Council to decide how to replace Doug Holyday

Watch: Elect or Appoint? The race to replace Doug Holyday as Councillor. Jackson Proskow reports. 

TORONTO – As Doug Holyday prepares to exit city hall for the provincial halls of Queen’s Park, the city’s municipal government now has to decide how to fill the hole Holyday leaves behind.

And city council has two options to fill Holyday`s place: an appointment or a byelection.

Holyday won Thursday’s byelection in Etobicoke-Lakeshore to become the newest member of the Conservative caucus at the Ontario legislature.  He took 46.64 per cent of the vote in a tight race with fellow city councillor and Liberal nominee Peter Milczyn who received 41.96 per cent of the vote.

But Holyday’s departure leaves a void at city hall with no one to represent Ward 3 Etobicoke-Centre.

“The simplest thing for us quite honestly and probably the fairest thing for the residents would be to have a byelection,” Councillor John Parker said. “So I’m inclined to letting the residents make their own choice.”

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A byelection however could cost up to $200,000.

“There’s always the issue of what the democratic process costs,” Parker said. “I think that is the least of the issues that should be on our minds.”

Councillor Joe Mihevc however wants an appointment. Toronto’s bureaucracy would delay a byelection until January causing it to run almost parallel with campaigning for the 2014 general election in October.

“The appropriate thing to do is to find an appointed person. That person should be someone who has no intention of running for the seat and is really there as a caretaker role.”

Above: Global’s Queen’s Park bureau chief Alan Carter speaks to Toronto’s erstwhile deputy mayor Doug Holyday, who secured the Conservatives’ first seat in Toronto since 1999 by winning Thursday’s byelection in Etobicoke-Lakeshore

Council has to declare the seat vacant before it can decide whether to hold a byelection or appoint a caretaker of the ward. Councillors don’t meet again until October and many worry that spending that sum of money on a byelection so close to a general election would be irresponsible.

“I don’t think we can really think about having a byelection because it’s already an election year,” Councillor Paula Fletcher said. “It would be really complicated and people just wouldn’t understand why we were spending that much money in January or February when we’re having an election in October.”

In fact, Councillor Paul Ainslie was appointed in February 2006 after Bas Balkissoon was elected to Queen’s Park. Despite promising otherwise, Ainslie campaigned in the riding of Ward 43 in the October general election and won.

Anyone can be appointed to a vacant seat and Councillor Adam Vaughan – a staunch and vocal opponent of the mayor – quipped Friday that the mayor may know a suitable replacement for Holyday.

“I understand there’s another Ford brother out there,” Vaughan said. “I think Randy Ford should be appointed. Three Fords can only be better than two.”

–        With files from Jackson Proskow