City councillors linger too long due to conformity, lack of transparency, says academic

Calgary city council. Gavin Young / Calgary Herald

Some city councillors are overstaying their usefulness due to a political system that breeds conformity and undermines transparency, says a University of Calgary political scientist.

That means Calgarians rarely “throw the bums” out at election time even when they might deserve it, said Anthony Sayers of the U of C’s School of Public Policy.

“City politics is very different from other levels, it has an incentive to act as a corporate body and to not upset that concept,” said Sayers, adding councillors tend to avoid taking positions that stand out.

“There’s a kind of corporate groupthink — when you really need a policy choice, you don’t have a good arrangement.”

Despite ideological divisions on council, voting records don’t greatly diverge, leading to either voter apathy or a tendency to simply cast a ballot for the incumbent with built-in name recognition, said Sayers.

That’s led to a turnover on council that usually only happens when a member steps down, he said.

“It translates to a great job for someone for a long time, which might not be the best thing for the city,” he said.

A century ago, the average stint on city council was five years, now it’s 15, said Sayers.

Sayers’ report — Policy Responsiveness and Political Accountability in City Politics — found a 95 per cent electoral rate of return among Edmonton councillors, with its author saying Calgary’s situation is much the same.

Resulting apathy tends to limit voter turnout to around 30 per cent in municipal elections, roughly half of that at the federal and provincial levels.

Source: Calgary Herald