# Strong Feelings About Strong Mayors

An episode of [Rose City Politics](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1247337855), 23 Jun 2023, 53 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/54842970/strong_feelings_about_strong_mayors.mp3

Local blogger Frazier Fathers joins Melinda and Doug to discuss his recent piece about strong mayor powers in Windsor and beyond. Rose City Politics is brought to you with the kind support of LiUNA Local 625: Building Better Communities. Support the show on Patreon.com/RoseCityPolitics. Read us in Biz X Magazine or online at BizXMagazine.com and RoseCityPolitics.ca

## Transcript

[0:24] Good evening, and welcome to Rose City Politics. Tonight on the show,
[0:30] we have Melinda Monroe, who is a regular panelist. Welcome back, Melinda.
[0:36] From your travels across the world. Where'd you go? Oh yeah,
[0:39] across the world just to us, Well, we went to Spain mostly,
[0:42] and then we went to see an exhibition in Amsterdam. And as my husband
[0:45] said, every place I went to was my new favorite place. So I
[0:48] can't even tell you what my favorite place was. But three weeks ago,
[0:52] I was, three days ago, I was in the fourteenth century. And
[0:54] now I'm here and we'll determine what century we're in a little bit later.
[1:00] That voice you hear chuckling away is guest panelist Frasier Fathers. Welcome Frasier,
[1:06] Hey Doug, thanks for having me back. Yeah, and welcome back.
[1:10] It's great to have you. Tonight. We are talking about strong mayors,
[1:15] so our listeners are plugged in, tuned in. I'm sure that everyone who's
[1:19] listening to this podcast knows about the evolution of strong mayor powers. They are
[1:27] coming to Windsor. And I also am sure that everyone who is listening right
[1:33] now has read Frasier's five thousand word blog post on the subject cover to cover
[1:38] multiple times, but just in case one of them hasn't frasier, why don't
[1:45] we start there. Can you give us just a summary of your view of
[1:49] the strong mayor of powers and how they're going to impact municipalities across Ontario,
[1:55] as well as winds are in particular. Yeah, So the blog post itself
[1:59] was a long evolution. I actually started writing it in the summer of twenty
[2:02] twenty two when it first sort of was announced that this was coming in Toronto
[2:07] and Ottawa, and there was a lot of discussion, including on rosity politics,
[2:10] about how you know this would be a good thing or a bad thing,
[2:14] and there's I think I used the term hysterics where categorized there noted that
[2:20] and so and so. You know, I take actually a somewhat contrary view
[2:25] and that I actually think strong marror powers for cities in Ontario is actually a
[2:29] good thing, and I think that there's an opportunity here. It's going to
[2:31] change how municipal government happens and what happens and the roles and responsibilities and things
[2:37] like that. But I also think that you know, to be blunt municipal
[2:40] politics, and I sat on the Council Compensation Committee last term and it's kind
[2:46] of a dumpster fire right now. And I have a podcast called Council Conversations
[2:50] where I talked to small town counselors across the province and the new season starts
[2:53] next Thursday at seven pm. Excellent plug. Yeah, I was planning that.
[3:00] And so, you know, strong mayor's powers has an opportunity to reinvigorate
[3:06] and actually empower municipalities to a degree. And there's research out of the US
[3:09] that shows that, you know, municipality in the US, strong mayor of
[3:13] powers are relatively are far more common than in Canada, and they're common as
[3:16] well in international cities like London, Amsterdam, Lisbon, you know, Sydney,
[3:21] Australia, Soul, South Korea, you know, not places that you
[3:24] consider despotic places of tyranny. And they're often held up by progressives around some
[3:30] of the most progressive and inclusive and welcoming and proactive cities out there. And
[3:35] one of the things that strong mayor of powers do is it actually almost ensures
[3:38] that when a mayor gets elected, his or her vision can be implemented.
[3:43] Whether vision's good or bad, that's up for you know, the electorate to
[3:46] decide. But you know, strong mayor of powers allows for the mayor to
[3:51] actually catalyze a vision and move it forward and gives them some tools to do
[3:55] that. In the context of Ontario and under the strong mayor of powers,
[3:59] now, I don't agree with all the process of how these powers came about
[4:01] in Ontario. You know, it was really sort of this out of left
[4:04] field thing where strong mayor powers are going to solve the housing crisis. They're
[4:08] not. Really This is a way for the forward government, in my opinion,
[4:11] to office skate and put blame on municipalities when the next election comes around
[4:15] and there's still a housing crisis. But you know, I also think that
[4:19] the powers are here, the powers are coming, so we should be thinking
[4:23] about how communities are going to respond to those powers now being in play,
[4:27] and I think that there's actually an opportunity for doing the progressive people. And
[4:30] when we're recording this, you know, Olivia Chow is currently the leader in
[4:34] the Toronto mayor elections, and you know, depending on how that vote goes
[4:38] Monday, you know, you could see a very progressive mayor with strong mayor
[4:42] powers who's able to force through quote unquote, you know, her agenda around
[4:47] a council table to potentially reshape you know, the most important city in Canada,
[4:51] and whether that happens or not remains to be seen. But the infrastructure
[4:56] is there to move that vision forward should she choose to do that. So
[5:00] I think, first of all, I'm not hysterical about strongmare of powers,
[5:05] and I don't necessarily disagree with you that there are ways in which the municipality,
[5:11] the municipal governance could be changed in Ontario. But the problem with this
[5:15] is not about strong rare of powers. The problem with this is entirely about
[5:18] the process. And I think it may be fair to say, Okay,
[5:21] we're stuck with this, how do we make the best of it? But
[5:25] the process of how this came about is actually really critically relevant to this discussion
[5:29] because prior to the last provincial election, association in municipalities of Ontario had a
[5:34] list of things they really wanted that were very very important to them, and
[5:38] we have zero of those things. And they said they did not want strong
[5:44] rare of powers and they have them, so they What has happened is we
[5:47] have a province that has simply said we are going to impose upon you the
[5:50] thing that we want, and we are going to reject all the things that
[5:54] you want. And in recently I was Intertewers listening to some that's talking about
[6:00] what happens if Olivia Chow gets elected, and that she has these strong mayor
[6:03] powers. So no one believes that Ford will take them away. But what
[6:09] they believe is that Ford will force her into a corner so deeply that she
[6:14] can't actually use them that when she tries to do the things she wants to
[6:16] do, the province will simply continue to step in and override the municipalities authority.
