Since school started, I couldn’t watch CP24 during breakfast or lunchtime without seeing footage from either a recent or live debate by Toronto’s 2014 mayoral candidates.
Nor could I flip open the newspaper without seeing new poll results every three days.
Frontrunner candidates have been out campaigning practically all day every day for the past two months with a whopping 42 debates organized since July, 40 of which have taken place since September 2. To contrast them with aspiring leaders from other orders of government, Ontario provincial party leaders had only one over the 2014 provincial election campaign. Federal elections usually feature a similar number of debates by party leaders.
Provincial and federal election campaigns typically last between four to eight weeks. The municipal campaign kicked off on January 2.
So what’s up with the 42 debates, the endless polling and media coverage, and a campaign that lasted 299 days?
If you measured the importance of a campaign by its length, the accompanying media coverage, and the frequency of debates, one would imagine the Mayor’s office is a very powerful office indeed. But is it really?
Council chose to strip Mayor Rob Ford of virtually all of his mayoral powers in November 2013. Can you specify any dramatic policy decisions impacting the entire city that passed as a result of mayoral powers? Neither can I.
That’s because the vast majority of the mayor’s powers are symbolic. Many of the mayor’s responsibilities, both as head of council and Toronto’s chief executive officer, outlined in the City of Toronto Act (2006) go along the lines of “provide leadership to council” and “uphold and promote the purposes of the City.”
International ridicule since the crack scandal has shown that the mayor’s symbolic powers are quite important, but they do not have any substantial impact on policy.
The mayor only has one vote on council in a council of 45. The mayor is not the leader of a political party like premiers and the prime minister are, so vote whipping isn’t as relevant. The mayor also doesn’t have veto power.
The only time council delegates decision-making authority to the mayor is during a state of emergency.
This means that council can pass legislation without mayoral approval, which has happened on countless occasions in the past term and will continue to happen for successive terms to come.
Considering this, is the Toronto mayoral election really worth all the hype?
To be fair, the mayor has some important responsibilities. The mayor’s representative jurisdiction extends into all corners of the city.
The political implication of this is that councillors tend to vote with the candidate if the mayor is well-liked in their riding. The mayor’s office is symbolically a more important and generally a better-known post than that of councillor, so to support an unpopular candidate in this situation would reflect poorly on the councillor. If it happens frequently and noticeably enough, the councillor could be out of a job next term.
The mayor also chairs the Executive, Striking, and Civic Appointments committees, which collectively decide the membership of all other committees, and appoints standing committee chairs. Therefore the mayor has influence over legislation that passes through committee level before reaching council, but that too can be diminished.
So in conclusion, the mayor really doesn’t have that much control over municipal affairs. The mayor has some control and lots of potential influence, but not a whole lot — definitely not enough to justify 42 mayoral debates and two new polls every week during the campaign’s last three months.
Christopher Lee is a second-year student at Victoria College studying peace and conflict studies, as well as justice and employment relations.
