People in the Know: Karen Farbridge, Part One

I find that the most interesting interviews seem to happen after someone has walked away from their careers rather than when they are in the middle of them.  I think that this is because when you are actually in office you are constrained by it to always think about how your words could affect your ability to function there. It's only when you've finally walked away from it that you have both the time to think clearly and objectively about what you've done, and, the freedom to say what you really think about things. To that end, I was happy to do an in-depth interview with Guelph's past mayor, Karen Farbridge.

I think it's important to mention in passing that Karen and I go way, way back. I first met her in 1978 and she is probably my oldest friend in the Royal City. But I hope that that doesn't mean that I can't do a fact-based, objective interview with her. Ultimately, that's for the readers to judge, though.

&&&&

Karen Farbridge, our 40th and 42nd Mayor in Guelph.
Original image from U. of Guelph website, used under
Fair Use provision, cropped by Bill Hulet

&&&&

Bill Hulet: I heard that there was a talk you gave in London shortly after you lost the 2014 election to Cam Guthrie. Could you tell me something about that?

Karen Farbridge: There is a woman [Ashley Good] who has a business---I think it's called "Fail Forward"---she does work with---I think Doctors Without Border, but it might be Engineers Without Borders---one of those. In addition to their standard annual report, they also do an annual "Failure Report" where they highlight the year's projects that didn't work and why. The point of her work is help institutions and individuals have conversations about failure without triggering a bunch of negativity. Or criticism. And how to do this without making people feel threatened.

She was brought in to facilitate a conversation at the 2015 Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting about what I'd learned from what I hadn't been able to achieve as Mayor of Guelph.  

Bill Hulet: In business people often talk about the need to experiment, push the envelope, "break things", stuff like that. But in governance you aren't really supposed to take any risks at all.

Karen Farbridge: The problem with politics is that there's always somebody who will want to take advantage of somebody and sort of flog it. One example would be the SUBBOR [SUper Blue BOx Recycling] project. Remember that?

Bill Hulet: That was the idea that you grind up everything and ferment it and burn the gas to make electricity?

Karen Farbridge: Yeah. 

So the city had an opportunity and we took it. We provided some space for them to test their facility. And when they were not successful, and they were not able to demonstrate the effectiveness of their process---all of a sudden it became the city's failure. 

Right?

And it got caught up in the lawsuits and stuff like that. So they sued us. It turned out that that was pretty much how they made their money---through lawsuits. So it became somehow that the city had failed.

But we had taken a risk on an opportunity. At the end of the day we were whole. We didn't invest any of our own dollars into it. We didn't pay them to process our waste. It didn't work---but I'm sure we learned some things along the way. 

But we never were able to go back and learn from it---people just wanted to move on and forget about it.

Our administration did a really good job in the agreement of protecting the city, and we were left harm free. But it's an example of even when it wasn't a failure in any sort of measured way, it was used to be a negative story. And yet we'd taken advantage of an opportunity to see if it could have worked for the city. 

&&&&

The Saga of Eastern Power

SUBBOR is an interesting study all in it's own. It turns out that it was a project run by two brothers---Greg and Hubert Vogt---who are the owners of "Eastern Power Limited". And as Karen mentioned, this company has a history with governments and lawsuits---.

The earliest reference to Eastern Power Limited's legal issues is a throwaway reference in a story about Guelph's SUBBOR troubles in the magazine Solid Waste and Recycling:

(Interestingly, Eastern Power sued Italy’s largest municipal utility for $162 million in damages in the late 1990s over what Eastern called a breach of contract related to a deal to supply a plant to generate power from sewage in Rome. The Italian utility won and Eastern Power was ordered to pay $44,000 in costs.)

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any other reference to this lawsuit or the project in general.

In addition, Eastern Power has built two facilities that recover methane gas from landfills which were used to create electricity. The first one was at Brock West in Pickering which was installed in 1991. A second facility was installed at the Keele Valley landfill in Maple in 1995. (This was the largest landfill in Canada and the third largest in North America when it was in use.) Both of these facilities seem to have functioned according to specifications.

The Brock West methane collection facility in Pickering.  Image from the Keneidan Construction website,
used under the Fair Use Copyright provision.

In 1998 Guelph signed a contract with Eastern Power Limited to provide a space plus a source of garbage so they could display their SUBBOR technology.  The federal government had already ponied up $7 million to fund the project, and, the company had a proven track record because of their success running the Brock West and Keele Valley methane collection plants---the second and third largest landfills in North America. The idea was that the Vogt brothers had three years to show that their technology worked and at a price that would save Guelph money over the existing Wet/Dry system. Unfortunately they were unable to do so in the time allotted and the city decided to sever the connection. At this point Eastern Power sued the city of Guelph for the sum of $32 million because of "breach of contract". Eventually the Ontario Superior Court ruled in Guelph's favour on all points and awarded Guelph $4.5 million in court costs.   

Where the saga of Eastern Power really hits "over-drive" is the next project it took on. As part of the Ontario Liberal government's program to phase out coal-powered electricity generation, it was decided that the province needed to build "Peaker power plants" that would be able to harmonize electricity production and demand on days when sustainable electricity production (ie:  wind, solar, hydro-electricity, etc) couldn't keep up to demand.

Eastern Power had a background in producing electricity from methane gas collected from landfills, so it could be argued that they had some expertise in natural gas electricity plant technology. But on the other hand, they weren't experienced at building peaker plants---so some eyebrows were raised when the Liberals awarded them a contract to build two plants in the Mississauga area in 2005 instead of the experienced Albertan company TransCanada Energy (yeah, these are the same people behind the Keystone Pipeline.) These two plants were to be called "Greenfield North" and "Greenfield South". The Northern project was soon scrapped because Eastern Power couldn't find investors willing to loan them enough money to build the project. (Remember this last sentence---it will be important later!)

An election was called, and the two proposed generation stations were immensely unpopular with voters in Mississauga, so the Liberals cancelled their contracts. (They also cancelled a similar generating station in Oakville, but the contract for that plant had been awarded to Trans Canada Energy, so it isn't relevant to this story.) When Ontario Power Authority lawyers started the process of working out a settlement with Eastern Power they found that because the company didn't have any experience building peaker plants, they had found it extremely hard to find the money they needed to build the project. The only investor they could find, EIG Management Company, asked them to put in some extremely cautious controls over the way they used the money. In 2011 EIG agreed to loan Eastern Power $260 million, but only under what an ordinary person would consider quite onerous terms.

According to a Globe and Mail article published on the 7th of November in 2012,

Eastern could only withdraw money monthly and only for approved construction expenditures. In return, Eastern had to pay 14-per-cent interest on borrowed funds and pledge control of the company and virtually all of its assets as collateral.

Because of these tight controls, by the time their peaker plant was cancelled, Eastern Power had actually received only $61 million dollars. But when this happened, EIG sued the Ontario Government for $300 million in damages---and eventually received $149 million (eg: $61 plus $88 million) in an out-of-court settlement.

