{"id":1717,"date":"2007-03-30T14:47:10","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T18:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1717"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:41:49","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:41:49","slug":"dale-duncan-at-city-hall-march-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/03\/30\/dale-duncan-at-city-hall-march-29\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Duncan at City Hall: March 29th, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h3>\n

Getting out the foreign vote<\/strong><\/p>\n

They say diversity is our strength, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at Toronto city council — a mere 6.8 per cent of our elected politicians are visible minorities (others often say 9 per cent, which includes Denzil Minnan-Wong, who, though his father is Chinese, could fool most of us on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153visible\u00e2\u20ac\u009d front), compared to 45 per cent of Toronto’s total population. Take a look at gender and it doesn’t get much better: a measly 21 per cent of Toronto’s new city council are women, a plunge from 34 per cent the term before.<\/p>\n

So how do we change the face of our municipal government to reflect the variety of people who live here? A good place to start would be to give everyone who lives here the right to vote.<\/p>\n

Though their lives are affected by the decisions made at City Hall just as much as anyone else, approximately 263,000 people of voting age who live in Toronto can’t vote because they’re not Canadian citizens. Giving non-citizens voting rights is not a radical idea — it’s already happening in 26 other countries and Mayor David Miller advocated for extending voting rights during his election campaign last year. His main competitors, Jane Pitfield and Stephen LeDrew, were quick to agree.) Unfortunately, the power to make this change lies with the provincial government and an antiquated premier who told reporters last fall that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153voting is a right that comes with citizenship.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Add this to the growing list of Toronto concerns to turn into election issues this fall. That’s what participants in a panel discussion at City Hall on voting rights and civic participation agreed to do March 21. Held to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Racism and Discrimination, a panel representing a bunch of worthy organizations said it’s time to rally support to pressure the provincial government to extend voting rights to landed immigrants.<\/p>\n

But simply giving non-citizens the right to vote may do little to help make city hall more representative. While far too many people don’t have the right to vote, a greater number of people do have this right but don’t exercise it — voter turnout in Toronto’s last municipal election was around 40 per cent. City council looks more like the Toronto Maple Leafs than a model UN, in part, because many new citizens and visible minorities aren’t voting. According to a recent study, wards with the highest voter turnout rates also have the highest income level and the lowest number of immigrants.<\/p>\n

Mohamed Boudjenane of the Canadian Arab Federation argued the problem runs deep. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It’s difficult to ask someone who’s fighting every day to put food on the table to engage politicians,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said in reference to statistics that show newcomers, a growing number of whom are visible minorities, tend to suffer chronic low income. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We can not talking about political inclusion without talking about social and economic exclusion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

As Canada’s population growth will soon depend on immigration rather than birth rate, all levels of government have their work cut out for them.<\/p>\n

Visit Eye Weekly’s City Hall Blog<\/a> to read regular updates and reports on municipal politics from Spacing’s Managing Editor Dale Duncan and Eye Weekly’s City Editor Edward Keenan.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getting out the foreign vote They say diversity is our strength, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at Toronto city council — a mere 6.8 per cent of our elected politicians are visible minorities (others often say 9 per cent, which includes Denzil Minnan-Wong, who, though his father is Chinese, could fool most ofContinue reading “Dale Duncan at City Hall: March 29th, 2007”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4003,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21758,21759,2],"tags":[5201,5202,756,3551,5178,331,35,425,4550,3467,31,423,451,1079,421,426,5200,26,22085,872,1287,5203,19,3250,1170,5176],"class_list":["post-1717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-features","category-politics","tag-antiquated-premier","tag-canadian-arab-federation","tag-city-council","tag-city-editor","tag-city-hall-blog","tag-dale-duncan","tag-dale-duncan-columns","tag-david-miller","tag-denzil-minnan-wong","tag-edward-keenan","tag-election","tag-eye-weekly","tag-food-2","tag-jane-pitfield","tag-managing-editor","tag-mayor","tag-mohamed-boudjenane","tag-people","tag-politics","tag-provincial-government","tag-representative","tag-stephen-ledrew","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-united-nations","tag-visit-eye-weekly"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDale Duncan at City Hall: March 29th, 2007 - 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