Do the shuffle

Councillor Joe Mihevc‘s unfortunate and undeserved ousting as chair of the Community Development and Recreation Committee and Councillor Michael Thompson‘s minor temper tantrum over the loss of his post on the TTC board were the only stories told in the media earlier this week after the mid-term committee reassignments were unveiled [PDF] at last Friday’s Striking Committee meeting. But when the dust settles, neither of those decisions will have more impact than what is set to happen to the Parks and Environment and Public Works and Infrastructure committees.

With the exception of Executive Committee, standing committees of City Council are mostly politically balanced. Usually there are three votes the Mayor can count on to support his direction and three that range from sometimes supportive to almost always opposed to anything the Mayor proposes. Given the voting habits of the current crop of councillors (and the requirement that every councillor be appointed to at least one standing committee) the Mayor doesn’t have the numbers to get a majority on every committee. To ensure the remaining part of his agenda proceeds as planned, the Mayor has to forecast which committees will be most important to him over the next two years, and which will have less important work to do on his agenda.

Committees like Economic Development and Government Management are traditionally ones where the Mayor has few problems getting consensus from across the political spectrum so there’s generally less concern about the political affiliation of those councillors. In contrast, it seems over the first two years of his mandate the Mayor felt he needed to focus his political capital on his environmental agenda, demonstrated by stacking the Parks and Environment Committee to ensure a clear 4-2 majority on key votes. That committee delivered the Mayor’s climate change plan to City Council and it passed Council unanimously. A job well done.But following its work on the climate change plan, the Parks and Environment Committee has been very quiet, with at least one regularly scheduled meeting cancelled because there was nothing on the agenda. Now, key environmental initiatives like packaging reform laws and bicycle lane approvals are coming through the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee since that committee is responsible for waste diversion and roads. However, the Mayor has had problems progressing on both the cycling and packaging fronts because of 3-3 splits on key Public Works and Infrastructure Committee votes (a vote loses on a tie).

With that surely in mind, the Mayor shuffled committee assignments (approved by Striking Committee last Friday and going to City Council for approval at the end of November beginning of December) to make Public Works and Infrastructure weighted 4-2 in his favour by dumping Councillor John Parker and Councillor Mark Grimes (responsible for holding up bike lanes and striking the deal with Tim Horton’s that will, at the least, delay part of the new packaging laws), and replacing them with his ally Councillor Gord Perks and opposition rep Councillor Cesar Palacio. The corresponding trade-off was replacing Councillor Perks at Parks and Environment with potential mayoral candidate Councillor Karen Stintz, making that committee an even three-on-three.

What this means for the remaining 24 months left in this term of council is that Public Works and Infrastructure will be doing more heavy lifting that the other non-executive standing committees and Parks and Environment will likely be inconsequential, leaving the politically ambitious Councillor Stintz and vociferous Councillor Michael Walker to sit in boredom.

Photograph by Kevin Steele