To understand what happened, I'll have to explain something called a "yield maintenance" amount. Basically, this is the idea that when someone loans another person some money at a specific rate of interest over a specified length of time, they expect to not only get their money back but also with a predicted amount of interest. When the peaker deal "went South" because of politics, the investors expected to get some compensation for the interest they expected to receive when they loaned Easter Power all that money. This isn't an outrageous idea, but the amount seemed out of proportion to the money actually lent. Again, to quote from the Globe and Mail article,

That provision shocked Rocco Sebastiano, a lawyer at Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP retained by the Ontario Power Authority, a provincial agency in charge of the negotiations. "I fell off my chair when I saw the yield maintenance amount being claimed by EIG," Mr. Sebastiano said in an e-mail dated Nov. 24 to officials at the Power Authority. "This sounds like a usury charge to me frankly."

The reporters said they couldn't find anything in the documents they looked at to explain either why EIG thought that they were entitled to such an enormous amount of money for lost interest on its loan to Eastern Power, or, why the Ontario Power Authority ended up paying $88 million. The authors of the Globe article had their own conclusions:

The controversy over the cancelled power plant serves as a cautionary tale for governments as they increasingly shift services from bureaucrats to the private sector. The risks associated with these projects are supposed to be borne by the private sector. But when deals unravel, it is taxpayers who are left on the hook.

The story of Eastern Power doesn't end with big cash payouts, though. As part of its settlement with Ontario Power Authority, it requested a contract to build a peaker plant somewhere else. This meant that they were contracted to build the "Green Electron" facility near Sarnia. The plant was finished in April of 2017, but during it's construction there were numerous complaints by people working on the facility about unsafe working conditions. And when it was finally finished, there doesn't really seem to be much need for it. According to a Toronto Star article on the 25th of January in 2018, the plant was only needed for 33 days in the previous year.

&&&&

I've gone on something of a tangent here talking about SUBBOR, but it's important to remember why it is that I'm producing this news blog. As I see it, at least part of the point of news is to inform the worldview of the readership. And this means that sometimes it's useful to go off on wild tangents when one story leads to another. It's easy to fall prey to the idea that things can be easily explained by concise narratives. But life's not really like that. Pull on a string and you never really know what the result is going to be. And how we view the world around us can often be dramatically changed by the unexpected results of seemingly random inquiries.

What I find interesting in looking at the SUBBOR story is something that I've found in other stories I've researched:  the really pernicious and deceitful way business tries and often does take advantage of both government and the ordinary citizenry. This has made me a lot more skeptical about government/business partnerships. Anyway, if you like the "deep digs" that I do on local Guelph stories---no matter where I end up with them---please consider subscribing through Patreon or making a one time purchase through the Tip Jar. Even as little as $1/month is appreciated. 

&&&&

Digital manipulation of images by GIMP

Hulet: Is part of the reason why politicians get blamed for taking risks because the media likes to do "gotcha" stories and reporters don't have time to do any meaningful research?

Farbridge: I think that's more of it. I was looking through paper clippings from all through the 90's about the various things we did. 

The paper then---because they had more resources, more reporters, who had more time. They were a huge contributor to helping see projects move forward---like the Wet/Dry, water conservation and efficiency.

We didn't have social media at that time. So I wonder what it would have been like trying to do those projects with social media. But the papers played this really important role of being a place where there was good reporting on the facts, there was good presenting of debates---criticisms but also the positives. There was a balance of that in the community conversation. 

But then when you get into the mid 2,000s with the rise of social media the paper's stories just continued to decline. At that point they only had time to go after the "gotchas"---at a very superficial level. And that would feed the social media stuff, and all of a sudden the negative stories had this platform and there was nothing counter-balance them. 

Put a positive story on FaceBook and it goes nowhere. Put a negative story on and it's shared---people put little crying icons, stuff like that. It's hysterical. There's lots of research on it---I've tested it myself. 

Hulet: And then there're examples like "Ontario Proud" that are specifically feeding that. If you have the analytics in front of you, can can tell what works and what doesn't.

Farbridge:  That's one of the reasons why I think it's gotten worse. Rob Fords and Doug Fords have always been on our councils---but there's always been a whole lot of other voices to put what they said into a context or perspective. Now it seems that those voices are amplified in a system that is driven digitally through social media and those analytics. Those voices are getting amplified out of proportion to what the larger population might believe. 

&&&&

Hulet: What have you learned about the difference between governing a city, and, being a politician and getting elected---so you have the opportunity to govern the city. I've always thought that these were two things that are very different, and are sort of at loggerheads with one another.

Farbridge: Yeah. No they are totally different. I'm much more comfortable in the governing role. I don't like the election role. I never did. How I managed that was to put together a good team who were able to work in that world and have them lead it. And where I haven't done well was when I haven't had that team. 

My second observation is it used to be that campaigns used to be six or eight weeks. Maybe a little bit of runway coming up. But not much because that would always be in the summer time. So things really just hit in September and October, you had the elections. They were over and you got to governing. 

Now the elections go everyday, the entire year, every year of the term. They just go constantly. It's not just at a municiipal level, it's at the federal level and the provincial level. The campaign is going all the time. 

Hulet: So you felt even in the middle of a term you had to be very careful about what you said, or, think about the election?

Farbridge: It's about time. There's only so much time. 

A woman who's doing her Master's---. I met her about a year ago now---. She asked the question "How do mayors in Canada express their influence and power?" We don't have a "weak mayor" system---that's a wrong use of the term. (That's where the mayor only has one vote on Council---as you know.) 

Anyway, this woman interviewed mayors across the country, and she defined things into three areas. And how she said it made a lot of sense to me. 

One is sort of bucket is executive execution, another bucket is community, and, the other bucket was politics. Her thesis is that with the resources that mayors are given in Canada that they can only operate in one effectively. Maybe a little bit in one of the others. And it depends on the context of the municipality. 

So, for example, John Tory [Mayor of Toronto] has to spend a lot of time in the political bucket because he has forty odd councilors. So he has to know who he has "lined up" on his votes before going into a Council meeting. 

Nenshi [Naheed Nenshi, Mayor of Calgary] is completely in the community bucket and has an abysmal political record in Council in terms of getting his stuff supported---because he spends his time connecting people with his lost cats over social media.

Hulet: So he's what they call "a retail politician"?

Farbridge: Yes

So when I reflected on that for my own various terms---.

My first term---because it was such a split Council---I spent a lot of time on the political side of it. A lot of time engaging Councilors. Making sure they had what they needed, making sure they were comfortable with the vote---to ensure we could move forward with decisions. 

In my second term as mayor I was able to put a lot of time and effort into execution---more fundamental governance stuff. So once Council had made a decision I put my focus on making sure Council's decision got implemented. Cause there's "no connect" between Council making policy and those policies actually getting implemented, right?  Unless you put attention to it. 

I was able to put a lot of time into the execution and I had a CAO [the Chief Administrative Officer---the person who runs the city and manages all the non-elected staff] at the time---Hans Loewig---who was very much into getting things done. So we were a great balance in terms of getting the Council's direction, and giving him the mandate, and getting things done. 

And then the third term. I should have switched to community, but I didn't. I stayed in execution and was up against an opponent who lives entirely in community: not very good politically, hasn't had a good political record, and doesn't govern. And so I lost for lots of reasons---but that was one of the contributing things. And I felt that pressure---and I was absolutely doing more in that space. But there's only so much time in the day. 

Campaigning takes a lot of time and energy. You know. Going to every event and tweeting it out and putting it on FaceBook, taking a picture wherever you go. If you watched Frank Valeriote and Lloyd Longfield now---Liz Sandals [past Guelph MPP] never did this---they are never present. They are never in the moment governing. They are running their election. 