[6:21] So the fact that she has strong mayor powers doesn't make the city stronger.
[6:26] It just because the province can take them away or change them at any
[6:30] time with their majority. Well, that is the lesson of this right to
[6:33] me, And I think this is an interesting perspective from both of you,
[6:39] But to me, I think what it really exposes is how dangerous it is
[6:44] in the twenty first century to have municipalities be so dependent on the provincial government.
[6:50] We've seen the Ford government and I'm not a fan of the Ford government,
[6:54] but I also I don't subscribe to the view that Doug Ford's history's greatest
[6:59] monster. Um. I think he's erratic, and I think that he makes
[7:01] impulsive choices and choices that are possibly designed to benefit his political friends or himself.
[7:09] But um twice twice in in his government so far, he has made
[7:16] radical changes to the way municipalities UM elect or the way that they are governed.
[7:25] Um. And in neither case was there was was this to your point,
[7:30] Melinda, was this something that the municipality asked for? Right? And
[7:33] in both cases there was. And to your point Frasier about the potential benefit
[7:39] of this move to the Ford government. In both cases there was a direct
[7:43] political benefit to the government of the day. So in an environment where municipalities
[7:49] are our political football is that are we looking in the wrong place and looking
[7:56] in the the sort of the division of intramural powers. Should we be looking
[8:00] at the relationship between the province and municipalities instead? So constitutional? So it
[8:05] created a constitutional relationship in which the municipality can say no to the province.
[8:11] Yeah, like that would be the ideal situation is that municipalities are as you
[8:15] guys have said on this podcast, and everyone says they're creatures of the province,
[8:18] province can do whatever the hell they want to municipalities at any given point,
[8:22] just like they can took away powers of school boards, and now you
[8:24] have school board trustees who are relatively powerless, having wide ranging debates on wide
[8:28] ranging things, and protests outside of schools, and all sorts of crazy stuff
[8:33] happening in school boards right now. You know, I think that the challenge
[8:37] with this is you're never going to open up the Canadian Constitution in any sort
[8:41] of way anytime soon, because then you got to deal with Indigenous rights,
[8:45] Then you got to deal with Quebec, then you got to deal with Alberta,
[8:48] then you got to deal with all these other things that will break the
[8:50] country up. Just to give cities recognition. In the US, there's been
[8:54] research at a Yale that says that after strong mayor powers were empowered to major
[8:58] cities in certain states and US because every state has strong mayor power of cities,
[9:01] but those that do over time, what happens is, in essence,
[9:05] the mayorally mayoral position in the city sort of empowers the city as a voice,
[9:13] and you know, people get used to overtime those strong mayor powers and
[9:16] those mayors leading as an executive figure, right, and I think over time
[9:24] that could be something that evolves in Ontario. But yeah, absolutely the Forred
[9:28] government, how this came about is really a reaction to Dugford was on council
[9:31] with Rob Ford and the City of Toronto's council took all the powers of Rob
[9:35] fordoff as away during his scandals, and he and many people don't forgive what
[9:39] happened around that council table in twenty twelve or whenever that was. And Francie,
[9:45] thank God that God was a criminal, crackhead. We didn't want him
[9:48] to do a strong mayor without going as far as Melinda, I think that
[9:54] that'll be a refrain. I probably use a lot. I think though,
[10:00] that raises a really important point about the danger of strong mayor powers in most
[10:05] cases, at least in most cases I'm familiar with, municipal councils are pretty
[10:09] deferential to the mayor. Those politicians sitting around the table recognize that the person
[10:16] at the head of the table got way more direct votes than any of them
[10:20] and was elected across the municipality as opposed to at least in cities with award
[10:26] system, as opposed to individual counselors representing a slice of the electorate, and
[10:31] I think that there is I don't think that strong mayor powers are going to
[10:35] do a lot to change the relationship between councils and mayors, except in those
[10:41] rare cases where a seriously off the rails mayor needs to be restrained by their
[10:48] council. It just got harder. So I agree in that extreme case absolutely,
[10:54] and that's where that one third sort of override that is incredibly problematic and
[10:58] that should be absolutely rolled back. That's un democratic. But I don't think
[11:01] that the mayor being able to hire and fire executive you know, staff at
[11:05] the city is going to dramatically transform in many cases how municipalities function. So
[11:13] that I do want to talk about, yes they can hi, Yes you
[11:18] can hire and fire, and we've seen municipal turnover in the city of Windsor,
[11:22] you know, but like in most cases, American get someone fired if
[11:26] they really want to at a city now, right, So really, all
[11:28] that's happening is you've streamlined that process. And what has happened is actually it's
[11:33] no longer an in camera session where someone gets fired. The mayor makes the
[11:39] decision, it gets announced and now you have a bunch of counselors who are
[11:41] like, what the fuck. So, so, before you jump in,
[11:46] Melinda, streamlining processes makes it politically easier. No, so I don't know
[11:52] that it's so. I would be so glib to say that that it's you
[11:56] know, Phil Roberts got sent to roseland and and Jason Rayner, thank you,
[12:03] Jason Rayner got got nuked, and you know that transparently this was political
[12:07] in both cases. But there was political damage that accumulated in both of those
[12:13] cases. And I don't think that the mayor made a change. The mayor
[12:18] made a change in the course of his normal business, doing his normal stuff
[12:24] would have nearly the same political impact. Why so, I think potentially,
[12:28] But the question becomes, if you have a CEO suddenly getting fired and ten
[12:31] counselors who have been cut out of that decision, the responsibility falls on the
[12:35] council then to act as advocates. Right, So this is the evolution of
[12:41] the council role that is going to come from strong mayor powers. Okay,
[12:43] So I want to hold you there though, because Melinda didn't get a chance
[12:46] to get in because I stepped on you. Milinda might so start you had
[12:50] a point to make those I did because it's slightly slightly more nuance, I
[12:54] think. So. One of the things that Aimo was particularly opposed to was
[12:58] a strong authority to hire a CIO. Of all the strong hamare of powers
[13:03] that were being offered, they especially did not want that one. And the
[13:07] reason for that is the Morocco inquiry at Collingwood. And what happened in Collingwood
[13:11] was that the mayor and the CIO were close buds, and they together concocted
[13:16] what was a terrible, terrible conflict of interest and a terrible scandal that went
[13:22] down and Callingwood and up ended the community for what probably still up ended the
[13:24] community. So what you have if you have a strong mayor who can hire
[13:28] the CIO, is that you have the senior most civil servant who is responsible
[13:31] for all over the other civil servants beholden to only one person, not beholden
[13:37] to the council. And so they have why would they ever seek out another
[13:41] councilor as their advocate, and why would another councilor ever choose to be their
[13:46] advocated is incredibly politically dangerous. If the mayor is powerful and you are,
[13:50] you counselor wholt or you're a counselor you know, cash actor or whoever,
[13:54] and you're advocating to support a CIO who was hired exclusively by the mayor to
[14:00] perform exclusively the mayor's responsibilities. That I think is a very, very dangerous,
[14:05] and you don't see it in nonprofit or for profit organizations either. You
[14:09] have boards. They are that senior, most most senior, most civil servant,
[14:13] if you will, is to beholding through the entire board and to the
[14:16] audit committee and to the entire council. And in this situation, that power
[14:20] in particular is amongst the most dangerous and then most likely to create ethical problems.
