Local democracy is vanishing here

Democracy is in trouble in Toronto. Actually it’s also in trouble in nearly every regime in North America. But when it’s in trouble at the closest level of government to you—that’s real trouble.

For one thing, city council is so huge that it can’t really function. Remember the rule of Tens: Any deliberating body with more than 10 members devolves in intelligence to roughly half that of the dumbest member. Toronto’s ruling executive committee has 14 members. There are several candidates whose IQs might dip close to 100, which gives the exec committee a cumulative IQ around 50, plus a dozen or so just to be charitable.

That’s the IQ of a moron. Seem accurate to you? The penalty for that is one we pay as citizens and residents. One price is that staff too often end up running councillors who are overwhelmed to be anything but grateful someone at least pretends to understand what’s needed in this monster conglomeration of a city.

Clever staff learn to manipulate councillors and, of course, the mayor, David Miller, who it seems surprised himself in winning the election and instantly started listening to the very staff he had campaigned to sweep from power with his iconic broom.

He evidently knew zip about running a city, much less the huge mess that amalgamation has wrought. But he’s the mayor and Premier Dalton McGuinty gave him presidential powers in the City of Toronto Act, plus an extra year to stumble around city hall.

Another price we pay for a too-huge government ruling over a mishmash of both suburban and inner-city challenges is succumbing to big corporations, often brought in by staff.

The back doors to city hall that were supposed to be closed according to Candidate Miller seem to be opened. Rather than shutting out influence peddlers, he spent a bundle of our money to set up a Lobbyists Registry to invite them in to pitch bureaucrats and politicians. City hall’s freedom of information regimen is lengthy and often unfulfilling.

The garbage-and-recycling-bin snafu resulted in a big company producing huge plastic containers, many of which might have to be recycled as they’re replaced with smaller models that especially suit Downtown residents.

And in many instances garbage bags would be a better solution in keeping with Miller’s “Clean and Beautiful City” campaign. An example among many is the picture of Frederick Street townhomes uglified by the mess of bins when it’s not even garbage day.

Surely the residents would have wanted a say. Didn’t happen. The area councillor didn’t even ask.

City decisions are made by a coterie of councillors, some of whom are so overburdened with broad-scope city missions that they seldom confer with their constituents or respond to requests.

Yet unless they screw up in a hugely publicized manner, they’ll be reelected without much of a sweat. It’s certainly time for party politics to enter city hall so voters can have a recognizable choice of a brand instead of an unknown individual.

And it’s also time for deamalgamation of this undemocratic melange ex-premier Mike Harris made of six disparate municipalities. Small local governments are closest to their citizens and most responsive. That’s what local democracy is all about.