- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor

Grey County has 93,830 residents. Doug Ford's new ratio of Councillors to citizens in Toronto is the equivalent of less than ONE Councillor for the whole population of Grey County, rather than the 18 that currently sit at County council. And then there are the Councils in each municipality.

This is our current representation – 54 Councillors/Deputy Mayors and 9 Mayors.

Owen Sound – 21,241 population 8 Councillors 1:2668 citizens
West Grey -     12,286                 6                  1:2048
Meaford           10,991                 6                  1:1832
Georgian Bluffs 10,479                6                   1:1746
Grey Highlands   9,520                6                   1:1587
Hanover             7,688                6                   1:1281
Southgate          7,190                6                   1:1198
Blue Mountains   7,025                6                   1:1171
Chatsworth         6,437               4                    1:1609

For comparison, Ottawa has 1:40,619 and Hamilton 1:35,794

Currently, Toronto has 1 Councillor: 58,118 citizens.
With 25 Councillors, Toronto would have 1 for every 109, 262 citizens.

Do Grey County residents feel over-represented - that their representatives are too accessible, attend too many community functions, have too little homework? Or is Toronto, with almost 3 million citizens, an average of 400 agenda items per meeting, dozens of city committees and oversight of the Toronto Transit Commission and Toronto Housing,  about to be outrageously under-represented?

If we went to a single-tier Grey County government and eliminated 45 of the current municipal councillors, we would still have more than 18 times the number of representatives per citizen as Toronto.