[14:26] So I don't disribute that. I think the question that happens that comes
[14:30] to mind is, you know, what is the turnover of the CIO is
[14:33] going to actually be in real in a real world circumstance. You already have
[14:37] a massive shortage of municipal administrators across the province. They're aging out there isn't
[14:41] the talent pool there, but they don't want there, so dangerous now they
[14:46] get fired for no reason and that nobody wants it is this is the point.
[14:50] But I'm gonna you get too, though only certain cities have strong mayor
[14:52] powers. Why would you become CEO of the City of Windsor when you can
[14:56] go do it in Amsburg for about the same amount of money and not have
[15:00] that risk. You're going to pay the CEO a hell of a lot more
[15:03] going forward, and so there's going to be an incentive and there's a political
[15:07] cost where if you're turning over your senior administration every two three years because they
[15:11] haven't listened to dear leader. You know, every year at sunshine list time,
[15:18] it's like, who are the dead bodies that you're digging up salaries for
[15:22] that this municipality is still paying for because your mayor has it. And that's
[15:24] the role of counsel. The role of counsel is going to change under the
[15:28] strong mayor powers, Like let's be honest, they're no longer equal to the
[15:31] mayor under the Municipal Act as they were previously. So the role the counselors
[15:37] have to evolve. They can't assume that they can act in the same way.
[15:41] So you know, you have to now as counselor as you in a
[15:43] ward system type city, which I believe almost every strong mayor power municipality is
[15:48] they have wards. You are now an advocate for your ward and your job
[15:54] is to be an aggressive advocate for you know, the ward as a whole,
[15:58] the ward and then more broadly of the city. You're not around that
[16:02] table as one of the peers and a member of the team. And there
[16:04] is a conflict system set up in most strong mayor municipalities and often and it's
[16:10] not allowed under the Montario Municipal Act, but in Quebec, in Montreal,
[16:14] there are political parties and there's a strong mayor city and what you end up
[16:18] with, and we saw it in this last election locally where the mayor back
[16:21] certain candidates, you are going to end up with a semi formal slate probably
[16:25] process in future elections where you're gonna have a progressive slate with a mayor candidate,
[16:29] conservative slate with a mayor candidate, and however that election shakes out,
[16:33] you're going to have semi political parties. And in Spacing magazine, after the
[16:37] strong mayor powers were even announced in Toronto and we're deployed Spacing, what's saying
[16:41] we need political parties in Toronto. You have to line up behind someone and
[16:45] stand for something beyond just being Ward three counselor or downtown counselor or a suburban
[16:51] counselor. And you know you have to link those things together for people.
[16:55] But I believe that the political parties are specifically not allowed in Ontario. They're
[16:57] not You can't. So you think that Doug Ford or any premier is ever
[17:02] going to promote I don't think they're going to allow it. But I think
[17:03] what you're going to see is SENDI formal sort of associations and alliances. That's
[17:07] what's going to happen, is like and you saw it in the last election
[17:11] Mayor Dilkins backed, you know, Francis Geniak, Sleeman Jew and gill To
[17:18] Lesson, Mark Mackenzie, Agassino a little bit with Jim Morrison. You know
[17:22] he was doing some activities with their I don't know about Gary Cashchack and some
[17:26] of the others. But like you know, the mayor picked his winners,
[17:30] right, candidates who are running from mayor and now the value is winning winning
[17:36] the mayor's chair, you can implement your vision. So was that it better
[17:38] to politicize suit to really heavily politicize the municipal contest? Or is there is
[17:44] there something is there something some value in not having it be that play I
[17:48] have so many objections to this line of reasoning. Um. The first thing
[17:53] I think is that what is lost in that kind of a role, in
[18:00] that kind of a structure, What's lost is local advocacy. And we see
[18:03] that in play out at the partisan level. MPs and MPPs are only responsible
[18:11] and responsive to their electorate if they're fearing imminent political death. Otherwise they're responsible
[18:18] and responsive to their party leader. So and I mean, I take that
[18:22] as a given, and I don't think that we want to see that play
[18:26] out even more in Windsor than it already does. That's point one. In
[18:30] point two, which I want you guys to respond to, is let's look
[18:33] at the real political situation in Windsor, the real political situation here would I
[18:41] would argue against the frame of conservatives and progressives. I think what might?