[Karen breaks out laughing.]

They are constantly on their phones tweeting and just doing the social media stuff. So it's all about the attention span and band width. You can't be running an election and governing at the same time---and do them both well. 

Hulet: That's certainly what Mike Schreiner is doing. He's like the Ever-Ready Bunny---he's everywhere.

Farbridge: And I think that social media has raised this level of expectation---that somehow this is the job of the elected official. But they're actually supposed to do a job, and elected to govern, and sure there are community pieces to that, but the demands today on a Mayor to go to events compared to in the 2,000s---there is a night-and-day difference. And it's been exponential, its not about the growth of the city, it's about people have this expectation of accessibility that social media provides. 

So if you're not being seen to be doing it, somehow you're not doing your job. 

And Liz never got onto social media, she got criticised for not doing it. But she really made a decision---I don't know if she did it consciously or unconsciously---but she kept elections to elections, and once she was elected, she governed. 

She went to a lot of community events. But even there---I admired her---she wouldn't go to every event, every year. Take for example some fundraiser that happens every year, she'd go every other year. This set the precedent that she would not be at everything every year, every time. But the pressure was absolutely the other way. 

Hulet: It's not just politicians. I'm on five different social media accounts---flogging the blog, flogging the books. And the sad thing is that all this effort actually works. It's just part of being a writer now.

Farbridge: And artists, and musicians---same kind of thing. Right?

&&&&

I think that this is a good place to pause for now. I'll do some more work and get the next part out ASAP.

Furthermore, I say to you---climate change must be dealt with!

People-in-the-Know: Liz Sandals, Part One

One of the advantages of developing a little bit of a profile in the community is that I've begun to find it easier to get time from busy people in order to do interviews. Not only does this allow me to develop better stories for my readers, it also gives me the ability to spend some time with some really interesting persons. In November I had the pleasure being able to interview our previous MPP, Liz Sandals. She represented Guelph for 15 years---from 2003 to 2018, and ended up as the Minister of Education.

I thought that Sandals would especially interesting to talk to because she is ostensibly retired from

Former Guelph MPP and Education Minister, Liz Sandals
Ontario Ministry of Housing Photo,
c/o Wiki Commons

politics. I've found that a lot of people in authority often only really say interesting stuff after they've walked away from their careers. Before that, they are something like actors on a stage. They are concerned about the impact of what they say to the point of not feeling free to speak their minds. She acknowledged the truth of my opinion, and suggested that yes she is a little freer to speak. But she also cautioned me that she still won't share the total truth. IMHO, that's a statement by someone with self-awareness. I came away with a feeling that Sandals is a pretty sharp cookie. I think we could have done far worse during the 15 years she represented us.

&&&&

I started off asking Ms. Sandals about climate change. The Conservatives under Doug Ford had just announced that they were ripping up the agreement that the previous Liberal government had undertaken to create a cap-and-trade carbon market in conjunction with California and Quebec. For those readers who didn't know much about this program, it was a mechanism designed to put a price on carbon that would encourage businesses to make reducing their carbon foot-print part of their design criteria. All the money raised in Ontario---by law---had to be spent on programs that was meant to help Ontario move towards a carbon-free economy. The first auction under the program was held on February 21rst of 2018 and the Ontario proceeds amounted to $471 million. Now that that program has been eliminated, the Financial Accountability Office says the government is forgoing future revenue of $3 billion over the next four years. It will also have to spend about $600 million to wind down programs that were to be funded by the cap-and-trade system, as well as an estimated $5 million to settle lawsuits with businesses that made decisions based on the assumption that Ontario was going to continue to be a member of this trading system.

My first question was background about how Sandals felt about the issue, so I asked her "What do you think about climate change? Do you see it as an existential threat to human civilization?"

I'm not sure that I would choose the world 'existential' because I don't use that word a lot, but that's one of the 'biggies'---we have to solve that. It isn't "Do I want to solve it?" It isn't like---because it's really important to me---that we have to teach math better. But it's not like the world is going to fall apart if we don't learn to teach math a bit better. Whereas, we have to solve climate change. It's not an option. 

If we don't find ways to at least reduce the impact, we're going to have terrible consequences. So the whole thing that we see---first in the US and now increasingly in Canada---and---God help us---in Ontario. Where climate change is treated as something that we can choose whether or not to address it. That's like turning off your brain. 

Doug Ford. Is he stupid? Or evil?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Image by Andre Forget, c/o Wiki Commons

This led to my second question, namely, if she believes climate change is something that we absolutely, positively, have to deal with, what did she think was going on in the head of Doug Ford? This is a dangerous thing to ask anyone, as people don't generally think it is fair to question the motives of people, just their actions. But that doesn't mean that motives aren't important, just that it can lead to very strong emotions if people suggest that there is a difference between why someone says they are doing something, and why they actually are doing it. In light of this, I decided to just put the issue as bluntly as possible to see how Sandals would react. I asked "Are the conservatives evil? or are they stupid?"

I don't think all conservatives are evil or stupid, and the fascinating thing is that Patrick Brown started off speaking the party line that "all taxes are bad, therefore no price on carbon" but had come around to "yeah, we have to have a price on carbon". So, you saw him going on this journey of maybe getting out from under Stephen Harper where he came to the view---which was probably a step too far for a lot of his colleagues---that there has to be some sort of price on carbon. 

I think that what you're seeing with Doug Ford is the personality of Doug Ford---who might be evil and stupid. As opposed to all conservatives. 

I believe what I am trying say is that I think there's still some of the old "Red Tory" conservatives around and then there's this new breed of God knows what they are. "Right wing populists", I guess is the best way to describe them. A lot of what they do are not even classic fiscal "conservative". 

But at any rate, it's like those that are the most negative have captured the leadership roles. Which is a bigger question than just climate change. What they've done with climate change in Ontario is just plain stupid.

The bigger point that Sandals was trying to make is that carbon pricing isn't something that traditional Conservatives would have a problem with---once they agreed on the need to deal with climate change. As she sees it, the real problem is that a new, more radical, anti-government attitude has taken hold of the leadership of the party.

I think he chose to go there because if there's two things that Doug Ford actually believes---I don't think that there's a lot that he actually believes in---the two things that I think he does believe, really strongly believes in, are "taxes are bad" and "government is bad". 

Because if you look at the things he's actually done---that aren't "undoing" (so we're just going to reverse this because the Liberals did it)---we're going to give you a tax break. I think if you were going to ask him why you are getting rid of cap-and-trade is because I think it looks like a tax, and taxes are bad. And if you look at what he did yesterday, and what he has chosen to do, is reduced income tax instead of raising the minimum wage---when all the evidence is that people would all be better off if you raise the minimum wage---and then they could pay a little bit of tax---which would be better for the people and for the government---(but government's bad.)  So you've got less tax and don't tell me what to pay my workers. It's all rolled up into that. 

At that point we slipped into a conversation about tactics. How was the Ford government selling their agenda to the public? I mentioned that I'd heard someone opine the night before that Ford had "thrown a shiny penny into the mix" and people were fixating on the shiny penny. I mentioned that I thought the "penny" in question was keeping liquor stores open later.

