Next stop: Holyday St.

Normally, one sees Doug Holyday’s name in the paper and immediately moves on to more interesting things. But last week was different. Having learned that Toronto is $500 million behind in its maintenance schedule, the city councillor from Etobicoke and chair of the audit committee floated the idea of selling off the naming rights to Nathan Phillips Square to raise much-needed cash.

Brilliant! How about Rice Krispy Square? Pizza- Pizza Plaza? Or maybe X- Copper Place? And why stop at Nathan Phillips Square? What about YongeDundas Square? The names of subway stations could also be sold off, though that might cause confusion. Streets, too. Think of Yonge St., the longest street in the world — it could be worth millions. In architecture, the name game is nothing new. But in recent decades it has reached fever pitch. The O’Keefe Centre ( so- named because O’Keefe built the place) became the Hummingbird Centre and the SkyDome is now the Rogers Centre. How long before we have new names for, say, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Ontario Science Centre? All are ripe for renaming, especially in these days of public impoverishment and private wealth.

This is one thing the cultural sector has understood — that its role is to provide respectability to those rich enough to afford it. This is an arrangement that has worked well for decades and decades, mostly in the United States but increasingly in Canada, too. Prestige isn’t cheap, of course, but that’s the point.

That’s the good news, nowhere more so than in Toronto, where cultural institutions are desperate for cash. The building boom has created major competition for donor dollars, but it has also led to an unprecedented number of naming opportunities. Whether the motivation is vanity or marketing, no one cares. Our need is great. So why not go all the way and sell off naming rights to the city itself? No doubt there would be complaints, but what else is new? The sentimentalists amongst us would argue that the city shouldn’t be for sale, that it’s not a private asset to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and that it belongs to us all. But that’s the problem. It may belong to us, but we can’t afford it. The truth is that government doesn’t have the money to maintain its physical facilities, let alone provide the myriad services required by citizens.

Because raising taxes is no longer an option in an age of widespread political cowardice, what choices does a municipal government have?

Just ask the Holydays — the city needs to operate more like a business. When was the last time Toronto turned a profit? The problem with cities in the 21st century, however, is that as businesses they don’t have much to offer and find it hard to compete. Other than property taxes and user fees, cities have difficulty generating cash flow. Sadly, taxes and user fees can’t cover their costs. On the other hand, the city does own a lot of high- profile real estate; why not take advantage of that?

Yes, it would be a bit of a shock to change the name of Toronto to, say, Royal Bank City, Toyota Town, Magnaville or whatever, but we’d get over it. The happy Holydays would be there to remind us when we became misty- eyed about the loss of our name that it was a small price to pay for civic solvency.

What’s in a name? It all depends on your point of view. Naming rights might bother some, but, hey, desperate times call for, well, you know the rest.

Besides, the Holydays on city council would quickly remind us that Toronto by any other name would smell just as sweet.