Preville on Politics

Make the mayor accountable—give him a political party

Posted on March 19, 2008 by Philip Preville

The Globe scored an exclusive with Mayor David Miller, and the result is a headline plucked from a 2005 time capsule: the mayor wants more powers from the province. Nowhere does the story raise the issue of municipal political parties, even though it quotes one councillor—Brian Ashton—at length who supports them. Reading the Globe and Star on this issue is starting to feel awkward. You have to work hard to write around a growing blind spot.

If councillors are concerned about giving the mayor’s office too much power for fear of creating a potential tyrant, there’s one way to fix that: make the mayor accountable to a membership-based political organization. I suppose there might be other solutions, but parties are the most tried and true, having been thoroughly road-tested at other levels of government. Introducing political parties to municipal politics would no doubt create a host of small problems, but it’s an obvious way to begin fixing many of the bigger ones.

Meanwhile, the other angle that’s been overlooked by everyone (mea culpa) on this story is Mayor Miller’s clever little magic trick. Last October, politically battered and bruised over his new tax proposals, he was forced (or perhaps even shamed) to create a fiscal review panel to examine the city’s finances. By the time its work was done—presto chango—the fiscal review panel had been spun into a governance review panel that played straight into his reform agenda. What was once expected to be a damning report has been turned into his main policy plank. I feel like he just played the shell game on me, and I want my ten bucks back.

Comments

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Michael Vanner March 19, 2008 at 11:10 a.m.

Philip which would you prefer: a presidential style mayor selected by a political party and elected by the city as a whole; or a prime minister style mayor selected as the leader of a political party and that enjoys the majority of support of the city council?

We could always go back to the Board of Control model as an elected executive branch with the council being the legislative branch.

I find it funny that Mr. Miller is asking for more power and there are some that support his position. Yet Mr. Harper wields great power and keeps a tight rein over his party and is dammed for it.

Ivor March 20, 2008 at 6:32 p.m.

On the other hand, I've been known to throw ten bucks into the hat after watching an especially impressive shell game. He should take this show on the road!


Author Bio Pic

Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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