Hah! Yeah! Which is the same nonsense as the "buck a beer". What is something that he has seemed to slip by the public is that he's also reduced the surtax on the wealthy. Which nobody seems to have noticed.

What Ms. Sandals was referring to are two items of tax policy. First, the Conservatives substituted a tax cut for the increase in the minimum wage. Under the Liberals, the minimum wage was raised first to $14 in 2018, and was supposed to be increased to $15 early in 2019. Instead, Doug Ford's government decided to change the dollar an hour increase to only 25 cents per year which would only arrive at $15/hour in 2022. The tax cut for low income earners is called "the LIFT (Low-income Individuals and Families Tax) Credit". What this basically does is raise the gross income that an individual or family has to receive before it starts to pay taxes.

LIFT Credit, from Government of Ontario Web Site

Sandals is saying that someone on minimum wage is better off having the extra $1/year hour and continuing to pay the previous tax rate than if they are after the tax cut without the increase. Let's assume that someone works 40hrs/week at $14/hour. That would give them an annual income of $29,120. Previously, this person would have paid 5.05% income tax, or  $1470 in taxes. Now they pay nothing. But if they had had a $1/hour raise, they would have made $31,200 and paid $1,575 in taxes. So if you make $31,200 and subtract $1,575, you get $29,625. What this means is that the tax cut that the Conservatives brought in left minimum wage workers with about $500 less/year than if they'd just got the dollar an hour increase in pay. It had the added benefit of keeping the tax revenue that the government could then use to pay for the sorts of programs that lower income citizens tend to depend upon.

The second issue that Sandals is referring to is a proposed change to the tax rates in Ontario. This would have involved removing existing surtaxes on wealthy individuals and replacing them with two new tax brackets and slightly increasing their tax rates. According to a CBC story by Mike Crawley published at the time that this proposed budget was announced, 3/4s of Ontario citizens would not see any change in their income tax, while someone earning $95,000 would pay $168 more, similarly someone earning $130,000 would see an increase of $200. And according to this story from a tax advisory website, the top three tax brackets would have changed from 17.4096% to 17.5%, 18.9696% to 19%, and, 20.5296% to 20.53%.

This is the tax increase that Doug Ford described using the following language:

"Today's budget includes massive — I repeat, massive — tax hikes," Ford said. "I'm not going to go after 1.8 million people and increase their taxes, charge them $200 more when they're already struggling with the highest hydro rates in North America."

While it's important to understand that neither of these two tax policies are terribly important to the an economy and government the size of Ontario, they do both cut revenue at a time when we do have some pretty significant financial and infrastructure deficits that need attention. One cut about $500/year out of the income of the working poor, whereas the other handed back money to the wealthiest fraction of the population. They do seem to be ideologically driven instead of being based on the public interest. And, there does seem to have be an attempt to divert the attention of voters away from them by tossing out "shiny penny" programs like extended hours at LCBO stores out at the same time. 

No more Canadian pennies, so here's a shiny American one.
Public domain image from US Mint, c/o Wiki Commons

&&&&

In all of my other articles I've mentioned that people have to get used to paying for news if they want to get something that isn't tainted with "clickbait" or hidden agendas. This time I'd like to offer a slightly different suggestion. A lot of businesses, government services and NGOs used to buy subscriptions to the local newspaper and magazines of interest. These included things like consultants, the public library, elected official's constituency offices, and, public advocacy groups. I suspect that most of these folks haven't really thought about it much, but I'd like to suggest that they should consider purchasing a subscription to things like the "Guelph-Back-Grounder" (and Guelph Politico too) through Patreon. Just like individuals, if you want to support the community and keep a regular flow of local information going, you need to pay for the service.   

&&&&

At this point we moved on to social housing. I mentioned my five part series about housing and how it was one of those things where the more research I did, the more horrified I was about the situation.

If I was to say what was the thing that I found most frustrating as an MPP, it would be my inability to get any movement on housing in Guelph. What was particularly frustrating was that there was actually money coming in for housing and trying to get it to materialize in Guelph seemed well nigh impossible.

Hulet: You mean federal or provincial money?

Yeah! Yeah! Because when there's federal money then the province puts in so much, but there has to be a local share. And it comes because housing is managed by the "upper tier" and we do have this weird situation in Guelph where the county is the upper tier for housing and social services and child care, but it's a separated city so Guelph has no say. So you get weirdness there. My initial reaction---because that was in the day when the county and the city were suing each other---.

Hulet:  The thing about the medical centre funding?

Oh, well I think that there were about four different law suits going on about one thing or another at one time. Or if it never got to lawsuits, at least legal wrangling. If you've looked into housing, you will have figured it out that there's a horrendous wait list in the city---particular for bachelor and one bedroom---and if you were to move to the county, the wait list is a month or two. 

The only problem is that most of the people on the wait list need services, and the services are located in the city. So if you have a medical issue or a mental health issue, or a need for counselling, job training, or access to post-secondary education, re-entry into employment----go down the list. Most of what you need during the day is in Guelph. And the people who need social housing tend not to have transportation. And if you don't have transportation, you can't get to Guelph. Especially as there is no Greyhound going down the number six road anymore. (Most of the people who need social housing don't live on the number six corridor anyway.)  

And it's all administered by the county. 

Sandals went on to discuss how her thinking on the issue has changed over the years. At first, she

Conservative Premier Mike Harris
Image from the Manning Centre
c/o Wiki Commons

thought that this was a misallocation of resources, then she moved on to think that it was driven by people with "issues" migrating to Guelph---where the services they need are offered. Then she talked about the history and theory behind how social services are administered. The Conservative Mike Harris government decided to hand the responsibility for social services to the "upper tier" of government---in Guelph's case the county as opposed to the municipality. She also suggested that this makes sense if your municipality is the size of Fergus or Drayton. Where this breaks down, in her opinion, is where you have separated cities---like Guelph. Guelph isn't part of the county. Legally it's a "stand alone". So as a general rule, she thinks that Harris's structure is not a bad idea. But in the specific case where you have a separated city---like Guelph---in the middle of a larger county composed of rural areas and small villages and towns---like Wellington county---it doesn't work well.   

But the reason it breaks down here isn't because of misallocation, it turns out to be because of local share. Cause Guelph, when this stuff got uploaded sort of did this mental shift where they thought "we don't have to worry about social services anymore---cause they're doing it". 

At this point Sandals emphasized her point by acting-out Council rubbing the responsibility off it's hands---.

Now we can get back to the municipal stuff---like hockey rinks, and potholes, zoning, whatever. We don't have to worry about this messy social service stuff, the county will. 

Hulet:  You mean in terms of financial resources or political attention?

Both.

So now we get housing money. How does it arrive? Well, if it's tagged for "new builds" it's usually a third---not always---but generally it's a third, a third, a third. Some federal, some provincial, some local.  

Money arrives for "X" number of new units. The county says to the city "How much money do you have to put up for your share?" And the city hums and haws and says "We don't have any money. Cause we don't have a housing reserve. We're not in the housing business anymore. Why would we have a housing reserve?" They actually used to have a housing reserve and got rid of it when it got uploaded to the county. But the county says "But we have a housing reserve and we'll put it into the county."

Hulet: I have talked to Councillors about this and they have told me that the federal government just needs to kick more money in. But there's such an enormous backlog---.

