LARRY'S CORNER- Hamilton's Former Mayor Speaks

Term Limits: Pros and Cons

By Larry Di Ianni
(posted March 23, 2009)

The community is buzzing with the concept of term limits for city council. Just the other day, even a Crown Attorney stopped me downtown to chat and asked for my opinion on this topic. We chatted. It got me thinking. ‘Term limits’ isn’t a new idea, but one which to my knowledge has not been implemented in any Ontario municipality I know of. Is it a good idea to devise a process which would inject new blood into a Council of ‘old timers’? Or, is the mere notion of forbidding someone to run by virtue of his/her tenure on an elected body essentially an undemocratic demand? There are points to be made for and against this concept.

Council critics seem to abound in the city of Hamilton. “Our Councillor is a dinosaur.” “The Mayor isn’t strong enough.” “There is no business sense on Council.” “No one cares about the poor in this city.” “They blew the PanAm decision by supporting it.” “They blew the PanAm decision by dithering for so long.” “Build the City Hall.” “Tear down the City Hall.” These are but a few of the constant and often contradictory refrains a member of Council hears from the city’s chattering classes.

In my nearly 25 years of experience as a member of various councils, I have always found that criticisms intensified the closer one got to the actual election. Citizen groups always vowed to make wholesale changes to the elected body, only to find more or less the same result the day after the election as was present the day before the election. I say this in spite of the fact that I was defeated by a narrow margin during the last election myself. Most of my Council was returned intact. At some other point I will opine about what caused my defeat, but for now let me state the obvious: the power of incumbency is pretty strong in Canadian politics.

It is this penchant for status quo that often fuels citizen resentment. Especially if the current group of elected officials is deemed to be uncaring of the public will, or jaded by the collective length of time doing the same job year in year out, for decades in some cases. Angst is felt especially if the challenges the community is facing are not being met in any positive or successful way. In fact worse than not facing the challenges, there is often great discontent among the citizenry if the elected Council is deemed to be ‘dysfunctional’. Does any of this ring a bell? We have all heard these comments being made about the current group. And the roar keeps getting louder.

Is our Council group as bad as people are saying? I know each member of Council personally, having worked with all of them in one form or another; and although their effectiveness varies by great stretches in some cases, I can vouch for each individual’s interest in sincerely wanting to help the community. I can also attest to the knowledge and institutional memory many of the longest serving members have acquired during their years in office. Surely sensible people would feel that it isn’t good to throw this talent away holus bolus. This is what term limits has the potential for doing.

Yet, I also know that there are groups organizing to effect widespread change, or at least change in key areas of Council. These are sincere people who want to see Hamilton succeed and don’t feel the current complement can achieve the destiny the community deserves. Some of these very serious folks aren’t the so-called, phoney activists who frequent Council chambers demanding that Council ‘listen to the people’, when what they really mean is that Council should listen to their own narrow, biased voices which often trumpet the clarion call of a single issue. No, these are people who want better for all of us. And these are people who are yearning for leadership they can be proud of.

Even the Chamber of Commerce, a highly respected group of business people, social service advocates, policy wonks and community boosters is interested in examining the notion of Council governance, including term limits, in order to see our elected people better serve the community. Theirs is not a ‘narrow focus’, but the broadest of mandates with an altruistic plan to guide some meaningful reforms in municipal structures.

On the supportive side of term limits is the change in faces and approaches that a finite term will bring to Council. Change is good; but change for the sake of change may not be as good. Ensuring that a new person is elected to a position does not guarantee that the newbie will be any more effective in doing the job that taxpayers expect. So, let me state my bias. I agree with term limits. But, I contend that we don’t need to make any arbitrary changes, we already have term limits and have always had them. We only elect a Council for a set term, in the current case a four-year term. To limit the number of terms is to arbitrarily curtail the people’s most basic run for elected office and to be accepted or rejected in a democratic way. This limit on democracy would harm the concept itself without assuring us of quality in the replacement of those prevented from running.

If Council improvement is what we are after, and not the circumscription of democracy, there are better ways of achieving results. Rather than focusing on simply replacing individuals, it would be more constructive to focus on the platforms being espoused by individuals as they make their run for office; and having a way to hold people accountable to that platform. It would also be more effective if the positions were voted ‘at large’ rather than by ward. There are serious problems with this format, but it would ensure a greater degree of allegiance to the problems of the entire community, not just those voters within the real-estate responsible for your election. Finally, it would benefit the community to consider a stronger Mayor system so that the chief magistrate isn’t just one vote in a group of 16, but rather has a greater degree of control over the agenda of the city which is spelled out during the campaign and is supported by the voters at large in an election. If an individual Mayor doesn’t have the charisma or talent to ‘control his/her Council’, this greater legislative authority, if used wisely and well, would complement tepid individual know-how; and at the same time also bring to heel some of the shenanigans on Council that so distract the elected body and so infuriate the community.

In addition, if electing everyone across the whole city isn’t practical, it may be time to create (or more accurately re-create) another tier of Council or a ‘Board of Control’ which would be elected at large and chaired by the Mayor. This Board would have ultimate authority over the budget and the delivery of services in the city, in other words matters financial. This smaller, more focused group may be the only hope we have as a community of reigning in galloping spending and allowing us to live, as a community, within our means. It would be a good check on the often profligate ways of a populist Council hell-bent on those ‘earmarks’ which look good to the local ward residents but may not be needed or are too expensive for the larger community to afford.

Finally, if there is to be serious reform, the Province, through its Municipal Act, must become involved. If you leave it up to individual Councils to suggest change to governance structures which threaten the status quo and potentially the livelihood of those same members of Council, you will be waiting a long time for that train to leave the station, let alone arrive at its destination.

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