“Power is going to be over at the region”

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

Following Oshawa’s ward review and any possible system put forth to council, one thing is certain: the previous seven-ward system will not work.

Due to the region’s pending council composition review, currently still sitting with the Ministry of Municial Affairs and Housing, which will see Oshawa lose two regional representatives in the Durham council chambers, there will only be enough regional reps for five wards.

It’s a fact that Councillor John Neal says puts Oshawa at a disadvantage.

“The power is going to be over at the region,” he says. “That is where your decisions are going to be made on most of the services for the city.”

Neal says the region is continually pulling responsibilities from the municipal level, starting with transit and last year’s attempts at a regional fire services entity.

“Of all the mismanaged decisions I’ve ever seen in my life, for the City of Oshawa to take two people out of there, give them away without even a fight or nothing, no bargaining, and yet they’re taking more powers away from the City of Oshawa and the decisions are going to be made at the region for the city,” he says.

With the remaining five councillors, it would be only fair for the city to have one regional rep and one city rep in each ward, along with the mayor who represents at-large and on regional council.

Mayor John Henry says he is confident the seven-ward system will not work, adding that a five ward system would make the most sense. However, he does acknowledge the difficulty in determining any potential boundaries.

“When you have five regional councillors, the logic would be to have five local councillors and a ward system of five,” he says. “It’s very difficult if you want to be balanced across the city, so now the challenge is to balance the municipality by population and making it equal for all wards.”

Under the previous seven-ward system, there were wards for the north and south ends of the city, with the area in the center divided into five segments. The new ward system will have to be in place by the end of 2017 to be affective for the 2018 election.

One possibility already floated by council is the idea of strip wards bisecting the city north to south. It’s an idea that has seen vehement criticism from Bill Longworth, a former mayoral candidate who has appeared at committee and council to protest the idea, stating it would lead to a serious inequality of representation.

“Strip wards that combine predominantly older and working class housing with newer larger homes do not provide the community integrity required for ward composition and thus disenfranchise the working class neighbourhoods,” he says in his correspondence.

Henry originally put forward the idea, saying he knows the final decision is going to be a difficult one.

“It’s very complicated on how you do this,” he says. “So staff will be working on it and it is something that will be in place for the next election we hope.”

The switch originated following a referendum attached to the 2014 municipal election ballot, which saw 72 per cent of voters call for a return to a ward system. Oshawa has been using an at-large system since a 2006 referendum saw more than 60 per cent of the voting population request a move away from the ward system, which had been in place since 1985.

Oshawa councillors are not legally bound to move back to the ward system, due to the fact that less than 50 per cent of eligible voters turned out for the 2014 referendum. However, councillors have made it clear they were listening and passed a motion in December 2014 to initiate the switch back.