The opportunity for new faces to unseat incumbents on Toronto City Council in this fall's municipal election may prove unlikely yet again.
The so-called incumbency factor sparked discussion among a small crowd Tuesday night at the Etobicoke Civic Centre during the last of four Better Ballots town hall meetings. "Statistics show 80 to 85 per cent of incumbents get re-elected," said Stephen Thiele, a lawyer, who is president of The Toronto Party. "(Incumbents) have $53,000 a year office budgets in Toronto to get their name and awareness out in the community."Thiele referenced statistics published in Prof. James Lightbody's book, City Politics, Canada.In 2006, only one incumbent Toronto City Councillor, Peter Li Preti, was defeated. Anthony Perruzza won the York West Ward 8 seat.Better Ballots is exploring with Toronto voters 14 options they argue could make Toronto's elections more inclusive, diverse and fair, including term limits, ranked ballots and extending the vote to permanent residents.Nineteen people, four of them Etobicoke candidates in this fall's Toronto election, attended in sharp contrast to the 150 engaged voters who packed council chambers at Monday night's Better Ballots' townhall at City Hall.Better Ballots is exploring electoral reform options, in part, to engage disaffected voters.In Toronto, municipal elections historically draw only 40 per cent voter turnout, significantly lower than that of provincial and federal elections."A lot of the reason people are apathetic and don't vote is because of the myth out there that city elections are not important. That all important decisions are made at Queen's Park and in Ottawa," said Dave Meslin, who heads Better Ballots.Electoral reform options debated fell into four categories - who votes, when and where; parties and terms; ballot structure and districts, and finance reforms.Extending the vote to permanent residents and 'distorted' results, where candidates win with less than 50 per cent of the vote due to vote splitting, was also hotly debated."There are neighbourhoods in Toronto where 30 per cent of people can't vote," said panelist Desmond Cole, project coordinator of I Vote Toronto. "In some cases, entire neighbourhoods have little representation at the ballot box."Extending the vote to permanent residents is one of the 14 options, and is practised in London, Berlin and Madrid.Jem Cain, a second-time candidate running this fall in Etobicoke-Lakeshore's Ward 6, said she opposed the introduction of parties to municipal politics."If I represent people I want to represent the will of the people, not a group," she said. "We don't have faith in politics."Participants voted on the 14 options. Those results, along with those from three earlier Better Ballots town halls, will be tallied by Better Ballots for future advocacy work."Check it off so we can make a real difference in 2014," Meslin said. "We'll use your results to jointly advocate, to get Queen's Park to amend the Municipal Elections Act to give cities the option of 'enabling legislation' so cities including Toronto that want term limits, ranked ballots, age limits (could have them). Then we'd advocate Toronto council for any of the amendments we want."