Edward Keenan
Toronto deserves some measure of independence to govern itself,
Toronto is a powerhouse of a city. The thriving, growing economic and cultural engine of Ontario and of Canada. One of the safest, smartest, healthiest and best big cities in the entire world on many different international ranking systems.
You’d never know it from recent debates at Queen’s Park about why Premier Doug Ford’s government feels it needs emergency legislation to highjack and neuter the city’s already ongo- ing election campaign. Our provincial overlords speak as though Toronto is a smouldering hellhole that needs to be saved. In truth, the city has been doing just fine.
Still, Ford’s government sees the goose laying golden eggs and decides it wants to eat that bird for dinner.
The challenge for a mayor and city council, in the short term — likely for four years, at least — is to figure out how to stay out of the oven.
On the one hand, you can try to essentially lead a protest movement, standing up to Ford loudly at every turn.
The fear is that this puts him — a man holding all the legal authority in many cases — in an even more oppositional mood, provoking him to mess with things even more.
On the other hand, you can try to get along with him, hoping that being polite might buy some moderation of his micromanagement. The problem is that posture of supplication looks likely to lead to taking dictation.
If you have different priorities for the city than the premier does, the odds of something you could call success in the immediate term look slim with either approach. I’m inclined to think defenders of Toronto’s local democracy ought to make their arguments forcefully at every stage of the process — not because they’re likely to change the premier’s mind, but in hopes of making those arguments clear to the general public. Public opinion has a way of changing a government’s mind when no argument can. If not, in the longer term, popular opinion can change the government.
But speaking of the longer term, it appears more obvious than ever now that the eventual goal for anyone who cares about local democracy in Toronto has to include some measure of formal independence for the city. This isn’t something that will happen overnight — likely not while Ford is premier — but the need for it has never been clearer.
Mayor John Tory has made it one of his primary re-election campaign planks to attack challenger Jennifer Keesmaat for a few tweets she sent suggesting Toronto “secession” after Ford’s election interference was announced. She very quickly clarified, after regis- tering to run for mayor, that this was not a policy proposal and wasn’t something she would pursue. But Tory’s people continued to latch onto it, apparently because they are under the impression it is unpopular.
But the case against Toronto provincehood is more about logistics than principle. The city already has a larger population than all of the Atlantic provinces combined and accounts for one fifth of Canada’s GDP. Either on its own or with the rest of the GTA, it would be a viable province — a strong one. But the requirement for a constitutional amendment to make it so, needing a majority vote in provincial legislatures across Canada, makes it seem like an unreasonable goal anytime soon.
However, now even Tory has supported a motion for a “city charter” granted by the federal government that would guarantee Toronto some measure of independence to govern its own affairs — which also requires constitutional change. While cynically mocking Keesmaat’s exasperated cry for more independence, the mayor appears to have come around to supporting a similar position.
Former mayor David Miller recently called for something similar in an op-ed in Now magazine, arguing in favour of “home rule” for Toronto. Whatever you call it, many cities in North America and around the world enjoy some sort of independent authority — a guarantee embedded in the constitutions of their states, provinces or countries that their jurisdiction over municipal issues will be respected.
At a glance, the need to write this in Canada’s constitution would appear to make it as much of an impractical pipe dream as provincehood.
But maybe it’s not. Constitutional amendments that only apply to one province — as a Toronto charter would, for example — only require the agreement of the federal government and the one provincial government involved. It’s unlikely Ford would agree to such a thing, given that so far he appears to see being Su- preme Toronto Commander as the main perk of being premier. But it’s possible, especially if it appeared to be a big issue in Toronto, that the next provincial government could deliver it, if the federal government is amenable.
Right now in Toronto, a majority of the sitting council, both leading mayoral candidates and at least one former mayor have all asked for this. It’s not a fringe idea.
Indeed, recent events show that for anyone who cares at all about the concept of local democracy in Toronto, it’s a necessity. Maybe one that will take a while to achieve, but one that could preserve the supply of golden eggs for a long time.