Three seats being added to Toronto council for the 2018 election
Provincial tribunal backs council-approved plan to boost the number of wards to 47 from 44 to better balance representation.

Thestar.com
Jennifer Pagliaro
Dec. 15, 2017

There will be three more politicians seated in Toronto’s council chamber after the 2018 election.

In a 38-page decision released Friday, the Ontario Municipal Board agreed with a city council approved redrawing of ward boundaries, increasing the number of wards to 47 from 44.

In what appears to be a rare move, one of the three members on the deciding panel, Blair Taylor, dissented. He believed that a 25-ward option should have been approved, as was argued by the lawyer representing Councillor Justin Di Ciano and a private citizen.

“On the facts of this case, the board finds that there are no clear and compelling reasons to interfere with the decision of council,” wrote members Jan Seaborn and Hugh Wilkins, who were the majority.

The OMB ruling came after two city councillors and several citizens appealed council’s 2016 decision to approve the 47-ward option recommended by third-party consultants.

The new boundaries will see four new wards created three downtown and one in North York. One ward in the western part of downtown will disappear. Seven suburban wards will see no boundary changes at all.

The average ward population is targeted to be maintained at 61,000 people with most ward populations varying from that standard by no more than 15 per cent by 2026.

The redistribution will shake up the 2018 election, adding open seat races and pitting incumbents in Mayor John Tory’s inner circle against each other.

The collapsing of three wards into two in the Davenport and Parkdale areas affects sitting Councillors Ana Bailao, Tory’s affordable housing advocate, and Cesar Palacio, the chair of the municipal licensing and standards committee, along with left-wing Councillor Gord Perks. It’s expected Bailao and Palacio will run against each other in 2018.

Additional wards are created downtown by splitting the existing Wards 20 (Trinity-Spadina), 27 and 28 (Toronto Centre-Rosedale).

The city launched a review of ward boundaries in 2014, after the existing structure was challenged at the OMB.

The populations of the current wards are becoming increasingly unbalanced as unprecedented growth is seen in urban centres and other pockets, city-hired consultants found.

The aim in restructuring the ward boundaries was to balance populations sizes to achieve voter parity a Supreme Court of Canada-backed principle that every residents’ vote should have equal weight.

Bruce Engell, the Toronto lawyer representing Ward 5 (Etobicoke Lakeshore) Councillor Di Ciano and resident Anthony Natale, built a case around concerns about the methodology used by the consultants and argued the board should impose a 25-ward structure also considered by council.

It and other appeals challenged the 47-ward option, arguing acceptable voter parity would not be immediately achieved for the upcoming 2018 election.

The city’s lawyer Brendan O’Callaghan said the board should not overturn a decision of council that took the advice of independent consultants after an almost four-year review.

The city argued the 25-ward option, which follows federal ridings, would also not achieve voter parity in 2018 and that the 47-ward option provided an acceptable range of parity for each election compared to the alternatives.

The board agreed with the city that the 25-ward option does not achieve a better parity result in 2018 and will not result in an unfair election.

“The 47-ward structure does not achieve ‘perfect’ voter parity for each election cycle. However, none of the alternative options achieve perfect voter parity either,” the OMB decision reads. “Effective representation is the primary goal and the board finds that the 47-ward structure, reflected in the by-laws, does achieve that goal.”

Board member Taylor, who said he would have imposed a 25-ward structure, argued the 47-ward option “will affect the Charter given fundamental right to vote (and effective representation), and unduly dilute that right to thousands of voters, not just in the 2018 election but for all the decisions of city council in the four-year term of office.”

The decision noted the OMB which is currently in the process of being reformed itself has the power to overturn a council decision and impose different boundaries, but said it must only be done in the “clearest of cases.”

The OMB did approve one minor change to the council-approved boundaries, moving Crothers Woods near the Leaside neighbourhood back into the ward where it has existed for many decades.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7 York West), who did not propose an alternative option and was not represented by a lawyer, also had his appeal dismissed. The board simply wrote: “The board rejects the relief sought by Mr. Mammoliti which is, in essence, ‘do nothing’.”

The OMB was on the clock with this decision, with the city requesting a ruling come no later than Dec. 31 to give the city clerk time to prepare for the election.

The decision can be appealed to Divisional Court, which would have to first grant leave to appeal before it could be heard by a multi-member panel.

O’Callaghan said the OMB decision would need to be put on hold before Dec. 31 for the new ward boundaries to be blocked for the 2018 election.

The decision on Toronto’s ward boundaries comes just after the OMB rejected the plan approved by Hamilton’s council to make only minor changes to their own wards.

That council decision, the Hamilton Spectator reported, did not follow the advice from third-party consultants who presented options to rebalance Hamilton’s ward populations, leaving some councillors and concerned citizens accusing the majority of council of gerrymandering.