Fixing city Hall: Two Mayors' Perspectives
What should be done to get council moving?
How can Toronto become the world-class city it aspires to be? If you ask a dozen different people you'll get a dozen different answers ranging from fixing a lacklustre waterfront to addressing the dearth of affordable housing and crumbling social programs. Everyone has an opinion, and blame for our shortcomings often falls on city hall and a sizeable council that is often seen as ineffective.
But are the issues really that clear-cut? Would a "strong mayor" system – in which the mayor appoints all senior staff and has a veto power over budget issues – be the right answer for Toronto, like many U.S. cities? Or does the new City of Toronto Act give us the answers we need with its increased powers for the city to determine the composition of council and ward boundaries, to better control the look and feel of buildings and architecture, to license and regulate businesses and to levy taxes to raise more revenue, among other things?
Catalyst went to two former mayors of the City of Toronto to find out. David Crombie was mayor from 1972 – 1978 and John Sewell from 1978 – 1980. Both have experienced a different era in Toronto's mayoral history, and they both have thoughts on what it needs to become in the future.
Catalyst: What does the phrase "strong mayor" mean to you?
David Crombie: To me, a strong mayor refers to the person, not the system. It is someone who can articulate the vision of Toronto and gather people, ideas, resources and money and move towards that vision.
Catalyst: If Toronto were to adopt a system that gives the mayor more power, would it be akin to the system in Chicago, or do you see a different model for us?
John Sewell: The strong mayor system comes out of the United States. In Chicago you have city council on one side and mayor on the other, and the mayor hires all senior city staff – they report to him and those reports are never public. Right now in Toronto, council hires senior staff and they are responsible to council and everything is public. The new proposal we have in Toronto is a hybrid of the U.S. and our system, and that will not work. What city council is proposing ends up giving the mayor too much power. The mayor would be put in charge of city council and of hiring senior staff and this is not good as it politicizes staff and we get away from an independent civil service.
It is my opinion that we should be looking at our old two-tiered government again and not at giving more powers to the mayor. A good, strong municipal government needs both local and regional perspectives and needs to balance both. With one big regional council, effectively what we have now, you cannot get the local perspective. If we go back to the system we had before amalgamation we would not need a strong mayor system because the old system worked well.
DC: You have to understand that Mayor Daly is not the product of a model. The idea of creating a strong mayor through a system or model is wrong. It just needs to be the right person. The current model offers enough powers to the right person. And with respect to the new system being proposed in Toronto, I do not think the mayor should be allowed to appoint public servants or heads of local councils. You cannot give that kind of power and have it be exercised well.
Catalyst: What do you think are some of the challenges faced by the mayor within his current role and powers?
JS: The big problem is that the city does not have legislative powers to do the things it wants to do, and there are not enough revenue-generating powers to do what it needs to do. The city needs power and money to address issues like affordable housing, welfare, immigrant settlement – things the federal and provincial governments are clearly not interested in doing anymore. The city should have the power to levy sales tax or income tax and we should have been asking for this a long time ago.
Catalyst: Some people think that given our current model of 44 councillors and the mayor only having one vote we have doomed council to inaction – with examples like the lack of progress on the waterfront, the Island Airport, and TTC expansion backing up this claim. How do you feel about the city's ability to get things done?
JS: The problem is not council but that the scale of the city is wrong. The megacity does not work, and for three main reasons: it is geographically so large that most members of council cannot envisage what is happening in most places of the city because they are so far removed from those places; there is so much business that agendas (which can have 4000 items) are too big for people for read; and, the amount of money being dealt with (a $7.4 billion budget) is too big for people to deal with effectively.
DC: Since the 1960s and for 40 years Metro Toronto was run by 37 people. It's been a big municipality for 40 years. I don't think it is the size of council, but a focus on the New Deal for Cities that has caused a major problem for Toronto. All the talk of the New Deal has been too focused on the municipality. We have forgotten that Toronto's great strength comes from its leadership in the development of the Golden Horseshoe region and the resources in that region. Our vision has narrowed. The New Deal for Cities looks inwards and upsets people because it is just about Toronto and not the region. The city has lost so much support from the region which then makes it impossible to take on Ontario and the federal government. We need to reconnect with the region to become stronger.
Catalyst: How do you think we can make council more representative of the many different communities in the city, and engage minorities to become part of the political process?
JS: It is clear that the make-up of council does not at all represent the city. We have to restructure council to be able to make local decisions and that will get more communities interested in council and will attract more people of colour and women. The current monolithic structure is a barrier to minorities and women.
DC: Diverse representation on council usually lags by a generation. We need to cool down the debate a bit by not striving to achieve artificial goals. Often new immigrants' interest in politics is not great because they are trying to make a life here and they have other immediate concerns. But we do sometimes need to push the issue – if there are good candidates who are people of colour or from different ethnic backgrounds, people should get behind them and get them elected.
I think a bigger issue is that leadership opportunities for youth are needed and this will help the next generation become involved. We need more mentoring programs. We need to provide platforms and create awareness about what youth need to succeed. We have to fight harder for young people today. We have been down on young people for a long time and we need to change that. When we raise the level of all boats, we are going to find a whole bunch of different people in them.
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