30 July at 5.30pm.
Andrea Horwath was not on her best form today.
Instead of a scalpel, forensically dissecting Ford’s policies - on Toronto Council and the abolition of direct election for Regional Chairs - she used a mallet to whack him over the head. It was never going to work.
Horwath yelled he was a bully. Ford lapped it up, laughing.
The Leader of the Opposition has got to raise her game. Staged indignation doesn’t cut it anymore. We need laser-like, focussed questions. Not vaudeville.
She had the material.
Horwath could have asked Ford why the Minister bringing in the legislation to abolish direct elections for Regional Chairs (Steve Clark) previously supported them.
She could have pointed to Ernie Hardeman, the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affair, who likewise was “100% in support” of direct elections for the Chair of York Regional Council. Has he had a change of heart? And if so, what prompted him to turn turtle?
A foot in both camps: Christine Elliott
The Better Local Government Act was given its first reading on a division in the Ontario Legislature today. And as I tap this out I am wondering if my own MPP, PC Deputy Leader Christine Elliott, had the gall to vote to abolish the direct election of chair of York Region – which includes her new riding Newmarket-Aurora. (I haven’t seen the division list.)
In Durham, where she comes from and still lives, they have elected their Regional chair since 2014.
If Ford’s legislation goes through there is nothing in the Better Local Government Act, published today, that would stop Regions - after the 2018 election - from seeking to change the way they elect their Regional Chair.
It can be done but it is not easy. Members of Regional Councils have got to support the change when many of them have a vested interest in the status quo.
Following a referendum in the municipal election of 2010, Durham Region asked the Minister of Municipal Affairs to enact a regulation authorising it to change the method of selecting the Regional Chair. And the Province complied.
In Waterloo Region the Regional Chair has been elected by Region-wide vote since 1997. And in Halton Region Council since 2000.
48 years
By contrast, York Region has now been saddled with an appointed Regional Chair for 48 years. And once they are in place they are almost impossible to shift.
If we had a direct election for Regional Chair in York it would involve 750,000 voters making it the fourth largest municipal election in Canada.
I’d like Christine Elliott (who happens to be my own MPP in Newmarket-Aurora) to explain why Durham with a population of 672,000 can have a directly elected Regional Chair but York Region, with a population of 1,109,000 is, apparently, too "immature" to have one.
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Update on 31 July 2018: Deputy Leader Christine Elliott, Ernie Hardeman and, of course, Steve Clark, voted yesterday to abolish the planned elections for Regional Chairs in York, Peel, Niagara and Muskoka. Here is the full Division List for the Ayes:
Anand, Deepak; Baber, Roman; Babikian, Aris; Bailey, Robert; Barrett, Toby; Bouma, Will; Clark, Steve; Coe, Lorne; Crawford, Stephen; Cuzzetto, Rudy; Downey, Doug; Dunlop, Jill; Elliott, Christine; Fedeli, Victor; Fee, Amy; Fullerton, Merrilee; Ghamari, Goldie; Gill, Parm; Hardeman, Ernie; Harris, Mike; Hogarth, Christine; Jones, Sylvia; Karahalios, Belinda; Ke, Vincent; Khanjin, Andrea; Kramp, Daryl; Kusendova, Natalia; Lecce, Stephen; MacLeod, Lisa; Martin, Robin; Martow, Gila; McDonell, Jim; McKenna, Jane; McNaughton, Monte; Miller, Norman; Mulroney, Caroline; Nicholls, Rick; Oosterhoff, Sam; Pang, Billy; Park, Lindsey; Parsa, Michael; Pettapiece, Randy; Phillips, Rod; Rasheed, Kaleed; Rickford, Greg; Roberts, Jeremy; Romano, Ross; Sabawy, Sheref; Sandhu, Amarjot; Simard, Amanda; Smith, Dave; Smith, Todd; Tangri, Nina; Thanigasalam, Vijay; Triantafilopoulos, Effie J.; Wai, Daisy; Walker, Bill; Wilson, Jim; Yakabuski, John; Yurek, Jeff;
(MPPs Doug Downey and Mike Harris Jr were amongst those PC candidates personally appointed by Doug Ford to run as PC candidates in the June 7 election.)
