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Political Landscape of Toronto (including Ward Boundary Review)

Northern Light said:
Remaining portion of the decision is out today.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...-in-on-how-to-run-torontos-2018-election.html

Di Ciano loses again. :)
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As stupid of a decision it was for City Council to vote to increase its size from 44 to 47, according to the rules it was their decision to make.

Is Council allowed to change their format to have 25 Councillors to match the Federal Boundaries, and then 4 "Deputy Mayors" (one per community council), whose vote is weighted 3X that of Councillors, and a Mayor whose vote is weighted 6X that of a Councillor. Or would the province have to mandate or at least allow this format to be used?
 
BurlOak said:
Is Council allowed to change their format to have 25 Councillors to match the Federal Boundaries, and then 4 "Deputy Mayors" (one per community council), whose vote is weighted 3X that of Councillors, and a Mayor whose vote is weighted 6X that of a Councillor. Or would the province have to mandate or at least allow this format to be used?
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I don't want a mayor whose vote is weighted 6x that of a councillor. Noooooooo thanks.
 
MTown said:
I don't want a mayor whose vote is weighted 6x that of a councillor. Noooooooo thanks.
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Council has 25 votes.
Deputy Mayors have 12 votes.
Mayor has 6 votes.

Each level drops by half. Mayor alone, even Mayor with 4 deputies, still does not have control.
 
BurlOak said:
Council has 25 votes.
Deputy Mayors have 12 votes.
Mayor has 6 votes.

Each level drops by half. Mayor alone, even Mayor with 4 deputies, still does not have control.
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Yes, I understood the maths, I just reckon it's a bad idea concentrating that much power in the hands of any one person. That's a bit of overkill for a tie-breaking vote, innit.
 
https://www.toronto.ca/city-governm...council-boundaries-for-the-city-of-toronto-2/

The new map for the Toronto Community Councils was voted on at the end of June. Councillor Doucette was successful in getting her ward changed from Etobicoke York to Toronto and East York community council. It was a close vote (19-17), not sure why Councillor Ford voted in her favour, as the motion was a tie in Councillor Perks' motion of the same thing (in the case that the city went to 5 Community Councils).

Two things:

1) I think the problem is that the general public seems to think Etobicoke York Community Council is for Etobicoke. Why was it not called Etobicoke AND York Community Council (like Toronto AND East York Community Council is)?

2) The top half of Councillor Doucette's riding was all in the former city of York (everything North of Bloor), and the bottom third of her Ward (the condos/towns along Queensway/Lake Shore) are much more similar to the communities to the west (Humber Bay in Councillor Grimes ward) than they are to downtown. So a small segment of her Ward is "downtown-ish", but the entire ward gets moved over.
 
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Johnny Au said:
Bay-Cloverhill, Church and Wellesley, North Toronto, and Empress would be very small but very dense neighbourhoods.
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Also interesting is neighbourhood #23 Pelmo Park-Humberlea which remains the only one in the whole City to straddle both sides of the 401, but also it straddles two sides of the CPR rail corridor.
I am surprised they didn't take an opportunity to change this since they inserted new neighbourhoods adjacent to them, and could have reconfigured the whole thing, unless is there something that connects both sides of this neighbourhood one I am unaware of?

pelmo_park_humberlea.jpg
 
WislaHD said:
Planning department numbers are only as good as their base assumptions.

I think everyone at every level of the planning and political process has their head-in-the-sand over the growth at Humber Bay. They really do not account that large sites like the Kraft/Mondelez site will be redeveloped in the relatively near future with huge residential population. As far as the assumptions are concerned, they are 'industrial lands that are to be protected'. Neither did City Planning realize that Mimico was about to be facing a condo boom.
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Sorry to bring this thread back up, but Ward 3 (which is the combination of previous Wards 5 + 6) is now the largest municipal ward in Canada at 141 751 people. Keesmat's team purposely underestimated growth in South Etobicoke in the 2010s (Christie's lands still haven't been touched, but the rest of the area has). Why does nobody have to be kept accountable to these kinds of mistakes? And with ward/riding boundaries aligned at all three levels of government, people in Etobicoke-Lakeshore's vote is not only worth less at one level, but at all levels because Keesmatt purposely underreported how many people would be living here/how much growth would happen.
 
toaster29 said:
Sorry to bring this thread back up, but Ward 3 (which is the combination of previous Wards 5 + 6) is now the largest municipal ward in Canada at 141 751 people. Keesmat's team purposely underestimated growth in South Etobicoke in the 2010s (Christie's lands still haven't been touched, but the rest of the area has). Why does nobody have to be kept accountable to these kinds of mistakes? And with ward/riding boundaries aligned at all three levels of government, people in Etobicoke-Lakeshore's vote is not only worth less at one level, but at all levels because Keesmatt purposely underreported how many people would be living here/how much growth would happen.
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Why are you blaming Keesmaat? The federal riding boundaries were last set in 2013. They will be revised next year.

