COULD THE TORONTO MAYORAL BYELECTION BE AN EXPERIMENT FOR RANKED BALLOTING?

Apr 04, 2023

By Jane Brown

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Democracy appears to be alive and well in the race for Toronto’s next mayor.

On the first day of the nomination period Monday, 28 candidates signed up to run in the Toronto mayoral byelection.

The list includes five current and former Toronto city councillors, a former police chief, a former Ontario education minister, a newspaper columnist, and several civic activists.

In a race left wide open by the unexpected departure of former mayor John Tory, there are no immediate front runners.

So why not use ranked balloting to determine the winner as caller John proposed on Zoomer Radio’s Fight Back with guest host Jane Brown.

“It’s going to be quite possible that we’re going to have a mayor that about 90-percent don’t want him. The system needs to be changed to reflect the majority’s decision,” John explained.

In reaction, Fight Back panelist Bill VanGorder, chief operating and chief policy officer at CARP, said he likes the idea.

“Ranked balloting across the world is getting more and more support and their are more countries using it at all levels. And if it’s going to happen in Canada,” Bill explained, “It probably has to start at the municipal level in a larger city like Toronto to show the other levels of government how this could work.”

There are no plans for Toronto’s coming mayoral byelection to be anything other than first past the post.

In October, John Tory won the municipal election with 350,000 votes while second place finisher Gil Penalosa had 100,000 votes.

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