Without question, last week’s vote on the ranked-ballot bill proposed by Scarborough Liberal MPP Mitzi Hunter represented a huge victory for the reformers at RaBIT Toronto, who have succeeded in racking up an impressive series of wins for a game-changing improvement to local politics.

Yet I’m concerned that the obvious stage-management around the tabling of this private-member’s bill suggests that its arrival on the floor of the provincial legislature has more to do with pre-election positioning by the Liberals than a genuine commitment to a coherent governance reform agenda.

Let’s skip, for the moment, all the over-used bromides about Kathleen Wynne’s long-standing commitment to local government blah blah blah. Rather, consider the architecture of what’s transpired:

First, as has been noted elsewhere, Bill 166 — which was tabled in late February and passed second reading last week — must still run the gauntlet of a potentially time-consuming standing committee review, plus third reading and royal assent. Does all this happen before a spring election? Unlikely. It’s probably going to die on the order paper, and then we have to wait for a new session to see if this idea gets back on the next government’s legislative agenda.

In other words, the sub-textual messaging is that if you are a progressive-minded Toronto voter who happens to know and care about ranked ballots, vote for the Liberals because they may — may — deliver reform re-elected. Cynical? Yes. But I’d say this government has done plenty to deserve our skepticism.

Second, the government has opted to allow ranked ballots to surface in the form of a private member’s bill, as opposed to a government bill. In terms of the optics, I suppose the governance reform story-line becomes more compelling if the government in power demonstrates that change can, in fact, come from the caucus. (There’s a somewhat similar narrative arc with the federal election reform law.)

But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that Hunter, seized of an urge to reform Toronto elections, tabled 166 without the express consent of the premier’s office. Wynne, who turned up at the after-party, obviously wants to be associated with this project, which makes me wonder why she didn’t promote the ranked ballots reform to the status of a government bill. Again, it seems, from where I sit, that the process has been meticulously scripted, with a target audience in mind.

Third, the legislation, as currently worded, is not prescriptive. As Section 2.1 states, “The City may pass a bylaw that adopts a ranked ballot voting system…” (emphasis added).

Why not “shall?”

It’s a serious question. I know that Dave Meslin and the RaBIT team are in this game for the long haul. But the political reality they face is that Bill 166 is merely necessary but definitely not sufficient. If the bill passes, the next council could, in theory, choose to proceed with ranked ballots. But confronted with the reality of enacting a major overhaul in local elections, with all the attendant uncertainty and upheaval, the councillors may also opt to duck and weave and procrastinate. Council has always struggled to reform its own rules.

I’d rather see the Liberals decree this change, and then the City can move ahead with preparing for 2018. Instead, we face the prospect of more re-litigating. (It’s worth noting that the Liberals this week also announced that they’ll be pressing ahead with a bill that gives provincial ombudsman Andre Marin extensive powers to investigate municipalities, including the City of Toronto, and school boards. There’s no “may” in that move. The powers will be mandated, end of sentence.)

Lastly, I’d argue that the attention around ranked ballots serves to overshadow other crucial governance/democratic reforms in our municipal system.

For example, will ranked ballots short-circuit the advantage of incumbency for ward councillors? Possibly, but I’d say it’s not likely. At the federal and provincial level, the name recognition premium for any sitting elected official is counter-balanced by the cyclical shift in power that occurs in most legislative bodies. But in a party-free municipal system, incumbency is not merely a massive electoral advantage for individual politicians; it also represents a systemic obstacle to democratic renewal for the council as a whole.

We can seriously ask why any councillor should hold office for more than three terms. If the Liberals genuinely want to revive municipal democracy, they should be thinking about incumbency restrictions as an adjunct to ranked ballots.

There’s one other thread to this debate, and it reaches into the realm of municipal policy-making. For all sorts of historical reasons, the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) lacks an upper tier governance body mandated to address regional issues, such as economic development and transit/transportation. Anne Golden recommended a Greater Toronto council almost twenty years ago, and still thinks it’s the best solution to managing a highly integrated metropolitan area crisscrossed by increasingly redundant municipal borders. (She’s correct.)

The unrelieved chaos of the GTA’s transit debate is specifically symptomatic of the dearth of a regional body with the authority and resources to act. That structural shortcoming should also be part of the debate over how to make local government in the Toronto area more democratic, accountable and responsible. But apart from some vague promises to appoint a few politicians to the Metrolinx board, the Liberals have demonstrated no appetite for these kinds of fixes.

The point is, if the Liberals want to be viewed as championing reforms to municipal democracy, I’d like to see them articulate how the ranked ballots initiative fits into a broader tapestry of over-due change. But as it stands, Bill 166 mostly looks (to me, anyway) like a tactical move by Wynne’s Liberals to shore up her progressive flank in Toronto. The ballot, in other words, is still in their court.

photo by Sean Ganann