[18:48] And I am not a Marxist, but I'm going to apply a class based
[18:52] analysis because I think that I think that really what you have our political factions
[18:59] based on income and interest. You have the political faction that has everything they
[19:04] need at home and doesn't see the need for the municipality to provide services beyond
[19:08] roads and sewers. And you have the faction that doesn't have everything that they
[19:12] need at home and wants nice parks and wants pools, and wants bus service
[19:18] that is respectable, etc. Etc. Those are the factions that we actually
[19:22] have. We can fucking forget about this progressive conservative stuff. It's the rich
[19:26] people and the not so rich people. That's that's the political divide. The
[19:32] setup is already biased in Windsor heavily in favor of the rich people party because
[19:40] the you know, whether it's by design or by accident, the way the
[19:42] words have been laid out, you've got a preponderance of wards that are above
[19:51] the median income line and a concentration of poverty and low inner incomes in other
[19:56] wards. And what we see time and again is that the mayor that voter
[20:02] turnout is also something that is reflected by income. So what do we end
[20:07] up with. We end up with consistently rich people mayors, mayors who are
[20:11] advocates for the rich, and I like, it's how long has it been
[20:15] since that wasn't true in windsor thirty years at least, And you end up
[20:22] with municipal counselors who represent the lower income parts of the city, the have
[20:27] nots with um you know, who take some level of opposition and try to
[20:36] preserve and meet and maybe enhance services in the municipality. So if we if
[20:42] we impose well, when we impose strong mayor powers, what we're doing is
[20:48] further kneecapping the have nots. And the reason that I want to frame it
[20:52] as haves and have nots um frasier is because and I'm in debate with a
[20:56] line of reasoning that I've heard you present before that is, well, progressives
[21:02] in windsor need to get organized, or progressives in windsor need to do more
[21:07] stuff to be like politically palatable and whatever whatever which comes down to, in
[21:11] my opinion, to have nots need to put enough water in their wine so
[21:15] that the rich people will consider voting for their candidate. That's really the message
[21:19] that I think that you're you're presenting. And if we if we when we
[21:27] have strong mayor powers and winds or, what we're doing is we're making that
[21:32] we're making the have nots even more politically powerless in this city. And I
[21:36] cannot and refuse to see that as something that is neutral or benign. So
[21:40] I agree with you that distinction absolutely, Like I spent a lot of time
[21:44] at United Way writing about poverty and things like that, so I absolutely and
[21:47] I live in Ward two, write like I bought my house and Ward two
[21:51] partially for that reason of putting my money where my mouth is and investing into
[21:53] that neighborhood. Yeah, like, I agree, But then it all comes
[22:00] down to winning that chair. You have a position now that can drive the
[22:04] municipal agenda through structural process. Now, so where's the mayor previously before you
[22:11] know, administration of the budget. So they let's say it's twenty twenty six
[22:15] and let's say I have not mayor has been elected. Right, let's just
[22:18] say that, right, what can they do in that first budget? While
[22:22] they write the budget? So they can then go and say, I want
[22:26] ten million dollars for community how more for community housing? I want this,
[22:30] I want this, I want twenty kilometers a bike lane separated on roads,
[22:33] and I want it all done in the next four years. Administration has to
[22:37] go and write that budget. I come back with a massive tax increase or
[22:40] you're going to cut a bunch of other things like close WFCU in the aquatic
[22:42] center in order to pay for it whatever you want. Right, But that
[22:47] mayer can do that, and then when council tries to push back on that,
[22:49] assuming there's not a majority backing that mayor on council, that amer can
[22:55] beato those amendments and that budget will pass. Right, but you have to
[22:59] get elected first. You gotta gets Look look at turnout by Ward. No,
[23:03] this is this is why it's a pipe dream. Look at turnout by
[23:06] Ward. What the current Ward system is, I agree, And what the
[23:10] current structure is is somewhat shores up the political strength of the have not faction.
[23:15] Because it doesn't matter if twenty percent of the population are the are the
[23:21] ones who vote in Ward two, they still get one out of ten seats.
[23:23] It doesn't matter that twenty two percent of the population votes in Ward three,
[23:27] they still get one out of ten seats. But when when you aggregate
[23:32] all the votes and you divide it by the city population and you recognize well
[23:36] Ward two only has five thousand electors out of who vote out out of seventy
[23:41] five thousand, they are politically irrelevant, then um, how are you ever
[23:47] going to get a mayor who because their interest at heart. How are you
[23:49] ever going to get that? Dude? Yeah, I don't know, right,
[23:52] I think, And before you just jump in there moment, I think
[23:56] I think the broader the broader issue though is you know, it becomes the
[24:03] golden ring is the mayor's chair then, right in this scenario, and you
[24:07] know, regardless of the scenario that you said, if it's a nine two
[24:11] council, it doesn't matter if they have strong mayor powers, right because the
[24:15] mayor is just like Eddie Francis ran this city as a strong mayor without having
[24:21] these powers, right, So if you have a very effective mayor, you
[24:25] don't need any of these powers, right. So the question really becomes these
[24:30] powers enable you know, and maybe this is an anti democratic view, I
[24:34] don't know, but it allows for if you get that person get elected,
[24:38] if they get elected, and whoever that person is, and like, I
[24:42] don't know, right, but like, if you have someone who's willing to
[24:45] move forward some of those issues, they can get those issues move forward in
[24:51] this city and actually dramatically change the trajectory. So let me make my joke
[24:56] and then I'll go to your moment. So the for four years out of
[24:59] four that one time out of ten, when when the have nots get a
[25:03] candidate who who is willing to throw a crumb their way, that's worth it.
[25:10] I don't think it's will I don't think it's willing to throw a crumb.
[25:11] I think it's about if it's all it will ever be, well,
[25:15] that's all it will ever be until the voting patterns change. Well, and
[25:18] I say this in the blog post. You know council, you know council
[25:22] ward boundaries and compensation and full time counselors is absolutely a response to strong mayor
[25:26] powers. Okay, how do you ever get that if you have a strong
[25:30] Now that we have a strong mayor here and we don't have that, we've
[25:33] lost We've lost it because we will never have that well again under this Marya.
[25:41] It doesn't matter because like this is a province wide thing. No very
[25:44] few like if you zoom out and look at it outside of Windsor right,
[25:47] almost every mayor in Ontario, for a midsize city or larger has a similar
[25:52] power dynamic than what you see here. It plays out slightly different despite being
[25:56] equals to their members of council. They have a salary, they have staff,
[26:00] right, they get to see budgets first, their agenda gets passed on
[26:03] like ninety five percent or above everywhere else. Strong mirror powers does not change
[26:08] that. When I say in the blog post, a lot of things aren't
[26:11] going to change under strong mirror powers is because mayors already were strong. You
[26:15] know, the argument that you would you've made many times Monday, is that
[26:18] they're just one of equals around the council table doesn't actually play out in reality.
