{"id":2787,"date":"2008-02-14T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2008-02-14T17:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2787"},"modified":"2008-02-14T12:00:25","modified_gmt":"2008-02-14T17:00:25","slug":"lets-get-this-political-party-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/02\/14\/lets-get-this-political-party-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s get this (political) party started?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/media.eyeweekly.com\/images\/0d\/62\/cc76567743418ec74f9af1897e9d.jpeg\" height=\"233\" width=\"498\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Spacing&#8217;s editor Dale Duncan <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eyeweekly.com\/city\/features\/article\/17964\">wrote a great piece<\/a> in this week&#8217;s Eye Weekly that discusses the possibility of political parties at the municipal level. Dale has <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=2636\">written about this before<\/a> and Spacing <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=2721\">held a poll<\/a> on the subject on February 1st (26% want party politics while 51% disagree). A brief teaser&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Councillor Karen Stintz, who believes parties would hold councillors more accountable and give those in opposition a stronger voice, foresees the city moving toward some sort of party system as early as the next municipal election in 2010. Councillor Michael Walker, who decries party politics at city hall, says it may be coming whether we like it or not. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It&#8217;s terrible, but I think it&#8217;s inevitable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said back in December. This phenomenon is something John Barber of The Globe and Mail has discussed in his column and Philip Preville wrote about in Toronto Life recently. The idea has some buzz, at least in the press gallery.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Such thoughts are brewing outside of city hall, too. Take the October 2006 launch of The Toronto Party, which hopes to run candidates in each of the city&#8217;s 44 wards in the next election, regardless of whether or not Queen&#8217;s Park, which holds the power to change the rules, tweaks legislation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>So would we be better off if it brought party politics to city hall? Toronto will have the opportunity to push for electoral reforms with a two-year review of the City of Toronto Act next year. But a move towards party politics isn&#8217;t as simple as merely convincing the province to allow parties to exist. Digging into the pros and cons of the role that official parties could play means delving into a seemingly never-ending set of possibilities for the different ways a party system could work.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Personally, I believe party politics at City Hall will bring and end to any kind of pragmatic decision making and co-operation amongst councillors, while at the same time turning Toronto&#8217;s city council into a place to implement provincial and federal platforms without regard to local concerns. These concerns seem to be shared by Councillor Adam Vaughan who framed the situation aptly:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Vaughan, who took the city by surprise when he beat Helen Kennedy and the NDP machine that backed her to win his Trinity-Spadina seat in 2006, says that under a party system, constituents would lose out. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you become part of a political machine that has caucus power and committee power at city hall, you can advocate behind closed doors for your constituents, but at the end of the day, on the floor of city council, you cannot undermine your party because if you do, they&#8217;ll de-nominate you and toss you out the door for the next election,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take user fees for rec centres. If your party was advocating for this, suddenly you&#8217;d be held prisoner to that ideology.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Vaughan says some of the current problems with our electoral system, such as the incumbency factor, could be dealt with through different reforms. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we had more politicians and smaller wards, we&#8217;d be even more vulnerable to local concerns,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We couldn&#8217;t ignore a third of the ward and get elected by two-thirds or the ward. Those days would be over.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>graphic courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/eyeweekly.com\">Eye Weekly<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spacing&#8217;s editor Dale Duncan wrote a great piece in this week&#8217;s Eye Weekly that discusses the possibility of political parties at the municipal level. Dale has written about this before and Spacing held a poll on the subject on February 1st (26% want party politics while 51% disagree). A brief teaser&#8230; Councillor Karen Stintz, who<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/02\/14\/lets-get-this-political-party-started\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Let&#8217;s get this (political) party started?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"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":[2],"tags":[1050,408,331,22100,423,750,1694,1969,723,3617,22085,316,22092,314,19,2311,7014],"class_list":["post-2787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-adam-vaughan","tag-councillor","tag-dale-duncan","tag-editor","tag-eye-weekly","tag-helen-kennedy","tag-john-barber","tag-karen-stintz","tag-michael-walker","tag-philip-preville","tag-politics","tag-queen","tag-spacing","tag-the-globe-and-mail","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-life","tag-toronto-party"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Let&#039;s get this (political) party started? - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/02\/14\/lets-get-this-political-party-started\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Let&#039;s get this (political) party started? - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Spacing&#8217;s editor Dale Duncan wrote a great piece in this week&#8217;s Eye Weekly that discusses the possibility of political parties at the municipal level. Dale has written about this before and Spacing held a poll on the subject on February 1st (26% want party politics while 51% disagree). 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