Apparently, this is where we're all headed...and I'm driving.

Technically, Councillor Merulla said "all Hell will break loose", but you get my point.

In this week's Hamilton Community News, there's an article entitled 'Councillors warn against redrawing Hamilton ward map'. I'm feeling a little feisty, so I'm going to de-construct it. 

Hamilton politicians are defending their decision to stand pat on the city’s ward boundaries, warning a petition demanding they be redrawn to provide for equal representation will reignite “the yellow shirts” from Flamborough.

Right. This is what I refer to as a touch of 'Chicken Little' and a lot of fomenting. Lord knows we don't want 'the yellow shirts' to get up in arms, because then- Well, I'm not sure. What is the potential calamity that will ensue if this happens?

Ward 4 Councillor Sam Merulla said the existing boundaries are a hangover from amalgamation and have been left alone because changing them has been characterized as divisive and parochial.

Fascinating. That's not the reasoning provided to the public. I thought it was more along the lines that with shifting population, Council was waiting for 'the best moment possible' (my term) before going down that road. Maybe the descriptives provided by Councillor Merulla were ones only proffered in private?

“Once people realize what this means all hell will break loose and then the media will be even happier because then they’ll have more to write about,” Merulla said of the 686-signature petition, which gathered steam after a Hamilton Spectator columnist raised the issue.

Oh...Good...Lord. The evil media...and the mindless masses, who are only capable of being roused out of their complacency when it's something emotional being discussed. Such as the longstanding grudges over amalgamation. 

“We need to truly communicate this for what it is, and what this is, truly, is what everyone was fighting against to begin with, and that is to divide the city.”

I'm a no-nonsense kind of guy, as I know the councillor is, so I'll just cut to the chase: If you truly believe that this petition, and the goal to have the ward boundaries reviewed due to population disparities is being pushed forward by a mindset of wanting to 'divide the city', then all I can do -with propriety at the fore- is to shake my head. 

City councillors have until July 24 to respond to the petition, which asks that Hamilton be divided into “evenly distributed” wards in time for the 2014 municipal election.

If council fails to act, the petitioners can appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board, which could impose ward changes if it agrees the existing distribution is unfair.

While agreeing to refer the petition to their general issues committee, several councillors rejected that the current alignment is detrimental to more populous inner-city wards.

I tend to flinch at this constant 'inner-city' wards. To me, this means 'Lower City'. And this is not what the petition is about. It's about the fact that while the OMB 'Relative Population Parity' mandates that all wards fall within a '+/-25% of the average' range, one of our wards has almost four times the population of another. And this ward...Ward 7...is not an 'inner-city' ward, by any definition I'm familiar with. 

Stoney Creek Councillor Brad Clark said representation by population can’t be the sole arbiter and the existing boundaries try to ensure “effective representation.”

Um... Nobody ever said it was. In fact, I'm sure that anyone on the 'petition' side of the endeavour is aware that it's only just one of four factors. However, while it cannot be the sole arbiter to try to endure 'effective representation', it also cannot be arbitrarily ignored...as many on Council seem determined to do. 

As a then-member of the Conservative provincial government that imposed amalgamation, he said he argued successfully for the creation two rural wards – 11 and 14 – to give the agricultural community a real say at city hall.

And I'm pleased as punch that Councillor Clark played this role...but can we please stick to the facts? And the facts include nobody on the petition side of the endeavour having ever talked about taking anything away from 'the agricultural community'. In fact, to their credit, I haven't seen anything in terms of 'proposals', contentious or not, save from the ones I've presented. (I am an indisputable loudmouth.) Those who wish to see ward boundary reform have simply asked for a review of the current boundaries, and a better distribution of the city's population. This is not an 'Us vs Them' situation, no matter how some councillors seem Hell-bent on constructing via their sound-bites. 

“I’m a little concerned that there’s so much attention being paid to rep-by-pop because that’s not what effective representation’s about,” Clark said, urging councillors to take the petition seriously given the potential for an OMB challenge.

Firstly, thank-you Councillor Clark for being the voice of reason in advising that his colleagues take the petition seriously. (If they don't, the situation has the potential to get very embarrassing. And not for the residents.) But I have to point out that the declaration 'rep-by-pop is not what effective representation's about' is disingenuous. It is not the sole factor in 'effective representation', but it ain't a throwaway, either.

“We need to argue, meritoriously, that our ward boundaries are valid substantively as they are today.”

And I look forward with enormous anticipation listening to these meritorious arguments...and the ensuing counter-arguments from residents...as well as those from a consultant, whom I certainly hope we end up bringing into the effort. (Given the reluctance of Council to deal with this issue, I have little confidence that the task would be executed with any degree of sincerity or thoroughness, left to its own devices. 

Ward 7 Councillor Scott Duvall, who has the most constituents at more than 62,000, said he initially pushed for boundary changes when elected last term, but now agrees effective representation is more important.

My response? 'No comment.' (See, discretion is the better part of valour.)

Council has helped ease his concerns about burning out his staff by providing additional resources to reflect a bigger workload, he said, but he still looks forward to the upcoming debate.

“There’s about 15 different ideas on how we’re going to handle this, so it’s going to get quite interesting down the road,” Duvall said.

“You’re going to see a lot of residents come here (to city hall) because they’re going to make sure they want to be represented also,” he said.

“I welcome it, and I think that everybody at the end of this day… will have a better understanding of everybody’s feelings in Hamilton and not just a group.”

I'm tempted to go back to my 'No comment' comment, but I'll venture a little and mutter 'Damned with faint praise.'

Flamborough Councillor Robert Pasuta, whose Ward 14 encompasses more than a third of Hamilton’s land mass but has the second smallest population, said his constituents are already “up in arms” over the petition.

Oh? Really? They're upset at the democratic process? They're upset because they're perceiving the petition to be a slap in the face? A renewal of 'urban vs sub-urban' conflagrations? I'm a little saddened if they are in fact, 'up in arms', but I'm also heartened: if we can't talk about something as fundamental as ward boundaries and everything that goes along with them, then we're far more fuckled than I would have thought. But for the sake of argument, go back to this Spec op-ed I had published online last month.  

He said he believes all councillors work for the betterment of the city and not just their particular area.

“I’m hoping those days are passed, when we had the battles,” Pasuta said. “There have been many, many, many committee meetings where lots of the issues out there involved inner-city wards. I sit through them, I listen, I vote, I vote for my colleagues to support building a better city.”

Wonderful. Then if 'all councillors work for the betterment of the city and not just their particular area', then we shouldn't have any problems if we end up with a different boundary configuration when the review process is all done-and-dusted, correct? If everyone's priority is 'the big picture', then all this 'Yellow Shirts' vs 'The Petitioners' is, to paraphrase the words of The Bard of Avon: 

"a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." 

 Onwards, shall we move ever onwards...?




M Adrian Brassington