[26:23] And if you're believing that that's how it should play, it's not how
[26:26] politics worked for decades anyway. So how is it beneficial though, to like
[26:32] push the push the lever further in that direction? Leaver has been pushed on
[26:36] us, and I don't think. But the thing is, I think you're
[26:38] you're you're trying to suggest is that now that the thing is formalized, we
[26:42] have some way to hold the person to account, whereas previously we didn't.
[26:45] But I don't see that. I think we have less opportunity to hold them
[26:49] to account. And and I love that when you know Mayor Dilkins said,
[26:52] well, I'm going to be as I'm gonna My commitment to transparency will remain
[26:55] the same. So it's going to be even less as badly transparent as it
[26:59] ever was. I but I think you talk about War two and poor old
[27:03] Fabio is probably gonna hate us for boosting in because you know, if you're
[27:07] if ro City politics likes you, then you're dumed. Fabio Castanti is doing
[27:11] a brilliant job of doing the representation of the havenot set you're talking about.
[27:17] And he can do it because if he can get the votes, then he
[27:21] can get the agenda pass. But now it won't matter. He has to
[27:26] get nine votes. He doesn't. He can't do it with fine, it's
[27:29] not true. So let's let's talk about what counselors can do under these new
[27:33] powers. They can still mostly you can't override the budget. You just said
[27:37] that No Fuget is toast and that's the single whole supportant policy document we pass.
[27:41] So the budget again, the budget process, the mayor proposes, counsel
[27:45] can amend. There's a veto process, so there is still horse trading in
[27:48] there. The mayor may agree or not agree to add in. You know,
[27:52] oh, counselor Castante wants this, or counselor Geniac wants this, and
[27:56] all these things. But it's going to add up. You know, we
[27:57] don't know what the technical process of how this budget is going to play,
[28:00] the new budget process is going to play it. What I suspect as someone
[28:04] who's is you're going to have two documents. You're gonna have the mayor's budget
[28:07] that get shows up on budget day this is the approved thing, and then
[28:11] there's going to be a second document which is everything else that counsel has recommended
[28:15] for budget consideration. Not a chance the administration won't put the time and effort
[28:18] into it unless a counselor is willing to do it themselves. Like we borderlind.
[28:23] That is the only way you have a second a counter budget. So
[28:26] the only way. So when Toronto's budget came out this year, there was
[28:32] the other items that were requested by counsel showed up as a document. Now,
[28:37] whether that doesn't happen in windsor that's a creature of the windsor political process,
[28:41] right, but you can counsel can still make questions to administration and request
[28:47] things to show up at budget time. Like if there's six votes around that
[28:51] council table to get an item referred to budget, a report has to still
[28:55] come back at budget time, and so that is still in the power and
[28:57] purview of counselor, so like you can still make so like, oh,
[29:03] this item has come up, we'd like it to refer to budget, and
[29:07] if six members of council want that to go to budget, it still goes.
[29:10] And that unless it's a road project, a housing project, or an
[29:14] economic development project. The mayor can't beato that because those are the three current
[29:18] provincial priorities, so they would still show up a budget. Administration still has
[29:22] to write the report and it still has to come back for broader consideration.
[29:26] Now if administration choose if the struct that's as I understand it, we don't
[29:30] know how that's going to play out locally, but those powers have not gone
[29:33] away. Counselors can still request information, they still have a majority. They
[29:38] still can if they can get a majority of the votes, pass elements and
[29:41] items around the council table with the mayor voting no. Because the veto only
[29:47] applies outside of the budget to those three areas of provincial priority that have been
[29:52] currently identified. Yes, the problems could add something else, but they're not
[29:55] going to add the local playground is a provincial priority as a province priority.
[30:00] So like park allocations is probably not going to become a provincial priority. Oh,
[30:04] I don't know. Built twenty three and all the pressure on putting things
[30:07] in the green belt and building new housing on greenfield, why wouldn't they put
[30:11] parks allocations as a strong way issue. They may, but they haven't yet.
[30:15] So so I want to change demilinity of a First, I was going
[30:21] to change the subject to a different question from a more theoretical perspective than that,
[30:23] so to local perspective. So okay, So I'd want to stick with
[30:26] local just a bn it um, and I hopefully we can do away with
[30:30] this one quick and we'll get to your point. Um. There's another element
[30:36] here that I think really matters, and that is the political talent that you're
[30:40] attracting. So we already, with all due respect to the ten wonderful and
[30:45] good looking people around the council table m, we already have trouble attracting talent.
[30:52] And there are a few different classes of at least I kind of have
[30:57] some buckets that I put counselors into. There is the counselor who has higher
[31:02] ambitions, the Dwight, Duncans, the Ericks, the Drew Dilkins, the
[31:04] Eddie francis Is of the world. They either want to go to the partisan
[31:07] level, they want to go to the mayor level or there maybe they haven't
[31:11] decided yet. And then you have the just happy to be here counselors who
[31:18] I would argue, I won't name names, but I would argue that we
[31:21] have had way, far too many of this type of counselor. What they
[31:25] aim for is to be a counselor, fly under the radar, go to
[31:29] the parties, you know, get their free parking, get to where the
[31:32] little lapel pin at events. That's all they want, and the less drama
[31:36] they have, the better. There's a third bucket, the community advocate.
[31:41] The person who may or may not have higher political ambitions, but that's not
[31:45] what drives them, and neither is at the perks of office. What drives
[31:48] them is the ability to make a difference in their community. If you're that
[31:52] category, if you fall into that bucket, count and I would argue that
[31:56] is the most valuable counselor. We can have someone who doesn't have any particular
[32:00] aspirations to hire office and really wants to make things better in their community and
[32:05] it's willing to make sacrifices and suffer to do it. That's who we want.
[32:09] Why on earth would you run for counsel if you're that person? Well,
[32:14] I still think you run because you want to advocate for your community.
[32:16] But aren't there better avenues? But not locally in Windsor Let's be clear here,
[32:22] I don't know, man, I think that if you were to oh,
[32:24] I don't know if you were a nonprofit leader who had you laugh.
