How does the urban-suburban divide play out in a 25-seat Toronto council?

Thestar.com
July 28, 2018
Marco Chown Oved

Premier Doug Ford’s bombshell move to cut the size of Toronto city council nearly in half is a win for the suburbs, one sure to penalize people living in the downtown core, say political experts.

“The media keeps calling this a reform. That’s a mistake,” said Roger Keil, a professor and former director of the City Institute at York University. “This is gerrymandering: changing political boundaries in order to favour the party in power. It is a very blatant attempt to change the rules of the game so the opposition can’t win.”

Hundreds gathered in protest Friday as city council debated an emergency motion pertaining to Premier Doug Ford’s plan to cut the size of council down to 25 seats before the fall municipal election.

“What’s happening in Toronto right now, and what is happening in Ontario, is an attempt to bring the old elites back into the seat of power and have them remain there,” he said. “This is not quite Turkey, Hungary or Poland, but we are on a very slippery slope with this kind of politics.”

In the current 44-seat council, suburban councillors held the balance of power, said Evrim Delen, a political consultant and former campaign staffer for 2014 mayoral candidate David Soknacki. After a four-year consultation, Torontonians were poised to elect 47 councillors this October in a redistricting that would add three downtown seats and equalize downtown and suburban representation.

“The 25-seat council definitely takes us back to the suburban advantage,” Delen said. “It brings us back to the time of downtown under-representation.”

The four-year consultation that recommended a 47-seat council dismissed the 25-seat option because downtown wouldn’t have enough representation. City staff explored adding a 26th downtown ward, but this plan was dismissed because it “does not achieve voter parity” and “capacity to represent” --or the number of constituents per city councillor --would be “reduced significantly,” according to the final report of the Toronto Ward Boundary Review.

Nearly half of Torontonians oppose Ford’s plan to slash city council, poll finds
Because suburban councillors tend to vote to the right of downtown councillors, the 25-seat plan “would be dragging council to the right,” Delen said.

The 25 wards will line up with the 25 federal and provincial ridings that already exist. But predicting voting behaviour based on those elected at different levels of government is troublesome.

“Municipal is its own ball game,” said Delen. “People aren’t aware always of their councillors’ political bent. It’s more name recognition, more of a ‘What have you done for me lately?’”

Myer Siemiatycki, a professor of politics at Ryerson University, says the backlash against the province may create a wave of voters in October's election.

In June’s provincial election, the Conservatives won 11 seats in Toronto, the NDP won 11 seats and the Liberals took three. But the election results weren’t typical, as there was a strong “kick out the Liberals” force at play, said Delen. The 2015 federal election, by contrast, was a 25-seat Liberal sweep in the city.

While municipal councillors don’t have formal political affiliations, most can be reliably categorized into left-wing and right-wing caucuses. If you superimpose the new 25 ward boundaries over the existing 44-ward map and identify which political camp existing councillors fall into, the new wards break down into 12 right-wing, seven left-wing and six mixed wards.

“By dropping the number of council seats to 25, 13 produces a majority,” said Delen. “If you’ve got 12 right-wing councillors, you only need one person to come to your side to control council. I expect you’ll see a lot more horse-trading and close votes that go to the right.”

This analysis assumes that people will vote as they have in the past. Myer Siemiatycki, a professor of politics at Ryerson University, says the last-minute intervention by the province could create a backlash against the Tories in October’s election.

“There will likely be a strong ‘defend Toronto’ thrust to the upcoming municipal campaign, and progressives could ride that to a majority on council,” he said.

In recent elections, there have been strong NDP wins downtown, both federally and provincially.

“Ten of the 25 Toronto seats are central city that tends to vote progressive. It would take only a few seats in Scarborough, North York or Etobicoke to shift the balance,” Siemiatycki said.

It has long been noted that whenever there’s a Liberal government in Ottawa, Ontarians tend to vote Conservatives into power at Queen’s Park to act as a counterweight. The same phenomenon could occur at the municipal level, with a progressive council elected to oppose the provincial Tories.

“It would not only be a new election map; it’s an entirely unpredictable and novel election. It will be a campaign we have never seen before. Incumbents versus incumbents and an election fought on the issue of Toronto’s autonomy,” he said.