But there's nothing that says the local share has to be just local government. It could be a mix of government and private.  The one bit of housing we got in while I was involved was the senior's housing at Saint Joes. That was the Saint Joe's Foundation---with some tax forgiveness from the city---but it was really the Saint Joseph's Foundation that was the local share on that deal. 

The Saint Joseph's Health Centre, Guelph
Image from its web page, used under "fair use" copyright provision.

The other thing it could be is just a private developer. And then we've got into the whole NIMBY [Not In My Back Yard] thing that you've identified. So the flap over the housing that Tom Lammer would have built over at the Church of Our Lady. So when Council eventually turned that down---it was a couple weeks before the deadline---and the county said "No problem, we have a housing reserve" and those units that could have gone into Guelph went into Palmerston.

Hulet:  That's something I don't recall hearing from anybody.

No. You wouldn't. [Laughs out loud.] And I would say to people who come into the office and say "You have to support us. We can't have an apartment building on that corner. It would be horrible!"  [Laughs out loud again.] And I would say "If we don't get some affordable housing in there, it's not going to be built in Guelph." And the response would be "That won't happen. They can built it some place else." And I'd say "'Some place else' will be not Guelph."And I'd get this sort of "Oh no, you're wrong Liz" reaction. Anyway, it's in Palmerston.  (29:30) 

And we've done this over, and over, and over, and over, and over----. 

The other thing is that there's such a backlog that you're never going to build enough. So a lot of the money that comes from the province has been flex money so that the local municipality has had the option of either building new units or using it as rent subsidies. So when the county has chosen to use it as rent subsidy---which they've done a reasonably responsible job of doing---then that money would be distributed in an equitable way. 

&&&&

Hulet: Just to spin this off in a little different direction, you've talked about NIMBYism. I think that's pretty much at the core of housing problems in Guelph.

Yes. Yes. 

Leading by being just barely in front?
Trudeau the Elder, photo by Chiloa
public domain c/o Wiki Commons

Hulet: And it's very difficult as a politician to alienate voters. Someone once told me---it's probably apocryphal---that Trudeau the elder once said "The art of being a leader is staying exactly seven inches ahead of popular opinion."

That's probably true. 

One of the good things you could probably say about Kathleen [Wynne] is that she got farther ahead of the public than the public was willing to allow.  

The whole NIMBY thing was that we had to get rid of the bad, old OMB. Yeah, the OMB tended to be pro-developer, but the OMB has also tended to be the "logjam"---. One of the things you happened to see in Guelph---and other municipalities---but Guelph is pretty---. Has done it more than once, let's say. Is that when there's a decision that is going to be publicly unpopular, but is technically correct---and probably a social good point of view, reasonable---you will see Council dragging its heels on never quite getting all the information they need on making a decision. And then the timelines expire on how long you can have a development proposal sit without making a decision. So it automatically gets so the developer can appeal to the OMB---because the timeline has expired. They aren't appealing a decision, they're just going to the OMB saying that the timeline has expired, so the OMB can make the decision---because Council doesn't want to make the decision. Because they want to be able to say "we didn't make the decision---the OMB made the decision." When the real issue is that there is a decision to be made that isn't palatable to the local politicians. So we'll let the OMB be the fall guy. 

I've seen this happen with a number of proposals. And that's usually a case where I have nothing to do with it. It's totally private. I just sat back as the observer. I just said "Ah. Here they go again!" 

&&&&

This is getting to be a quite long post, even though I'm still less than half through my interview. I think what I'll do, therefore, is split it up into two parts.

Bonus Podcast! Bill Hulet interviewed by Adam Donaldson at "Guelph Politico"

This week I was interviewed with that giant of Guelph indie media, Adam Donaldson. We talked about a range of things: alternative media, the history of the Green Party, the upcoming municipal election, and so-forth.  Listen to the podcast at this link, and check out "Guelph Politico" too.

The intrepid Adam A. Donaldson, Guelph's indie media pioneer.
(Stolen off Google Images.)

&&&&

This time I'm not begging for money for me, but all indie media. Guys like Adam bust their butts working to give the public timely, useful information. I work nights, but I can follow what takes place at City Hall meetings by watching Donaldson's twitter feed. I also listen to his podcasts, which is the only place you can get long-form interviews with local politicians and officials of all stripes. I support him through Patreon---perhaps you should too.

Should Guelph Have Ranked Ballot Voting?

In my last post I went into exhaustive detail about why I believe the City Council made the right decision about going back to using paper ballots for elections. In this post I'd like to outline a potential change to our voting system that might make our municipal elections even safer and potentially better. The province recently passed legislation that allows our city to use this new system, but Council decided to avoid discussing the change. But I think Guelph voters should at least be aware of this new system because if they decide that they want it, the time to raise the issue should be during the 2018 election.

&&&&

Many of the problems I raised in the previous post arise from the fact that "data mining" allows modern political parties to carefully parse out the voting public's reaction to policy. This allows the leadership to create "boutique policy" aimed at the relatively small fractions of the voting public that are highly motivated over issues that the vast majority of people are indifferent about. This means that a party can create a winning platform by ignoring the opinions of most citizens by adding bits and pieces of the electorate to their core constituency. One example I referred to was the decision by the Mike Harris Conservatives in Ontario to come out against photo-radar. Data-mining also allows parties to figure out which voters support other parties, which is how it is able to direct voter suppression campaigns against these citizens, as in the "robo calls" incident. But underlying all the above is one simple factor, the fact that politicians do not have to get majority support to gain complete control over the apparatus of government. What I am talking about is the "first-past-the-post" system.

A sadly large number of people are under the impression that the people we elect to run our country are elected by a majority of voters. But in actual fact, the vast majority of democratic elections in Canada are settled by a plurality of votes, not a majority. A plurality vote system doesn't care about whether a majority of people vote for a candidate, just who got more than anyone else. In the last three Federal Elections the winning Liberal candidate for Guelph got 49% (2015), 43% (2011), and, 32% (2008). Provincially, the situation is much the same, Liz Sandals won with 42% (2014), 42% (2011), and, 41% (2007). Across the entire country, the Liberals won a majority with only 39% in 2015, and the Conservatives had a majority with 40% in 2011. Provincially, the Liberals won with 39% in 2014, and, 38% in 2011.

&&&&

Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, made a promise in the last election that he would change the voting system of Canada to stop elections being decided by plurality voting. Many people thought that this meant that he would bring in a proportional system. (That is, where seats are assigned in Parliament based on the percentage of votes cast for each party.) But instead, it appears that what he really had in mind was introducing a system of ranked ballot voting, which is somewhat different in result. Since he couldn't get any of the other parties interested in pursuing this change, the Liberals have dropped this idea---at least until the next election. Since all three levels of government are toying around with the idea; either to use in federal elections---or, as only allowed recently allowed by the province---to use municipally; I thought that I'd put some effort into explaining the system theoretically and then discuss how it would operate in Guelph.

&&&&

The key concept of a ranked ballot is the idea that in an election voters aren't generally so polarized that they love one candidate and hate all the others. People are torn. They like the policies of one person, but fear that she simply won't be popular enough to win, so they choose someone else that they don't completely support because they are afraid that someone else that scares them will win if they don't. This problem is usually described as "wasting your vote". For example, someone might want to vote for Jill Stein (Green Party), but they are afraid that if they don't vote for Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump will be elected. A ranked ballot gets rid of that problem by giving people a second choice.

