A leaner, more representative council composition for Niagara Region.

There have been a number of words written about upcoming changes to the Municipal Act but there have not been many regarding the change that will require regional municipalities to review the composition of their councils after the 2018 election, and after every second regular election thereafter. The mandatory review after the 2018 election will provide an excellent opportunity to alter the composition of council in Niagara to one that is both more agile and more reflective of the will of the electorate.

Reviews by regional municipalities
(6) Following the regular election in 2018 and following every second regular election after that, a regional municipality shall review, for each of its lower-tier municipalities, the number of members of its council that represent the lower-tier municipality.
Regulations
(7) The Minister may make a regulation changing the composition of a council of a regional municipality if the regional municipality does not, in the period of time that starts on the day the new council is organized following a regular election referred to in subsection (6) and ends on the day two years after that day, either,
(a) pass a by-law to change, for one or more of its lower-tier municipalities, the number of the members of its council that represent the lower-tier municipality; or
(b) pass a resolution to affirm, for each of its lower-tier municipalities, the number of the members of its council that represent the lower-tier municipality.

The 12 municipalities in Niagara have widely varying populations so in order to be somewhat representative by population there are regional councillors elected from the larger municipalities: St. Catharines 6; Niagara Falls 3; Welland 2; Fort Erie 1; Grimsby 1; Lincoln 1; Port Colborne 1; Pelham 1; Thorold 1; Niagara-on-the-Lake 1. The smallest municipalities, Wainfleet and West Lincoln, send only their mayors to regional council. Even with 1/30th of the seats in council, the smallest municipality (Wainfleet) is over-represented. With a population of 6,356, residents of Wainfleet represent around 1/68th of the 431,346 residents of Niagara Region (numbers from the 2011 census). Niagara on the Lake, with 2 seats on council represents 1/15th of the voting power with 1/28th of the population (15,400) versus Fort Erie (29,960) who with the same two seats is represented just about perfectly. St. Catharines and Niagara Falls are seriously underrepresented with their six and three regional councillors. Thirty seats just doesn’t work.

The Municipal Act only specifies that a council shall consist of, at minimum, five members including the head of council. Niagara Region with a directly-elected chair will have thirty-one elected members. Any future composition starts with 13 as a minimum number because there are 12 mayors from lower-tier municipalities; it is impossible to send a fraction of a person to council; and the regional chair also will sit.

Fair representation at council is not the only thing missing in the current system. The method of electing a large number of regional councillors is seriously deficient. In 2014, 33,016 ballots were cast in the St. Catharines elections. There were 15 candidates for regional council, and voters could choose up to six to elect. The average voter chose 3.5 candidates—of a potential 198,096 votes 74,388 went to candidates who were elected, 41,994 to candidates who were not elected, and 81,714 went to no one at all. In 2010 there were 19 candidates, and voters chose on average 3.9. It is hard to make a case that there is an electoral mandate for candidates elected in 5th and 6th place. (let alone seventh—when 4th place was elevated to chair in 2014, 7th place was elevated to council).

There are consequences to sending people to council when the system that elected them is not legitimate (see Petrowski, Andrew, who came 6th in 2010 and then 5th in 2014 with the advantage of being an incumbent).

With new population results (from the 2016 census) arriving in February 2017 the numbers will be available to reapportion seats in council. There will be the option of shuffling the existing seats to better match municipal populations, the option of adding still more seats, or the option of reducing the size of council and weighting the votes of councillors to represent the populace they represent. The third option is the best one.

A smaller council with weighted voting solves several problems with the existing system. Reducing the number of councillors elected in St. Catharines and Niagara Falls will allow for better quality councillors elected from a more legitimate system. An individual councillor on a smaller council would have better access to staff to have reports prepared or questions answered, and a smaller council is more efficient at debate time.

