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A case of Redundancy
This coming Monday, June 18 at 7:00 in the Township Council Chambers at 51 Toronto Street South, Mayor and Council are hosting a public meeting on the topic of the direct election of the chair of Region of Durham Council. Had the Township held this meeting even a couple of weeks earlier, it might have been fascinating. With the question of direct election still precariously up in the air, it would have been an opportunity for wavering Uxbridge councillors to hear their constituents’ points of view on the matter (as well as some of their colleagues, perhaps), and to sift the input of the “experts” Her Worship invited to make presentations to the meeting.
Unfortunately, the meeting had 90% of its relevance taken away recently when the Whitby Council became the fifth in Durham Region (following the other four lakeshore municipalities) to endorse direct election, thus giving the concept the “triple majority” it required for passage (the majority of Region Council, and the majority of municipal councils representing the majority of the region’s population).
In retrospect, perhaps the three northern municipalities - Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge - which have long been suspected of being opposed to direct election, should have held their votes before the others, thus increasing their admittedly slim chances of influencing the southern vote. There is, however, no guarantee that things would have gone that way. Of the north’s six representatives at Region Council, only two (including Uxbridge’s Jack Ballinger) voted against the concept in the final tally. And the fact that a sizeable majority of the voters of all three municipalities voted “yes”in the 2010 referendum on the question, may well have swayed many of the members of the northern councils when push came to shove.
But all of this is now idle speculation. The northern municipalities are the last to vote on the issue, and now their position, although it might be interesting politically, is totally irrelevant, having no impact whatsoever on the final result. Given that fact, it is highly improbable that the northern councils will even hold their votes, and we will be cheated of knowing how our Uxbridge councillors would have stood in a situation that mattered. Now it will be very easy for them to say they would have done this or that; the heat of a relevant vote might have had a very different impact.
In any event, the decision is now made; the Region of Durham will elect its Council chair in a region-wide popular ballot in the fall of 2014. What will be fascinating now will be to watch which candidates throw their hats in the ring. We can almost be certain of two names: current chair Roger Anderson, and his long-time rival, former Ajax mayor Steve Parrish, who led the fight for direct election. But who else?
One of the major arguments northern politicians had against direct election was that they stood little or no chance of having one of their own take the seat, despite the historic evidence of Leaskdale farmer Gary Herrema being a very popular and successful occupant in the past. We think it’s important that a northern candidate take a vigorous run at Anderson and Parrish, and we can think of two excellent possibilities: Gary’s son Howie, and Gerri-Lynn O’Connor. Let the race begin!
July 14, 2011
