Oh... Good Lord...

 Some take issue when I deconstruct something someone else has written. Given that Mr. Di Ianni is a former mayor, and given that his op-ed was featured in The Spec, I don't feel much hesitation in 'addressing' his piece in so methodical a way:

Don’t ‘fix’ something working so well 

 Ward boundary changes can wait; councillors showing rare harmony 

-Seriously? That's the lead-off argument? It makes them sound like inconstant children in a rare state of calm unanimity. You know; fractious kids finding ways not to fight. Um... Councillors are paid to work in harmony. They're installed at the pleasure of their employers (the Citizens of Hamilton) to work together towards the betterment of all residents. If it takes something as 'calamitous' as a ward boundary review process to get them wailing and otherwise unproductive again, then we're in a far worse state than I would have admitted. (But I am curious, Larry; do you feel that in this 'harmony' that they're on their way to building a far better city than has been previously seen? If so, can we please have some non-bafflegab examples?)

There are citizens in Hamilton totally engaged in civic affairs. That is good. The quintessential benefit of any democracy is that it allows us to immerse in it as active participants rather than as passive recipients.

-Sure. Agreed. And while I'm curious as to examples you're willing to come up with of such engagement since amalgamation, I'm more engaged with awaiting the 'But...'

The latest issue to galvanize attention has to do with ward boundaries for the city of Hamilton’s civic representation. A petition drive is afoot to have council revise the configuration so the contained populations are more equitably divided. At first glance, this is a most reasonable proposal. If you take the two extremes everyone talks about, Ward 7’s councillor represents more than 40,000 voters on our central Mountain while Ward 14 in rural Flamborough has only 14,000.

-I prefer to stay away from the 'voters' reference, and stick to 'residents'. You know, in the same way that Census Canada does. So while your references are 14,000 and 40,000, mine are roughly 17,000 and 62,000. 

The difference in numbers is obvious, but the reasons for this discrepancy less so. Council representation was formulated to respect almost entirely the previously independent lower-tier municipalities that made up the entire region. Twelve years after amalgamation, the history of that divisive process may be blurring however, leaving some bloggers to erroneously label the workload imbalance as a democratic deficit. 

-Ah... And this is where we have the first divergence. You speak of 'workload imbalance'. I've never referenced this notion (though of course, it's a valid discussion in and of itself), but it tends to reveal a bias on your part, having been a part of local governance previously. And I have to point out that of the major municipalities the Harris government 'amalgamated', Hamilton is the only one that has not undergone ward boundary review/reform...and 6 out of our 15 wards are out-of-whack when it comes to the OMB guidelines for 'relative population parity'. (But more on this presently.)

There is even a claim that Flamborough Councillor Rob Pasuta’s vote is worth four times that of Ward 6’s Scott Duvall. This leap in logic defies even political spin. So far as I know, when councillors vote, only one hand goes up from each elected official, not four. Therefore, each of Hamilton’s representatives (and the mayor, too, for that matter) has an equal vote on every single issue. And each citizen in every ward is equally represented by his or her councillor at City Hall. How is this a democratic deficit if all citizens are represented and all councillors have one equal vote?

-Actually, I think you'll find that what's being talked about is not that Councillor Pasuta's vote is worth four times that of Councillor Duvall's, but that the residents themselves are being under-represented: all things being equal (on strictly this front, as per the OMB guidelines), then if Ward 14 was the benchmark, there would be three additional wards carved out of the resident population of Ward 7. Can you see the difference, Larry? 

If, on the other hand, citizens wish to talk about workload, it is undeniable that an inequality exists. Larger wards do produce more phone calls, more need to communicate with a larger number of constituents and greater expenses in running campaigns at election time. But these are all issues which can be fixed, and should be, without necessarily altering the historic set up we have now. Wards can also be redrawn, but councillors have weighed the pros and cons and have decided that it is premature to change the balance now in place.


