Thursday, January 31, 2008

A good question!


This Letter to the Editor used with the writer's permission poses a great question...Why not elect all Durham Region's politicians or all of Ontario's politicians or all our Federal politicians by general vote? It does make as much sense as electing all Oshawa City Council by general vote.

Ward versus at large referendum an ignorant decision: reader

Mon Dec 10, 2007

To the editor:

It was heartening to see, on one of the back pages of your paper, that Bill Longworth has not given up the campaign for having our councillors elected by ward instead of at large.

In my opinion having a referendum on the subject of councillors elected at large was one of the most ignorant decisions made by most of the sitting members of Oshawa council.

I use the word ignorant advisedly.

Using the same logic begs the question of, "Why do we not also elect councillors for the Durham Region at large?" Shouldn't Regional councillors be making decisions in the best interests of the Region at Large, rather than taking account of the best interests of their respective cities?

Extending the logic farther, why elect members for ridings Provincially, or Federally? Ignorant is hardly the correct word, it's not strong enough!

Since there might be too many names, we could just vote for a particular political party and let the party name the legislators.

Wisely, having political parties name some Ontario legislators was shot down, not that voters were satisfied with the current system, just that it's better than the one proposed.

Ed Goertzen (Name used with permission)
Oshawa

Editor's Note:
We have proposed that Oshawa City Council be disbanded as it performs only minor functions which could be easily handled by the Region. Thus Oshawa taxpayers would save perhaps 30% of their tax by disbanding a whole superfluous level of government. This was done in Metropolitan Toronto when the 6 Boroughs or Cities were combined into one by the Mike Harris Government.

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