We're asking the wrong question about the size of Ottawa council

All eyes were on Queen's Park this week as the Progressive Conservative government took unprecedented steps to slash the size of Toronto's city council in the middle of the municipal election campaign.

The understandable question for Ottawa is whether Premier Doug Ford would unilaterally chop our council, too — a fear stoked this week when he gave an interview to a Toronto radio station in which he hinted he's "been getting numerous calls from Ottawa" to reduce the number of councillors.

With the gigantic caveat that this provincial government does not behave too predictably, it's unlikely that Ford would interfere as directly in Ottawa politics as he did in his hometown.

First, during a formal speech last month, he told a giant room of provincial officials he wouldn't, which should count for a little more than off-the-cuff comments on a radio show (although see the caveat above).

Second, local MPP Lisa MacLeod, a cabinet minister and the most powerful Progressive Conservative in eastern Ontario, won't have it.

Finally, Doug Ford isn't as interested in Ottawa as he is in Toronto — not by a long shot.

While it's hard to look away from the drama unfolding in the legislature, we're asking the wrong question when it comes to Ottawa's city council.

It's not about whether Ford will intervene in the makeup of Ottawa's council, but why Mayor Jim Watson and this council did not.

Watson had promised smaller council in 2010 election

We are often fixated on the number of councillors around the table, but in Ottawa, there appears to be middling-to-little appetite to cut the size of council. 

The candidates who answered the question on the size of council in CBC's survey argued to keep it the same size by a ratio of about four-to-one.

Two notable exceptions were incumbents Jan Harder and Stephen Blais, who have long argued that council could be slimmer.

Watson himself promised in the 2010 campaign to shrink council to 14 or 17 seats from 23.  He was going to strike an expert panel within 60 days of taking office to come up with a plan, and said he'd try to get council's approval within his first six months in office.

The mayor did none of these things.

Instead, he walked a last-minute motion onto council in 2012 to study reducing its size. His half-hearted attempt failed, as Watson likely knew it would.

Perhaps it was an uphill battle to convince councillors to vote themselves out of future jobs. Or maybe Watson realized that many residents don't exactly feel over-represented.

After all, whether it's advocating for residents, delving into committee files and city contracts, or being on-the-ground leaders in their communities, councillors should be extremely busy.

Fewer of them means less representation for us.

Mayor and council supported undemocratic distribution

But some residents are already have less representation than they used to. That's because not all council seats are created equal. 

Some rural wards have populations of less than 30,000, while other wards — mostly those in the suburbs — have grown to close to 60,000.

So while Osgoode Coun. George Darouze represents just 28,000 people, his vote on council carries the exact same weight as the vote of College Coun. Rick Chiarelli, who represents more than 52,000 people.

This lopsided representation is explicitly undemocratic. And this council refused to fix it.

Warning from clerk's office ignored

In 2015, the clerk's office produced a detailed report on options for how council could conduct a ward boundary review.

The report was clear that "the process of determining ward boundaries is fundamental to representative democracy at every level of government."

It had been a decade since ward representation was last studied. In 2005, council tried to reduce the size of council by one seat, but residents appealed the decision and council was increased by two seats instead.

In an unusual move, Watson sent out his own statement after the clerk's office released its 2015 report.

The mayor wrote that he'd never heard residents bring up the issue of council size, and he unilaterally shut down any review, opting instead to look at ward boundaries in 2019 — well after the Oct. 22, 2018 election.

It's unlikely that many non-city hall watchers are aware this council inequality exists, since part of the $300,000 review process was to reach out to residents about the issue.

And yet, every councillor voted to shelve the review.

That means that when you mark an X for a candidate next month in Orléans or Rideau-Vanier or Gloucester-Southgate, your vote will be worth far less than the ones your neighbours will cast in West Carleton-March and Rideau-Goulbourn.