Urban League Archives: Re-Setting Ward Boundaries

The Urban League’s Archives blog series was written by Heather Ellis. Heather Ellis is a local researcher in Southwestern Ontario. She is currently a PhD Candidate at Western University and teaches for the Thames Valley District School Board. Heather's current project explores the lives of London's veterans at Westminster Hospital in the early twentieth century.

This is the second in a special series of blog posts highlighting interesting projects I’ve found in the Urban League’s historical documents. Local governance structure is an issue that has popped up a few times in the past 50 years, and this blog will cover one of those times which spanned a three year process actively participated in by the Urban League in the early 2000s. 

In the 2003 Municipal Election, Londoners voted on a referendum to reduce the size of City Council from the original 19 councillors and eliminate the Board of Control. Ward boundaries were not part of the referendum. However, when the majority voted to reduce council size and eliminate the Board of Control, council ignored it, sparking the development of the petition and then the appeal to the OMB. Ward boundaries came up as a key part of the discussion because that’s what the petition had to be about per the Municipal Act. An alternate boundary system was proposed by Imagine London (an umbrella group of Londoners) to reflect what council would look like if the size of council were reduced. 

This was not the first time that ward boundaries were discussed in London at great length, nor the first time the Urban League was heavily involved in these debates. In 1997, a Local Governance Task Force was instructed to examine the council structure and the ward boundaries for the City of London.

Debate over ward structure increased in 2005, leading up to the 2006 Municipal Election.  Although Londoners had voted on this decision in 2003, City Council was not required to change the boundaries because less than 50 percent of citizens voted during the election. Citizens, including the Urban League argued that London should continue to have 14-wards. 

Why? Because smaller constituencies mean that individuals could have a greater voice in local politics and are better able to influence their representatives. The Urban League argued: “the more diffuse the constituency, the less weight that is attached to individual votes.”[1]

The number of wards was not the only issue. The shape of each ward was hotly debated by Londoners and City Council. London’s wards were arranged like a pie, with each section spiralling out from downtown into the suburbs. Londoners stated that this structure went against the very idea of a cohesive constituency. Council believed that this structure would allow each member to understand the issues in other constituencies because they all had a small sample of the same areas. What the Council failed to understand was the importance of Communities of Interest. Constituents wanted to be grouped with individuals living closer to their neighbourhoods so their common issues would be heard by their local representatives.

The Imagine London group took this issue to the Ontario Municipal Board. In December 2005, the OMB ruled in favour of the 14-ward structure. When the City of London tried to appeal this decision at the Ontario Superior Court in January 2006, Justice McDermid upheld the OMB decision, and London was divided into 14 wards.

The 2003-2006 ward debates demonstrated the important role ideas of community plays in the local governance of London. The ward boundary debates highlighted the different interests of Londoners across constituencies. They determined that community interests, instead of municipal cutbacks, were more important to city life in London.

 *To see the City of London’s current ward structure, click here.

 For more reading on this topic check out these links:

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[1] “Why Should You Sign our Petition,” Box 7, File 10, p. 59.



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