In a follow-up to my earlier post, TTC workers have rejected the deal their union leadership had accepted from TTC management. Going against its previous claims to provide a 48-hour strike notice, the TTC union shut down the system Friday at midnight without any notice, stranding thousands. Despite improved health benefits, a 3% per year pay raise, and a clause that ensures TTC drivers are the best-paid throughout the GTA (meaning if Mississauga workers get a raise, TTC drivers will get another raise), 65% of TTC workers voted against the deal.

Shutting down the TTC without any warning is simply irresponsible. Moreover, it is dangerous to strand people at midnight with few other options to get home at that hour. The TTC unions just squandered any goodwill Torontonians had left. There’s little doubt that they will be ordered back to work. If the legislature sits tomorrow, the TTC could be back up for Monday. And from Adam Giambrone’s (TTC chair) comments, TTC workers shouldn’t expect to see any more money on the table.

Faced with (yet another) TTC — Toronto Transit Commission, for those not in Toronto — strike threat, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty raised the possibility of designating the nation’s largest transit service an “essential service”, much like police and firefighters. Frankly, McGuinty is right. Public transit is an essential service and, while I understand the desire of unionized TTC workers for better pay and working conditions, a shut-down of the TTC as a collective bargaining tactic is unacceptable.

Think back to the wildcat strike of 29 May 2006, on a day when temperatures hit 40C with the humidex (and a smog alert day no less), some TTC workers illegally walked off the job, shutting down the system, and leaving hundreds of thousands of people unable to get to work. The TTC unions ignored the cease-and-desist order issued by the Ontario Labour Relations Board, continuing the strike throughout the day.

The TTC unions also threatened strike in 2005, causing commuters to arrange alternative means of getting to work, only to call it off. The same thing happen in 2002. And in 1999, they did strike for two days before the province ordered them back-to-work. And that’s just what I can remember off the top of my head — there may have been more. And that’s on top of other public sector strikes (remember the 2002 garage strike, anyone?).

The problem is that for many, the only alternative means are either driving (and paying exorbitant parking fees) or even taking a cab. In either case, the result is a severe dent in your daily wages, in they aren’t erased altogether.

The primary reason for the current job action appears to be the usual fare — wages, benefits, etc. TTC bus drivers make $26.58 per hour or $55,286 per year (TTC management offered an inflationary raise, which was rejected). I recognize Toronto is expensive (at least relative to other parts of Ontario), but I also know a lot of teachers who make less than that, and they’ve spent a lot more time and money getting their university training than bus driver’s have. It would be nice for everyone to make more money, but there are only so many public dollars available, especially these days.

A declaration of the TTC as an essential service won’t avert a strike now, but it would in the future. Is public transit an essential service? You bet.

Just wanted to give a heads-up to an article that I helped Karen Howlett with at the Globe and Mail, entitled “Shifting Population Splits Ontario”. It’s an important point that we must recognize — that there are really two Ontarios: the rapidly growing GTA and the rest of Ontario, which is either stagnant or in decline (apart from a couple areas around Waterloo and west of Ottawa). That’s the reality of Ontario’s economic geography. Sooner or later, Ontario must confront the underlying problem of regional disparities. Why? Because if “the rest of Ontario” declines in population, or even remains constant, its per-capita share of provincial health, education and infrastructure funds will decline. This puts pressure to close hospitals and schools, and, without reinvestment, puts our aging infrastructure (roads, bridges, water treatment, sewers) at risk. Contrary to economists’ faith in the theory of “convergence”, regional disparities are real and growing. From school performance to the lack of family doctors, to job losses, Ontario is indeed becoming a tale of two provinces…

With the Ontario election campaign beginning to show signs of life, the long-debated issue of faith-based education has once again re-surfaced. And once again, the issue is polarized along partisan lines. On the one hand, many on the left — including many NDPers — argue that religion has no place in schools whatsoever; ergo, there should be no public funding for any religious schools (i.e. Ontario should do away with funding for Catholic school boards). On the other side, including PC leader John Tory, who would do precisely the opposite — expand public funding for all religious schools (i.e. no only Catholic schools, but Muslim, Jewish, and a wide range of other religious schools). The Liberals, by contrast, appear to support the status quo.