The city went through a long consultation and planning process to develop the 47 wards that were fair and would account for projected growth. Ford came in and blew that away when candidates had already registered, campaigned, and raised money for those wards.

What you wrote above is nonsense.
 
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ShonTron said:
Why are you blaming Keesmaat? The federal riding boundaries were last set in 2013. They will be revised next year.

The city went through a long consultation and planning process to develop the 47 wards that were fair and would account for projected growth. Ford came in and blew that away when candidates had already registered, campaigned, and raised money for those wards.

What you wrote above is nonsense.
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I'd encourage you to take a look at page 26 of the Ward Boundary Review of May 2016 (HERE). Toronto Planning provided population projections to the Ward Boundary Review (this was pre Ford's destruction of council), and Keesmatt was in charge of planning at the time. Ward 5 and 6 (which form most of Ward 3 now) were already listed as being above variances, but what's most interesting is that they are totally not in line with what was projected by the planning department, which already had the development proposals for the area.. Who would you blame if not for the Planning Department who made incorrect projections that were provided to the Ward Boundary review? Regardless if they are combined into one riding (Ward 3 now) or two separate ridings (as the original pre-Ford model), the projections were totally inaccurate.
Screen Shot 2022-04-23 at 2.19.28 PM.png
 
toaster29 said:
I'd encourage you to take a look at page 26 of the Ward Boundary Review of May 2016 (HERE). Toronto Planning provided population projections to the Ward Boundary Review (this was pre Ford's destruction of council), and Keesmatt was in charge of planning at the time. Ward 5 and 6 (which form most of Ward 3 now) were already listed as being above variances, but what's most interesting is that they are totally not in line with what was projected by the planning department, which already had the development proposals for the area.. Who would you blame if not for the Planning Department who made incorrect projections that were provided to the Ward Boundary review? Regardless if they are combined into one riding (Ward 3 now) or two separate ridings (as the original pre-Ford model), the projections were totally inaccurate.View attachment 395215
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Ok.....so let me follow here......

The study clearly lays out that the target was to get each ward within +/-15% of the target population.

2026 was the reference case (the election at which the wards were expected to be within target)

Wards 5 and 6 in the above scenario would have met this requirement (just), while 2 other wards were set to be slightly over.

Keeping in mind that the 25 ward scenario was not one envisioned by the report above, and that it uses boundaries that Keesmaat/said report did not set........

How far off is the population projection?

Based on what you show above, Wards 5 and 6 together were projected to be 139, 444
Based on your assertion above, the current population is actually: 141, 751

A variance of 2, 307 people or 1.65% higher than projected.

Given that this was an estimate going 10 years into the future; I think an underestimate of 1.65% is fairly reasonable.

The province of Ontario's estimates (Hemson) for the GTAH were off even more.


1650741388289.png


Source: https://institute.smartprosperity.ca/sites/default/files/BILD Report - FINAL.pdf

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Even look at two different Province of Ontario official forecasts Hemson vs the Ministry of Finance, both for the City of Toronto: (from the same source)

1650741786219.png


The variance is 2.3% in 2026, between those 2 estimates made for the same level of government, neither employing Ms. Keesmaat.

I find the assertion that Planning wilfully low-balled the numbers by a whole 1.65% a bit odd, and not supported by the evidence thus far.
 
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I mean, I guess it comes down to what the city's definition of reasonable should be. Yes, off by a few thousand for 2022. For me, as someone who shared my feelings during Ward Boundary community consultation that Ward 5 and 6 would be too over populated (even with the numbers they were predicting), to learn that in fact, we're actually even going beyond what was already on the highest end of the variance, does not sit well. We also shared that we thought their projections were off during these consolations, given the already approved development applications and UC condos at the time. We were assured that the numbers were accurate. What I'm saying is someone should be held accountable for these kinds of mistakes, or essentially "lies" during community consultation of the time.
 
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