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Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Same with Calgary. As GernB alludes to, changing to a ward system is an option once a municipality becomes a city, but not mandatory. Although I said it might be problematic to have councilors 'at large', I also wonder if it results in more collaborative governance.

When Thunder Bay was created in 1970, the election we had in 1969 to appoint its council included most of the people that ran on the previous two 12-member councils of the former cities as well as numerous newcomers. The ballot was about 4 feet long. Over 100 people ran in that election for 12 at-large seats and voters have to pick 12 of those 100+ candidates. The winners got something like 20% of the vote overall, and something like 5% to 7% of the actual votes cast (over 500,000 votes since each voter got to make up to 12 picks). Dozens of people got less than a thousand votes.

It was a totally absurd system and one of the first things they did was implement wards. But people didn't like getting to only pick one of the 12 councillors, so shortly after that we established the current system (which I think was one of the first in Canada).

Seven wards, five at-large councillors. Each voter picks 6 people to serve on our 12 person council.

So we get to see within our own system the pros and cons to the two.

Ward councillors make it easier for people to get into politics. It focuses on a smaller area and the cost is less because you're competing with fewer people for fewer votes. The races have an average of 5 candidates for up to 6,000 votes. The downside is that some of the ward councillors are pretty useless and we end up with the silly issue that Parliament finds itself in, where people representing the opposite end of town from a minor project are voting on it.

In the at-large race, you have people who have more money and a longer period of public exposure. They tend to be career politicians or very well known political figures and the money they spend on the races eclipses what the ward races spend. The seats aren't accessible to the average person because even if 5,000 vote for an at-large candidate, you usually need 12,000 to 15,000 to win and you're competing with 30+, not 5. So in our system, the at-large councillors tend to function similarly to senators: they're wealthy, well-known, and well-entrenched. They're more likely to get re-elected than ward councillors because they're better known than ward councillors, and let's face it, municipal elections are basically treated by the electorate as a multiple choice question of "Who is currently sitting on City council?"

That last point is why I oppose all at-large systems. It basically cements people's political careers. It rewards wealth and public exposure over ideas, vision and experience. It makes politics less accessible to people and I think it's led to voter apathy.

But then in our case it's all kind of a moot point. You mention collaborating: despite their political affiliations, most of our councillors have nearly identical viewpoints on almost everything.

Now, if you want to see a really fucked up system to determine the composition of a governing council, look at INACs requirements on Indian Band councils. If we had the same policies in municipalities, it would expand the number of elected officials in this country by a magnitude.