Comment 104108

By ItJustIs (registered) | Posted August 21, 2014 at 13:16:39 in reply to Comment 104043

I've always laughed at the stridency of those who yell 'Term limits now!' (There's a commenter on another civic engagement site that actually goes by this moniker.) Because they seem to miss the point: we have term limits. They're called elections. It's up to the voters to invoke them, or stick with the incumbent. (Which over the past quarter-century, has been the case in more than 90% of the time. How do I know? I once spent several hours in the local history of the HPL researching it.)

On a municipal level, the days of patronizing politics are fading. (The reasons for this are another op-ed piece entirely.) Or at least they should be. Due to everything attached to the Internet, we have the ability now to contribute, to shape, to steer our own governance. We just don't tend to want to. Or can't be bothered, in toto. To borrow a hackneyed phrase, 'You get the government you demand.'

Elected officials are our employees. The problems here are a) we really don't have a vigorous 'interviewing' process, we're that detached from what goes on at City Hall, and b) we tend to just hand over the keys to the store to these 16 people and walk away for 4 years.

The solution to better governance is creating a dynamic where residents are part of the process. Not an easy task, nor a simple one. But one there are many possible elements to put into play, some game-changing ones that have never been attempted, which to me is encouraging: we have nowhere to go but up.

Oh, and I should mention this: the notion of 'term limits' is a Provincial matter. And it'll never happen. Why? Because if the Legislative Assembly were to make this so, they'd be the next ones the hue and cry would be targeting. And no MPP is so silly as to do that.

Comment edited by ItJustIs on 2014-08-21 13:25:41

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