Vaughan council opts to keep ward boundaries as is for 2018 election

Councillors didn't adopt the recommendations of its consultants to change the boundaries despite a warning it would throw voter parity "quite out of whack" by 2022

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 25, 2017
By Adam Martin-Robbins

Vaughan’s political boundaries won’t be redrawn for the 2018 municipal election.

Council has opted not to implement the recommendations of a team of consultants to alter the boundaries of the city’s five wards.

Among the most significant proposed changes was moving the Nashville community, located west of Hwy. 27 and north of Major Mackenzie Drive, to Ward 2 (Woodbridge West) from Ward 1 (Maple/Kleinburg).

The other major proposed change was shifting the northern boundary of Ward 4 (Concord/Thornhill North) from Teston Road up to Kirby Road to absorb a block of primarily estate subdivisions between Keele Street and Dufferin Street from Ward 1.

Other proposed adjustments included relocating a small pocket west of Pine Valley Drive, near Teston Road, to Ward 1 from Ward 3 (Woodbridge East) and shifting the border between Ward 4 and Ward 5 (Thornhill).

Those adjustments, according to the consultants, create more equitable population distributions between wards - necessary for effective representation - that would last until the 2026 election and “probably” until 2030.

But the proposal to remove blocks from Ward 1 didn’t sit well local ratepayers’ groups representing those areas.

Maple/Kleinburg Councillor Marilyn Iafrate told the consultants she didn’t support the recommended changes, in part, due to the position of those groups, but also because the population numbers they used don’t seem to reflect where development is actually occurring.

“The numbers I’m looking at here don’t even seem to be reflective of the growth that is happening down by the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, not to mention the growth that will be imminently happening at the Vaughan Mills area,” she said.

Iafrate wasn’t the only councillor opposed to making changes.

“I’m really upset that we did this (review) in the first place,” Woodbridge East Councillor Rosanna DeFrancesca said. “The fact that the study shows there is very little boundary change physically with the projected numbers tells me we did this prematurely.”

The consultants told councillors failing to act will throw voter parity between wards “quite out of whack” by 2022.

But councillors voted, at the June 17 committee of the whole meeting, to simply receive the consultants’ report and not implement its recommendations.

They stuck by that position at the Jan. 24 council meeting.

The current ward boundaries were created by an Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) decision before the 2010 election.

Local activist Antony Niro, in early 2013, submitted a petitioned asking council to create a sixth “countryside” ward and adjust the boundaries of the current wards for the 2014 election. Council refused, opting instead to conduct a ward boundary review for the 2018 election.

Niro appealed council’s decision to the OMB, but the board dismissed his appeal, in part, because the city said it was planning a review for 2018.

Niro said he’s not surprised council didn't adopt the boundary changes recommended as a result of the review, which cost $93,875.

“They’re doing this because of the OMB hearing I had several years ago,” he said. “I don’t consider this a city initiative, it’s more of an obligation. ... It was kind of the deal they made as part of why they did not accept my proposal.”