Quebec Municipal Elections 2017

[lilTommy]

Toronto having four "community councils" while Montreal has 19 boroughs is kind of a laughable comparison.

I won't disagree... but it's a step in that direction, baby steps with Toronto now

[toaster]

I'm sure I'll regret asking, but what is a borough mayor?  The idea of having an overall mayor and a bunch of little area mayors sounds insane.

Most merged cities have them, it's just than the other cities have the borough council elect it from their own members.

It's a two layers system.
City: Montreal mayor + borough mayors + city councillors. It manages city-wide issues

Borough: Borough mayor (Ville-Marie borough mayor is Montreal mayor) + city councillors from the borough (some small boroughs have no city councillors as they are entitled one seat in City Council, so only the borough mayor sits on City Council) + borough councillors (for small boroughs, so there is more than 2 or 3 members on it). It manages proximity issues.

It's quite a decentralised system. I think it's more democratic than most cities (i.e. Etobicoke forcing Rob Ford on central Toronto).

Etobicoke has about 13.3% of the population, hardly enough to have an influence on the rest of Toronto.  In fact, the Downtown, on a per capita and representative basis, essentially makes the decision for the entire cities, and is probably the reason why places like Humber Bay don't have rapid transit.

[DL]

That's not true at all. John Tory's majority on council is made up almost exclusively of suburban councillors - he systematically excludes any downtown councillors from having any say in anything and won't let any of them even sit on the public works committee. Under Tory and before him under Ford, Toronto has been run by and for the suburbs and downtown has been screwed every step of the way

[lilTommy]

That's not true at all. John Tory's majority on council is made up almost exclusively of suburban councillors - he systematically excludes any downtown councillors from having any say in anything and won't let any of them even sit on the public works committee. Under Tory and before him under Ford, Toronto has been run by and for the suburbs and downtown has been screwed every step of the way

I agree, Etobicoke on its own only has 6 Councillors, and this right-wing swing really began with Ford to some extent.
When you combine Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough, that's 25 out of 44 (not including old York which has 2 Councillors that swung to the right/Fordists) if they vote on a block, which happend in 2010 Fordists, far-right wing Mayors can win... and this is why we have some terrible plans in place like Scarborough Subway.
Tory managed to win over Key areas of the suburbs like South Etobicoke (3 wards) and central North York (5 wards), and one in Scarborough. That's how he became mayor. The only way to govern is to placate, as DL mentioned, the suburbs which is why you see a definite anti-tax pro-subway tilt to Tory's admin. Of the 12 members of the executive, 3 are from Toronto-East York, one being Palacio (conservative) the other two are liberal-like.
But all of Etobicoke elected right-wing Councillors, so did York; Scarborough is a mix, 1 NDP aligned Councillor, I'd say 3 maybe 4 Liberal-like councillors (I'd put them centre-right, except De Baeremaeker, he's confusing, but lets call him dead centrist) the rest more traditional conservatives.
North York has 2 NDP aligned Councillors and at least 2-4 Liberal-Like Councillors (Carroll, Colle and Matlow are centre-left for the most part, the other one, Pasternak i'm not certain but likely Centre-right) Toronto-East York is almost all Urban Progressives (NDP, Left-Liberal types), one notable exception being Palacio.
Sounds like a lot of centrist and leftist, but the lines are blurred because many of those suburban centrist fall into the pro-car, low-tax group that hinders urban development around transit and housing. 

[Krago]

That's not true at all. John Tory's majority on council is made up almost exclusively of suburban councillors - he systematically excludes any downtown councillors from having any say in anything and won't let any of them even sit on the public works committee. Under Tory and before him under Ford, Toronto has been run by and for the suburbs and downtown has been screwed every step of the way

Here is a map showing the vote from the most recent Toronto budget, debated in Feb. 2017.  John Tory won the vote by a 26-17 margin with two absentees.  The councillors voting yes represent the green wards, the no voters are from the red wards, and the absentees are beige.

[lilTommy]

That's not true at all. John Tory's majority on council is made up almost exclusively of suburban councillors - he systematically excludes any downtown councillors from having any say in anything and won't let any of them even sit on the public works committee. Under Tory and before him under Ford, Toronto has been run by and for the suburbs and downtown has been screwed every step of the way

Here is a map showing the vote from the most recent Toronto budget, debated in Feb. 2017.  John Tory won the vote by a 26-17 margin with two absentees.  The councillors voting yes represent the green wards, the no voters are from the red wards, and the absentees are beige.

What's interesting here is that 14 of those 17 who voted No, are leftist/progressive Councillors; the three others are extreme right-wingers (Ford, Mammolitti and Karigiannis) 

[MaxQue]

Équipe Denis Coderre already lost a member, the Verdun borough mayor is becoming an independent, in order to be nominated on the Executive.