City Representatives: City and Ryerson University

city representatives: This to me is almost an act of treason, says Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam in a phone interview with NOW. It is not insignificant that Ford's plan to reduce the size of city council comes just when governance as diverse as the city's populace seemed on the horizon, says Myer Siemiatycki, a professor of politics at Ryerson University, according to NOW Magazine. This election was going to be a game-changer, says Siemiatycki. Now that the court's have ordered a stay of proceedings, Ford's hostile takeover of city hall and plan to reduce the number of city representatives from 47 to 25 has turned upside down a municipal election that, before he intervened, would have featured one of the most diverse pools of electoral candidates ever witnessed in Toronto. The main hit will be taken by racialized communities, the LGBT community, minority religions, all of whom finally stood a chance of making breakthroughs in seeing increased, or in some instances for the first time, election of their own community members onto city council. According to the latest census data, single-parent households are three times as likely to be low-income. For nearly as long as judicial institutions have existed in Canada, marginalized communities have had to look to officials with whom they do not identify, and who therefore cannot suitably represent their specific needs, to advocate on their behalf, which has left many under-resourced and overlooked. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.