[ttk77]

Yea, it's very possible a party system could be defined by an urban-suburban cleavage. The exact results would depend pretty heavily on the electoral system and such, so it's hard to give any concrete predictions of what would happen, but your scenario seems reasonable. (e.g. electing councillors at large would discourage a heavy urban-suburban cleavage...)

Anyways, assuming your scenario plays out, it would still be preferable. As long as no party (urban OR suburban) dominated election after election, you would get competition for swing wards and a resulting City-wide platform. Moreover, in Toronto, it's kind of unclear if you could get such clear suburban-urban splits. What the hell is a place like Willowdale? Or York South Weston? At the Federal and Provincial levels the 416 isn't very heterogenous, so I don't know why the gap would be soo gaping at the municipal level.

Of course it depends on how things were designed, but if things did divide along the urban/suburban border I'm not convinced there would be a swing. It was shown from the last election that the suburban vote currently outnumbers the urban vote. Things would tend to swing as the demographics shifted rather than from election to election, and if policies were clearly favouring one area I fail to see why demographics would ever swing the other way.

Politically speaking, I'm a centrist. I hate seeing things swing one way and then another every time a government changes. The new government spends half their time trying to undo what they see as damage done by the previous administration. I'd rather see things crawl slowly along as each individual member is forced to negotiate and compromise to get what they want. And it has quite clearly been shown over the past couple years, when someone is unable to do so they are easily sidelined. If they were the leader of the majority party they would get whatever they wanted. <shudder>

 

[nfitz]

P.S. am surprised soo many people are opposed to parties. Functioning political parties are a corner stone of democratic institutions. There is a reason why just about every major national and subnational legislature has a party system.

Political parties at the municipal level are rare in Canada. The biggest exception to that is in Quebec.

Given that political commentators in Quebec are blaming the wholescale corruption of municipal governments on the party system, and are recommending to get rid of it, then why are you advocating that it be done here, where it's prime effect appears to have been to let the Mafia get inroads into the municipal process?

 

[ttk77]

Do you think Toronto is unique among all levels of government across every first world city/province/state/country in the world? Welcome to democracy

Anyways, is the complaint that Toronto's form of government prevents things from getting done? It seems to me both Miller and Lastman were able to accomplish quite a bit during their terms. Certainly, they were able to set an effective agenda. The government structure we have works when there is a competent, respected leader at the helm.

No...not unique, though I do sometimes wonder if there's more voter apathy here than in most places.

 

[diminutive]

Political parties at the municipal level are rare in Canada. The biggest exception to that is in Quebec. Given that political commentators in Quebec are blaming the wholescale corruption of municipal governments on the party system, and are recommending to get rid of it, then why are you advocating that it be done here, where it's prime effect appears to have been to let the Mafia get inroads into the municipal process?

It is rare in Canada if for no other reason that our municipal institutions were crafted in an era where 'municipal governance' didn't entail much at all. They were designed to handle minor, community issues, and in that sense the present system's institutions match its ends. Toronto is the center of an urban region encompassing 5-8 million people. Its infrastructure and social requirements are quite different from what its institutions were built to represent.

As to Quebec, it seems odd to connect the corruption scandal simply to municipal parties since it extends far beyond municipal governments. Clearly there is a culture of corruption there that exists independently of municipal parties. Vancouver's party system for instance sees little apparent corruption. Ditto for European municipal politics. Also, based on commentary from the Quebec inquiry, it seems Mafia corruption may well be just as prominent, if under reported, in Ontario. Based on our obscenely high incumbency levels at the municipal level it's not hard to imagine how our system is prone to corruption.

I mean, I'm a little flabbergasted that you're seriously suggesting that municipal parties 'let the Mafia get inroads' into politics. Based off a sample size of one. It's very weak analysis, in essence scaremongering.

 

[Lenser]

They're not representing *you* though, they're representing whoever in their Ward yells loudest and hardest.

No doubt. But if I'm doing the yelling, I want my councillor to side with me and not default to whatever's in the party playbook.

 

[nfitz]

I mean, I'm a little flabbergasted that you're seriously suggesting that municipal parties 'let the Mafia get inroads' into politics.

I didn't say I was suggesting it.

The mainstream media in Montreal is suggesting it.

For example:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news...eir+often+smelly+financing/7527105/story.html

Henry Aubin: The problem is municipal parties and their often smelly financing

... Municipal parties are completely unnecessary. They occur in no other province (with the exception British Columbia, where a relatively mild version exists.) They are a cancer on cities ...

Are you still flabbergasted?

 

[freshcutgrass]

Anyways, is the complaint that Toronto's form of government prevents things from getting done? It seems to me both Miller and Lastman were able to accomplish quite a bit during their terms. Certainly, they were able to set an effective agenda. The government structure we have works when there is a competent, respected leader at the helm.

So how did we find ourselves with a incompetent, disrespected leader at the helm?

We don't need better politicians....we need a better electorate.

 

[diminutive]

I didn't say I was suggesting it.

The mainstream media in Montreal is suggesting it.


Are you still flabbergasted?

