Raising the Bar on Accountability

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s mission is to advocate for lower taxes, less waste and accountable government.

In light of our mission, we have taken a couple of steps during the Edmonton civic election to educate and inform voters.

The first was to create a central on-line location for Edmonton voters to view how members of city council voted on various issues over the past six years.

The second was to survey all candidates running in the election as to where they stand on issues such as the proposed six new civic taxes, property tax hikes being limited to the inflation rate, public funding of a replacement for Rexall Place, the 21 per cent council pay and perk hike, and whether they would be disclosing their campaign donors before Election Day.

All of this information, including the on-line voting record database is located at: www.EdmontonVotes.ca.  

While many groups survey candidates during an election, the voting record database is somewhat unique in this election.

Municipal politics are like no other in Canada. There are (virtually) no political parties, no caucus meetings and no caucus whips instructing members how to vote.

This independence allows the opportunity for more direct accountability between citizens and their representatives. Civic politicians do not have to divide their loyalties between their constituents and their caucus or party leader. They do not have to vote for or against a law or motion simply because the majority of their fellow caucus members said so.

Voting records of provincial or federal politicians are mostly meaningless. The true free-votes at those levels occur, un-recorded, behind closed doors in caucus meetings. Only during rare private members bill votes do those politicians have the opportunity to represent their constituents in full public view.

Voting records at the municipal level, however, are a legitimate depiction of how individual members have acted during their term.

As such, voting records provide valuable information to constituents, allowing them to gauge how well their elected officials have represented their interests or the interests of the community-at-large.

In short, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation felt these voting records were a much needed form of accountability in Edmonton.

While all of the voting record information found at www.EdmontonVotes.ca was publicly available on-line previously, it would take an individual countless hours of pouring through thousands of pages of Edmonton city council meeting minutes to find this information.

Instead of wading though process motions and zoning by-laws, www.EdmontonVotes.ca cuts right to the heart of the matter and gives interested citizens council voting records on key areas like: tax hikes, tax cuts, council pay and perk hikes, non-core/unnecessary spending and accountability/democracy issues.

Moreover, we calculated the voting tendencies of each member of council (who are running for re-election) to clearly show just how often they voted for or against motions which fell into one of these categories.

From the hundreds of phone calls and e-mails we received over the past year in regard to taxes, spending and the council pay hikes, we knew Edmontonians would be interested to know the answers to questions like: who on council voted most often in favour of tax hikes? Who on council voted most often in favour of tax cuts? Which members of council voted in favour of the 21 per cent pay hike? Who voted against putting the pay hike question on the ballot?

But we also knew Edmontonians would be interested in analysing the voting records themselves, so we presented each vote sorted by member of council, year and category of vote.

To maintain the consistency of the voting records no subjective judgement-calls were made. Anytime a vote included a tax hike, no matter how worthy or pointless the project requesting funds may be in our minds or the minds of voters, it was included in the tax-hike category. Anytime a spending request was made on a project that was not a core civic service (fire, ambulance, police, water, sewer, roadway capital, roadway infrastructure maintenance, etc.) it was included in the non-core/unnecessary spending category.

With our mission being to lower taxes, lessen waste and make city hall more accountable, we clearly opted to focus on the votes which fall within those categories. It would be, however, fantastic to see other groups – with completely different aims – follow our lead.  

Groups who support more civic funding for the arts would be well served to extract the votes where council voted for or against more art funding, to determine each member’s voting record and tendencies.

The same goes for seniors groups, community leagues, and any other group who aims to influence the decisions at city hall.

If you are concerned about property taxes jumping at double the inflation rate, about council not taking its 21 per cent pay and perk hike to the voters, about politicians crying poor on snow clearing and pot-hole filling while finding funds for free yo-yo’s and new art galleries, go to www.EdmontonVotes.ca to find out who’s to blame.

And please, get out and vote!