If the US used a ranked system, someone could vote the following way:  Jill Stein (Green Party) #1, Hillary Clinton (Democrat) #2, and, Donald Trump (Republican) #3 (or blank.) When it comes time to count the votes, if it turns out that Jill Stein received fewer votes than either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, her ballots are then recounted and people's second choice would be added to the pile of that candidate. So the person who was forced to vote for Clinton before, still ends up supporting her, but she has also been able to vote for Stein without running the risk of helping Trump. With a ranked ballot, there are no more wasted votes. 

Getting rid of wasted votes has a wide range of implications for our electoral system---most of which are really valuable. For one thing, it gets rid of the self-fulfilling prophecy that since someone is not going to win, there's no sense voting for him---which of course means that he is not going to win. (And we end up with president Kang forcing us to build a space cannon.) 

Secondly, it imposes a price on candidates who throw mud during an election. In order to win an election with a ranked ballot, candidates have to be the second and even third choice of voters who support other candidates. If the first candidate acts in a vile way towards the other candidates, their supporters will refuse to make him their second or third choice. This forces politicians to show respect for each other simply out of self-interest. As a result, a ranked ballot reintroduces civility into election campaigns where it has been in decline.

As well, with a ranked ballot people don't win elections with a plurality anymore, they win it with a majority. This means that it isn't possible to carefully parse out a plurality by "throwing red meat to your core constituency" and then adding in enough "boutique policy planks" to push your vote count slightly above someone else's. You have to attract over 50% of the votes, and you can't do that without putting forward policy that is appealing to the majority of citizens. For example, it doesn't help you win if you get 5% more votes for promising to get rid of photo-radar if this means you lose twice as many second choice votes from people who like it. This dramatically changes the debate that happens during elections. This again, will improve the quality of what voters hear during campaigns.

Finally, when politicians always have to win with a majority instead of a plurality, it gets harder to manipulate elections through vote rigging and voter suppression. Remember that robocalls in Guelph failed not because Elections Canada caught the Conservatives doing it, declared the election invalid, jailed everyone responsible, and, then did another vote. Instead, the fact of the matter was that Frank Valeriote got so many more votes than the Conservative candidate that the number of votes diverted from the Liberals simply didn't matter. It might be possible to suppress or steal 1,000 votes without anyone noticing, but it is going to be a lot harder to do this with 10,000. In a system that forces winners to get at least 50% of the vote, it is a lot harder to steal or suppress votes without getting caught.

&&&&

This man had a devious plot---
majority rule through compromise and consensus!
Photo by A.K. Fung, c/o Wiki Commons

If this is such an improvement over the status quo, why did the other parties besides the Liberals reject it?

The NDP and Greens refused to endorse this idea and held out for a proportional system. The obvious inference is that they did this because they felt that in a ranked ballot system they would probably end up losing seats in Parliament. The theory is that the Liberals would end up becoming the second and third choice for the overwhelming majority of voters---simply because of fear of the Conservatives. The Conservatives, on the other hand, opposed a proportional system but rejected ranked ballots too. They did this for probably the same reason as the others. Many of their voters would put down the Liberals as their second choice because they would be afraid of the Greens and NDP. The result would be that no party could win by having the vote split amongst the parties and then getting a bare plurality. Recently, this has been the way that the Conservatives gained power because of a Liberal/NDP/Green vote split. But before that, Jean Chretien followed the same formula to gain Liberal majorities when the right was split between the Progressive Conservatives and Reform Party.

In other words, the unspoken reason for the opposition was ultimately the fear that the Liberals would never again lose an election if a ranked ballot was introduced simply because they would end up being the first or second choice for most voters. This is probably not true, however. That's because changing the way we count ballots would have a tremendous impact on the way parties behave. If the other parties changed their policies so they would be more appealing to a majority of voters, (or, at least put more energy into educating voters about why they should support hitherto unpopular policies), they could win with a transferable vote too. After all, isn't the core idea of a democracy that parties that represent the majority opinion should win? (Damn those perfidious Liberals---what the heck are they thinking!)

I suppose on a deeper level the issue is whether or not you believe that the ideal of compromise should be at the heart of democracy. Putting up your second and third choice in an election shows that you really are willing to compromise your ideals in order to create a government consensus. "True believers" and polarized voters hate to compromise because they don't see the other point of view as having any merit at all. Trudeau himself suggested that he supports a ranked ballot because he wants to avoid the polarization that has recently damaged democracies all around the world. In the end, a ranked ballot system is probably not going to ever be as attractive to the people who devote their lives to a minority political party as it might be to the elected members of "the natural governing party". So it's hardly surprising that the non-Liberal MPs on the committee looking into electoral reform simply dismissed it out-of-hand. To paraphrase Stalin, how you count the votes is often more important than who votes. And professional politicians will always be tempted to conflate the good of their party with the idea of "fairness".

&&&&

I don't want to over-sell the ranked ballot. There are some mathematical complexities in it that are very hard to understand, which is why people often reject it. (Later on I will try to explain this issue using the specific system that the provincial government has imposed upon municipalities.) But before I get to that, I'd like to outline a system called "range voting" that mathematicians say is the absolute best system of vote counting that has ever been devised. I won't get into the mechanics of why it is the absolute best, as I couldn't quite figure out what they were saying in the few times I've listened to someone explain it. But it does have a big value in being plug simple to understand and do, which is profoundly important for anything political.

Anyone who has ever watched competitive gymnastics or figure skating has seen this system in action. You give everyone who votes the option of giving a number between zero and ten for each candidate. If someone wants to give ten to everyone, that's fine, but they can give any other combination of numbers too. So you could give Jill Stein 10, Hillary Clinton 8, Ross Perot 3, Kang 1, Kodo 1, and, Donald Trump 0. When you count the ballots you simply add all these numbers together and declare the person with the highest score as being elected. It is a form of ranked ballot simply because the score you give each candidate gets a different rank in the form of the score you give them. It also had the advantage of giving you a more nuanced rank than simply putting an order of preference. For example, my fictional voter likes Stein a little better than Clinton---but she really doesn't like Trump at all. This is important, because the intensity of a voter's feelings about a candidate are just as important as their relative order of preference.

Range voting happens a lot in sports like figure skating.
I have no idea at all where this image comes from,
If it's yours and you want it removed---contact me.

Please note, that everyone has the option of putting whatever number they want (between zero and ten) besides the name on the ballot. In the last election many people would have put a "10" next to Trump and a "0" next to Clinton. If everyone has the option, then no one is being unfairly disadvantaged.

As I mentioned, range voting is also a form of ranked ballot. As a result, all the benefits I've mentioned above in ranked voting also accrue to range voting. There is one last point, however. That is, it is tremendously easy to make it proportional too. All you have to do is expand the size of your electoral districts and elect more than one MP. The easiest way to do this would be in large cities where the ridings are small. For example, you could stick four together, have a vote, and the top four candidates would be on their way to Ottawa or Queen's Park.