[32:31] But if you're a nonprofit leader who has m you know, a board with
[32:37] the right ideological bent and the courage of your convictions, you could get a
[32:43] lot done. If you're I was gonna say journalists, but we don't have
[32:45] any more of those, or won't very very soon. But I think that
[32:52] it may be more attractive to pursue the law. Like, there's a number
[32:54] of things that you might do to make a name for yourself and advocate you
[32:58] for your community that don't involve you in having to sit through the mayor bloviating
[33:02] through a budget presentation, so and not having any real impact on the outcome.
[33:08] Well again, I disagree that they don't necessarily have impact on the outcome.
[33:13] Right again, the mayor proposes the budget. But everything that happens day
[33:16] in and day out, ninety percent of what council goes through week in week
[33:21] out is not budget related. Sure, right, so all of those items
[33:24] really a strong mayor power does not change that part of the council process from
[33:30] my understanding, right, if it's not a provincial priority, it can't be
[33:32] vetoed. If it's not a provincial priority, the mayor can't table drop it.
[33:37] So if it's just like by law changes for whatever in your ward around
[33:43] community gardens or something like that, those processes aren't changing. I would simply
[33:47] suggest that bureaucracies are finally tuned to minor fluctuations in political authority. And I
[33:58] would suggest that if UM, I think all you have to do is look
[34:02] at the frankly open contempt that m school board administration holds their governing body in.
[34:09] UM, it's it's apparent they're contemptuous of their governing body. And UM,
[34:15] there is no ability for an individual school trustee to have an impact.
[34:21] And I would hate to see that happen at the at the municipal level.
[34:25] And I think that there's you know, I think there's there's some risk there
[34:30] that Um. You you once you start to become politically irrelevant, UM,
[34:35] you find that you have very little juice and very little ability to get things
[34:39] done the things that have to happen. Like when when a counselor today calls
[34:45] someone an administration, Um, there's there's a response and there's some concern because
[34:52] you know, this is a person with some authority. If you diminish that
[34:54] authority, do you not diminish the bureaucratic response? So I would argue that
[34:59] that that doing that, like making these changes m is going to have a
[35:04] serious impact on the day to day as well, whether or not there's a
[35:07] formal change in power. Potentially, Again, we don't know how those things
[35:10] will play out. You've been a bureaucrame, Alinda, am I crazy?
[35:14] Well? Yes, and you know absolutely they you know, you're you're The
[35:19] speed with which you respond to some councilors versus others, you know, is
[35:22] you know, tid to their ability to actually get things done. I think
[35:25] there's a couple, So let's go kind of theoretical and there's kind of two.
[35:30] There's two things I want to talk about on the more theoretical basis because
[35:32] I think that's where you know your blog post is really gained dead. So
[35:35] number one. At other at the two other levels of government, federal and
[35:38] provincial, we think in terms of whether the prime Minister or the premier has
[35:42] some strong governing powers, and they and to a certain extent they do.
[35:45] They chair cabinet, and cabinet has various authorities to do things under orders in
[35:50] council. But those powers that they acquired came through decisions by the legislature.
[35:55] So the legislature was able to say, within our governing structure, we give
[36:00] cabinet these authorities at in these various municipalities, some of whom actually voted to
[36:07] not want to have strong rail powers, and now they have them, even
[36:10] though they asked not to have them. It's not like Windsor was said,
[36:14] you're going to get strong mayor powers. But you around the council table have
[36:17] to decide what you want those strong mayor of powers to be. Here's the
[36:21] range the things you can choose from, and you choose what you want your
[36:23] mayor to be able to do the way the legislature Parliament was able to say,
[36:28] we are going to let you get prime and should do this. And
[36:30] if we don't want you to have that anymore, we get to take it
[36:32] back. But in Windsor, or in any municipality Brondon, Windsor Kingston,
[36:37] they didn't get to say, we give our mayor these powers, but not
[36:38] these other ones, and we can take them back if we feel they're being
[36:42] abused. They don't have any We as a local democracy have no ability to
[36:46] impact a range of those powers. I think that's fun that from a political
[36:50] science perspective, that seems to be a problem to me. The second theoretical
[36:53] thing, and it's separate, so we can talk about it if you want
[36:57] to at a different time. Why did no northern cities getting in these powers?
[37:01] North Bay doesn't have them, sunder Sudbury doesn't have them, Thunderbay doesn't
[37:05] have them, And yet they have equally as complex issues as we do,
[37:07] and many ways even more complex when you get to a place like thunder Bay
[37:10] and the struggles they're having, the strict policing the nature of their relationships.
[37:15] The first nations they didn't get to have them, so only southern cities got
[37:21] to have them. And of course the conspiracy minded would say that's because it's
[37:23] only about cities where developers had the ear of Dugford and where it mattered in
[37:28] terms of housing. But Sudbury has housing crisis, they have immigration crisis,
[37:32] thunder Bay has housing proms. Why didn't they get if this was such a
[37:37] valuable change to the way in the spodies our government, why didn't those cities
[37:42] get them? Tom So, I don't know why, you know, obviously,
[37:47] you know again, cities are the creature of the province. The province
[37:51] could decide, and there was a lot of debate, you know, when
[37:52] this was first announced. Would Dougford give injury Horvath? You know in Hamilton?
[37:55] These powers? You know, is he going to take away the powers
[37:58] of Olive Chow in Toronto if she gets elected in the next week. You
[38:02] know, I can't speak for his logic, I think again, I think,
[38:07] and I think there's probably something too. You know, they've framed this
[38:09] all around housing. They don't really see housing as a crisis in northern Ontario,
[38:14] or it's so far away from most of their voters that it's not really
[38:16] seen or heard in the general But like, but I also think it's about
[38:23] you know again like and I agree with you, Like, in an ideal
[38:28] world, you know, the province would have consulted with cities and done all
[38:31] these things, and the process would have been would have been what it is.