This is one instance where I think the status quo is the best option. Whether those on the left like it or not, separate Catholic separate school boards are a historical fact in Ontario. They were created to accommodate the Catholic minority (including the sizable francophone population) because for a long time, the Protestants (read: the Orange Order and its ilk) tried to starve them out of existence.

Today, the public school boards are secular (i.e. not Protestant), so if we didn’t already have separate Catholic school boards, I doubt there would be an uprising to demand their creation. But, as they are well-established and function well, there is no need to fix what isn’t broken. Indeed, merging the Catholic boards with the public system would surely only hurt the students of both, creating nothing but an administrative nightmare.

But, since the Catholic boards are publicly funded, there is increasing demand to publicly fund all religious schools. Unfortunately, this too would hurt the students. Public funding would necessarily come attached with strings that the private religious schools would have to abide by, which may or may not be desirable. Let’s be clear: private religious schools already exist; the question isn’t whether to allow private religious schools or not. The question is whether they should get public funding. I’m not convinced it’s really in anyone’s interest. If the well-to-do want to send their kids to private religious schools, be my guest. And many religious schools give low-income families a break on tuition if they can’t afford it. So why mess with something that seems to be working just fine?

Moreover, unless there is a commensurate increase in the education budget (which is probably not economically feasible), then it simply means that the same public dollars are being spread over more students, which surely is not a good thing. Also, I suspect that funding segregated all religious schools will surely encourage more cultural and religious segregation — a stark contrast to today, where kids from all backgrounds and faiths attend schools and are exposed to their respective traditions and cultures. I don’t think it is a good thing to promote educational segregation along religious lines. My impression is that the Catholic schools today operate very much like public schools, so the argument that the Catholic boards shouldn’t get an unfair advantage doesn’t really resonate with me. There is little upside to either expanding public funding to all religious schools, or to withdraw public funding from Catholic school boards. Will this administrative juggling result in better results? I doubt it. Therefore, it is worth the angst.

So, let sleeping dogs lie, I say. Decisions whether to abolish or expand public funding for religious schools get people excited — like most philosophical questions — but at the heart of the matter, they are symbolic administrative acts that don’t tackle the core objective, which is to continue to build upon Ontario’s strong education system. Let’s keep our eye on the ball, instead of playing politics with one of our most cherished public systems.

Yesterday, arguing that Canada’s innovation and commercialization performance if dismal (citing last month’s Conference Board report), Pierre Rivard made a pitch to create a CleanTech district on Toronto’s Portlands. See Wikipedia’s entry for CleanTech for an overview, but essentially, CleanTech focuses on eco-efficient production techniques, renewable energy, green technology, and sustainable business.

I agree that Canada needs to do more to encourage entrepreneurialism and innovation — particularly in taking advantage of the opportunities that sustainable development affords us. Unfortunately, Rivard’s thinking reflects outdated mid-twentieth century thinking vis-a-vis segregation of land uses, rather than more current ideas of how to build cities and attract investment. I have been involved with three projects that each makes me skeptical of creating a special “CleanTech District” on Toronto’s waterfront.

In 2003, I taught an urban design studio at MIT that focused on the Toronto Portlands — precisely the area that Pierre is talking about. The problem with the Portlands is that it has been seen for, oh about 30 years, as a clean slate for the latest political pet project (Olympics, Expo, Studio/Media District, and now, apparently, a CleanTech district). The land is mostly publicly owned, but split across municipal, provincial and federal levels. So it’s a never-ending political football. Indeed, virtually nothing has happened in the four years since we did the studio. Given than Toronto is expected to receive about a million more people by 2031, it is clear that Toronto needs to build new neighborhoods. If we want to practice what we preach about sustainable development, we need to build more compactly with higher densities (high enough to support transit and street retail).

That doesn’t mean we need high-rises, though. Mid-rise housing built to the street with gardens in behind provides as much density as high-rises (because high-rises need to be set well back from the street). Believe it or not, a project with three 30-story towers set back from the street (covering 10% of the block) has the same density as 6-story buildings that are built to the street (with 50% private open space on the inside of the block). Both have a floor-area-ratio (FAR) of 3 (i.e. 3 times as much floor space as land area). So density doesn’t mean high-rises.

