Mayors have more authority than you think in the current system
There’s no denying it: Giving Toronto a “strong-mayor” system has a certain appeal. Many voters look on city council as a dysfunctional talking shop, simply incapable of getting things done. Councillors joust and quarrel and politic while the traffic gets worse, the water fountains stay busted and the housing crisis deepens.
Well, there are a few reasons. One can be expressed in just two words: Rob Ford. Imagine how much worse his chaotic mayoralty might have been if he had been armed with extra authority. Toronto survived that wild period in part because, as it stands, city council, not the mayor, is supreme.Councillors stepped in to curb the defiant Mr. Ford, stripping him of many of his powers. Rob Fords don’t come along very often, but a democratic system needs to guard against worst cases.
The alternative is to make the mayor the kind of elected autocrat we see on Parliament Hill or at Queen’s Park, where prime ministers or premiers with a majority in the legislature can do pretty much as they please between elections, no matter how much the opposition benches may bray. In that system, at least as it has come to operate in Canada, legislators almost invariably tow the party line, voting with the team no matter what their personal beliefs on the matter at hand.
From Mel Lastman to David Miller to the current mayor, John Tory, they have managed to get most of their priorities through without strong-mayor powers. The mandate they enjoy through being directly elected by voters citywide – rather than in a particular ward – gives them a certain moral authority, and councillors generally acknowledge it in the end. No other elected office-holder in the country gets as many marks beside his or her name on the ballot: nearly half a million in Mr.