This evening’s Thunder Bay city council meeting is going to feature yet another scintillating debate on the size and composition of City Council. This is another one of those Thunder Bay issues that has gone on for decades and rears its head usually as a vehicle for individual councilors to garner media attention and sell themselves as either reform minded or committed to safeguarding taxpayer dollars. In the end, the talk is as circular as the yet to be fully opened new roundabout at the intersection of Redwood and Edward.
In this current iteration, councilor Peng You has put forward a notice of motion to reverse a decision made nearly a year ago to start work in 2023 reviewing municipal representation and council composition with an aim for a new system – if accepted - to be implemented for the 2026 municipal election. If this decision is reversed by a two-thirds majority of council, then council would also be asked to consider a potential plebiscite question on the 2022 municipal ballot. What exactly that question should be would no doubt then consume hours of debate.
To start, one suspects the motion will fall flat quickly. Most councilors are quite happy with the status quo of 12 councilors plus a mayor with 7 ward councilors and 5 at-large councilors. After all, it has gotten them where they currently sit, and a smaller council will mean more competition for the remaining spots. However, even a defeat of Councillor You’s motion will be useful to him as he will then be able to complain that his desire to save taxpayers money by advocating for a council of 8 at-large councilors plus one mayor has been thwarted by spendthrifts resistant to change – a useful mantra when one has plans for running for higher office.
The problem is that changing the system of municipal representation in Thunder Bay – an institutional compromise devised nearly 50 years ago to balance the north-south population division of the city – needs to be done thoughtfully. It is true that there are more councilors per capita in Thunder Bay than is the case in quite a few other cities. At the same time, that is what happens when you devise a hybrid model of representation to combine ward specific interests with at large viewpoints designed to represent the whole. Simply reducing the number of councilors is not going to save a meaningful sum of money – the total cost of all the councilors in terms of their stipends and expenses is currently well under one million dollars on an operating budget close to $200 million – under one half of one percent. Indeed, one can even make the case that they should use the meager savings from reducing the size of council to pay the remainder more to attract a better quality of candidate – which in the end really would not save any money on representation though it might lead to better civic decision making in the long run.
And then there is the issue of representation. Should we have only at-large councilors who could all end up being from more affluent parts of the city as can sometimes be the case? If we go to a smaller council, can we ensure that it will make better decisions or will the reduction in representation simply reduce the number of viewpoints. And then there is the fundamental issue of at-large or ward representation. If we go totally to ward representation, what will the boundaries of a new ward system be? Can we design some north-south ward boundaries given the geographic population distribution which still resembles that of 50 years ago?
The case decades ago for at-large councilors was that in the wake of amalgamation and the Fort William-Port Arthur split, having purely ward representation would lead to parochial decision making and deadlock. However, fifty years after amalgamation, is that division still as important in how municipal politicians approach issues? Surely, ward councilors can be just as capable as at-large councilors of taking the entire city’s interests into mind. And then, it remains that much of what the city does is local service provision and ward councilors are the best located as the focal points of concerns in specific neighborhoods rather than at-large politicians using their councilor positions to prepare for higher office.
In the end, the councilors should leave the issue as it was decided a year ago and let the city clerk’s office review the boundaries of wards and provide options for composition of City Council. Better yet, given that city administration ultimately has an interest in the design of any council, it would be better if more of an effort was made to commission an independent arm’s length panel to review the situation and present options to council. Whatever happens, one can rest assured that there is not going to be any radical changes in the size and composition of council decided by council and city administration as it is akin to asking predatory foxes to provide policy on the hen house. Any radical institutional change will occur as it did prior to amalgamation in 1970 – by provincial fiat or decree. Quite frankly, I don’t think the province is interested this time around.
