{"id":13189,"date":"2016-01-20T21:02:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T02:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=13189"},"modified":"2016-02-03T17:02:02","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T22:02:02","slug":"politics-as-usual-bifurcated-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-bifurcated-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Bifurcated focus"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

How we vote affects who we elect.
\nSome feel our current process isn\u2019t fair; that elections result in governments that are not truly representative.
\nPrime Minister Trudeau seeks to address the arguable inequities of our \u201cfirst past the post\u201d electoral process by considering alternatives.
\nBut why stop there?
\nHow we elect other levels of government also warrant a gander. Consider Regional government, where it\u2019s not only a \u201cfirst-past-the-post system\u201d it\u2019s a \u201cfirst past two posts.\u201d
\nIn York Region, municipal elections use a process called \u201cdouble direct\u201d elections. That means for some offices \u2013 such as Mayor and Regional Councillor \u2013 voters get a \u201ctwo-fer\u201d, they elect two offices at the same time. Thus, despite there being only one election, every Mayor in York Region, is also elected to sit on Regional Council and every Regional Councillor (Aurora, King and East Gwillimbury do not have a Regional Councillor), is also elected to sit on their local Municipal Council.
\nAs a result only 11 of 21 Regional reps have actually been specifically elected to do so.
\nRegional Councillors run on a platform of addressing Regional matters. Residents know where they stand and voted accordingly. Mayoral contests are focused on local issues. Regional matters barely rate a mention.
\nOnce elected, their regional mandate is, therefore, a bit of a question mark.
\nThe question of what does \u201crepresentation\u201d mean in that context, is a valid one.
\nMany questions arise when mayors wear the hat of Regional Representative: whose interests are they representing? The Region? Their Council? Both? How do they even identify those interests? How and to whom do they reconcile the difference between the two when conflicts arise?
\nI would posit the argument there are questions of accountability as it speaks to the role of Mayors on Regional Council when speaking for residents of their municipality on Regional matters.
\nGiven that more than 50% of a Mayor\u2019s time is spent on Regional matters, it is a legitimate question to ask on what, how and why that time is spent.
\n\u201cRegional Reports\u201d are dutifully added to Council agendas every month. They include highlights on Regional items, but they are somewhat generic: no in depth analysis of matters discussed, no report on the implications of various matters for Aurorans, not even a summary of how our representative voted and why.
\nWorse, it\u2019s not clear if they\u2019re even required to.
\nThe recent Regional Chair vote at Regional Council is a good example of why double direct elections can be problematic when considering effective and accountable representation.
\nThe municipal Councils of Markham, Aurora and Whitchurch-Stouffville voted to support the motion (put forward by Regional Councillor Li) to elect the Chair. However, the votes at the municipal level were not unanimous. Regional representatives such as the Mayors of Aurora and Markham voted against their respective Council\u2019s motion to support the election of a Regional Chair.
\nWhen the matter came before Regional Council, the question arose: will they support their Council\u2019s majority decision, or will they vote against?
\nIn choosing to vote against the matter, they could, in effect, nullify their own Council\u2019s majority vote on a Regional matter.
\nThe actual vote was to defer.
\nTherein lies the problem with the double direct election process. As it requires a Mayor to function in two roles, it is not clear that they are obligated to vote in accordance with a majority decision of their own Council or even in their own municipalities\u2019 best interest over the Region\u2019s.
\nFurther, Ontario has a \u201cweak\u201d mayor system. Under legislation, the mayor of a municipality has little real additional authority compared other Council members. The Mayor is not first among equals, but rather just one equal vote. Yet when that same Mayor sits at Regional Council as a representative, s\/he appears to assume outsized \u2013 or at least ambiguous – decision-making power on behalf of the municipality.
\nIt is difficult to hold two elected offices at the same time. It\u2019s not allowed at any other level of government, for obvious reasons. There are inevitable conflicts between competing interests.
\nDouble direct election creates part-time Mayors who are also part-time Regional Representatives; it bifurcates focus which impacts the effectiveness of their representation at either level.
\nNot every municipality employs double-direct election, so why not look at what others are doing? Personally, I think we need a full-time Mayor and a full-time Regional Councillor. At the very least, I think it\u2019s worth a discussion.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas How we vote affects who we elect. Some feel our current process isn\u2019t fair; that elections result in governments that are not truly representative. Prime Minister Trudeau seeks to address the arguable inequities of our \u201cfirst past the post\u201d electoral process by considering alternatives. But why stop there? How we elect other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3qJ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-13 08:03:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}