Markham, Vaughan shut out of big mayors’ caucus, Heath complains

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 13, 2015
By Lisa Queen

When mayors of Canada’s largest cities met last Thursday to discuss major issues facing their municipalities, such as transit and affordable housing, there were no York Region mayors at the table.

That exclusion has upset Markham Regional Councillor Jack Heath, who pointed out Markham and Vaughan have larger populations than some of the municipalities represented at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Big City Mayors Caucus.

There are 22 mayors on the caucus, but even though Markham is Canada’s 16th largest municipality, with 301,000 residents, and Vaughan is 17th, with a population of 288,000, their mayors aren’t included.

The mayors of smaller cities, such as Gatineau, Longueuil, Saskatoon, Kitchener, Regina and St. John’s are on the caucus.

An FCM spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

But Heath, who sits on the FCM board, said Markham and Vaughan aren’t on the caucus because FCM wants to ensure an equitable representation of cities from across Canada.
That means the Greater Toronto Area’s representation on the caucus has been limited to Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton.

That doesn’t sit well with Heath, who is concerned York municipalities don’t have a voice on the caucus when pressing issues are being discussed.

“Toronto city council is not the voice of the GTA, just for itself,” he said in an email.

“It is very rare that concerns for regional issues are expressed at Toronto council. Given their druthers, all the rapid transit money from Ottawa for the GTA should be spent in Toronto.”
Heath raised the issue of Markham and Vaughan not being on the caucus previously and plans to inquire at an FCM board meeting in the future.

“I did inquire about this a year ago. It did upset me. But it does seem an uphill challenge,” he said.

“I thought Markham and Vaughan should become members, but I was told it had been considered before and ran up against geographic considerations... I will raise it at an FCM board meeting in the future, but I don’t expect success working around ‘geographic considerations’.”

The membership of the caucus should be boosted to include the mayors of Markham, Vaughan and Burnaby and Richmond, B.C., Heath said.