Know who this guy is? No?
Then stop having strong opinions
about knowing your local candidate.
Photo from his website

Unfortunately, in our large, rural Electoral Districts, putting four together would create enormous areas. People will argue that in such large electoral districts it would be impossible to know your local MP or MPP. To this I'd ask the average voter---"do you know the name of your current MP? Would you recognize them if you saw them?" I know most wouldn't be able. So is it really all that important? Every voter would know about the different parties, so they could easily vote for "Joe Blow of the Whatever Party"---because she'd have heard of the "Whatever Party", even if she didn't know who "Joe Blow" is. (If people decide to be honest, they'll admit that that's how most folks vote now.)  I don't know if the Election Reform Committee had this option explained to them, but I suspect if they did, someone probably didn't like it.

That's just the way it is, isn't it? The main thing to realize that there are a lot of very smart people who have thought long and hard about how to make our voting systems better.  The transferrable vote is one suggestion. Range voting in a multi-member district is another. These systems work fine in other countries, but I suspect that lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth can be expected before any real change takes place.

&&&&

Let's move from Ottawa to Guelph. How does its elections compare to national and federal ones?

In the 2014 municipal election the Mayor received 50.75% of the vote. The rest of Council got their seats by receiving between 33.46% and 19.97%. The average for the entire Council comes in at 25.59% of the tally.

The average support for each of these people was 25.59%---which is pretty darn good!
Photo of current Council from Guelph City website, some manipulation of image---I removed the Mayor.

This might sound awful, but remember that we have a system where voters cast two votes and elect two people.  And when we vote, we can only vote for one particular candidate once---the other has to go to someone else. That means that if every single voter in an election voted for one of the candidates and split their other vote among several other candidates, the absolute maximum number of votes that that candidate would receive is 50%. (That is, unless they can convince voters to only vote once. If everyone single voter in a ward did this, the candidate could theoretically receive 100%.  This is called "plumping", and it used to be a factor in the Guelph's old "at large" system where the city was treated as one large constituency, and people voted for up to 12 council members---lots of people only voted for a few of the positions.)

In the system Guelph uses, a majority win is 25%, so an average vote count of 25.59% for winners is quite good because it translates to 51.18% in terms of popular support. Looking back at the eight elections that Guelph has held since it switched from an at-large system to a ward system, these results are the norm instead of the exception. This means that Guelph Council is one of the rare places in Canada where most politicians get elected with a majority instead of a plurality.

&&&&

Before people get too comfortable, however, we should remember that the voter turnout in 2014 was far from praiseworthy---a miserable 43%. Even this was a bit of an improvement over the 2010 election, which had an even worse score of 34%. This was one of the arguments in favour of Internet voting. Personally, I suspect it had more to do with a very competitive race for the Mayor, which tends to raise voter turnout. The novelty factor of a new way to vote also might have had something to do with it.

Unfortunately, with the death of the Daily Mercury, I suspect that voter turnout will be less in the next poll. First, lots of people in Guelph simply won't even know that there is a municipal election. They won't be seeing anything about it in what news coverage they follow (probably mostly international on-line, with perhaps national news on tv.) They commute or work with commuters, so there won't be any "common wisdom" to pick up in the lunch room because people live in different communities from each other. Even if they do know that there is an election, they probably won't have a clue about the personalities or issues. And, of course, it is totally reasonable to not vote if you don't know enough to have an informed opinion.

And most people only have a certain amount of energy to devote to the public sphere. Many are happy to read about the election in a newspaper delivered to their door. But most don't have the energy to do the poking around necessary to inform themselves---hence my attempt to fill part of the gap with the Guelph Back-Grounder. (Just to give an example, it is darn hard to find statistics about voter turnout in municipal elections. It just isn't something that has been traditionally recorded or reported in election results statistics. Why? Perhaps because it is somewhat embarrassing.)

&&&&

Now let's look at the specific transferable vote system that the province now allows municipalities to use. That's right, I wrote "allows municipalities to use" because in Canada cities are specifically under the tight jurisdiction of the province. And in Ontario, the province is extremely jealous of its authority. That means that there is zero opportunity for the city to "play around" with the voting system we use. We either use what we have now, or, the specific form of transferable voting described in the Municipal Act---no fooling around with stuff like range voting!

So here's the system that the province says municipalities have to follow.

First, the city can design the ballot as:

A List

Columns

Or a Grid
Images from Govt of Ontario Website

&&&&

Next people have to wrap their heads around a little math. If we switched over to a ranked ballot, electing the Mayor would be very simple because it is just one person for one slot. What gets complicated is when you elect more than one---like we do in our Wards. That's because we have to decide what to do when we get a situation where one person gets elected easily---and there is a real struggle for the other slot.

First of all, we have to calculate the "threshold" of the vote. The ministry provides a formula for calculating this number:   [(A – B) ÷ (C + 1)] + 1, where "A" is total number of ballots cast, "B" is the number of rejected ballots, and, "C" is the number of spots to be filled. Let's look at an actual example from Guelph to see how it would work. In Ward One during the 2014 election the following vote count arose:  Bob Bell 2,984, Dan Gibson 3,419, Terry O'Connor 1,705, Maria Pessano 1,386, and, Karolyne Pickette 2,705. So, in the case of Ward One in the last Guelph election, the numbers would work out as: 12,199 votes were cast, (let's forget the rejected ballots), and there were 2 spots to be filled. So the number is [(12,199 - 0) ÷ (2+1)]+1= 4,067. So to win a seat on Council, someone would have to get 4,067 votes--both initial and transferred.

Let's assume that the numbers we have above represent the first choice of all the voters.

Still from the 1960s Irwin Allen tv show "Lost in Space" via Google Images
Used under the "fair use" copyright exemption

(Readers must remember that the assumption that the vote each of these candidates got in the last election was the voter's first choice pretty much negates the whole idea of transferable votes. People vote strategically in first-past-the-post, plurality systems because they don't want to waste their vote. So if---totally for the sake of understanding this point---we assume that some people who really like Karyolyne Pickette and Terry O'Connor voted for Bob Bell because they don't like Maria Pessano, we can see a totally different outcome if we switched to a transferable vote. Under a single transferable vote, these voters would vote for their real choice first, then mark Bob as their second choice in order to prevent the dastardly Pessano from seizing control of a seat on Council. So please remember that in what follows I'm just making this assumption to explain the math---there is a real difference in how people vote under a plurality system versus transferable votes!)

OK, so let's assume that the votes mentioned above are the real first choice of voters. With a threshold of 4,067, neither of the two front-runners---Dan Gibson (3,419)  and Bob Bell (2,984)---have enough votes to be declared a winner. At this point, it's time to start transferring ballots. The Municipal Act describes two ways of doing this: the "single elimination method" and the "batch elimination method". In the single elimination method, the people counting votes look at this first count and say "Maria Pessano has the lowest number of first choices, 1,386, so it's time to take her out of the race and put her voters' second choices into play".

Let's also say that 700 of the people who voted for Maria Pessano put down Dan Gibson as their second votes. This gives Dan Gibson 4,119 votes, which puts him over that threshold of 4,067 votes and makes him a successful candidate. Oddly enough, not a single person who voted for Maria Pessano put down Bob Bell or Terry O'Connor as their second choice, and instead put all their votes (686) towards Karolyne Pickette, which then gives her 3,391 votes.

