Listen Up! On the local OPP, District councillor remuneration and the good old paper ballot

Hugh Mackenzie
Huntsville Doppler

A Few Gripes

A couple of local issues have caught my eye recently. First, the meeting of District Council last Monday raised some interesting matters for me. Following revelations that Huntsville and Bracebridge are among the worst municipalities in Canada when it comes to findings of unfounded allegations of sexual assault, Bracebridge District Councillor Don Smith proposed a motion which effectively required a closer working and reporting relationship between the Ontario Provincial Police and the Muskoka District Council. After a great deal of discussion, it passed unanimously.

What struck me, however, was that during this discussion, Huntsville Mayor Scott Aitchison rose at his place to talk about his close relationship with the OPP. So close, in fact, that he has the Staff Sergeant in Huntsville on speed dial. That is a good thing. It did make me wonder, however, given this close relationship, why our Mayor was not aware of the dismal record in Huntsville of charges laid for accusations of sexual assault. Indeed, he expressed “shock” when the matter was exposed by the Globe and Mail.

The bigger issue for me, however, is that this devastating statistic must not be swept under the carpet with a motion by District Council and a love in by our Mayor with the local constabulary. We cannot just move on. Our reputation as a community that is safe for all has been badly damaged. The OPP are, without question, one of the best police forces in Canada and we are fortunate to have them in Muskoka. In this instance, however, we need answers. We also need to know what the rate of sexual assault actually is in Huntsville. And we need a plan to address it and reduce it. We can all hope that this issue will simply go away. But it won’t. We need answers and we need leadership here.

Another thing that struck me about District Council last week was the length of the meeting. There were two substantive discussions plus other business and the meeting lasted two and a half hours, longer, I believe, than many of them. District Council and District Committees meet roughly once a month. While there are exceptions, most Councillors sit on one Standing Committee.

District Councillors receive about $14,000 per year in salary plus a mileage allowance. Let’s assume a Councillor attends about five hours of District meetings a month. Throw in another hour for reviewing agendas and yet another for constituent calls on purely District matters (which in my experience were very few) and we get a total of seven hours a month that a District Councillor is on the job. In fairness, some councillors are appointed to other District duties and Committee Chairs have added responsibilities.

So, let’s be generous and call the average District workload nine hours per month. That, my friends, comes to an hourly rate of $130 per hour!

And, of course, it comes on top of salaries that all District Councillors receive as members of their local municipal Council. How many of you out there see that kind of money in your pay packet? No wonder many District Councillors seem very satisfied with the status quo. In my view, it will be a cold day in Hell before you see any real reform by that body of Councillors.

While I am on a roll here, there is one other bone I have to pick and this one is about an item on Huntsville’s agenda for their General Committee meeting this Wednesday. It is a staff recommendation to revert to voting in the next municipal election by internet or telephone. All other municipalities in Muskoka have apparently opted to do this, so I expect the Huntsville Council will tag along. I think that would be a mistake.

Obviously, as a part of Doppler, I am a huge fan of online communications. To me, however, voting does not fall into that category for the simple reason that it cannot be verified and it is subject to malfunction. Other jurisdictions must agree as provincially and federally paper ballots are still used as were paper mail-in ballots used in Huntsville during the last election with a high response.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have a personal interest in this matter. I was a candidate for mayor in 2010 when Huntsville voted by internet and telephone. At the end, there were about a hundred votes separating the winner and the loser (that would be me). On the final day, voting was heavy and the internet crashed for about two hours. There was simply no way of determining how many people were deprived of their vote as a result, or how this may have affected the final outcome. Wisely, the incoming Council opted to replace this method of voting with a paper mail in ballot.

A paper ballot, whether mailed in or not, is pretty well fool proof. An internet ballot is not. For example, voting by internet takes place over a number of days. While unlikely, it is possible for the service provider to monitor the voting and see who is ahead on any given day. It is also unlikely but still possible for that information to be shared. That cannot happen with a paper ballot. Further, there is no reliable mechanism for a recount and no ability for local scrutineers who have always been an important part of the electoral process. With internet voting, everything would be done remotely without verification. When that button is pushed, it is all over.

I recognize that internet voting places less of a burden on staff. No doubt, it is also less expensive. However, that is not as important as having the most fool proof system of voting. In my opinion, that is the paper ballot. While these are counted by machine, the ballots are still there if a recount is required. The mail-in paper ballot worked perfectly well during the last municipal election in Huntsville. As the old saying goes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

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