'Let's be trailblazers': Aurora looks at ward system options

Town is second largest in Ontario still electing councillors at large

Yorkregion.com
January 22, 2020
Lisa Queen

On Jan. 15, a public engagement meeting was held at the Aurora Cultural Centre on possibilities for introducing a ward system. Potential options being considered include three, four, five or six wards. Following feedback from residents, a report from consultant Beate Bowron Etcetera is expected to go to council in the spring. For more information, visit aurora.ca/esr.

Here are eight comments from the meeting:

“Is it more important to have the same number of people (in each ward to ensure equitable representation) or is it more important to keep a community undivided?”

“Once a councillor is a ward councillor, that does not imply that that person must not also pay attention to the Aurora-wide issues…They have two functions. They represent their constituents but at the same time they also legislate for the whole town.”

“Shouldn’t you have an odd number (of councillors) so when council is in a meeting, they can pass something (without having a tied voted)?”

“The survey doesn’t give you the option to answer ‘I don’t want any wards.’ Does this not skew the results?”

“It’s very easy to manage a town with (a small) population with no ward system. When I moved here in ’84, (Aurora’s population) was 16,000. Now, we’re talking about practically 61,000 and growing. We can’t possibly as a council or a government, a municipal government, have proper representation and proper services if you don’t have representation in wards because you have to have a person, a councillor, that actively represents your ward to go to council and say ‘These people from this ward, they need this and those people over there, they need that’.”

“Has any municipality had a councillor focused solely on business and industrial? All the other ward councillors would be focused on residential but just have one separate councillor at large only solely focused on business and industrial. We should be trailblazers.”

“Has a town ever adopted a ward system and then, I don’t know, a couple of elections later, decided no, we want to go back?”

“The only municipality (in Ontario) that is larger than Aurora that still uses an at-large system is Sarnia...Aurora is the second largest city in Ontario that still uses an at-large system.”