Toronto is drawing lines. And you can have your say.

The Toronto Ward Boundary Review is holding a series of public meetings as part of their examination of the size and shape of our municipal electoral wards.

By changing ward boundaries, and by possibly increasing the number of wards in the city, the review aims to ensure that city councillors have relatively equal numbers of constituents in order to create more equitable representation at city hall for the 2018 election.

“This process is long overdue,” veteran city councillor Maria Augimeri says. “To the detriment of the system, the planners of ward boundaries have erred on the side of natural boundaries that don’t make sense in a 21st century city.”

Of Toronto’s 44 wards, several currently have populations that are significantly greater or lower than the city-wide average of about 61,000 residents. According to 2011 census data, Ward 23 (Willowdale) is the city’s most populous with 88,435 residents. That makes it nearly double the size of Ward 29 (Toronto-Danforth), the city’s smallest, which had 44,935 residents in 2011.

The $800,000 review is being conducted by third party consultants to help avoid potential gerrymandering. The City of Toronto is overseeing the process, and the public is being consulted to help ensure that new ward boundaries preserve community and neighbourhood cohesion. A final report is expected to be delivered to City Hall by the spring of 2016.

Toronto’s current ward boundaries were created in 2000 after Mike Harris’ provincial government introduced the Fewer Municipal Politicians Act. Those lines were drawn by cutting each of the then 22 provincial and federal ridings in half. Toronto’s 1997 amalgamation had already reduced seven municipal governments with a total of 106 politicians (including mayors) to a single government of 57 politicians. Since 2000, Toronto’s population has grown from 2.1 to 2.8 million — and that growth has not been uniform in the city’s electoral districts.

“Every government everywhere redraws its boundaries after every census so that they can continue to have equal representation … it’s just been weirdly delayed in Toronto,” says Zack Taylor, an assistant professor in the University of Toronto Scarborough’s city studies program.

Taylor wouldn’t comment on what ideal ward sizes and numbers would be. Those decisions, he says, should be made with considerable public participation.

“If we decide that we want to have a smaller council, then we need to increase the resources that councillors have to reach out to constituents,” Taylor says. “If we’re going to have a larger council, then we need to think about how the business of council can be conducted in an efficient way. There are tradeoffs to having large councils and small councils, both for democracy and for the efficiency of council enacting its business.”

Prior to his election, and during his tenure as mayor, Rob Ford repeatedly declared that he wanted to cut the city’s number of wards in half as part of his efforts to derail the “gravy train.”

Veteran city councillor John Filion represents Ward 23: the city’s most populous. He would like to see the city create 40 to 44 wards of relatively equal population size.

“I not only have the largest ward by population, but it’s also an extremely complicated ward with a huge number of large development applications,” Filion says.

“If you believe in local government as being a place where people can really shape the communities they live in, then you want boundaries that group people as much as possible with common interests. Because that then makes them better able to come together and see themselves as a community and work together to improve their community.”

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The Toronto Ward Boundary Review’s next series of public meetings will take place on Jan. 7, 8 and 10. For more information on meeting times and locations, visit drawthelines.ca.