If you have ever been in a meeting with 20 people in the room, you will know that it is difficult to stick to the agenda. There are just too many opportunities for distraction.

Add two dozen more people to make it 44 in the meeting and it becomes more than twice as difficult; yet that is the size of Toronto City Council, plus the mayor to make it 45. No wonder our council is commonly described as dysfunctional.

And it is going to get worse. Under the current model, there are two councillors for every federal/provincial riding. And with redistribution, the number of ridings is about to rise from 22 to 25.

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Downsizing city council doesn't make sense

If we adhere to the formula of two per riding, that means we will be electing 50 councillors in the next municipal election (in 2018).

That sounds like a lot, and it is. New York City, with three times our population, makes do with 51 councillors.

Furthermore, New York, like most American cities, has a party system. There are Democrats and Republicans, and they can be whipped into line.

There are no parties in our municipal politics. The 44 councillors at Toronto City Hall are basically free agents whose vote is up for grabs on any and every issue. Trying to find a majority on an issue-by-issue basis is the bane of every mayor’s existence. It is why our city has so much trouble making difficult decisions.

There are three possible solutions to this problem.

One is to introduce a party system to city hall. With it would come the sort of discipline that is needed to manage a 50-person council.

But multiple efforts to bring party politics to the city — dating back at least four decades — have failed miserably. As voters, we seem congenitally averse to municipal parties.

Another is to move toward a “strong mayor” system, which would allow the chief magistrate to run roughshod over council. But our recent experience with a crack-addict mayor makes us nervous about this option.

Finally, we could dramatically reduce the size of council by choosing one member per federal/provincial riding.

In 2018, that would give us 25 councillors, which is still a lot. But it is better than 50. The goal is not to save money by having fewer politicians but to make council more functional.

It would also have the ancillary benefit of aligning the representatives of all three levels of government under one riding/ward name. This would enhance accountability.

(The municipal wards are currently designated by number. Ask your neighbours the number of their ward. You will find that almost no one knows. And if you don’t, it is hard to know to whom to address your complaint.)

But I wouldn’t stop at cutting council in half. I would also reach into the past and resurrect the board of control, an elected body that we abolished in the 1960s. This board was elected city-wide and served as an executive committee with the mayor. They were super-councillors, with enhanced clout.

With amalgamation, however, electing a board of control city-wide would be problematic. The megacity is just too big for that.

Instead, we should divide the city into, say, five regions and elect controllers by region. That would give voice to parts of the city that may feel neglected if the mayor is not someone of their choosing.

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As for the boundaries of these regions, Scarborough and Etobicoke are obvious choices; the rest can be subject to debate.

In addition to serving on the executive committee, the controllers could also chair the community councils. That would breathe new life into these bodies and take some of the weight of purely local issues off the full council.

Governing by consensus is a good idea. But the current structure of city council is not conducive to governing or consensus.

Ian Urquhart is a former Star editorial page editor and was a volunteer in Karen Stintz’s mayoral campaign.

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