While most of Ottawa’s municipal politicians are busy trying to get elected, Lili Weemen is already talking about quitting.
The Somerset Ward candidate has made term limits a focus of her campaign, advocating for a three-term limit for city councillors and pledging that if elected she will retire after two terms.
“Three terms is 12 years, so after two-and-a-half terms you have already won the lotto,” she says, explaining that councillors get paid $93,000 a year.
“You already made a million, don’t you think it’s time that you move on?”
She cautions that after years in power, councillors can become too comfortable with their position and salary.
“In the old days people were paid peanuts so it didn’t really matter if they were there their whole life, but now it’s big money so you need to be careful that people aren’t just doing it for the money,” says Weemen. “You need fresh blood.”
Weemen says limits would help motivate council and connect them to the needs of their electorate, pointing to social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook as examples that some current councillors haven’t embraced.
Weemen is the only councillor in Somerset Ward who has embraced the issue. Although a few other candidates and current councillors have also embraced the idea, it’s still a relatively new concept in Ottawa.
Orleans Coun. Bob Monette is breaking his two-term pledge and running again this election. He says his decision is based on an “overwhelming response” from constituents.
But Gloucester-South Nepean Coun. Steve Desroches will keep his word and step down this time around.
“I believe that city council is a calling not a career,” said Desroches in an email. “Because it was a pledge to my family, it was an easy decision for me and I hope that it restores some faith and honour that a politician can keep their word.”
Many people have applauded Desroches for sticking to his decision, but at least one Ottawa voter isn’t happy.
Peter Raaymakers says he lived in Desroches’ ward for a number of years and thought he did an excellent job. But he says term limits don’t make candidates any more appealing and cost the city as many good councillors as it does relieve it of bad ones.
“If Steve Desroches felt that because of the two-term pledge he made in 2006 he had to not run again, even though he was mildly interested in running again . . . it’s the dumbest promise that any councillor has ever made,” says Raaymakers. “Not only does it pull something away from him, but it pulls something away from the community that could be beneficially represented by that councillor,”
Katherine Graham, a public policy and administration professor at Carleton University, agrees.
“If somebody is sticking around beyond their shelf life, it’s up to the voters boot them out, not themselves,” she says.
Graham, who specializes in municipal politics, doesn’t support mandatory term limits and doesn’t see them becoming a reality any time soon.
“As soon as provincial politicians start to impose term limits on municipal politicians then the idea arises that they should be limited too,” she says.
Cities such as New York have had term limits since the early 1990s, but no Canadian city has adopted the practice.
Toronto Coun. Mary-Margaret McMahon has been leading the fight for a three-term cap in her city since she was elected in 2010.
“It’s a gutsy agenda item to bring forward because a lot of people think it’s political suicide,” she says.
McMahon says term limits will allow a new generation of councillors who are more representative of the population, to move the city forward, but only if they’re given the opportunity.
“They’re young, they’re energetic, they totally represent the diversity in our city . . . but the seasoned councillors are saying ‘you’ll have to wait 30 years until I give up my seat, you’ll never have a chance.’”
She says that there are plenty of boards and committees people can join and that you don’t have to be on city council to work hard to make your city great.
As for Weemen, she says her decision is based on good old-fashioned logic.
“If I haven’t been able to accomplish anything in eight years then, what am I good for anyways?”