{"id":20366,"date":"2018-04-11T23:49:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T03:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20366"},"modified":"2018-04-11T23:49:59","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T03:49:59","slug":"politics-as-usual-you-takes-your-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-you-takes-your-chances\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: You takes your chances"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Giorgio Mammoliti, the \u201ccolourful\u201d Councillor from Toronto will not be running for Provincial office under the PC banner, or any banner for that matter.
\n(And I say \u201ccolourful\u201d because apparently that\u2019s what we are calling politicians these days who engage in non-stop antics, shenanigans, peccadilloes and the like\u2026but I digress)
\nIt was a whirlwind of press conferences, tweets and announcements. First he was in, seeking the nomination in the riding where he lives and now he is out, to better serve the constituents he has been serving these 20 some odd years. And yes, you read that right. He has been a sitting Councillor in Toronto for 16 years and, prior to that, was the MPP for five years \u2013 for the NDP (!).
\nHis surprising electability aside, what I found interesting in the whole \u201cI am running\u2026nope I am not running\u201d for MPP discussion was that nary a word was said about relinquishing his seat first. No mention was made of him stepping down from his position as City Councillor while he sought a higher office. One could surmise then \u2013 and in the interest of accuracy I should point out he did not say one way or the other \u2013 that he had intended to stay on as a Councillor while at the same time seeking the position of MPP. I would like to stress that there is nothing illegal about that. Many sitting municipal Councillors in various communities have done the same \u2013 even in York Region. Occupying both the role of Municipal Councillor while at the same time that of nominated candidate for a particular party and seeking higher office, be it Provincial or Federal, is currently still allowed legislatively.
\nAnd that really burns my cornflakes!
\nNo other elected office allows you to do that.
\nIf you are an MP and would like to run for provincial office? You have to resign your seat. MPP running for MP? You have to resign your seat. MP or MPP running for municipal office?? You have to resign your seat.
\nOnly municipal Councillors and Mayors can hang onto one seat while they try their hand at another; keep a safety net, so to speak \u2013 and a paid one at that. Does that seem fair or even logical to you? How can you say that you are continuing to represent one group of folks who elected you while at the same time vying to represent another group of folks in another election? Of course you can\u2019t! It\u2019s why every other elected office requires you to resign first! The inherent conflict of interest cannot be mitigated, even by \u201cstepping aside, temporarily\u201d whatever that means.
\nI have beaten this drum before so I won\u2019t drone on much more about it. But suffice to say that I think this is one aspect of our democratic process that is in immediate need of an overhaul.
\nIt\u2019s a simple fix.
\nIf you want to run for one office, and you are currently occupying another, then you have to relinquish your seat. Period. No exceptions. If all politics is a risk, then, as they say, \u201cyou takes your chances\u2026\u201d and rightly so.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas Giorgio Mammoliti, the \u201ccolourful\u201d Councillor from Toronto will not be running for Provincial office under the PC banner, or any banner for that matter. (And I say \u201ccolourful\u201d because apparently that\u2019s what we are calling politicians these days who engage in non-stop antics, shenanigans, peccadilloes and the like\u2026but I digress) It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5iu","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 10:59:11","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\/20366","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=20366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}