Yes, because it's still equally as stupid. Quebec's corruption problems exist for a lot of reasons beyond municipal parties. Likewise, municipal political parties exist in most places; Sweden, London, Switzerland, Tokyo and on and on. It's also why you shouldn't ignore decades of academic work on political parties in favour of one hackneyed article in the Montreal Gazette.

And you made the further suggestion that introducing municipal political parties in Toronto would somehow encourage Mafia inroads, which is outright scaremongering based on a sample of exactly one.

 

[diminutive]

No doubt. But if I'm doing the yelling, I want my councillor to side with me and not default to whatever's in the party playbook.

Right, but in a City there (should) be many people yelling. In Scarborough, apparently, people are yelling for subways. In Parkdale they're yelling against new bars. Downtown they're yelling for bike lanes while in the suburbs they're yelling for more roadspace.

Parties serve to focus yelling onto major, city wide issues.

 

[nfitz]

And you made the further suggestion that introducing municipal political parties in Toronto would somehow encourage Mafia inroads, which is outright scaremongering based on a sample of exactly one.

Not a sample of one. Both Laval and Montreal have had similar problems. And it's foolish to think it's isolated to the 2 of the 3 biggest cities in the province.

The current system isn't broke, no reason to try and "fix" it.

 

[diminutive]

Not a sample of one. Both Laval and Montreal have had similar problems. And it's foolish to think it's isolated to the 2 of the 3 biggest cities in the province.

The current system isn't broke, no reason to try and "fix" it.

The current system may not be 'broke,' but its hard to look at our municipal politicians and see an uplifting example of civic virtue.

In the 15 years since amalgamation we've been totally unable to come up with a permanent transport policy. Some attempts, be they Transit City or OneCity or whatever, are marked by extensive and unnecessary horse swapping (the zombie subway to Scarborough which never dies). The projects which have gone ahead are mostly by the grace of Queen's Park.

Councillors are incentivized to focus on local over municipal issues.

I'm not sure why something which is so normal (political parties in democratic societies) is being treated as if it's such a revolutionary concept.

 

[Lenser]

Right, but in a City there (should) be many people yelling. In Scarborough, apparently, people are yelling for subways. In Parkdale they're yelling against new bars. Downtown they're yelling for bike lanes while in the suburbs they're yelling for more roadspace.

Parties serve to focus yelling onto major, city wide issues.

Good response! But I reserve the right to disagree all the same. Parties also serve to obscure issues by strenuously yammering on over established, contrived - and fairly brittle - lines of demarcation.

To be fair, my view of the usefulness of political parties is doubtless more cynical than yours. I have little faith in the system as it is; political parties feel very mechanical and academic in their stated differences. They demand black and white responses, leaving precious little room for grey. And it's in the grey where I feel most of us live our lives.

 

[junctionist]

With parties at city hall, we could have a stronger focus on significant, city-wide policies in our municipal government. It would be expected. In our system, you can have a mayor elected on any issue that resonates with people, no matter how trivial in the long run. For many of the city's mayors in the past 50 years, few people can even remember what they stood for. With parties, you can get a better sense of what city hall will actually strive to do in terms of city-wide policies as opposed to just the mayor's perspective who has one seat on council.

Imagine a party running on a platform of continuous transit expansion, tough heritage preservation laws, better cycling infrastructure. Every member would have to vote for the implementation of those policies, and could not all of a sudden say "no bike lane on this part of the street in my ward because the BIA wants parking". The reform movement of the 1970s ran a slate of candidates sharing the same values--something more resembling a party. I think that if a mayor wants to advance a vision, he or she should have a party-like organization of council to quickly adopt the policies to make it happen.

I'm not a fan of the unpredictable situation where councillors frequently switch sides when it's expedient to local interests. We also get saddled with councillors who will vote with the mayor for favours like appointments to boards. Councillors will typically not support legitimate city-building policies applying to their area if their voters are NIMBYs. Some councillors are career politicians who vote on policies based on where the political winds are blowing. With parties, we can move away from such parochialism creeping into council agendas. Every council headed by a mayor should be remembered for broad policies like improving parks, building transit, and eliminating debt, for instance.

 

[diminutive]

Good response! But I reserve the right to disagree all the same. Parties also serve to obscure issues by strenuously yammering on over established, contrived - and fairly brittle - lines of demarcation.
To be fair, my view of the usefulness of political parties is doubtless more cynical than yours. I have little faith in the system as it is; political parties feel very mechanical and academic in their stated differences. They demand black and white responses, leaving precious little room for grey. And it's in the grey where I feel most of us live our lives.

I'd almost say it's the reverse and you're less cynical of party-less systems than I am. Obviously poorly designed party and electoral systems can have negative impacts (including corruption, see Italy), but simply getting rid of parties doesn't eliminate partistanship or discourage the 'yammering.' Toronto's City Council couldn't agree on how to take a photo together for the love of god! It's pathetically partisan.

Even worse than black and white, the current system is grey; it's never clear what any councilors vision for the City (let alone the region) is beyond the exceedingly parochial.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Personally I think it's less a matter of party politics and more of a matter of scale/who does what - i.e. is council at large really the best arena for addressing ward level issues with absolutely no wider implication at the city region level. The latter- the bread and butter of municipal politics - feeds parochialism and should arguably be delegated to the community council level.

AoD