Inside the sausage factory

Mayor Quaiff knew it wouldn’t work. He understood the Ontario Municipal Board would look badly upon his council’s decision-making on the issue. He knew that by failing to complete the process council itself had framed, an objective reader of electoral law in Canada would be hard pressed to say he and his colleagues had met basic procedural tests—or had worked in good faith to do so. Worse, he knew that council’s ultimate decision failed to satisfy the criteria it had established just days before making its fateful decision.

“I’m disappointed,” Quaiff said after the council meeting November 10, 2015. He was frustrated after finding himself on the losing side of a vote that hastily decided to reduce the size of council by just two members. It was a plan promoted by its backers as a means to avoid OMB scrutiny. And while true that the OMB tends to resist second-guessing elected officials, the Board takes a keen interest in how these folks arrive at their decisions, whether it was done in good faith and that the decision-makers were respectful, or even mindful, of the legal standards that govern electoral boundaries.

Quaiff knew he and his council members had bungled things badly and that a day of reckoning would arrive—a day in which he and his fellow council representatives would have to explain themselves. That day has come. The OMB hearing looking into these questions begins next Wednesday at Shire Hall. In the full light of day.

“What I specifically wanted council to do, was take my advice and finish the process,” said Quaiff. “Unfortunately, council didn’t want to finish the process.”

He knew, too, that the decision they made that day failed Shire Hall’s own test—a list of criteria Shire Hall developed to assess its alternatives, approved by council just weeks earlier.

“Does it create voter parity?” he asked of his council colleagues. “Does it create rep by pop (representation by population)? Does it keep community interests in play? All of those features? Did we do what we were supposed to do? For me, no.”

Despite Mayor Quaiff’s objections, council brought the decision forward for ratification the following January. Even a last gasp attempt by Councillor Kevin Gale to defer making a final decision until council had received a legal opinion on the survivability of its decision if appealed, failed on a tie 8- 8 vote.

During this meeting, the County’s manager James Hepburn was asked if it was his view that council had followed its self-defined process in arriving at its decision. Hepburn paused a long time. Finally, he admitted they had not.

“Not fully,” said Hepburn.

Council was undaunted. Many simply wanted to see an end to this tiresome debate. Some openly defied the OMB—spoiling for a fight with the provincial arbitrator. Sadly, some failed to understand the significance of the statement coming, as it did, from its senior-most administrator.

By a recorded voted—10 in favour, six against—council ratified its decision. And thus, County council put themselves, and taxpayers, on a track toward an expensive and ultimately precarious appeal.

Often overlooked in this perennial debate has been the will of the County electorate. The voters. This is, I expect, is because there is seemingly little burning public passion left in this debate—any residual enthusiasm likely drained away years ago. It is not an issue that stirs public dander. Fatigue is a more commonly expressed emotion by the general public for the size of council debate.

Curiously, however, many participants are eager to claim this apparent apathy as support for, and satisfaction with, the existing arrangement—15 councillors and 1 mayor. This is demonstrably false.

While it may be argued that many folks simply can’t be bothered to consider whether it is right or fair that one ward with 550 voters has a council representative while another ward with a single councillor represents 2,000 electors, it cannot be inferred that folks are happy with the arrangement. Or, that some County residents have the benefit of one representative on council, while others have two and some have three.

It is far more likely they have given up hope that council members will look past their own self-interest to do the right and fair thing for this community.

When the County electorate has been asked in a formal way, those voters who responded have made it abundantly clear they are unsatisfied with the existing arrangement and want a smaller council. Three times.

The issue was put on the electoral ballot in 2010. Eighty-one per cent of respondents voted in favour of a “review of the size of council”—the watered-down compromise-wording that ended up on the ballot. Council ignored this result, arguing that less that 50 per cent of the voters had cast a ballot in the municipal election. In their minds, the lack of voter turnout delegitimized the validity of the size of council question— though this same underwhelming voter turnout, paradoxically, did nothing to undermine their own legitimacy to sit around the council table.

In 2013, the County established a Citizens’ Assembly— a comprehensive and well tested method to seek public input on a single issue. After a summer of work, the Citizens’ Assembly—commissioned by council— recommended reducing this body to 10 councillors plus mayor.

To no avail. Once again council rejected the findings of this public consultation.

In 2015, the County conducted a survey of four proposals it had rendered for public consultation. The least-favoured option among those presented was the status quo or the existing arrangement of 15 councillors and one mayor. The second-least-favoured option, of the four, was the plan seized upon by council—13 councillors and one mayor. Bear in mind, council only reached this conclusion after it was persuaded that leaving council unchanged—their preferred solution—was unlikely to survive an appeal.

Three times County residents have rendered their opinion. In each case, council has self-servingly chosen to ignore it.

Next week, all this all gets laid bare.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca

Note: The Times has posted a timeline of significant events in the decade this saga has lingered in County politics at wellingtontimes.ca. There is also a variety of stories and commentary charting the course of this debate.