In (small) defense of Rob Ford

2011 Photograph by Tara Walton, for the Toronto Star.

The big news from City Hall last week was Rob Ford's "conflict of interest" hearing, where "star" lawyer Clayton Ruby grilled him on the stand, trying to convince the judge that Toronto's mayor had violated the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. If the judge finds Mayor Ford "guilty", the minimum penalty is his removal from office.

Now, I'm not a lawyer. Additionally, I will tell you that Rob Ford was not my choice for mayor. However, in my opinion, I feel that the potential punishment against Ford does not match the "crime" he committed. I certainly think he should be punished, but that removing him from office would be extreme. Let me lay out what I know to be true about this case:

1. While a councillor, the defendant solicited donations to a charity being run by the Toronto Community Foundation (the "foundation" bears the defendant's name, but he does not run it), from lobbyists and corporate donors. The defendant used city letterheads to do so.
2. The integrity commissioner for the city warned the defendant that such activity was improper, and that the defendant should repay the donors. The defendant didn't repay the donors, arguing that the money went to charity (note: by this point, the defendant had become the mayor of the city).
3. The issue was brought forward to city council, and in February of 2012, he spoke to and then voted to overturn the "order" from council to repay the money (the vote was passed, 22 to 12). A few points: a) the motion didn't require his vote to pass (and he probably didn't need to speak to it either); b) he did not declare a "conflict of interest" on this vote; and c) this is the action that the defendant is on trial for.

I think that last point is key here. We're not debating whether Rob Ford improperly solicited donations from lobbyists. We're not debating whether Rob Ford's vision for Toronto is bad for cyclists and pedestrians. We're not, as much as many of his enemies want to, debating whether Rob Ford is a bad mayor. Certainly, the "solicitation of donations" is the "conflict of interest", but in my opinion, there needs to be some nuance to the punishment.

There's been some impulse if you read the comments section of any major paper here in Toronto, that "finally, we can kick this horrible person out of office". That we can punish him for reading while driving, punish him for the Port Lands fiasco, and punish him for "ending" the war on the car by removing the "Vehicle Registration Tax", no matter how effective it may have been.

Was what Ford did, wrong? Yes. unquestionably so. Does Ford realize that (even if he didn't, at the time)? Yes. But is "removal from office" fair punishment?

Even if we have an issue with the election process (or perhaps more accurately, who was elected), we still have to respect the process. One of the main reasons we have elections is to give legitimacy to the individuals who win. To remove someone from office, the reasons (in my opinion) need to be severe enough to break that legitimacy. We're not talking about having to leave office for reasons of illness or death; rather, it's felt the politician has abused their power for personal gain, so much so that the only removal from office is considered an appropriate punishment.

As any critic of mandatory minimum sentencing knows, not all crimes are worth putting a blanket sentence over. Mandatory sentences remove the ability of a judge to use the nuances of the case to punish an individual as the actual offense might entail. I feel the same way about the punishment dictated by the Municipal Conflict Act; there's just too big a gap between the "minimum" punishment, and no punishment at all.

As I said before, I'm not against punishing Rob Ford for what he did; I just disagree that his "crime" (voting on a matter he had an interest in that was going to pass in his favour anyway, in regards to his soliciting donations from lobbyists for an arms-length charity) is worth kicking him out of office. If the Municipal Conflict Act had an option to fine (such as by forcing him to pay the $3150 he was told to pay back) or otherwise punish Mayor Ford -- short of removing him from office -- I would be cool with that.

A few people I've talked to have worried that not punishing him will create a precedence. I don't see it; a precedence for what? Soliciting donations to an arms-length charity (and again: not really even what he did "wrong")? Ford is taking a pounding from both sides of the media over this (remember: all he had to do was not vote on a matter he was going to "win" anyway to avoid all of this). Coupled with the headache that Hurricane Hazel is dealing with over in Mississauga, any future "loose cannon" on council is going to take the "councillors handbook" to heart when to declare a conflict of interest to heart.

The only way Ford comes out "on top" in this is, ironically, if the judge decides that what the mayor did was worth kicking him out of office. If that happens, expect him to start campaigning early for the next election, backed by the same wave of sympathy (over such things as his weight and minor criminal matters in the United States) that helped elect him in the first place.

Let's respect the democratic process, and "punish" the man for what he's on trial for, not the culmination of offenses (perceived or otherwise). It might be irritating to let Mayor Ford "off" for this offense, but if the choices are between "not punishing him" and "kicking him out of office", then I can't in good conscious recommend the latter. If you want Rob Ford to lose his job as mayor, then do it the democratic way: vote him out in the next election.

A Few Words on Electoral Reform

2011 photo by John Woods, Canadian Press. From the CBC article, "Can internet voting boost turnout without risk?"

