Social media changes involvement in city politics

Social media changes involvement in city politics. Social media, including Facebook and Twitter, played a key role in last week's marathon meeting of the City of Toronto's executive committee. Photo Illustration/IRVIN MINTZ

It was the longest continuous meeting in the history of amalgamated Toronto, with the largest number of listed deputations. The opposition to Mayor Rob Ford at Toronto City Hall declared the day of July 28, night and following day to be historic, a show of grassroots opposition to an agenda that proposes cuts to library services, childcare and environmental initiatives.

But it could be that the event was historic for another reason.

It could mark the maturing power of social media - Twitter and Facebook, principally - to allow citizens to get involved in government like never before.

Social media played a key role in gathering deputations for the mid-summer, overnight meeting. It began when Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood used her Twitter account to lambaste Mayor Ford and his brother, city councillor Doug Ford, for considering the closure of library branches.

The tweet resulted in 39,000 signatures on an online petition from the Toronto Public Library workers' union, urging the committee to leave the public library be.

As the meeting approached, other online social media call-outs appeared, including one for a picnic outside Toronto City Hall on the day of the meeting.

And when Mayor Rob Ford and the executive committee voted to hold the meeting overnight when faced with 344 listed deputations - the call went out again. Among Twitter's top trending topics were Doug Ford, and Ford.

Through the night, journalists both professional and amateur provided running Twitter feeds of the proceedings, while activists put out the word for food, water and even personal items to keep them going through the 20-hour marathon waiting to depute.

Ensconced in committee rooms, deputants feasted on pies, chili, coffee and doughnuts and turned the event into - well, an Event.

"Five years ago most people wouldn't have known this kind of meeting was happening - wouldn't have thought of attending it, and wouldn't have been following it live as it unfolds," said Dave Meslin, a longtime community activist who worked to help rally the deputations, and keep people there. "But there was a Facebook group for a picnic outside at Nathan Phillips Square during the day, and more than 1,000 people RSVP'ed."

Meslin spoke to the committee at five a.m., lambasting them for holding the meeting overnight, in order, he said, to stifle deputations.

But in the end, 168 stuck it out. And Meslin said later that he felt the plan backfired.

"I think that the intention was that if it went past midnight no one would be there and they could cross off the whole list and end the meeting," he said. "I think their plan backfired partly because of social media - a lot of people did show up."

Meslin and others found the enthusiasm a bit of a surprise.

"It's easy to click on something on Facebook," he said. "What we really saw last week was that people are prepared to do more."

It's a lesson that city councillors have learned.

Ford used social media during his campaign and maintains a Twitter feed and a Facebook presence. Earlier in the week, Ford used his Facebook page to respond to the infamous post on Facebook suggesting he'd given the finger to a woman and her child.

Former budget chief Shelley Carroll, who represents Ward 33 (Don Valley West), has been a habitual user of Twitter, both to communicate with her constituents and advance the debate.

Like everyone else contacted for this article, Carroll was first contacted through her Twitter feed.

She said Twitter, Facebook and other social media applications are increasingly becoming a primary way to communicate with constituents.

She pointed out that it's an economical way to do so, especially since Toronto Council members voted to reduce their own office budgets. But it also invites greater public scrutiny.

"I think that for the generations that don't use social media - and mine is one of them - you're going to find that for those who are really engaged, especially in local politics, you're not going to be able to use the strategy of putting things off and off, and say, promise to do an in-depth conversation in the middle of the summer (and hope that people don't come)," she said.

"There are no seasons of engagement anymore. Social media goes on and on, in fact in the summer it gets even stronger, with no weather impediment. You can't count on young people not to engage in the summer."

At the end of the meeting, York West Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti and others suggested that the large group of people represented a small constituency - of those living in downtown Toronto, who are hoping to maintain individual interests.

Mammoliti dismissed suggestions that deputations in fact came from across the city.

"Those that live in the downtown core - the majority of them, that's what they were," he said. "But there's a whole city here and we have to understand that others have values as well."

He and Doug Ford had suggested that most of the people who would come would do so with the blessings of unions. But local activist Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler pointed out that the social network machine ensured that people came from across the city.

"Twitter is probably the best thing that I've seen happen to people from across the city in finding a common focus," he said.

"It might be that in your neighbourhood in Scarborough or Etobicoke or North York - you know that there are people out there that feel the same way you do - and you want to speak out - but you don't necessarily have a network of support. Although there's no formal structure, through social media there are people out there similar to you. This really encourages people to speak."