"There's Mayor Miller now," Councillor Michael Thompson sarcastically beamed, in reference to my entrance into the council chambers of the Scarborough Civic Centre on Monday. He was chairing the unofficial consultation on new mayoral powers, and my five-minutes-late arrival happened to coincide with his explanation that Mayor Miller had declined the invitation to attend or send a delegate or really anyone at all who was willing to make the case in favour of further increasing his powers.
Nevertheless, as Councillor Mike Del Grande later ominously informed the attendees, "The mayor has representatives here in this audience," and they were taking notes and going to report back to him. This was probably true, but it made me feel as though I was subject to some suspicious glances. I'm used to being the youngest person at things like these, but the margin this night was even greater than usual, with a span of several decades separating me from everyone else in attendance.
It wasn't clear how the seven councillors had managed to come up with such a thoroughly white, older, conservative crowd in the middle of Scarborough, but it was obvious that if Councillors Thompson (Ward 37, Scarborough Centre), Del Grande (Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt), Frances Nunziata (Ward 11, York South-Weston), Cesar Palacio (Ward 17, Davenport), Cliff Jenkins (Ward 25, Don Valley West), and Brian Ashton (Ward 36, Scarborough Southwest) — as well as Peter Milczyn (Ward 5, Etobicoke-Lakeshore), who was not present — are going to organize an effective opposition, a broader coalition will be needed; the meeting appeared less diverse than last fall's Toronto Party symposium.
Part of this likely had to do with how word of the event was spread: the Toronto Community News seemed to be the only source with all the details; the Star gave the date and the location but not the time. And none of the councillors' websites made mention of it, not even under their respective "news" and "events" sections. That said, to be able to bring out any hundred people to the Scarborough Civic Centre on a Monday night to discuss the finer points of municipal governance is still an achievement and a decent sign for democracy.
The mayoral powers in question are Miller's twin desires to be able to unilaterally hire and fire the City Manager (essentially the City of Toronto's CEO), effectively politicizing the civil service, and to be able to have his Executive Committee meet in private for reasons other than those currently allowed by law (litigation, personnel issues, etc.). He wants Premier Dalton McGuinty to make the necessary changes to the City of Toronto Act to allow him to do these things but is currently uninterested in asking Council for its endorsement or consent. Although McGuinty has indicated his willingness to make the changes within the next month, he also responded in a letter to these seven councillors by saying that he "would carefully consider any such request presented by Toronto City Council to the Government of Ontario," which seems to imply that he would indeed like Miller to have the backing of at least a simple majority of Council.
After promising on behalf of the seven councillors that they don't know if more powers for the mayor would be a good or bad thing but just want to know why they are necessary and what checks and balances there would be, Thompson turned the floor over to deputations, of which there were, by my count, 15. And although there was indeed quite a bit of wisdom sprinkled here and there, it often seemed overwhelmed by disappointingly predictable partisanship. The councillors were admirable in their initial ambition to frame the debate around the powers themselves rather than on what sort of job Miller has done as mayor, but the speeches frequently devolved into the sort of right-wing grumbling that serves to reinforce the impression held by the mayor's caucus that those who oppose the mayor's policies do so primarily because of political differences rather than out of a genuine concern for the health of various democratic ideals.
Some of the highlights:
• Murray Hedges, chair of the Scarborough Association of Seniors, had surveyed 98 people at the Tim Hortons at Huntington and Warden and at the Stephen Leacock Centre and elsewhere. In response to the question "Do you feel the mayor should have more power?," seven people said yes, eight were unsure, and 83 said no.
• Margaret Smith, founder of Save Our St. Clair, quoted from Henry Mintzberg in the Harvard Business Review, who wrote that governing is complex and requires "soft judgment," as opposed to the "hard judgment" of business management. Mayor Miller, she said, is focused on centralizing power, which is contrary to Jane Jacobs' argument for smaller administrative districts. The power of the mayor is enhanced at the expense of members of Council and local democracy. Councillor Del Grande agreed, saying the mayor is putting forward models that would work for a business environment but are not appropriate for democratic government.
• Frank Knight, the Scarborough Town Crier (not a newspaper but his title), brought out the inevitable "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" and reminded us that "no Canadian person should be intimidated into silence where their lawful rights are stripped away," referring to the reluctance felt by some councillors and others to openly oppose the mayor's bid for more power, out of fear of retribution.
• Tony Bernardo, the executive director of the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action (a wing of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, observed that the mayor is trying to turn Toronto's government from a republic into an empire.
• Daniel Woods, of Malvern, pleaded "I don't want to be a shareholder in Toronto, Inc ... I'm worried that if we give the mayor more powers, Toronto will be run more like a business and less like a city for citizens."
"Democracy flourishes in the light, it flourishes in public view," proclaimed Councillor Ashton in his closing remarks. "Democracy doesn't paralyze the city, it revitalizes it. Usually when politicians covet power, they lack leadership abilities." Ashton, whom Miller famously turfed from the Executive Committee last year after voting against the new taxes at Council, was received as something of a folk hero, the martyr who stood up to the mayor knowing it would cost him his influence. And he repaid the audience's adoration with sweeping rhetoric. "I like to remind myself that when Raymond Moriyama designed these council chambers, the idea was for the public to look down on their leaders," he said in reference to the room's coliseum style.
But the remark that elicited the strongest response was his revelation that "We believe the mayor is negotiating with the province to pay his executive committee more." This was an idea originally proposed by the Governing Toronto Advisory Panel in November 2005, when it recommended [PDF] establishing an executive committee: "Salaries of Councillors serving on the Executive Committee should be raised to recognize their increased responsibilities." But the Executive Committee itself being a hard sell, the City Manager's June 2006 report on the "Implementation of a new Council Governance model" [PDF] did not recommend increased pay, saying, "There is little support for this recommendation among members of the public and Council alike." Indeed, it would be hard to think of a way for the mayor to more effectively antagonize his opponents than by formally relegating those not part of his executive clique to the status of second-class councillors or, worse, backbenchers.
Cliff Jenkins (who, full disclosure, is my own councillor and a friend and graciously gave me a ride home from Scarborough) was most frustrated and disappointed by the mayor's fiscal review panel having come back with a bunch of recommendations [PDF] that were different from their mandate. Instead of making "recommendations on areas that may offer additional savings and on the process that the City is using to achieve results," they reported on mayoral powers and a call for the city to sell its assets.
"The mayor [already] has enormous power," Jenkins said. "He wins every single vote at Council." Jenkins also raised the issue that although Miller is generally trustworthy, there is no guarantee that future mayors and their inner circles will be as well. Indeed, imagine if this centralization of power were in place in the city hall described in the Bellamy Report (which itself [PDF] recommends that "Although the Mayor can properly be involved in hiring the City Manager, there should be a clear division of responsibility between the Mayor and the office of the City Manager — a separation of the political from the administrative").
The councillors pledged that this night would be the beginning of a larger popular movement. "This is the start of something big," said Thompson.
When the Executive Meeting discussed the meeting the next day, however, the response, as reported by David Nickle in the Parkdale-Liberty Villager, could best be described as "run along now": "'When you have seven councillors bringing a hundred people out, I don't see any mass movement,' [Deputy Mayor Joe] Pantalone said. 'So let (the city government) evolve. Be happy.'"