No urban planning today! Well, at least not directly. The combination of the US Presidential Election, the recent Quebec election, and especially the recent proposal to switch Toronto to a ranked ballot system for 2018 has got me thinking about electoral reform. There is obviously some connection between who we elect and what we build, but that's politics. And politics shouldn't be confused as being synonymous with elections (although certainly, elections are influenced by politics). Er, wait, let me start over here.

Since the time that Stephen Harper was elected back in 2006, I've heard a relatively steady chorus of complaints against the "first-past-the-post" system that is the dominant electoral system in North America. The complaints are thus: many times, a politican (or their party) will be elected to their respective position(s) with a seat count that is inflated/deflated (compared to their percentage of the popular vote) because only a plurality of votes (not a majority) is the requirement to "win". It's too easy for your vote to be "wasted". This combination is said to be making people disengage from elections.

There are several options that stand out as solutions, at least in the Canadian context:

First-past-the-post: What we have now. As the name suggests, it's about reaching the "finish line" first, not necessarily about doing it gracefully. If you gain a plurality of votes, you win.

Proportional Representation (PR): Generally in a PR system, voters elect parties, not individuals. Seats are divided up based on the percentage of the popular vote, filled from a party "list". This system ensures that your vote counts, but it also makes it nearly impossible to determine who represents you/your "riding".

Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP): Seats are divided into two categories, with voters picking both an individual in their riding, and a party. The first category of seats are filled through plurality votes for a candidate in the riding, as normal. The second are filled based on the percentage of the popular vote that a party gets. It's more complicated than that, but the end result is that you end up with a direct representative for your riding, and each party gets a percentage of the seats in government roughly equal to the percentage of voters who picked their party on the ballot.

Single Transferable Vote (STV): Voters "rank" candidates in order of preference, with multiple people able to represent a particular area. A "quota" of votes is established based on the number of votes and the number of seats to fill. Whoever "meets" the quota gets elected to the area, and any "extra" votes for a candidate (the ones that weren't needed for that candidate to "win") are distributed to the remaining candidates according to second choices. If this allows other candidates to reach the quota, they're elected, and the process continues until the seats are filled. Otherwise, the person with the fewest votes is dropped, and the "second" choice votes are added to the remaining candidates. Repeat until you fill all the seats for a riding. Potentially confusing to figure out who represents you.

Instant-runoff Voting (IRV): Voters "rank" candidates in order of preference. First picks are tallied, and if no candidate ends up with 50% of the vote, the person who ended up "last" in :first picks" is removed from the ballot, and anyone who voted for the last-place candidate has their votes "changed" to their second pick. This continues into one candidate receives 50% +1 of the popular vote, at which point they are the winner. Can allow for "compromise" candidates who are not really the voter's "first choice", but potentially their "second".

There are dozens of other methods, many of which are even more convoluted to explain. The point to take out is that each has advantages and disadvantages. Did you read one of my descriptions above, and still not understand how the method worked? That's a disadvantage! But while most usually create new problems, each tries to solve at least one problem with first-past-the-post.

Stephen Harper was not the first politician to be criticized because his party did not manage to grab more than 50% of the popular vote (fun fact: he and his mentor, Tom Flanagan, published a piece called "Our Benign Dictatorship" that argued for electoral reform back in the Chrétien era). The cries for electoral reform resurfaced when Rodney MacDonald was elected as Premier of Nova Scotia in 2006 (the Liberals got 23.5% of the vote, but only 17.3% of the seats), and when Harper was reelected in 2011 (claiming 39.6% of the vote, but gaining 53.9% of the seats).

The criticism can get even more extreme, such as when Toronto's Mayor Rob Ford garnered 47.1% of the popular vote to win the mayoral race, but because only 53.2% of eligible voters turned out, technically he became the mayor of the entire City of Toronto despite only about 1 in 4 of Toronto's citizens actually putting an "X" next to his name on the ballot. I hang around mostly left-leaning social circles, so the fact that all of these politicians are conservative should come as no surprise (but I'm sure the right complain to each other about how broken the system is when their guys lose too).

Let's not mince words: the "first-past-the-post" system absolutely benefits a government like Stephen Harper's (just as it did for Jean Chrétien's Liberals in 1993, 1997, and 2000), so politically there is little reason for him to "reform" the system. Additionally, it's also true that many elections are held when university students (an NDP leaning bunch in general) are away from their electoral districts (putting an additional barrier up that may cause them not to vote). Heck, I'm sure you could find evidence of voter suppression and fraud too, and yes, the electoral turnout decay is an issue, as are the benefits for incumbent candidates. But when most people talk about electoral reform, they're usually saying "The person I don't like was elected, we should reform the system so my person has a better chance."

