York Region council not interested in electing its chairperson

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 22, 2015
By Lisa Queen

Psst, Chris Ballard: don’t hold your breath.

Two months ago, the Newmarket-Aurora MPP said he would welcome a motion from York Region asking the province to make the regional chairperson an elected position.

At the moment, the region’s arguably most powerful political position, which comes with a salary of  more than $200,000 a year, is appointed by 20 regional councillors after weeks or months of private discussions.

Ballard argued a motion from the council would do away with the need for his private member’s bill on the issue and send a signal to Queen’s Park that it didn’t need to impose the initiative on the region.

But not only have regional councillors not made the move so far - although Markham Councillor Joe Li intends to raise the issue at council this fall - they have even rejected a baby step toward an elected chair.

As part of a discussion of the province’s review of the Municipal Act, Newmarket Councillor John Taylor suggested the region ask the government for the authority to decide for itself if it wants an elected chairperson and whether or not regional councillors should be directly elected.

The move would not force council to make any decisions, he stressed.

Instead, it would merely give councillors the option of controlling council’s own destiny on the governance issues, he said.

Giving the region the unilateral right to make the decisions would also clear up public confusion about whether the region or the province is taking the lead, Taylor said.

“Right now, it seems like a bit of a cat and mouse game,” he said.

“I just want to point out I’m not saying we should do any of those. I’m saying we should have the right to make those decisions ourselves. That’s it. We can deal with them in a year or two or three or four or whatever... Let’s make it our decision, it should be our decision.”

REJECTED IDEA

However, councillors rejected the idea after little discussion at a committee meeting last week, although they have a chance to revisit the issue again at this week’s council meeting.

Following the meeting, Taylor said he was surprised and disappointed, especially after hearing municipal politicians complain for years that the provincial government has too much authority over local matters.

With the review of the Municipal Act, the province is courting the region’s opinion on the issues, he said.

“It’s not like we were weighing in on something that wasn’t on the table or that we were just throwing something out there. It was a process. They’re reviewing it; they’re asking us specific questions about it,” he said.

“I saw this as an opportunity for us to control our local democracy and I think that’s what the public would want.”

It would also have been an opportunity to consult with the public about local democracy, said Taylor, who said he will not run for regional chairperson next term.

But given council’s historic lack of appetite for an elected chairperson, Li said he was reluctant to support Taylor’s motion because that could result in council unilaterally rejecting the idea.

Keeping the authority to decide the issue at Queen’s Park keeps the prospect of an elected chairperson alive, he said.

After campaigning in favour of an elected chairperson in last fall’s municipal election, Li will soon bring forward a motion asking council to tell the province it wants voters to choose the next chairperson.

He is frustrated with the current system, which he said results in behind-the-scenes deals among regional councillors.

Ballard’s private member’s bill is just the latest attempt in the provincial legislature to make the chairperson elected by residents.

Richmond Hill MPP Reza Moridi’s private member’s bill died in 2012 when then-premier Dalton McGuinty resigned and prorogued the legislature.

Oak Ridges-Markham MPP Helena Jaczek tried again the following year, but a spring election killed her private member’s bill.

Former Toronto Liberal MPP David Caplan’s pitch to make all regional chairs elected was also not adopted.

York’s chairperson, who oversees a population of 1.1 million and an annual budget of $3 billion, should be elected, Ballard has argued.

Meanwhile, despite a staff recommendation suggesting council tell the province that the region doesn’t want any major changes on issues of transparency and accountability, Taylor and Markham Councillor Jack Heath said the region should look at the idea of bringing in some sort of code of conduct.

“On the code of conduct matter, I do think we need a code of conduct here and should be talking about one, working through one,” Heath said.

It doesn’t make sense for councillors to be conducting business at the region while operating under a variety of local codes of conduct, he said.