[38:35] I think that and I say this in the blog post though, do
[38:37] you actually think any future provincial government's going to claw back all these strong mayor
[38:42] of powers now that they're in play? And so the question really becomes,
[38:45] they're now in play, and you've created a new political norm. And assuming
[38:51] the Ford government even loses the next election, which is an assumption, you
[38:54] know, is the NDP or whoever that Bonnie Crombie with the Liberals are going
[38:58] to claw back strong mayor hours or Natiriskin Smith or whoever that, Yeah,
[39:01] can we not assume Bonny crime He's going to win the league whoever you know,
[39:07] or whoever, but it's going to claw back these powers. Is that
[39:10] going to be the priority of those parties? So the powers are going to
[39:15] stay now? I completely agree. There may be some trimming around the edges,
[39:19] but this is then probably the new status quo for cities over one hundred
[39:22] thousand people in Ontario. I absolutely agree that thunder Bay should have these powers,
[39:28] in North Bay should have these powers. The argument that I heard justifying
[39:31] why some of them didn't was like every city over one hundred thousand people who
[39:37] made the housing pledge got the powers. That was sort of the Oh so
[39:40] there was especially a little promise fect to old Doug that you would solve his
[39:44] proud you would govern. That's and that's what I said in the blog post
[39:47] right at the beginning is so so Ultimately, what we're getting to is that
[39:52] it's the new normal. So how do we live to learn how to live
[39:55] with it? Not it's really good for municipalities, it's really ship for menisp
[40:00] pounds because they didn't get the chance to say for themselves what they wanted.
[40:04] Now it's the new normal. You're right, how do we learn to live
[40:07] with it? Absolutely? We got to rethink how the structures were if you
[40:09] got to rethink how we organize. As people who have worked on campaigns with
[40:14] the rethink how you're going to campaign. But I don't. There is not
[40:19] one untilla of five of my being that will say this was ever a smart
[40:22] thing to do, And it was done in the worst possible way, and
[40:25] was done against the will of the very bodies that ought to have had some
[40:30] role in making the decision. I don't. I don't disagree with that right,
[40:34] like, and that that makes me hysterical, but it's frog boiling right
[40:37] because I got to say that the connection between doug Ford and Stephen Harper is
[40:46] that ability to figure out exactly where the limit is and where you can go,
[40:53] where you can take things to keep, to isolate the outcry to the
[40:59] people that don't matter to you, right to to contain that brush fire.
[41:05] That is something that that Stephen Harper was incredibly good at um and it's something
[41:09] that doug Ford has proven to be pretty talented at too. Like we're all
[41:14] sitting here and I know Frasier is only ranting because we're ranting, but we're
[41:19] all ranting about this. We're all fired up about the municipal Act, Like
[41:22] this is this is a niche on a Friday night, on a Friday night,
[41:25] and we're drinking water. This is a niche concern, is all I'm
[41:30] saying. Yes, Well, you know I know, and you know that,
[41:35] and it brings me back, you know, to my niche concern that
[41:37] Fraser you're familiar with, and you know from the from the Compensation committee that
[41:44] Eddie Francis rewrote the website for the Marion Windsor to say that he had all
[41:47] kinds of authority that he did not have, and not one solitary journalist,
[41:54] civil servant, or counselor has ever said, dude, that's absolutely wrong.
[42:00] But this is yeah, And this is like one of the things that I
[42:04] think makes the decline of journalism so dangerous is that that was under the bar.
[42:08] That was under the bar for a journalist to be like, if I
[42:12] make a stink about this, nobody's going to be with me, and the
[42:15] mayor is gonna I'm gonna lose access to the mayor. Does it really matter?
[42:19] It's just like an ego stroke on a web page, right, And
[42:22] my concern about about the decline of media is that now the bar is like
[42:28] did the mayor kill a guy? Or did the mayor not kill a guy?
[42:30] We got we gotta hold off until the mayor actually kills a guy before
[42:35] we're going to do its drive with a guy. You know, No,
[42:38] you know, and I agree with you, and like, you know,
[42:42] he didn't have those powers. He does now in fury, but you know,
[42:45] now it's like, now that web page is actually pretty accurate, I
[42:47] think, but I think, you know, I think the question really beyond
[42:53] this is like yes, this is going to be the new status quo.
[42:58] You know, is it good for miss Allays? I agree, it's probably
[43:00] not. I think in many ways though, I think like it's going to
[43:04] require if communities want change, then you know you're gonna need, you know,
[43:10] advocate counselors who are willing to run and be an opposition party. And
[43:15] every time the mayor does something, go to that media person and feed them
[43:19] that story. And you know, every week after every council meeting there's a
[43:23] comment from counselor X, or a counselor why or counselor Z saying here is
[43:30] the opposition opinion of that. And what you need now in communities is you
[43:37] know, and again like you know, Toronto is not our scale, but
[43:38] you know, you have organizations that's job is to hold municipal elected officials to
[43:45] account. You have a Progress Toronto, you have a labor council that's active
[43:50] in the political space. You have all those things, and windsor may not
[43:53] be big enough to sustain that. And that's a real concern because there's like
[43:58] challenges around getting money, you know, organizing in all those things. But
[44:01] you know, I would point to you know, pick your favorite US city
[44:07] in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, San Francisco, Seattle,
[44:12] because they're all strong mayor cities. They're not health scapes of despotic tyranny
[44:17] run out of the executive's office, you know, they you know, in
[44:22] many ways, you know, this is just like rank. It's kind of
[44:25] like ranked ballance. Rank Ballance would have dramatically changed how our municipal democracy worked.
[44:30] Right. It would have had negative consequences for incumbents because it became easier
[44:35] to knock off an incumbent. It would have probably led to more diverse councils.