In our studio, we proposed several new mixed-use neighborhoods in the Portlands that would accommodate about 100,000 people, public spaces, schools, churches, etc and yes, jobs. That is, we should build city — that is, accommodate the full range of activities that makes cities. We explicitly rejected single-use districts that target one particular industry. I’m happy to have CleanTech in the Port, but the idea that it needs to be concentrated in one particular zone of one city is overly simplistic and would create a missed opportunity to build a real extension of the city.

I was also involved with a project with University of Cambridge (UK) that looked at the relationship between innovation and built form. Basically, the university wanted to know how it should grow, attract creative talent and turn those ideas into commercial products. They wanted to know what kind of built form would be best suited to accommodate that growth going forward. We looked at the Silicon Valley model (corporate office parks), but concluded that Silicon Valley was successful not because of the kind of physical environment, but rather in spite of it. We looked at more recent examples that suggested, to simplify things, that innovation didn’t happen in the cubicles, but rather over coffee in a cafe or other informal places. This led us to conclude that the built environment should be quite urban, with lots of informal places to meet, and be flexible enough to change over time. This suggested that the new creative economy would depend not on the 1980s corporate campus model but rather centrally located, vibrant urban environments.

Finally, I also taught a studio in which we worked with Electronic Arts (EA) — the gaming company; they had just chosen Montreal as the site of their new east coast corporate HQ precisely because it was such a nexus for creative talent. They argued that their workers — who were 28 years old on average — wanted to live and work in an urban setting. So came up with an urban design plan that integrated EA into a new urban landscape just south of the downtown and west of Old Montreal (where a lot of tech companies had located). Rather than a closed “campus”, EA would be very much a part of the urban streetscape. Again, it wasn’t a singular “tech” district, but one which had lots of cafes, restaurants, bars, bookstores, and housing.

The basic message is this: don’t sacrifice opportunities to make real city in an effort to attract one single use. These sterile single-use districts do not encourage innovation. On the contrary, mixed-use urban places with opportunities for informal conversation are more likely to attract creative talent and generate innovative ideas. So yes, let’s attract CleanTech to Toronto, but seek strategic sites throughout the city, rather than fall back to an outdated model of sterile single-use “districts”.

It is surely a sign of the times that we subsidize driving while at the same time our public transit systems are so starved for cash. North Americans believe that it is a god-given right to have free access to roads. It is not. It’s time for cities like Los Angeles and Toronto to have the political leadership to do the right thing, even if it is unpopular.

In Toronto, you pay for the greater convenience of having less congestion on the privately-run Highway 407 (to avoid the chronically congested 401). But while the 407 tolls are profit for a private company, tolls on public roads would be reinvested in the transportation system — a portion could be set aside into a fund that is reinvested (to build a pool of funds for the long-term), a portion could be set aside for immediate maintenance of the roads, a portion could be set aside for new capital public transit projects, and a portion could be set aside to pay for the impacts of highway use (smog, CO2, asthma treatment, etc). It’s good public policy.

Traditional opposition to road tolling comes from the right who see it as another tax grab by big government. But free-market proponents argue road tolls is an effective means of properly accounting for the true impact of their use. Many on the left also oppose road tolls because they believe that we’ll end up pricing the poor off of roads, so that highways will become the exclusive domain of the rich. Moreover, since housing on the urban periphery is typically lower than in the central city (at least in L.A. and T.O.), many lower-income households live relatively far out and have no choice but to drive (because there isn’t effective transit in the periphery). But part of the reason why housing on the periphery is cheaper is precisely because municipalities don’t have to pay for public transit infrastructure — transportation (in the form of highways) is paid for by higher levels of government, subsidized to the benefit of tract housing developers. And it isn’t just transportation that is subsidized. When you build at low densities, fewer households are using the same amount of other forms of infrastructure — sewers, schools, street lights, surface streets, and so on. While an acre of urban land might serve 80 units, peripheral housing might serve only 4 units (i.e. a house on a 1/4-acre lot = 4 dwellings per acre) — 20 times less. I’m not opposed to everyone having a single family detached house. But the cost of that pattern of development is not being paid by those who choose it. We could charge higher impact fees (which will be passed along to the consumer). But we can also charge directly for the use of road infrastructure.

