T. O.’s not so special

Re Nation’s big cities need a champion Editorial, Dec. 5. Why is it that Toronto thinks it should receive special attention from the government? I guess it is partially because it continues to elect Liberals at all levels of government and therefore believes that it should get some sort of special payback.

However, the majority of Canadians do not live in Toronto and the majority of Canadians do not vote Liberal. So should we have a champion for Toronto and one for the rest of Canada? There are a lot of issues unique to Toronto that are not shared by the rest of Canada that realistically should be resolved by Toronto and not the rest of us. We must challenge statements that indicate the only source of revenue for the city of Toronto is property taxes. Does that mean that all other services are free and do not generate revenue — parking, water, bylaw enforcement, permits and so on?

Toronto obviously views negotiating directly with Ottawa as a positive, however, how is that beneficial to the rest of the country? Why not have every municipality deal directly with Ottawa? Although wasn’t that the purpose of elected officials and you seem to elect so many of them. The rest of Canada, i. e: those who choose not to live in Toronto, must ensure that champions are elected to counterbalance what is already an unbalanced source of political and economic power in what some would think is the centre of the Canadian Universe. Regg Struyk, Guelph, Ont.