with attention to city-wide needs on the other, is one Toronto shares with all large-scale democratic bodies. Representation beyond wards In the current system, the Mayor is elected at large and councillors The ward system of are elected by their individual wards. There has been some representation constrains criticism of councillors who first and foremost feel that, to ensure effective decision-making for the re-election, they must follow ratepayer and other groups in their City as a whole. ward and tend to local parochial issues at the expense of important city-wide interests. Some think that, by virtue of extended powers afforded the Mayor in the 2006 , he or she can effectively represent the entire city. But the new powers of Mayor provided under the Act (e.g. to appoint standing committee chairs) do little to improve the effective representation of the entire city. In contrast, other cities, including Vancouver, elect all councillors at large. (Interestingly, many in Vancouver complain that their system leaves local neighbourhood interests unrepresented.) Yet another alternative would be to combine the two systems such that some councillors are elected by wards and some at large. Political Parties In Toronto, as in many other parts of Canada, national and Would political parties better provincial parties do not formally operate at the local level. In address city-wide issues? contrast, most municipal elections are held along federal political- party lines in the United States. Few in Canada would want to follow this example if for no other reason than we have distinct federal and provincial party systems, so it is not obvious which one would apply locally. Distinct local parties do exist in major cities in British Columbia and Quebec, though they strive to be non-partisan with respect to the traditional parties. It is sometimes suggested that in a party system, whether traditional or “non- partisan,” candidates would run on their parties’ platforms which would include policies aimed at the good of the city as a whole. There may be something to be said for such a proposal, but it would come at the cost of marginalizing independent aspirants for municipal office and the interests they represent. Oversight bodies A consideration advanced in support of the OMB is that it is not tied to any one part of the City, but can look to common needs of

6 What is the best way to oversee the entire city. That it has not functioned this way in the past, but the needs of the City as a has instead reacted to largely legally-based contests over particular whole, including its relationships issues, does not mean that it or some similar provincial body could with other governments in the not perform this oversight role. There is a potential problem, Toronto metropolitan region? however, in that an unelected oversight body could become the actual planner for Toronto, thus removing this function from City agencies and citizens. An alternative would be to form such an oversight committee within the City, or for the Mayor-appointed Executive Committee to perform this role. Expanding cooperation How can successful models In some Toronto wards, most notably Ward 20, neighbourhood of stakeholder cooperation associations, local businesses, local development interests and be applied across ward a Ward’s councillor work closely together to address plans and boundaries? common problems in a cooperative spirit. People from these groups meet independently of any specific development proposal to agree on general criteria acceptable to them all. When a proposal is imminent, but before it goes before the Committee of Adjustment, the councillor convenes meetings of stakeholders from these groups to seek consensus. These practices have dramatically reduced the number of antagonistic presentations to the Committee of Adjustment, and appeals to the OMB have fallen dramatically. Such practices could be expanded across ward boundaries through the cooperative efforts of councillors and neighbourhood associations from two or more wards. Whether this approach is realistic depends in part on the attitudes of stakeholders from different neighbourhoods and on the leadership qualities and diplomatic skills of councillors.

7 Some Key Questions on Governance

The issues of governance in Toronto are important ones to raise in municipal elections. In particular, candidates need to address questions such as:

1. Should immigrant residents of Toronto who do not yet have Canadian citizenship be accorded the right to vote in municipal elections? 2. Should some or all councillors be elected at large? 3. Should the Community Council system be reformed to provide more of them, with citizen membership, and expanded decision-making powers? 4. Should more ordinary Toronto citizens be included as regular members of municipal committees, agencies, commissions, and boards? 5. If so, what criteria should be used in making citizen appointments? 6. Should details of all City-financed agencies, including the Toronto Police budget, be subject to public scrutiny? 7. Should uniform requirements for transparency and public hearings be set by Council for all City-financed agencies? 8. Should municipal oversight continue to be done at the level of the provincial government through the OMB, or should a new oversight body be established at the City or metropolitan levels?

8 Annex 1

Ward 1 Ward 16 Eglinton-Lawrence Ward 31 Beaches-East York Ward 2 Etobicoke North Ward 17 Davenport Ward 32 Beaches-East York Ward 3 Etobicoke Centre Ward 18 Davenport Ward 33 Ward 4 Etobicoke Centre Ward 19 Trinity-Spadina Ward 34 Don Valley East Ward 5 Etobicoke-Lakeshore Ward 20 Trinity-Spadina Ward 35 Ward 6 Etobicoke-Lakeshore Ward 21 St. Paul’s Ward 36 Scarborough Southwest Ward 7 York West Ward 22 St. Paul’s Ward 37 Scarborough Centre Ward 8 York West Ward 23 Willowdale Ward 38 Scarborough Centre Ward 9 Ward 24 Willowdale Ward 39 Scarborough-Agincourt Ward 10 York Centre Ward 25 Ward 40 Scarborough-Agincourt Ward 11 -Weston Ward 26 Don Valley West Ward 41 Scarborough- Ward 12 York South-Weston Ward 27 -Rosedale Ward 42 Scarborough-Rough River Ward 13 Parkdale- Ward 28 Toronto Centre-Rosedale Ward 43 Ward 14 Parkdale-High Park Ward 29 Toronto-Danforth Ward 44 Scarborough East Ward 15 Eglinton-Lawrence Ward 30 Toronto-Danforth

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