Toronto council like 'parliamentary system'
Torontosun.com
Nov. 15, 2016
By Shawn Jeffords
Just call him Councillor “No.”
Stephen Holyday is the councillor most likely to vote “no” during Toronto city council meetings, casting a vote against resolutions a quarter of the time, according to data from the Manning Centre, a Calgary-based think-tank.
But that doesn’t mean he’s alone when it comes to being a tough sell on resolutions that cross the council floor, the centre’s latest Council Tracker report says.
Data crunched by the think-tank - culled from the first half of this council term, from 2014 to 2016 - suggests that the typical Toronto councillor is 100 times more likely to vote “no” than councillors in other cities.
Manning Centre director of research Peter McCaffrey chalks it all up to the large size of city council - 44 councillors and one mayor - saying it makes forging consensus harder.
“Toronto council, because of the number of councillors, operates much more like a parliamentary system,” he said. “Councillors go in, debate issues and vote, whereas many councils, with say only a dozen councillors, often work out issues behind the scenes.”
McCaffrey added councillors like Holyday are bucking the power of peer pressure that comes up when a vote begins to shift one way or another.
“If the majority is onside with something, there is a pressure to vote with the majority and not be obstructionist,” he said.
Here are some of the reports other findings:
- Council met in open session 94.3% of the time. It met in closed session 5.7% of the time. Those closed sessions largely dealt with personnel matters, litigation and legal advice.
- The councillors most likely to vote together are Janet Davis and Gord Perks, landing on the same side of an issue 92% of the time.
- Least likely to cast a ballot on the same side of an issue were the late councillor Rob Ford and Councillor Sarah Doucette, who only voted alike 27% of the time.
- Council held 19 meetings over 132 sessions which lasted a total of 289 hours and 53 minutes (as of June 30, 2016).
- Council passed 1,583 motions and defeated 242.
