Recently at a Strategic Initiatives meeting the role of a municipal Councillor was compared to being a member of a university or hospital board. The speaker concluded that the role of staff in a municipality is to develop policy and give Council direction.

However, this opinion is misinformed and contrary to an elected Council's prescribed powers and duties as outlined in the Municipal Act. In fact the Act clearly states that an incorporated City like Oshawa is deemed not to be a local Board. The Act also states that in Ontario, Municipalities are responsible and accountable levels of Government. This means that the people of Oshawa get to elect and hold accountable through elections their Council representatives who have the power to levy taxes.

The fight for responsible government in Canada had several casualties . Early settlers in the Oshawa area ferried several rebels involved in the 1837 Rebellion across the lake to safety. In the US several decades earlier colonists dumbed tea in the Boston Harbour to protest against taxation without representation. Our modern democracy is based on these hard fought principles of responsible and accountable government and taxation by representation.

Within Municipal Government the elected Council is responsible for Policy and direction. Staff are professional civil servants, that are meant to be neutral in a professional sense. Maintaining their objectivity is a necessary prerequisite for authoring complete and fulsome reports and making recommendations for Council consideration. Staff neutrality ensures that Council has on hand all of the options fully analyzed and costed including intended and unintended consequences and a business case that can withstand peer review. The complete presentation of all the facts by staff enables Council to make the right decision for ratepayers. A constituent of mine put it best when he suggested that Municipal government is the car, Council the driver and staff the engine. Remember it is the driver who has the destination in mind (vision), his or her eye on the fuel gauge(tax impact/cost) and an eye on the road ahead(obstacles). It isn't that the engine can't perform at peak level it just doesn't have the advantage of the drivers sight lines to go it on its own.

When civil servants advance their opinion and lobby for their preferred option in the media when an item is before Council they risk removing their cloak of objectivity and entering the political arena. By stepping down from their pedestal of neutrality and advancing opinion over fact it puts the democratic system at risk. Although this practice makes good newspaper copy it does not make good government.

The points raised at the SIC meeting took me back to my university and high school days writing those essays comparing and contrasting forms of government. In the end it all came down to democratic and responsible government as the best system.

If you are still falling down on the side in favour of staff making the policy and Council implementing it.

I would beg your indulgence and ask you to consider this example. The GTAA is a prime example of what happens when there is not direct accountability. The airport improvements exceed cost estimates by billions, it is user unfriendly and sports the highest landing fees in the world translating into higher ticket prices. Still not convinced, look at the debt repayment charges on your utility bill, an effort to retire Ontario Hydro's debt or the fiasco at E-Health. The bureaucrats responsible for all of these decisions are certainly smarter than your average GTA Councillor but they are missing one quality that simply cannot be duplicated - electoral accountability.

When I attached the three questions to the Ratepayer groups my questions related to the role of responsible government, It did not relate to members of Council. This is an important debate in the arena of ideas not the schoolyard. The elected officials form the government not the professional staff.