We all pay for a certain amount of infrastructure (of all kinds) whether we use it or not — and we do so because we cannot provide it for ourselves as individuals more effectively. But this base level funding doesn’t cover all the costs. In the case of highways, who pays for the lost hours due to congestion? Who pays for pollution? and the associated health impacts? Right now, nobody (or, if anyone, the government, which again means the cost of low-density, auto-dependent development is being borne by everyone). I believe that if you use it, you should pay for it. Clearly, those who use L.A.’s Metro of the TTC in Toronto pay every time they step on board. Why shouldn’t we expect the same for highway users?

Unlike many public policies that are politically expedient, but poor on performance, road tolling delivers results, and can promote change. If it suddenly costs you something to use the highways, maybe you will need to partner up with a buddy and carpool. Maybe you’ll buy a more fuel efficient car to offset the toll costs. Maybe you will give public transit a try. If its not available, maybe you’ll demand it. And if you have the means, maybe you’ll decide that spending dollars of gas and tolls would be better spent on a higher mortgage (thus building equity instead) on a house that is closer to your work or more centrally located (where you can avoid highways and maybe even use transit). Do the math: if you drive 60 miles from home to work and back (120 miles per day), 22 days/month at 20 miles/gallon and $3.50/gallon, that’s $462 per month in gas. A $5 toll each way for 22 days adds another $220/month. That’s $682/month. How much more could you have spent on your house to live in more central (non-highway dependent) location? At 7% interest for a 30-year loan, that extra $682 translates into $100,000 in house value. Wouldn’t that be a better investment that burning through gas and toll charges every month?

Our taxes help pay for roads, transit and everything else. So the notion that “I’ve already paid for the roads with my taxes” (and thus should not have to pay a toll) is no more valid than a transit user saying “I’ve already paid for the system with my taxes” (and thus should not have to pay for a ticket). The cost of transportation isn’t free. It’s high time that cities like Los Angeles and Toronto recognize this and implement highway tolls.

This week the Ontario Liberals announced a $17.5 billion plan to invest in public transit in the greater Horseshoe region (normally transit investments are split 3 ways between federal, provincial, and municipal governments, but in this case the province is covering the municipal costs — it remains to be seen if the federal government will contribute — but don’t hold your breath; as such, the “real” commitment for the Ontario government is about $11.5 billion). Among the initiatives are:

- expand capacity of several GO lines by adding a third track
- extend several GO lines further out
- electrify the GO Lakeshore network
- build a new crosstown GO line
- a couple new GO radial lines
- add dedicated bus rapid transit lines along 400 highways
- add dedicated bus rapid transit lines in Peel and Halton
- an air-rail link from Union Station to Pearson airport
- 2 new light rail lines in Hamilton
- various new light rail lines in Toronto
- extend the Scarborough and Sheppard light rail lines
- expansion of York Region’s VIVA network
- new light rail in Durham region
- extend Yonge subway line to Hwy 7

If we assume that the “real” (i.e. committed) money is only two-thirds, it is reasonable to assume that about a third of the above projects will not happen (unless the federal government ante’s up $500 million per year for the next 12 years — this could in fact become an issue in the next federal election).

So what are the priorities? DemocraticSPACE believes priority #1 should be to deliver real workable transit to the 905 region (but for transit to be viable in the 905, municipalities will need to allow more mixed-use, and yes, higher density mid-rise communities to form). So the various 905 dedicated bus rapid transit initiatives are critical. DemSPACE considers the GO Crosstown line essential, so that people don’t have to travel all the way downtown to get across the city. DemSPACE also considers the Pearson-Union link critical, but it’s only a first step, since Pearson clearly needs to be linked to Mississauga and North York (which have as many jobs as downtown), and eventually to other parts of the region. DemSPACE believes, however, that changes must be made to the current plan to ensure there are no street closures in Weston (which would cut the neighborhood in two) and to electrify the line rather than using diesel engines (to cut down pollution and noise). It will also be political difficult to cut the Hamilton light rail.