[44:38] The Ford government killed that and it was only happening in London at the
[44:43] time, But like it would have changed, just like it would have been
[44:45] a similar sort of style of change, and that people would have had to
[44:47] dramatically rethink how see the This is where Ford was smarter than the Liberals because
[44:54] he did it kind of in the middle of his mandate, not at the
[44:58] time. And the mistake the Liberals may was he didn't They didn't mandate it
[45:00] for every municipality. Municipalities had to pick and choose, and only London picked,
[45:06] and so it was only one city that lost ranked ballots. If every
[45:08] city in the province true ran with ranked ballots last election or two elections ago,
[45:14] suddenly it's a lot harder to pull that back. And this is why
[45:16] this power is never going away, because you're gonna have a handful of mayors
[45:20] who like it, handful of mayors who are just in opposition of whoever the
[45:23] next you know political government is so like is you know, is style is
[45:28] going to take away strong mayor powers from Andrew Horbath. No is whoever the
[45:32] liberal going to take powers away from Stephen del Duca and Vaughn maybe you know,
[45:42] but like you know, like you know, he gave powers to Patrick
[45:45] Brown and Brampton, right, like you know, they're not going to do
[45:49] that. So it's going to be here. So now it's time to have
[45:52] us start thinking about, you know, your three years away from an election,
[45:54] give or take, Like, what are the implications of this? You
[45:59] know, our counselors, Like I think counselors still have a pretty strong role
[46:01] in a strong marror system. I do, but you need the right kind
[46:07] of counsel And I agree with your segmentation of counsel there's like various classes and
[46:10] so the question then becomes can you get more of those more high performing counselors
[46:15] in play? Because now if the path the power political power is now the
[46:21] mayor's chair at a municipal level and the clearest path to that is one or
[46:24] two terms as a counselor, are you going to change who runs for counsel
[46:29] now? Because now you can get elected and actually do what you want to
[46:32] do if you're an effective politician. So doesn't you know and like the what
[46:37] if scenarios of you know, maybe counselor choose mayor, check doesn't go run,
[46:42] you know and become MP. You know, what would he do under
[46:45] a strong marror system? You know what would a Brian Massey do if he
[46:50] never left? Or they'll do or a Dwight Duncan right like, you have
[46:53] those effective they don't jump to that upper level because now they can actually have
[46:58] massive impact. Fully, Oh I think and I think that a mayor has
[47:02] far more impact than any MP unless there unless they are in cabinet exactly,
[47:08] and there's a big there's a big gap between um, I have the political
[47:13] talent to be an effective MP, and I have the political talent in combination
[47:17] with the luck and the debt Z owed me to become a cabinet cabinet minister
[47:22] exactly, and so it's like but so it's a lower bar to become mayor.
[47:24] Yeah, and like the political talent though doesn't necessarily jump to those other
[47:30] levels. You know when when you when you were talking, I was thinking,
[47:32] you know, would make me a lot more comfortable with all this is
[47:35] actually diluting counsels. Uh, if you doubled the size of counsel, kept
[47:39] the pay the same, and made the workload half for each individual counselor um
[47:45] and we had twenty voices in windsor twenty voices commenting on the issues of the
[47:50] day, I think that would be that would make me a lot more comfortable
[47:52] with strong mayor powers. But of course the four government went in the opposite
[47:55] direction in the one municipality where where it interfered in ward systems. So that's
[48:00] probably not going to fly anyway as long as the Conservatives are here. Yeah.
[48:06] Like again, council compensation committee, you need six votes, and like
[48:13] that committee is not veto powered like mayor camp veto council compensation or council structures
[48:19] or the ward structure. That's all determined by Counsel as a whole. So
[48:22] if Council wants in twenty twenty four, the motion that was passed in twenty
[48:28] twenty one by my committee was next time it comes back, you look at
[48:30] ward boundaries, you look at council compensation, you look at committee payment,
[48:37] committee structures and payment and the compensation for those as well. So a much
[48:40] broader mandate for the Council Compensation Committee and in theory in twenty twenty four,
[48:45] next year whatever, Yeah, twenty twenty four, midway through the term,
[48:49] a new committee should be struck because that was the mandate from the last term
[48:52] and they should have that mandate to go explore those things. Whether they not
[48:57] they come back with that, I don't know whether or not Council wants to
[49:00] support broadening counsel, but all of those things around the table. Council can
[49:05] do those things. It just takes six votes. So I think we've squeezed
[49:12] all the juice out of this. Lemon welln did you have any final thoughts
[49:15] to share? Well, I think my final thought would be that is that
[49:21] just to reflect maybe on the words strong, so we think about you know,
[49:24] power in particular ways, or that you know that that that it's more
[49:28] powerful to have be a strong mayor and to have your power, your powers
[49:30] and dictated in this way. But I think if we think more sort of
[49:35] philosophically about what power actually is, a counselor or a mayor who can actually
[49:40] rally votes to their philosophical idea is far more powerful than anybody who has some
[49:46] powers on a piece of paper. And the fact that our current mayor and
[49:51] other mayor's craved the written down version of powers which they could have acquired simply
[49:57] by the capacity to negotiate well and to bring people on their side. The
[50:00] person who can do that is in my view, far more powerful in both
[50:06] the short and long term than anyone who's exercising power only because it's written down
[50:09] on a piece of paper that they are allowed to do it. Yeah,
[50:13] I completely agree. Like, And this is where I think for the vast
[50:16] majority of municipalities and the vast majority of communities, strong mayor powers aren't going
[50:20] to change a whole lot. Because their mayor and their council have a relationship
[50:22] that allows them to horse trade and do the work and all those things.
[50:25] It may not change a lot here, I don't know like there's arguably there's
[50:30] a six or a strong block that already supports the mayor. He probably doesn't
[50:34] need to veto a lot of things, right, I would tend to agree.
[50:36] I don't think it will change a lot about the facts on the ground
[50:39] here. Where where I think it has an impact is that it makes it
[50:45] It makes it more difficult for any structural change to happen, you know.
[50:50] For that's where where I see it. I think it kind of solidifies the
[50:53] status quo we've had de facto strong mayor for years and years and years.
[50:59] That was That was Eddie francis Is. Frankly, his brilliance was the ability
[51:04] to collect all the scattered rays of power into his hands and have virtually nobody
[51:08] notice or even complain about it except Alan. Except for Alan, who,
[51:15] honestly, if there's a person who deserves to have a street or a building
[51:19] named after him who likely never will in this town, it's Alan Halberston.
[51:22] I know opinions very um So anyway, I think that that draws our discussion
[51:28] to a close. This was a lovely chat. It only got a little
[51:31] heated. You're both wonderful people to talk to. We had a ton of
[51:36] fun, and I want to also thank the lovely people out there for listening.
[51:39] This is Rose City Politics. We are brought to you with the kind
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[52:09] for listening. See you next week.

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