Adding three more councillors will be hard sell
Article content
TorontoCity Hall may be getting three new councillors.
The Toronto Ward Boundary Final Review report lands at Mayor John Tory’s executive committee next week with a recommendation that council create three new wards — meaning 47 councillors from the current 44.
According to the report, released Wednesday, the cost to taxpayers to add the new councillors would be $870,000 a year and $210,000 in “one-time start-up costs.”
The report recommends council make the changes in time for the 2018 municipal vote.
Councillor Mike Layton said he plans to support the recommendations. It’s about ensuring all Torontonians have an equal voice, he said.
“It’s the right way to go to ensure that residents have adequate representation in their municipal councillors and that the wards are all created equal so that everyone’s vote has the same weight when it comes to decisions being made at City Hall,” he said.
The recommendation is likely to be controversial since Tory has been clear since the boundary review was introduced in 2014 that he has not heard an outcry for more politicians.
“Not one member of the public has said to me, ‘We need more government and more politicians.’ The last thing we need is more politicians,” Tory said last summer.
Councillor Stephen Holyday said he isn’t happy with the report and said it has “needlessly tampered” with ward boundaries across the city. It will be a hard sell at council, he said.
“It’s just more cost for more politicians,” he said. “No one ever wants that.”