Among the candidates to be cut? DemSPACE suspects the extension of the subway to Highway 7 will get cut since subway construction is very expensive for little relative gain. New and extended GO lines further out are candidates to be cut (since after all, the whole point of their “Smart Growth” strategy is to rein in the GTA’s growth, and one could argue that we shouldn’t be subsidizing wealthy folks who live so far from the city-region). It’s also unlikely that electrification of the GO Lakeshore line win happen, since the priority will be to expand the capacity first. And several of the light rail lines in Toronto are likely going to have to wait.

Not surprisingly, people outside of the 905, including many Progressive Conservatives, are upset that the GTA is getting these big infrastructure dollars. I keep hearing the familiar, but incorrect, statements that rural folks are tired of subsidizing the GTA (in fact, rural areas receive more money than they contribute; of course, that doesn’t mean rural and Northern areas are getting enough help to meet their needs, just that what they do get is subsidized by GTA taxpayers).

And there are critics, particularly among NDPers, who are suggesting that the Liberals are just trying to buy votes in the 905 region for the fall election. Of course, if voters think it is a good idea, it is hardly “buying” votes, it is simply delivering what people want — which is an effort to finally provide transit alternatives in the 905 region (which could reduce congestion and smog). One could also argue that the best chance of ensuring this plan is actually implemented would be a Liberal minority government supported by NDPers — but only if NDPers actually support the plan, of course.

Overall, DemocraticSPACE strongly supports this initiative. The key, however, is not how much you can promise, but rather, how much you deliver. DemSPACE will therefore judge this initiative on whether it delivers results.

In this morning’s Toronto Star:

“Half of Ontario families raising children have seen their fortunes stagnate or fall behind compared with a decade ago, while the incomes of the richest have soared, says a new study on the growing income gap…. 40 per cent of Ontario’s families with children – more than 600,000 households – have seen little or no gains in their incomes for the past 30 years, despite being better educated and working longer hours.”

While this gap between rich and poor is often seen as a problem with the lowest earners, these numbers illustrate that the gap between rich and poor is equally impacting the middle class. Intuitively, baby-boomers in Ontario know something is wrong when their kids are saving less than they did despite better education and working more (and in most cases, more than one income). Worse: the cost of housing and food has risen more sharply than ever. The result is that the middle class today is relatively worse off today than 30 years ago.

The first question is, of course, whether we think this growing gap between rich and poor is a good thing or not. I believe quite strongly that such widening disparities signals failure in an affluent society. It means that a select few are benefiting from the hard work of others. Others may disagree, arguing that “people should get what they deserve”. That’s understandable, but doesn’t acknowledge that not everyone starts off in life with the same advantages.

A free and democratic society, to me, ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. At minimum, that requires equal access to affordable health and education, empowers everyone with the tools to succeed, and helps those who are in difficult situations (whether of their own choosing or not) to once again become self-sustaining. That doesn’t necessarily mean throwing more money at problems or more bureaucratic systems to enforce universal standards for all, or conversely, abandoning the principle that everyone should share in our prosperity. What it means is more effective public policies and programs that focus on results, not procedures (and questioning the notion that more rules and regulations means better results, or, conversely, that no regulations are needed). Unfortunately, we are in a stalemate between those (often on the right) that see no (or little) value in the public sector, and those (often on the left) who defend the status quo as the only means of achieving the desired outcomes. But as the growing gap between rich and poor illustrates, the status quo isn’t working. Indeed, most Ontarians, even those who support public programs, are skeptical that we are getting the results that we expect from our public institutions.

Our progressive tax system — i.e. taxing the rich at higher rates than the poor — somewhat mitigates this growing gap between rich and poor. But as the gap between rich and poor continues to grow, it means that our tax system will need to get more progressive if we are to just keep pace. But tax rates for the highest earners have been steadily dropping over the last 30-35 years. Is there an appetite to reverse this trend these days? The tax rate in the post-war “boom” period for the highest earners was in the 50-55% range (and in the U.S. this was under a President who was conservative military general). Today, the tax rate for the highest earners is in the 30-35% range. And that rate kicks in quite early, so someone earning $65,000 is taxed at the same rate as someone earning $1 million.

