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Steven Del Duca, the uncharismatic former Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and now Mayor of Vaughan is proving to be a very big disappointment.

On Tuesday (20 June 2023) he called a special meeting in Vaughan to consider the City’s response to Doug Ford’s inchoate plans to shake up municipalities across the GTA. We know that Ford will break up Peel Region but we don’t yet know what he plans for other regions – including our own here in York and its nine constituent municipalities.

However, it is now clear Del Duca wants to see a “single tier” Vaughan taking over many services currently provided by York Region. Some services, such as the police and paramedics, will continue to be shared with the other York Region municipalities and special arrangements will have to be made. I see a plethora of boards and masses of red tape. 

Meaningless drivel

Del Duca came out with this meaningless drivel:

“We are a partner that can help the province and help our counterparts across York region with perhaps a new governance structure and model that will set all of the residents - not just here in Vaughan but right across what is today known as York Region - up for success.”

Del Duca is commissioning consultants to come up with a blueprint on a “governance structure” by the end of September. 

Del Duca was stung by Frank Scarpitti’s earlier announcement that he favours a York “megacity”. Which was rejected out of hand by Ford.

Del Duca believes he has to be seen doing something. Taking the lead. Charting the way forward. Being ahead of the curve.

Complete cobblers. Bad move. Del Duca is just helping Ford.

Pitiful

The debate at Vaughan on Del Duca’s motion was truly pitiful.

No-one came to the defence of York Region – not even those Regional Councillors like Mario Ferri who have served on the Region for hundreds of years. No-one asked what the implications would be for York Region and its constituent municipalities if Vaughan were allowed by the Province to split from the Region. No-one asked if the Region could survive without a major player such as Vaughan. Everyone assumed a huge municipal reorganisation was inevitable – and that a single tier Vaughan would be a good thing.

No-one mentioned the high calibre senior management at York Region. I’ve watched them for years – with no axe to grind - and most are very good and a number are outstanding. 

Ford's Regional Review 2019

No-one asked about the Ford Regional Review in 2019 which started out with great fanfare and ended as a damp squib. After all the talk of a massive municipal reorganisation nothing happened. The reorganisation report was never published. No-one in Vaughan called for the papers to be declassified so we could all make an assessment of the costs and benefits of a huge municipal upheaval. 

No. They just voted, lobotomised, for Del Duca’s unhelpful motion.

I found it very dispiriting.

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Update on 24 June 2023: From Newmarket Today: Newmarket Mayor urges care as Vaughan pushes for independence

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The four by elections yesterday provided little drama and no upsets.

No seats changed hands with the Liberals holding Winnipeg South-Centre and the Montreal riding of Notre Dame de Grâce - Westmount. The Conservatives held Portage-Lisgar (Manitoba) and Oxford (Ontario).

The provisional results are here.

The right-wing People’s Party leader, Maxime Bernier, drove up the turnout in Portage-Lisgar (Manitoba) to 45.12% but he still trailed the Conservative winner, losing badly.

Turnout in Oxford (Ontario) was 38.19%; Winnipeg South Centre (Manitoba) 36.63% and Notre Dame de Grâce – Westmount (Quebec) 29.69%.  Here is the CBC take on it all.

48 candidates

In Winnipeg South Centre there were an astonishing 48 candidates – a record in a Federal election. 

We are told a group called the Longest Ballot Committee signed them up as a way of drawing attention to Justin Trudeau’s broken pledge in 2015 to get rid of first-past-the-post and bring in a fairer voting system. Proportional representation was mentioned as one of a number of possibilities.

They all appeared on the ballot paper as “Independents”. Voters, predictability, went for the devil they know - the candidates from the main political parties.

In the Toronto Mayoral election on 26 June 2023 there will be 102 candidates and a truly gigantic ballot paper. Preposterously, they will all be running as independents as political parties are banned by law from fielding candidates in municipal elections – even in Canada’s biggest city with a budget to match.

Ranked Ballot

In 2020 Doug Ford scuppered plans to allow municipalities to use a preferentail system of voting, the ranked ballot.

Under first-past-the-post Toronto’s new Mayor is likely to be elected by a minority of voters. Just how small we wait to see.

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The former Governor General, David Johnston, tells us foreign governments are trying to influence voters and candidates and it is a real and growing threat. 

In his report published one month ago he identified shortcomings in the way intelligence is communicated and processed from the security agencies to the Government. But he rejected calls for a public inquiry on the grounds this would put at risk information that has to stay secret. He preferred public hearings. He believed State secrets would then be protected and these would only be made available to top politicians and others with the highest security clearance. 

Rejected

MPs heard what he had to say and then politely rejected his advice. They voted for a public inquiry which, the Government says, is now back on the table. But since then all has gone quiet. 

