To the editor:
The theory of the case for Thunder Bay’s ward politics has it all wrong. According to every single ward councillor in the city, that theory presumes the ease of contact between an individual citizen and a ward councillor is the highest ideal of modern democracy.
It ain’t.
You’ve heard how hockey players describe a slow defenceman as a ‘pylon’? Immobile objects you just skate around? Not particularly useful? That’s a ward councillor.
Ward councillors can lend a sympathetic ear at a more intimate meeting inside a community centre than at city hall. But they don’t have to power to actually do anything. They can’t order a city employee to fix a pothole or put up a stop sign. They are merely one of many possible tools for receiving input from citizens about a variety of issues. That’s it.
On the other hand, the ward councillor, like a pylon, is a trip hazard.
Ward councillors have done more damage to our community than any other single political entity.
Back in the day, it was ward councillors who banded together to allow uncontrolled development in the city’s rural areas over the protests of those such as then Mayor David Hamilton who pointed out the exploding costs that would result.
The ward councillors wouldn’t listen. They were the ones who would decide what happened in wards, not the people elected at-large.
Just this week, we’ve seen the same dynamic at work. The at-large politicians largely agreed the best location for a temporary village would be on North Cumberland. The ward councillors were having none of it. They banded together and, once again, undermined the best interests of the entire city. All this to protect their ward from the visible effects of poverty.
Ward councillors only have to appeal to a slice of the city’s population. They are not accountable to all. Their strategies for re-election are quite different. They don’t have to think big-picture, how we grow our city. They only have to protect the narrow interests of the people in their ward.
This is why the city stalled economically as we lost 60 per cent of our industrial tax base over the last 40 years. The response of council was anemic. That’s because the ward councillors didn’t have to worry about doing something as long as they made the horse-trades necessary to get the worst road in their ward paved each year.
The public wants a smaller council. They want to vote for as many councillors as possible. At-large councillor Mark Bentz proposed a reasonable compromise-four wards instead of seven with a majority of at-large positions.
But once again, the current crop of ward councillors conspired against the city’s bests interests…in favour of their own.
We need serious change at city hall. We need a focus on industrial and commercial growth to reduce the tax burden on homeowners. The city’s operating costs are too high. And because of all these pylons, we keep falling flat on our faces.
Shane Judge,
Thunder Bay
