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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 16 June 2016

The Municipal Elections Modernization Act is now law. Unfortunately, key parts of it have not been thought through.

The new ban on corporate and union donations now extends to municipal elections – which are not contested by the political parties. Under the rules as they stand, there is no cap whatsoever on the amount of money an individual candidate can donate to his or her own campaign provided they are self funded. 

But campaign spending caps still apply. *

Take the case of the Chair of York Region. If the post were to be directly elected by the voters at large in the next Regional election in 2018, candidates would face a campaign spending cap of around around $650,000.

By then, the electorate is expected to be about 750,000. A conventional campaign – using advertising media and leaflets – would cost a small fortune to reach such a huge number of voters. A wealthy candidate could buy the election, financially carpet bombing others of more modest means.

The new Minister of Housing, Newmarket-Aurora MPP Chris Ballard, has been pushing for the direct election of the Chair of York Region for years. The position which is worth over $200,000 a year is currently held by the jovial Wayne Emmerson who got the job in 2014 on a 16-4 vote of members of the Regional Council.

But now that Ballard is a Minister the future of his Private Member’s Bill (Bill 42) is uncertain.

(For the Bill to survive and become law Ballard needs to persuade (a) another MPP to take over his Bill and become its sponsor and (b) persuade Government business managers to bring forward a motion to allow this to happen and (c) timetable its return to the floor of the House and vote it into law. This could be done in a matter of moments. Bill 42 has already completed its Committee Stage.)

When I ask Ballard how individual candidates for Regional Chair can reasonably be expected to raise the huge sums of money needed to fight a half-decent campaign he floats the idea of a “rebate programme” where campaign contributions to candidates for municipal office are offset in some way. I am unsure how this may work out in practice.

Chris Ballard tells me:

"Thank you for your questions, in the past few weeks following the introduction of Bill 181 and during the Standing Committee process, the government has heard from a number of individuals and organizations across Ontario about the proposed Municipal Elections Modernization Act, 2016 about concerns with corporate and union donations to candidates for municipal council.

To create an even playing field for all candidates, the government proposed amendments to the Bill that ban corporate and union contributions to council candidates in all Ontario municipalities.  The ban would also apply to contributions to school board trustee candidates. By making the ban on corporate and union donations mandatory for all municipalities in Ontario, the government is working to balance the interests of candidates and citizens.

Acknowledging the absence of political parties operating at the municipal level, municipal candidates are able to self-fund without a cap on how much they may contribute to their own campaigns. Candidates running for Councillor in the City of Toronto have done so with a $750 contribution limit (and $5,000 aggregate limit) with the ban on union and corporate contributions for the last two municipal election cycles. 

Bill 181 does not propose a provincial subsidy for municipal candidates, however, municipalities may choose to establish a rebate program for contributions to municipal candidates and you may wish to contact your municipality directly to ask about local programs and whether any changes are being contemplated."

I am in touch with York Region to see what they have to say.

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Professor Robert MacDermid from York University and a leading expert on campaign finance told the Committee examining Bill 181 on 5 May 2016 that self-funding should be done away with:

I recommend that we replace the limit on the size of contributions that candidates and their spouses can make to their own campaigns. Municipal politics in Ontario are unusual. It’s unlike provincial or federal politics, where candidates can only give what other citizens can give. This allowance to allow people to self-fund their campaigns—sometimes to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars—simply prolongs the kind of economic inequality that exists in the system. It allows rich people an opportunity to run where poor people cannot. Self-funding needs to be removed from the bill. People have to rely, as I said, on small contributions from a broad base of people. Self-funding is also an issue because it opens the door to getting around the rules about contributions by illegally allowing somebody to give a cheque or give money to a candidate who can then give the money in their own name rather than having to give it obviously. I think that’s probably something that goes on.

* This blog was amended on 17 June 2016 Newmarket's Town Clerk, Andrew Brouwer, helpfully reminds me that while a candidate who is self funded does not have a campaign contribution limit, each office has a maximum campaign expense limit which is prescribed by the Act. In a report to York Region on 18 February 2016, it was put this way:

"Campaign spending limits are prescribed by the Municipal Elections Act using a formula based on the number of eligible electors. For a head of council, the spending limit is $7,500 plus $0.85 per eligible elector. Based on 2014 statistics, a candidate in a Region-wide election for the Regional Chair would have a spending limit close to $600,000. Based on population projections the spending limit could be in excess of $650,000."