If we are to get to the truth, we need a public inquiry with subpoena powers and witnesses giving evidence under oath. The parties now need to agree the inquiry’s terms of reference and decide on a chair and a timetable which is not open-ended.

That’s difficult but not impossible.

The Globe and Mail’s Andrew Coyne summed it up this way:

We need an inquiry to get at the things that cannot otherwise be got at: the internal decisions and deliberations of government. We do not need such inquiries at most times. We need them when government has made a mess of things, and won’t come clean about how it happened. We need an inquiry most when a government is most reluctant to hold one.

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Update on 31 July 2023: Toronto Star Editorial: Slow Steps to an Inquiry

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Tomorrow (Monday 19 June 2023) the UK House of Commons will vote on a report from the Committee of Privileges which documents in fine detail how Boris Johnson, Prime Minister during the Covid pandemic, lied repeatedly to the House about his compliance with the Covid Rules and Guidance which were in force at the time.  

Deliberately lying to the House of Commons is a hanging offence. It has to be. Our system could not survive if Ministers were allowed to lie knowingly to the House and get away with it. 

Kangaroo Court

The Committee sent a copy of their draft report to Johnson in confidence, asking for his comments before deciding on their final recommendations. He broke the embargo and issued a statement branding the committee - with its Conservative majority - a kangaroo court. He then resigned as an MP.

The Committee's proposed 90 day suspension from the Commons – enough to trigger a recall election in his riding – is now otiose but the Committee notes that:

“In view of the fact that Mr Johnson is no longer a Member, we recommend that he should not be granted a former Member’s pass.” 

So if he wants to drop into Westminster in future he’ll have to queue up with the rest of the public. The Committee wants a lifetime ban.

And although he impishly hinted that he might return as an MP, there is no way he is coming back. He has gone for good.

Habitual Liar

The Johnson I knew was a shameless habitual liar. 

Everyone who ever worked with him said so.

But that never seemed to bother the convicted fraudster and Canadian retread, Conrad Black.

Four years ago, when Johnson won the Conservative leadership by 92,153 votes to his rival’s 46,656, Black told his readers:

“I think Boris will just be fine.”

That tells you everything you need to know about the judgment of Citizen Black.

A year ago I predicted Johnson would be gone in six months.

I wasn’t so far off the mark.

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Yesterday, at a meeting of York Region’s Committee of the Whole, we learn that the lands in King which were removed from the Greenbelt on 21 December 2022 could be home to 15,000 people. At the same time, lands in the Oak Ridges Moraine were redesignated as a “settlement area”.

York Region’s CAO, Bruce Macgregor, tells members:

“Those are preliminary figures associated with the lands identified by the Province to also contain a hospital expansion up here in the Newmarket area – expansion of Southlake hospital. So the surrounding community that is being proposed is under investigation right now by the Province of Ontario. They are soliciting and receiving input from this municipality, the Township of King, and it is expected to be fully sustained and a fully sustainable community as it rolls out. We’ll know more, I think, as the summer approaches. The next step on those lands which we anticipate would be a MZO.” (Minister’s Zoning Order) 

It is an awkward statement from Macgregor who is usually fluent and persuasive and in command of his brief. But, as I listen to him, I get the clear impression he is as much in the dark as the rest of us.

Government by ambush

Ford makes it up as he goes along. He fires from the hip. He doesn’t read his briefings. On most days, he doesn’t take questions addressed to him in the Legislature. He prefers to pass them on to colleagues to answer on his behalf. Legislation is routinely enacted before the end of the consultation period. Increasingly, we see Government by fiat.

Today we are told that the Ford Government is giving “strong mayor” powers to an additional 26 municipalities as from 1 July 2023, but not Newmarket which is below the 100,000 population threshold.

So-called “strong mayors” can push through policies even when a majority of their own council opposes them. The mayor’s decision can only be vetoed if two-thirds of the council objects.

Tall Order

Ford wants to accelerate the housing program, building 1.5 million new homes by 2031. This is a very tall order. But, to be clear, the issue is not about the need for more housing but where the houses are to be built. He wants to build on open countryside with municipalities servicing new developments, even if it means throwing their Official Plans – and their priorities - out of the window.

Ford does not have a mandate to do this.

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Ford is putting developers in the driving seat and the financial implications for the Region and for taxpayers are considerable. The Regional Treasurer's presentation, is here. And the debate is here.

On Wednesday (14 June 2023) Markham Mayor, Frank Scarpitti, bizarrely and out of the blue, calls for the abolition of York Region’s nine lower tier municipalities and the creation of a “York Megacity”. His proposal is ridiculed by Ford.

Update on 20 June 2023: from the Toronto Star: Strong Mayor powers are bad for local democracy.

Update on 22 June 2023 from the Toronto Star: "Strong Mayor" powers a factor in voting"

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