Learning from others

As I write this, I’m enjoying a family holiday in Vancouver. Travelling always makes me feel a little wistful, especially when I come across great public spaces or city services we don’t see much of in Ottawa. Sure, it’s easy to be envious of the big things – great parks, great transit, and so on. But what gets me going are the little things. Like public washrooms in playgrounds… open ones! In March! Or fenced dog runs tucked into unexpected spaces. Or street signs that clearly indicate cycling routes. Or orderly lineups at bus stops.

When we think about the kind of city we want in Ottawa, it’s useful to look at how other cities work – not just what kind of services and assets they have but how they make decisions and how they select their decision-makers.

In the last CityVote column, my co-blogger Ian Capstick mused on our fair city’s apparent aversion to change. Over in Toronto, they are talking about similar challenges – low voter turnout, same folks get elected time and time again, sometimes with a “majority” that is nowhere near a majority, council is overwhelmingly white and male. Sound familiar?

A non-partisan effort called Better Ballots has started a dialogue about municipal election reform. Their site throws out a few interesting suggestions, based on what seems to work in other cities. They include:

Municipal political parties. This notion has been batted about from time to time here in Ottawa, and often dismissed. They have them in Vancouver and Montreal (whether they work may be up for debate, but they have had them for some time). Here, though, there seems to be a distrust of the notion – indeed, the federal or provincial affiliations of candidates are frequently scrutinized, despite the fact that many municipal issues cross the boundaries of parties from other levels of government. An alternative to the formal party is a slate, where candidates align around a mayoral candidate or a common vision.

Term limits. According to Better Ballots, “Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York City all have municipal term limits, designed to increase turnover”. Term limits would certainly increase turnover – but would it improve decision-making? There is something to be said for institutional memory, familiarity with the city’s processes, departments, budget and services. How do we ensure a balance between fresh faces who will inevitably need to learn on the job and seasoned veterans who can mentor the new folk and provide leadership at the council table?

Voting reform, such as single transferable vote (a form of proportional representation, used in Cambridge, Massachusetts) or ranked ballots/instant runoff (used in San Franscisco and Minneapolis). This would certainly eliminate the phenomenon of candidates winning with the support of less than a majority of voters. Unfortunately, the most recent effort to reform our provincial voting system was a bit of a bust – would the appetite for electoral reform at the municipal level be any different?

Borough Councils, like they have in Montreal. The idea is to devolve decision-making to the community level, and give more power to neighbourhoods. Our council has flirted with the notion of ward councils, and indeed a few councillors have established them, but there’s no formal recognition of their role in decision-making. Would these be an asset to our local democracy, or another layer of bureaucracy and an obstacle to council making decisions that benefit the city as a whole?

In addition to the Better Ballots initiative, there’s a group in Toronto that is campaigning to give permanent residents a vote in municipal elections. Would this be a way of generating more interest in municipal politics and increasing voter turnout? Read about the I Vote Toronto campaign at http://www.ivotetoronto.org/

This election, we’re seeing some efforts to jog Ottawa residents out of their traditional voting patterns. Our Ottawa is a group of community organizations and activists that seems to be uniting around a common vision for the city. What role they will play in the upcoming election remains to be seen, although they recently made the news around council’s reconsideration of the urban boundary. Fair Chance is an effort by prominent Ottawa residents to encourage new faces to run for office. They say they’re not putting a slate together – anyone who’s interested in running can register for one of their workshops. It’s an interesting notion, but unless those prominent Ottawa residents are willing to give more than just workshops to certain candidates, is it going to yield results?

Is it time to start a Better-Ballots-like dialogue here? Are there things we can learn from other cities?Are there things we can learn from other cities? What would shake us from our electoral complacency and bring real change to city hall?