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 14 June 2016

Tomorrow (15 June) is a very big day for Todd Kyle.

The Chief Executive of Newmarket Public Library will tell a joint Council and Library Board Workshop that he needs a bigger and better library.

He will tell councillors the library is too small and it is in the wrong location. He will say the library on Park Avenue is poorly designed. Staff, library users and all deliveries go through the same front door. The roof has a history of leaking. And, to cap it all, there is simply not enough space.

Way back in October 2014 Todd told an IdeaMarket programme about the future of libraries that Newmarket’s was no longer fit for purpose. He was uncharacteristically forthright – perhaps because he was talking to fellow librarians.

But now is the time for straight talking. Todd should swallow hard and tell the Mayor that Newmarket can be more than just a hockey town.

Todd should have an ally in the Mayor who chairs York Region’s Broadband Strategy Advisory Task Force. Van Bynen has spoken for years about broadband and the knowledge economy but we wait to see how this translates into action. His scripts are generally written by others. I haven’t seen anything in his “Task Force” reports that point to the centrality of libraries in the digital age.

Make no mistake. Libraries are still needed. And municipalities across Southern Ontario are building new ones which, as you can see, needn’t break the bank. 

At Wednesday’s workshop there will be a PowerPoint presentation on the options available then the meeting goes into closed session to consider:

“a proposed acquisition or disposition of land by the Town or Newmarket Public Library Board as per Section 239 (2) (c) of the Municipal Act 2001.”

This sounds suspiciously like a tease to me.

I cannot believe for one moment this Workshop will be discussing a specific proposed or pending acquisition of land. It is more likely to be a general chinwag about the range of possibilities on offer – stay where we are? Do we need a new central library? if so where? How much would it cost? Can we possibly afford it? Aren't we a hockey town? Do we need a network of branch libraries? How on earth can we afford them? Do the libraries of the future need to be physical entities with post codes?  Will the library of the future exist only in cyberspace? Isn't that the cheaper option?

If this is the discussion, it should be open to the public.

It could be quite exhilarating.

Instead, to justify going into closed session, we are fed this fairy tale about pending acquisitions of land. It is all completely phoney.

This is another example of the suffocating secrecy that is the hallmark of Van Bynen’s administration.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 14 June 2016

Congratulations to Aurora Newmarket MPP Chris Ballard on his promotion into the Government as Minister of Housing. He will be a busy boy.

But this raises the question of what happens to Bill 42 - his private member’s Bill which would mandate the election of the Chair of York Region in 2018. At the moment, the Chair is indirectly elected by York Regional Council. And they like the cosy status quo.

As a Government Minister, Ballard is no longer a “private member” and in the ordinary course of things his Bill 42 would continue to appear on the Order and Notices Paper. In the absence of a motion to withdraw the Bill, it would just sit there, going nowhere. The Bill would then die at prorogation or dissolution.

As it happens, I gave oral evidence to the Committee examining the Bill on 2 March 2016 and, for this reason amongst others, I feel an attachment to Ballard’s Bill which I would like to see survive and become law.

The answer is for Ballard to arrange for another MPP (of any Party) to take the Bill over and become its sponsor. This could be done simply enough by the House agreeing a motion to transfer sponsorship. But here is the rub. The motion to transfer would have to be moved by the Government.

So, I suppose the fate of Ballard’s Bill 42 rests with Kathleen Wynne.

Last month I wrote to Chris (who is my MPP) asking how the Government’s proposed ban on corporate and union donations to candidates running for election at provincial and municipal level would impact on Bill 42. The questions are straightforward and obvious but the answers, I fear, are less so.

How will this work in practice at municipal level where political parties do not organize?

I understand a public subsidy will be going to provincial political parties to compensate for the ending of corporate and union donations. It will be based on the votes received at the preceding election. But how are municipal candidates going to be helped, if at all?

As I tap this out I am thinking of your own Bill 42 mandating the election of the regional chair. The electorate is huge – according to York Region it will be around 750,000.

How are candidates expected to finance their campaigns? Will there be any kind of public subsidy? If so, what form will it take?

I know Chris has a lot on his plate at the moment but I am sure he will find time to reply to these points. When he does, I shall post his answers here.

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Written by Gordon Prentice

Published: 13 June 2016

Big decisions on Regional Express Rail (RER) that will affect the shape of development in Newmarket for decades to come are likely to be on the agenda of the Metrolinx Board when it next meets on 28 June 2016.

But I could be wrong.