At this point, the Municipal Act says that the city should go on to a third round of vote counting. You might think that at this point we just eliminate the lowest candidate an redistribute their votes. If you did, you'd be wrong. The Act says that at that point we need to recalculate the transfer ratio. We do this by following this formula:  (F – E) ÷ F . "F" is the number of votes cast for the successful candidate (Dan Gibson's 4,119) and "E" is the threshold for the office (4,067), which gives us "52". Divide that number by 4,119, and we get the ratio number of  0.013 (I rounded off using the rules of scientific accuracy.)

What is the transfer ratio used for?

Well, now that we have a winning candidate, we need to have a mechanism for fairly transferring the extra votes that people cast for him (Dan Gibson) to the other candidates that are still in the running. The point is, we don't want to get into a situation where too many people vote for a successful candidate and by that waste their votes that could be used to elect someone else. To understand this, consider a hypothetical situation where 90% of the people in the ward voted for Dan. If that happened, then if we didn't have some way of taking into account these people's second choices, the next candidate could get elected with only at most 10% of the voter's intentions being followed. That would hardly be fair, would it?

So with that transfer ratio in hand, we can now count the second choices of the people who voted for Dan Gibson, and then multiply that count by 0.013, and then add that to the second choices of the people who voted for Terry O'Connor (because he had the second lowest vote count.) Terry got 1,705 votes, and let's say that his voters gave 700 to Karolyne Pickette, 400 to Bob Bell, and, 605 to Dan Gibson. The votes transferred from Dan Gibson are multiplied by the transfer ration of 0.013, which gives us a total of 8 votes.  The 700 votes that Karolyne got from Terry's supporters are added to the votes she got as the first choice (2,706) plus the second choice votes she got from Maria's supporters (686), plus the 8 votes that are transferred from Dan's supports which puts her at 4,091 votes. This gives her 4,100 votes, which takes her over the threshold (4,067) and gives her the second seat on Council.

This is how I feel after trying to explain how
a transferable vote works, Wiki Commons

Sorry to say, I've significantly simplified the process involved in selecting a candidate in order to make things seem at least somewhat comprehensible in this example. For example, I've ignored the issue of "exhausted ballots". These are the votes where someone voted less than than they could have, for example, if they only voted for Dan Gibson and left every other option open. In order to avoid the distortions caused by "plumping" (as I mentioned above), the clerk is supposed to add up the number of exhausted votes after every round, and recalculate the threshold. There's also a complex mathematical system for eliminating all the losing candidates all at once---which I haven't even tried to understand. If anyone finds a mistake in my calculations, I wouldn't be surprised. The point of the whole above exercise is to show how complicated a transferable vote system looks when you have two or more people elected at once with one vote cast.  

&&&&

I went into somewhat tedious detail outlining the transferable voting system recommended by the province because I'd like readers to understand some of the problems that the city Clerk and Council would have trying to explain this new system to voters. I don't think that any city would be foolish enough to try and sneak in a transferable vote system, but the province would declare that illegal if they tried. That's because the amendment to the Municipal Act that allows transferable votes specifies a process of public consultation and education before it can pass a bylaw changing the system. Moreover, staff will also have to figure out how much the change will cost and identify the vote counting specifics. Given the current context, that would probably involve leasing some vote counting machines that are designed to deal with transferable ballots. (And that opens yet another can of worms---as outlined in my previous article.)

Faced with all these issues and the fact that the province only passed the legislation allowing transferable votes in 2016, staff recommended that Council not change the voting system for the next election campaign. Since they would have had to rush the whole thing, and the system we currently have seems to work relatively well, this was probably a wise decision. But that doesn't mean that the change doesn't have merit. Let's see what the future Council thinks.

&&&&

If you really like this article and can afford it, why not toss something in my tip jar?  (It's on the top right side---just click on the "donate" button.) If you really feel generous, why not subscribe using Patreon (just above the "donate" button)? Even a dollar a month would make a big difference and help me find the time to do more research and writing. Also, don't forget to share my URL on FaceBook, Twitter, and other social media. If my readers won't share, the word doesn't get out!

&&&&

It is REALLY HARD to get most people to support any type of change that they have a hard time understanding. So if Guelph Council ever decided to switch from the present system to a transferable vote where we still elect two people per ward, I wish them luck. It needn't be that way. Many are the things in our world who's operations are totally beyond our comprehension (the cell phone, the automatic transmission, etc.) We simply accept that doctors, systems analysts, mechanics, etc, know more about their specialty than we do, and, accept what they say. But it rankles voters when you ask them to embrace something that is difficult to wrap their heads around. That's why we don't have proportional representation of any form in Canada. It always comes down to a referendum, and in these people ignore the experts, throw out some sort of bogus argument, and, vote for the status quo. (This is why I support range voting---it is so easy to understand I suspect it would scare a lot less people.) 

Having said that, it is really important to avoid throwing out the baby with the bath water. Transferable voting has some advantages---really big advantages that more than outweigh any discomfort that comes from math anxiety. 

No more need to vote strategically!
Clint Eastwood from "Dirty Harry"
Fair Use copyright exemption

First of all, it ends strategic voting. No matter how much you dislike Donald Trump, you will no longer have to vote for the slightly less annoying Hillary Clinton. Instead, you can vote for the Green Party Candidate first and put Clinton down as your second choice. Clinton may end up winning anyway, but at least you don't feel that the system is putting a gun to the side of your head and threatening you with the Trump bullet in the brains if you make a mistake and refuse to vote strategically.

Secondly, the transferable vote can make a difference. In the hypothetical example I gave, Karolyne Pickette got elected instead of Bob Bell. In a transferable vote system this often happens when a really polarizing figure seems to be one of the front runners but gets almost no support for second or third votes---which means that they start out in the lead but end up losing. In the recent French election (which uses run-offs instead of transferable votes---same principle, different mechanism), Marie Le Pen (a very strident anti-immigrant politician) came in second with 21.3% in the first round of voting against Emmanuel Macron who got 24%. When it came time for a second round of voting, the people who supported candidates besides these two then swung decidedly for Macron, who won the next round decisively with 66.1% versus Le Pen's 33.9%. 

Another example comes from the recent leadership race for the federal Conservatives, who use a transferable vote. (Funny that a party that has built it's election strategy around exploiting pluralities created by first-past-the-post and fights tooth-and-nail against voting reform for us plebes would opt for a transferable vote in their internal elections---.)  In the first round of vote counting, Andrew Scheer only received 21.82% of the vote, which put him well behind Maxime Bernier who had 28.89%. But after  an exhausting 13 rounds of recounts, the vote transfers finished off with Scheer at 50.95% and Bernier at 49.05%---giving Scheer the leadership.

Andrew Scheer likes
transferrable voting.
Photo by Marcos Oliveira, Agência Senado
c/o Wiki Commons

Maxime Bernier maybe not.
Photo by Marcello Casal Jr.
Agência Brasil, c/o Wiki Commons 

One last point that voters and Councillors should think long and hard about. Just because Guelph currently elects most of its Council through majorities doesn't mean that it always will.  Could there come a time when we end up with crazy splits being the norm, and extreme people routinely get elected to office? And if it does, will any of those people elected in that system want to switch to a system where they won't get elected unless they can appeal to the majority of voters? I have yet to meet a politician who would willingly bring in a system of voting that would guarantee that they would lose the next election. This time of stable government might be exactly the right time to change our voting system.