The voting system at council is already electronic so there is no reason to limit voting to whole numbers. If a system were to be chosen where the Wainfleet mayor was given a voting weight of 1.0 it would be easy to give a weight of 5.1 to the votes of a reduced contingent of three St. Catharines councillors (plus the mayor), a weight of 4.6 to the votes of 2 Niagara Falls councillors (plus the mayor), and so on down the line.

There would continue to be lower-tier municipalities given more voice in council (changing the procedural by-law to apportion time on a weighted basis is not likely to happen) than their population should allow but that voice would not correspond with a matching vote when questions are actually called.

An unwillingness to consider weighted voting is to continue to send councillors with no legitimacy to a council where many lower-tier municipalities are greatly over-represented or greatly underrepresented. Thirty is already too large a council to be efficient, and expanding that number even further to better represent population numbers from the 2016 census would perform even less efficiently. When combined with voting data that indicates only three councillors in St. Catharines and two councillors in Niagara Falls are elected by anything that resembles a legitimate mandate the path to follow is clear: reduce the size of council and weight votes to make representation fair.

Niagara Region should respect policy made at Queen's Park

I will admit that my initial reaction to the recent statement by Chair Caslin (advising Queen’s Park to respect the decisions of council) was not at all positive, because that statement advocated the furtherance of policy that I do not agree with. Given some time to reflect, and taking a deeper dive into the election that resulted in Mr. Caslin becoming chair I can find a new respect for the logic of the position while still being completely opposed to that position as policy.

It is easy to point out that the circumstances that led to Mr. Caslin becoming chair and question the legitimacy of the process. That does not change the fact that with the rules as they are, the ascension to chair was an efficient one. If someone, in 2014, had the goal of becoming chair there was no reason to declare it to the voting public and, since a previous council had limited the pool of candidates from which to appoint the chair to the 30 newly elected members of council, there was no reason to worry about an outsider being elected.

With these criteria in mind, the most efficient use of resources would be to allocate just enough resources to claim sixth place in the regional council race and then lobby the incoming council successfully for the ultimate target of becoming chair. If I were analyzing a baseball team whose goal was to win the World Series and they were able to efficiently use the minimum allocation of resources to do so (gaining the last playoff position and then making a successful run to claim the prize by using one top-flight pitcher) I would laud that efficiency. In the same spirit, I laud Mr. Caslin for a successful strategy.

The statement published through Postmedia was a statement from the Chair of Niagara Region, as appointed under the only law that was in effect at that time, and is representative of the will of council (that council’s position is completely wrong is immaterial—it is the duty of a chair, as presently elected, to represent, unqualified, the will of council). I have to admit that after looking at the dismal election turnout numbers, and the low information with which those that do show up base their vote, that I don’t at least partly agree that an at-large elected chair will not always be the most qualified candidate willing to run.

More engagement by the electorate is necessary, and I believe that it is at least possible to make some improvements in turnout by having a declared candidate with declared goals run openly for the office of chair. I believe that a chair elected in such a way will be liberated from being merely the voice of council assembled and be able to use their own discretion to present a message based on ever-changing blends of the opinion of council and their own opinion with the ultimate arbiter of their success being the electorate. Finally, I believe that the decline of the quality of print media (particularly at Postmedia) has greatly reduced the ability for electors who would be willing to expend at least a little bit of effort to be informed to be able to do so. Getting back to 60% engagement by an at least partially informed electorate is a massive challenge and direct communication from a directly elected chair can only help.

We can disagree with council, and with individual members, but the truth is that they are players in a game with rules that they don’t make. Attempting to maintain a system that has been beneficial for them is logical for players within a system. Additionally, current members should be given credit for participating in the system at all—most people don’t.

The democratically elected government of the Province of Ontario made the correct, evidence-based, decision to amend an Act which is within their authority. I am very pleased that the next level of government made the choice to alter the system—that does not mean that a current member of council, including the current chair, will not be the best candidate in the next election. To anyone who believes themselves to be the best candidate for chair: October 22, 2018 is approaching—show your best.