Even if we restored some common sense back into our tax system, it operates as a bottom-line adjustment — a means of mitigating the uneven distribution of income. Tax reform must be combined with a more sustainable approach that targets the root problem, which is increasing disparities in quality-of-life (which manifests itself as a growing income gap). Traditionally, unions were seen as the best way to ensure that the average worker earned a decent wage. But that was in an economic order dominated by a compact between big business and big labour (when the largest segment of the economy was dominated by large corporations, for whom workers would progressively rise up the ladder). Today’s labour market is more fluid; the big union jobs are declining, not because of a great conspiracy against labour, but because economic re-structuring has meant companies are no longer as vertically integrated as before — that is, production processes are more specialized into many smaller firms. These specializations demand more skilled labour. This has put pressure on traditional low-skill union jobs. This is exacerbated in a more global marketplace, where companies can find cheaper low-skill labour elsewhere, and when large corporations are slow to adopt innovations (for example, the big three car companies, and the CAW along with them, resisting adopting greener technologies has reduced demand for their products, and leading to more lay-offs).

Unfortunately, most of the attention is policy-making today tends to focus on the “high-end” jobs — turning everyone into biochemists and such (or conversely, providing subsidies to large corporations to adopt the innovations they should have been adopting all along). While these top-down approaches are important in advancing Ontario’s position on innovation in the global marketplace (driven through the universities and research departments of private companies), these policies do little to address the everyday problems of widening gaps in quality of life (because the beneficiaries of these innovation programs are those with already above average opportunities). And I say this as someone with four post-secondary university degrees (and a fifth — my doctorate — on the way) — i.e. I say this from someone who would benefit from the current focus on “innovation from above”.

To target the root cause of the gap between rich and poor, I believe we must focus on “everyday innovation” — innovation from below, if you will — that is, increasing the skills of workers in the large middle segment of the population, and ensuring that those in dire circumstances aren’t just forced to work minimum-wage service sector jobs (which often happens with workfare programs or lost union jobs), but rather are empowered to improve their skills through trades training. I think Ontario’s excellent college system needs to play a bigger role. Graphic designers, mechanics, lab technicians, the various construction trades, etc — these are the kinds of skills that will empower people and have the greatest potential to close the gap between rich and poor. The goal of high school education, then, should not be to focus exclusively on preparing kids to be doctors and lawyers (which has for too long dominated curriculum) but rather to acknowledge the vital role of innovation in everyday trades and skills. With a more balanced approach, we should be able to radically decrease high school drop-out rates (because, in fact, you simply cannot survive today without one).

Working hand-in-hand with everyday innovation is a focus on enterprise (or entrepreneurialism) — that is, having more bosses, less employees — turning the specialized skills that people gain into small businesses. There is little doubt that small business owners are better off than the average worker; they are more invested in their work, they set their own schedule, and they earn more. That means having better access to venture capital for seed money to help new businesses get off the ground. Some will fail, but most will succeed. It’s long since time we catch up neighboring U.S. states in promoting small business.

Collectively, tax reform, a focus on everyday innovation (getting more people more skills for everyday jobs), and improving entrepreneurialism/small businesses offer the best chance of reversing the gap between rich and poor. It’s about time that it become a priority, otherwise we will end up with two Ontarios: the haves and the have nots, with increasingly few in between.

File THIS under asinine. A guy wants to uses Toyota Prius cars as “limos” in Toronto. And why not? They are low emission and go 60 miles per every gallon of gas. Except that Toronto has a by-law that mandates the size of cars, how much trunkspace it has, and how much legroom there is — which prevents the Prius from being used. Moreover, a “limo” service requires one stretch limo for every regular car. I mean, really, if a company has a fleet of cars that people think are too small or too uncomfortable, is it not within the realm of possibility that people will not take them? How is trunk size of a limo an endangerment to public health and safety? Isn’t that the purpose of city ordinances? The City says its important not to blur the line between taxis and limos. Yes, clearly, the world will crash if Priuses are allowed to carry passengers around the City of Toronto (note that Priuses are fine in the adjacent cities of Ajax and Pickering, and I haven’t yet read news of Armageddon there — and in Los Angeles, the Capital of Car, Priuses are widely used as limos). This is a classic case of a by-law existing where none need exist. Can you say over-regulation? If you think this is a stupid as I do, I encourage you to write to Howard Moscoe, chair of the city’s licensing and standards committee:

Howard Moscoe
Chair, Licensing & Standards Committee
City Hall, 100 Queen Street West, Suite B30
Toronto, ON M5H 2N2
Phone: 416-392-4027
Fax: 416-392-4191
councillor_moscoe@toronto.ca

