CITY HALL
• Premier backs Miller’s power bid [ Toronto Star ]
• Premier supports new powers for mayor [ Globe and Mail ]
• Power grab a good thing: Miller [ Toronto Sun ]
ENVIRONMENT
• Lights out for pollution [ Toronto Star ]
• Stargazing tops list of Earth Hour activities [ Toronto Star ]
THE CITY
• Toronto ranks 11th as city brand [ National Post ]
• Toronto the good [ Eye Weekly ]
POVERTY
• Squat so surreal [ NOW magazine ]
• Pope squat: making room for the poor [ NOW magazine ]
• Zoning out the poor [ NOW magazine ]
MISCELLANEOUS
• Squaring off [ Eye Weekly ]
• Queen and Bathurst is out of this world – just ask residents as they organize Alien Abduction Day to help fire victims [ Toronto Sun ]
• Mississauga ratepayers rally around levy disquiet [ National Post ]
3 comments
“He also wants his executive committee – 12 councillors plus himself – to be able to meet privately.
“He gave one example of how his enhanced role – he refused to describe it as increased power, saying it’s about more ‘accountability and responsibility’ – could work.”
Mayor Miller frustrates me at the best of times, but this just makes me cry. If anyone would like to explain to me how private meetings would lead to greater accountability, I’m happy to listen.
Actually, much as it sounds counterintuitive, giving the executive committee the ability to meet behind closed doors would probably boost accountability. Regardless of what the law says, politicians will always tackle sensitive matters into private environments. If the law doesn’t allow for that to occur in the context of an official institution, they’ll do it in an unofficial one. An open executive is an executive in name only, because it’ll only ever deal with the sunshine and lollipop issues and leave the heavy lifting for the smoky rooms.
No “real” government executive in the world conducts its meetings entirely in the open, and for good reason–rather than discussing the issues frankly and honestly, open executive meetings turn into PR exercises, where nobody wants to dare say something that might offend. The BC government tried televised cabinet meetings a while back, and it was a complete joke. When Martin tried a televised first ministers meeting to get a deal for health care funding, it got absolutely nothing done for two days, and it wasn’t until they gave up on that and moved all the premiers behind closed doors at 24 Sussex that they struck a deal.
When executive meetings are forced to be totally out in the open, the sensitive matters simply shift into private meetings in offices with lobbyists and phone calls and all sorts of kitchen-cabinet skullduggery. At the very least, a closed-door cabinet meeting is minuted, witnessed by non-partisan clerks and so on, is subject to various legal requirements like access to information or court injunction, and ultimately gets declassified and released.
There’s one way to stop the increasing securocracy at City Hall – get Mel Lastman to talk about running again. The thought of those powers in his hands should cause enough shuddering on blogs like this one to trouble our Mayor when he returns from his “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” trip.