Council seeks 6th electoral map option amid 'meddling' concerns

Ottawa city council has sent consultants back to the drawing board to come up with a sixth option for redrawing the municipal electoral map, despite concerns over political interference.

Mayor Jim Watson tabled the motion and it was approved in a 13-8 vote.

The notion that there's gerrymandering going on by asking that we consider one more option just defies logic.- Mayor Jim Watson

The mayor said he was trying to get at the "real root of the problem" and deal with three "outlier" areas that are growing quickly: Barrhaven, Riverside South and the Cumberland ward portion of Orléans. Already, votes in some populous wards don't weigh quite the same as small wards and the city needs to solve that.

• Options for Ottawa city council include shedding 6 seats, adding 2

"The notion that there's gerrymandering going on by asking that we consider one more option just defies logic," said the mayor. "There's only one person around the table whose boundaries do not change, and that's the mayor."

Every ward, however, will likely see big changes by the 2022 vote. The consultants told committee last week that they can't maintain the current council size of 23 wards, the mayor's and council's stated goal, while the population grows, with only a few tweaks.

But many councillors, from all parts of the city, have found fault in the five possible ways the lines could be redrawn. Two maps keep the number of councillor seats at 23, two add seats, and the last reduces Ottawa to 17 wards. 

• Ward redistribution 'a slap in the face,' councillors complain.

Some councillors argued at council Wednesday, as they had at committee, that the proposed wards split neighbourhoods in two and they didn't like the options.

But other councillors were uneasy with what they saw as meddling: asking the independent consultant for a sixth choice because they didn't like the options brought back to them.

"I fundamentally do not believe that it is our job to determine the areas that we are going to represent going forward. That's the whole idea of hiring an independent third party to do this work," said Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Keith Egli.

Coun. Scott Moffat, meanwhile, argued the city simply can't fix its representation issues, and keep council at 23 seats, without causing new problems.

"Let [the consultants] do their job. They've already done this work. They've already checked to see if we can do 23 wards and stay at status quo for most of the wards," said Moffatt. "We can't. It's not possible."

Consultant Gary Davidson told council it would be "challenging", but they could go back and try to redraw the map yet again to offer a sixth choice in time for a second round of consultations this fall.

They've been asked to limit ward seats to the current 23. Councillor Shawn Menard attempted to not prescribe council size in a sixth map, but lost in a 13 to 8 vote.

Watson said he didn't want council to grow to the same size as Toronto's and risk having the provincial government impose a change of council size as it did there in 2018.