That's fair! What is electoral reform other than hoping to make your vote count? But electoral reform is more than just politics. It's about fundamentally altering the way citizens elect their representatives, in a way that usually entails making voting a more difficult and time consuming choice (and the results, often more complicated, and potentially problematic).

Yes, electoral reform is often championed by proponents who believe it will help fix voter turnout (short answer: it would likely have a small effect; studies of a proportional representation system found about a 3-7% increase in voter turnout).

Yes, electoral reform could result in your vote "counting", creating a system where "majority" of voters elect a particular candidate rather than a plurality (although the chances of the electoral population as a whole actually voting in a candidate with a majority would still be slim; and depending on the system used, your vote still has a chance at being "wasted" in the current sense).

And yes, electoral reform could break the "two-party systems" that are seen in the United States and many riding in Canada, but they could also cause immense fragmentation, and the election of fringe parties with more political extreme views than we normally see elected (do you want the Christian Heritage Party or the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) to have a chance at seats in the House of Commons?).

Just to be clear: I would love electoral reform. I'm personally in favour of some sort of PR system, particularly a Mixed-Member Proportional system (perhaps surprisingly, I love the idea of minority governments). But we can't deny that there are benefits to first-past-the-post. It's easy to understand, it's fast to tabulate, and as a voter, it's clear who you're voting for. Most systems can't make those claims. It isn't too surprising therefore that referendums to switch to a different systems such as MMP in Ontario, and STV in British Columbia) were defeated.

And we also can't forget that there are other solutions than electoral reform to solving some of first-past-the-post's problems. Fixed election dates, new and easier voting methods (e.g. internet voting) , and even rethinking voter engagement (particularly the youth vote)  can bring tangible results without the need for a referendum on how we vote.

That said, first-past-the-post has had a good run here in Canada. I think getting some exposure to new voting systems, particularly at a municipal level, would be a good exercise. The proposal to switch to an "IRV" system here in Toronto is being reviewed, and I hope it's well received.

A Place Downtown for Little Ginny?

A chart showing the average floor space of a new apartment in the GTA. Graph from "Toronto's Condo Blog"

I had a small twitter conversation with Brent Toderian, the former Director of Planning in Vancouver, about building spaces downtown for families. The conversation was in regards to a recent article about downtown housing in Ottawa. Toderian's contention was that a condominium that was "1300 sq ft" (the number listed in the article as being a "comfortable" size for a family) was "suburban" thinking. His point, as I gather, is that declaring a space to be too large/too small to raise a family within is a silly way of measuring the "livability" of a space. As he tweeted to me, "Its more about the layout/bedrooms than sf, & affected by quality/amenities of neighbourhood. Not a math exercise." Toderian is (if I might be presumptuous, judging by another tweet he made) trying to
 argue that the formula should be "value for your money" rather than "space for your money".

This is an undeniable truth to such a statement; if you have a grocery store nearby, you can probably forgo a giant freezer for bulk purchases. Creative use of space can allow you to do a lot in a relatively small area. Thinking of "space" as nothing more than a raw footprint can be very misleading. Still, even if we can imagine a family using a relatively small space (and it's certainly a fun exercise to think how you could accommodate a three bedroom place in say, 1000 sq ft), that is generally a concern for someone other than the developer. After all, they absolutely have to deal with the "math"; most zoning by-laws are going to be quite explicit about things such as height, density, and the number of units they want to build.

The problem that Ottawa (and many other places, such as downtown Toronto, and I assume downtown Vancouver) is that "family" sized units -- however you wish to define them, but let's just be very broad and say "three bedroom" -- are not a hot commodity. As a recent CBC article discusses, the market is demanding one bedroom (and one bedroom + den) places that are barely cracking 800 sq ft of space (and often, not at all). The long term implications of this market demand is a very transient population, that often must move to find space that can handle a burgeoning family. Couple that with the high cost of living downtown (and the subsidization of the suburbs... another topic I'll try and address in the future) and it's no wonder that some think that downtown is no place to raise a family.

It is therefore not surprising that the answer from most cities is to force developers to include affordable "family sized" units via a ZBL (or a ZBL amendment). Letting the developers decide what should be built (which subsequently will determine who will live there) isn't going to diversify the housing stock, at least not until the market shifts.

But that still begs the question: if the problem from the developer perspective is a math problem, how do you, as a city planner, influence the equation to produce the "answer" you're looking for? Even if the result you're trying to deliver is "value for your buck", without a strong ZBL, you're going to have to "convince" a developer that it's worth their time to build units made for a family, rather than young professionals.

I ended up asking Brent Toderian whether he had any specific examples he'd point to as spaces where families can live in "less than" 1300 sq ft. His answer was that there are thousands of kids living in downtown Vancouver, because "families pick neighbourhoods". That may be true, but what are the developers picking?