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Election of tlhe "Regional Chair
?The issue of whether or not to begin electing the chairs of all regional municipalities in the GTA (the chair is more or less equivalent to the mayor in a regular municipality) has become quite the hot topic lately, even being discussed on the editorial page of the Toronto Star earlier this week. A delegation also appeared before Uxbridge Council recently to ask for the issue to be put on the ballot in the municipal election this fall as a plebiscite, since several other Durham towns and cities have already done so. More than 80 per cent of the voters in Ajax, Pickering and Oshawa favoured direct election in plebiscites during the 2006 election, but nothing’s changed. Durham Chair Roger Anderson is still selected by the members of Regional Council.
The Star, predictably, says the rest of the Regions should follow the example of Halton, where the chair has been directly elected for some time. It’s the democratic thing to do, says the newspaper.
It would be interesting to see what Uxbridge voters would say about the question, whether they would agree with their urban neighbours down by the lake. Uxbridge Council is divided on the issue. Some hold with the democratic argument. Howie Herrema, whose father Garry served as Regional Chair for many years, is adamantly opposed to direct election, saying that if such a reform came to pass, the northern rural municipalities in the region would never again stand a chance of having the chair come from among their citizens. In other words, if direct election had been around 20 years ago, Garry Herrema would never have been chair.
We don’t often disagree with Mr. Herrema, but we beg to differ with him on this one. And we think he underestimates his dad. Had Garry Herrema been obliged to campaign in the streets of Oshawa or Whitby in running for Chair, we think he probably would have done very well. He convinced the regional councillors and mayors of the larger cities that he was the man for the job, there’s no reason he couldn’t have similarly persuaded their constituents.
It’s like saying that someone from the hamlets or the farm (someone like Mr. Herrema, for instance!) could never be directly elected mayor of Uxbridge, where the large majority of the voters are urban. We suspect that Mr. Herrema knows that’s off base; although he’s chosen not to run for any political job this fall, he would probably stand a very good chance at winning the mayoralty if and when he ever did decide to run.
It really doesn’t make a lot of sense for the heads of such large governmental organizations, commanding such large pots of taxpayer money, to be chosen without the input of those taxpayers, and we’re kind of surprised to hear taxpayer advocates like Jack Ballinger say otherwise. It’s true that provincial premiers and our country’s prime minister aren’t directly elected, but neither are they selected by their legislatures. They’re selected by their political parties. Until Durham Region goes to a party system to elect its Council, we think the chair should be directly elected. And this fall, we urge Uxbridge Council to let local voters have their say on such a fundamental issue.
Re: Our story on page one. April Fool! Although if we had someone aggressively promoting our Township to the film industry, it might not be such a farfetched possibility...
