Mayor Tory fields questions on council reduction at transit announcement

Thestar.com
July 27, 2018
Alexandria Jones

Mayor John Tory says he has been “thrown under the bus,” after a heated city hall meeting Friday.

At a media scrum ostensibly to discuss new transit improvements on Kingston Rd. in Scarborough Saturday morning, Tory was questioned about Premier Doug Ford’s plan to slash Toronto city council seats from 47 to 25 before this fall’s election.

Mayor John Tory exchanged heated words with Councillor Mike Layton on Friday evening during debate on an emergency motion pertaining to Premier Doug Ford’s plan to cut the size of Toronto City Council.

At city hall Friday, Tory had exploded at a subtle implication from Councillor Mike Layton that Tory had known about the plan far in advance and informed no one.

Although calmer Saturday morning, he stuck by his claim that he had no idea that Ford was actually going to go through with cutting the council seats. The premier did raise the topic of drastic cuts to Toronto city council with the mayor --but only in a conversation less than two minutes long, Tory said.

He said the mention from Ford had seemed more like a “musing.”

“I said I thought that (cutting the size of council before the election) was impractical and just couldn’t be possible, regardless of my willingness to participate in discussions about the changing of a lot of things to do with city governance, and the subject dropped after that and so I didn’t even take it serious,” Tory said.

“I will not put up with people like Councillor Mike Layton challenging my integrity.”

He said it was an example of “the kind of character assassination that goes on in politics that people don’t like.”

Tory admitted he wished the premier had spoken to him further about the plan before launching it, clarifying that “the only discussion we had (on the topic) that lasted longer than, say, a minute and a half or two minutes was the one we had on the telephone when he was informing me this was happening on Thursday night this past week.”

Ford told reporters at Queen’s Park on Friday that he had to spoken to Tory more than once about cutting the size of council, and that their staff had also talked.

 

As soon as he was informed on Thursday of the premier’s plan for the downsizing, Tory said he began immediately to push back and bring up a “constructive suggestion” for a referendum to allow the public to have their say on the decision.

“And so I think I’ve done my job there. I’ve done it in a responsible manner,” Tory said. “And I don’t think it warrants anybody challenging my integrity.”

According to provincial rules, the deadline for a referendum question to be added to this fall’s ballot has passed. Tory said he is confident that the province will make an allowance in this case, though he did call it “politically complicated.”

Tory has faced criticism from other city councillors on what some say is a weak response to Ford’s sudden slashing of Toronto councillors.

“What good is a referendum? That is a meek response,” Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam told reporters Friday. “You can’t respond meekly to a bully from Queen’s Park.”

At the Saturday scrum, Scarborough councillors Paul Ainslie and Gary Crawford also gave their input on the situation.

Ainslie, councillor for Ward 43, said that when ward boundaries were being reviewed a couple of years ago, the consultation process was “comprehensive,” and the people he spoke to were primarily concerned with having proper representation --a concern that looms large now, since the proposed cuts would see the remaining councillors in charge of many more constituents than before. Only a small number of constituents he has spoken to expressed an interest in cutting city council in half, he said.

“We’re in a representative democracy,” Ainslie said. “I think making decisions over the phone or in a small group of people without any public consultation is not a representative democracy.”

Crawford, who represents Ward 36, agreed with Tory that the timing and handling of Ford’s announcement of the cuts were “not appropriate,” but said he has been supportive of the idea of reducing the council to 25 members, as long as the right supports are there for the councillors.

“That will be my priority, to ensure that the residents know --whether it’s 25, whether it’s 47, 44 (councillors) --that when they call my office (with) a concern, complaint, that it will be addressed in a timely manner,” he said.

Despite Tory’s optimism on the province allowing a referendum on the decision, he made sure to state, as he has before, that “the province has immense powers when it comes to what they can do with the city of Toronto.”