Toronto’s pre-megacity mayors talk city politics
The skunk would not come out from underneath the man’s car.
Animal control wasn’t picking up the phone. No one was listening to him. At a council meeting in what was then known as East York the man made his case.
He wasn’t on the agenda, but the man just showed up to speak, as the council allowed anyone to do.
After he had aired his frustrations, then-East York mayor Michael Prue got animal control to authorize three hours of overtime, freeing the skunk and solving the problem.
“That was democracy in your face,” Prue recalls. “That never happens in Toronto, that never happens in the legislature, but it’s what people expected and wanted.”
It’s the kind of hands-on local representation Prue says is missing under the megacity, something he staunchly opposed in 1998 when it brought together East York with Etobicoke, Scarborough, York, North York and the old City of Toronto.
As Premier Doug Ford plans to chop Toronto city council almost in half — leaving the city on the brink of arguably the most massive change since amalgamation — the Star went back to the last mayors of these municipalities to see if their hopes, fears and worst nightmares had come true, 20 years later.
Of the five living former mayors — Scarborough’s Frank Faubert died in 1999 — only former York mayor and current Ward 11 Councillor Frances Nunziata did not respond to the Toronto Star’s requests to comment.
Michael Prue, East York
Prue’s fears were that the unique character and community spirit of East York would never be the same.
“I told people at the time of amalgamation it would be slow to change because the people had huge character and just huge joy in where they lived, and participated,” he said. “But it didn’t take long for things to start happening.”
Amalgamation changed services like garbage collection. The collectors were no longer part of the community and didn’t know which old ladies put bins out by their side doors instead of the end of the driveway, he said.
After the change, only two of the 400 East Yorkers who had served on committees continued to be involved, he added.
And the bylaws which made it “staid East York,” including ones that banned pool halls and bingo parlours, were “shoved aside” by the city.
“People don’t feel the same attachment,” Prue said. “The reality is they no longer felt that it was their neighbourhood and they no longer felt that they were contributing.”
Prue is worried East York’s interests will be even less represented under Ford’s proposal to cut council from 47 wards to 25, which would allocate just one councillor for BeachesEast York and one for TorontoDanforth. The area is projected to be home to more than 200,000 people by 2026.
“It could be very soon that there won’t be a resident in East York who serves on the council,” Prue said.
Mel Lastman, North York Lastman, who later became mayor of Toronto, also doesn’t mince words when it comes to how things have ended up under the megacity.
“It turned out to be a complete bust,” Lastman said. “It could have been something that everyone liked.”
His biggest issue is that Mike Harris’ then-provincial government also downloaded local services, including public housing, onto the city, leaving it with the tab for operating and maintaining aging buildings.
“He could have brought the cities together without dumping all those costs onto the new Toronto,” Lastman said of Harris. “There was no consultation, there was no nothing. And there was no listening to anybody.”
Doug Holyday, Etobicoke
Holyday takes a more measured approach. When it was first discussed, he admits he worried for his own job.
But now he can see the merits of a bigger city, with a bigger profile.
“The good side of amalgamation from my standpoint is that we gained stature in the world and in North America,” he said. “Because when it comes to business and people wanting to locate to certain areas, size matters.”
Holyday does feel that the megacity missed an opportunity to cut costs, and that council has become “unwieldy,” one reason why he agrees with Ford’s plan to whittle down councillors.
“It’s been too large for too long,” he said. “Your voice is going to be dependent on who you elect. If you elect capable people who work hard and speak well and can get their point across then I think Etobicoke will be looked after, as will Scarborough and North York and all the rest.”
Barbara Hall, old City of Toronto Hall, who was staunchly against amalgamation, said it has done some good things, such as increase access to city services for people outside of the downtown core.
She does feel that “an awful lot of energy and time has been taken away from working on issues and challenges of a big diverse city” and put toward creating a new bureaucracy, and that the plan did not save “a whole lot of money,” as promised.
For Hall, Ford’s plan to cut council and redraw boundaries brings a sense of déjà vu.
People already “often feel frustrated being heard,” on hyperlocal issues, and those issues become even more as inequality grows in the city.
But the impacts of the change will be felt well beyond municipal governance, Hall says.
“A sense that you can’t make change by getting involved, it will come out of the blue with no input or consultation,” she said. “It seems to me that very drastic changes are being proposed in a most reckless way.”