With Metrolinx we always get the dance of the seven veils. No-one can be certain what is going to be revealed next.

We still don’t know, for example, what Metrolinx plans to do about grade separations at Mulock Drive (photo below) and Davis Drive. Both are needed. It is inconceivable that a fast rail service could operate through Newmarket with the old level crossings still in place, with their quaint bells and flashing red lights. 

Transport Canada’s guidelines set thresholds where rail/road grade separations may be warranted. If this “exposure index” (daily road vehicle traffic x daily train traffic) exceeds 200,000 then grade separation should be considered. Here are the current figures for three key road/rail intersections:

Mulock Drive           458,400

Davis Drive             396,000

Green Lane (EG)      464,400

And what is going to happen at Water Street and Timothy Street where the GO tracks cross local roads which are the responsibility of Newmarket, not the Region?

(And, to complicate things further, the Town is considering a new parking lot alongside the rail tracks at Water Street.)

A new GO rail station at Mulock Drive?

We still don’t know if there will be a new GO rail station at Mulock Drive. I’d say fat chance.

The Town never did any work on the proposal which simply appears as a dot on a map.

The land so identified as the most likely site for the new GO rail station was up for sale last year and has now been sold.

I would be truly astonished if the Town were the buyer.

The Town has shown absolutely no interest in acquiring the land.

(The question is: should I fork out $30 to the Land Registry – up from $8 - to have that confirmed?)

Regional Express Rail on the cheap

An update on RER progress that went to last week’s York Region Committee of the Whole makes depressing reading. The report says:

“The Initial Business Case outlines Metrolinx’s recommended service plan and infrastructure requirements for each of the GO rail corridors within the RER program including Barrie, Richmond Hill and Stouffville GO corridors in York Region….  It does not include all infrastructure required to mitigate the impacts of RER to the Regional transportation system or local communities.”

Put simply, Metrolinx is trying to do RER on the cheap. The Region says:

“For Metrolinx to successfully deliver Regional Express Rail they will need to do more than expand existing GO rail service levels.”

The Region has a shopping list of things that need to be done to make RER deliver the results as intended. There are 19 level crossings on Regional roads that need to be improved. There are overpasses and underpasses that need attention. There are new GO rail stations. And much more besides.

“Misalignment” between Metrolinx and the Region

In a delightful understatement, the Region’s Commissioner of Transportation Services, Daniel Kostopoulos, told the Committee of the Whole on 9 June 2016 there was a “misalignment” between Metrolinx and York Region on key recommendations.

As yet, Metrolinx has only identified four level crossings in York Region where road/rail grade separation is promised: Rivermeade Road, Rutherford Road, Langstaff Road and Steeles Avenue. Not one in Newmarket though Metrolinx admits the exact number of grade separations has yet to be decided.

Regional staff and Metrolinx are looking at ways of sharing the huge costs of road rail separation and at new sources of finance. York Region staff expect a report to go to Council in the fall.

Elsewhere, unfortunately, the die is already cast for major elements of the RER program on the Barrie line.

Van Bynen throws in the towel

All-day two-way GO trains every 15 minutes will run from Union Station to Aurora. Newmarket gets a 30 minutes service in the weekday rush hour and then a 60 minute service during the day, in the evenings, and at weekends. There will be twin tracks to Aurora and then a lonely single track, with passing places, north to Barrie.

Our Mayor, Tony Van Bynen, never one to rattle the bars of the cage, meekly accepted this second fiddle service to and from Newmarket. On 9 November 2015 he told Metrolinx’s Chief Planning Officer, Leslie Woo:

“In my own mind the difference between a 15 minute and 30 minute service doesn’t change the world immensely although I think eventually we’ll need to get there. But I’d rather see us easing into that, responding to the demand as we go forward.”

That statement is entirely typical of the man.  If the difference between 15 minutes and 30 minutes is inconsequential, can the same be said of 15 minutes and 60 minutes? Because that’s what we are getting outside peak periods.

Van Bynen is by temperament a cautious gradualist. He will never loudly and insistently bang the drum to get attention – even when the facts are on his side.

Newmarket is, of course, a designated place to grow which will see its population increase dramatically over the medium term. Over 30,000 new residents are expected in the Yonge/Davis corridors alone. And our neighbour, East Gwillimbury, will see the greatest percentage population growth in York Region hitting 95,000 people by 2041.

Not making the case for twin tracking north from Aurora – at the very least to East Gwillimbury - is a missed opportunity.

And a big one.

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