-Again, this discussion has nothing to do with 'workload'. It has to do with representation. The former issue can best be dealt with at Council. It might necessitate some explanation ('selling'?) to Hamiltonians, but keep this in mind: Hamilton's per-ward population average is just under 35,000. It's higher than Ottawa...which has more residents...and lower than both Mississauga and Toronto. So it's not like our councillors are being overrun with workload, all things considered. And as for the notion that councillors 'have weighed the pros and cons and have decided that it is premature to change the balance (?) now in place', that's fine. But given the mandate the OMB (read that as 'The Province of Ontario') has provided all residents to initiate a ward boundary review if there is sufficient concern (read that as 'a petition'), then this decision is about to be overridden. (And I deal with how maybe, just maybe this is striking some on Council, here in this post.)




Whether it was wise or not for councillors to “punt” the issue may be open to debate; but some undeniable facts are in council’s favour for delaying the change. The reason stated by staff is that population trends are changing in substantial ways. If the city were to alter the ward designations today, it may need to be done again in several years time to accommodate growth in different areas of the city. Better to be guided by firmer numbers than to risk replacing one imbalance with another. This makes sense.


-'Making sense' is not the same as 'the right decision'. As I said, we are the only one of the major municipalities amalgamated by the Harris government not to have reviewed our ward boundaries. This should not require a petition to initiate. And review, once it's done now, would not require the expense of a consultant, something we're definitely, positively going to need this time through; it would –hopefully– be something that our experience would allow us to deal with on our own next time. Managing wards is part-and-parcel of effective governance. It's not something you should have to 'stop the presses' over. Good Lord, Larry; all anticipating multitaskers out there are shaking their heads. 




But the best reason to leave the status quo flies right in the face of those whose objections are based on a perception of disadvantage for the older, urban part of our city. If the inner city wards are being sacrificed to benefit the more suburban areas, there is scant evidence of that. In fact, as all of the councillors attest, a historic harmony is being exhibited by this council on virtually all major issues. Ward 14’s Rob Pasuta, and indeed all members of council, voted unanimously on the downtown health centre, area rating, the City Motor Hotel expropriation and even the censure of the mayor, to name just a few contentious items. I don’t ever recall this level of unanimity. Nor have I seen evidence of any of the councillors voting for a particular segment of the community to the disadvantage of another. If anything, we have witnessed just the opposite as councillors’ votes have specifically taken into account the sensibilities of all in making decisions.

-I have stated repeatedly that there is no argument for ward boundary review that goes 'We're currently suffering in some of our votes because there are such horrible inequities in our setup.' That's not the issue here, Larry. Although maybe it reveals a little about your experience behind-the-scenes, and at how much internecine squabbling has traditionally been the bane of Hamilton politics...?

Would a change in ward boundaries alter this level of co-operation? Perhaps not, but if Flamborough were made to feel like a freeloader, or Glanbrook like an afterthought, it might reawaken those freedom trains and other divisive movements bent on tearing this community apart rather than uniting it even further.


-Sorry, I can't help but mutter 'Drama Queen'. Here's what I previously said about what you've referred to as 'awakening the giant', aka 'amalgamation grudges':


 The discussion is academic...and moot. Entities that previously had a mayor and councillors experienced being reduced to a solitary councillor in a much bigger setting. There is no way to 'compensate' for this, nor should there be an attempt to. Had amalgamation not been forced onto the five previously-independent municipalities, they would never have chosen to do so, mostly because they would have entered into an uneven agreement based on proportional representation, no matter how long negotiations had been allowed to go on. So this road, one I'm certainly expected to be ventured down, holds little of value. We now have the aforementioned 'Greater Amalgamated City of Hamilton' of more than a half-million people, and as the OMB has mandated ward parity within +/- 25% of the average, then those former municipalities will never again have what they previously had; those days are gone forever. So there needs to be a set response to this line of enquiry so as not to hijack the discussion. And for the record, though community identity has a decided value placed on it at the OMB in these boundary reform proceedings, these grievances will hold insignificant weight with the OMB. 




The time may well come when the ward boundaries will be adjusted. Council has decided that this isn’t the time. I believe we should give them the benefit of the doubt and let them continue working on behalf of all of us, in spite of the number of people they represent in each ward.

-Larry, I couldn't disagree more. I don't believe we should afford them 'the benefit of the doubt', especially when we, the people are empowered to raise a flag on ward boundary issues by our provincial government. And the fact is that Council can continue 'working on behalf of all of us' throughout the process. That's what we pay them for, as our employees. 

M Adrian Brassington