Conversion

Mayoral candidate backtracks, now wants to make reduced council size a priority

Mayoral Candidate Robert Quaiff

Councillor and mayoral candidate Robert Quaiff has announced he will put the issue of size of council back on the table within a year if elected as mayor.

Last October, Quaiff along with eight other councillors, voted to defeat a Citizens’ Assembly recommendation reducing council size to 10. He had voted for the recommendation at earlier stages of the debate, but after receiving a number of calls and emails, Quaiff changed his mind in the final vote.

Quaiff says now he supported the Citizens’ Assembly, but rejected the fourward reconfiguration.

“Jonathan Rose and our Citizens’ Forum did not have a mandate to advise council how we could achieve that,” said Quaiff. “there is widespread public opposition to changing our historic ward boundaries.”

By then, he says, it was too late to implement changes to council size in time for this fall’s election.

Quaiff says there are actually three issues that must be resolved: the number of councillors, the ward boundaries and equitable representation for all wards.

“I think Council had assumed that we would need to change ward boundaries to achieve balanced representation and a smaller council, but we don’t,” he said. “ There are better ways of reducing council size and getting equitable representation without changing ward boundaries.”

Quaiff says he will make the issue a priority in 2015 if elected.

“I regret that I did not insist that Council deal with this matter earlier in our present term of office, but I guess we all thought that the Citizens’ Assembly would help us to resolve this ongoing contentious issue in time for our October election,” says Quaiff. “Unfortunately, that scenario did not unfold as some of us had expected.”