As I reported yesterday, the Toronto Star’s Queen’s Park correspondent, Ian Urquhart, has indeed come out swinging in an attempt to discredit the Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform. As I said yesterday, this is no surprise. And that Urquhart is leading the charge is equally unsurprising, given his well-known stated opposition to electoral reform. (As a product of one of Toronto’s most elitist institutions, Upper Canada College, Urquhart is a poster-child for Toronto’s Liberal elite anxiety over any change to the status quo). This is the same man who denigrated those Ontarians who have volunteered their weekends for the last many months by characterizing them as “mostly retirees, students, part-time workers, homemakers and computer-nerds looking for some excitement in their humdrum lives.” [See Ian Urquhart, "Beware citizens' assemblies on electoral reform," Toronto Star, 9 Sept 2006] Regardless of whether or not you support electoral reform, Urquhart’s contempt for his fellow citizens reflects more on his character than that of Citizens Assembly members.

The Citizens’ Assembly, comprised of 103 everyday Ontarians, after learning of various electoral systems, and fanning out across the province to hear what Ontarians wanted, voted to pursue a mixed-member (MMP) system as an alternative (once they design the system, it will be compared against our current system to determine whether or not change is desirable; recommendations will be delivered on May 15 and Ontarians will vote in a referendum on election day October 10, 2007).

And while Urquhart has tried his hardest to characterize a mixed-member system as “radical”, it is anything but. MMP system is remarkably simple — we keep our current local MPPs, who are elected exactly as today, and we restore the seats that Mike Harris cut (against the wishes of most Ontarians) in 1999, bringing the legislature back to the size it was pre-Harris. These restored seats would be regional MPPs. Just like local MPPs, regional MPPs are accountable to a given territory, and, just like local MPPs are elected by voters by placing an X next to their preferred candidate (Urquhart claims that regional members are filled by “lists” but this isn’t true — look at my proposed MMP system which was given Fair Vote Ontario’s top ranking. Here, regional candidates are nominated by parties just like today, but voters, just like today, choose who they like best — there are no ordered lists whatsoever). Finally, regional problems such as traffic congestion, smog, regional health networks, growth management, regional economic development, among many others would have a voice in Queen’s Park. The number of regional seats each party is entitled to is determined by how many total votes their candidates receive in a region. Thus, the parliament as a whole closely reflects how Ontarians voted, which is after all, what we expect in a democracy. So with remarkably little change to our political institutions, we ensure that all votes go towards electing an MPP, all MPPs are accountable to a locality or region, we ensure that all regions have a voice in both government and opposition, and that every Ontarian is represented by an MPP from the party of their choice. It’s a system used in Scotland, Wales and New Zealand — all of which previously used our winner-takes-all system.

You see, Urquhart’s ilk are worried that their long-running and undemocratic stranglehold over Toronto would be mitigated under a fair voting system. Ironically, however, it is Liberals outside of Toronto that stand to gain the most from any change in the electoral system. Why? While Toronto Liberals regularly receive a disproportionate number of Toronto seats (in 2003 they won 90% of Toronto’s seats despite half of Torontonians voting for someone else), their Liberal colleagues outside of Toronto are often highly under-represented. A mixed-member system would ensure the Liberals gain their fair share of rural and suburban seats. So, you might say that this is once again another chapter in the on-going 416 vs 905 political battles in Ontario (or more broadly, Toronto vs everyone else).

It’s unfortunate that Urquhart has such contempt for the most democratic process Ontario has ever known. Regardless of what the Citizens’ Assembly recommends — change to MMP or some other system, or retaining the status quo — we must respect their decision. As a body that is more representative of the province than the legislature (gender equal, diverse and with voices from all regions counting equally), their work represents the future of Ontario’s democracy, one in which on critical issues, everyday Ontarians have a voice at the table. History is replete with examples of the elite few trying to protect their privileged position by denying the democratic will of the people. Regardless of whether you support electoral reform or not, we should all rise to defend democratic principles. The more people like Urquhart attack the most democratic process we’ve ever seen, the more the fall’s referendum shifts from the specifics of electoral reform to a referendum on democracy itself.