The premier’s prerogative ensures Toronto rarely gets what it wants
Queen’s Park holds all the power and - guided by ever-shifting political winds - is not afraid to dismiss the city’s needs.

thestar.com
By EDWARD KEENAN
April 5, 2017

In October of last year, Toronto Life magazine solicited advice from former mayors for the current one - and John Tory was in the room while it was given. In the published transcript of that exchange, the man who will always be remembered as Toronto’s “tiny, perfect mayor,” David Crombie, talked about cash.

“It’s got to be done with the mayor leading the charge - if you don’t mind me saying so, John. You’ve got to nail their asses to the wall and create the constituency they need to obey,” Crombie said.

“Whose behind am I trying to nail to the wall?” Mayor Tory asked. “Just so I’m clear on that. I want to make sure.”

“The lovely lady at Queen’s Park,” Crombie said. “I’m talking about the province, of course! Listen, when we built the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, we didn’t do it as the city. We didn’t have a dime to do it, but we were able to enlist the power of the provincial and the federal governments by appealing to their constituency and their politicians. Your ability to create a constituency is far greater than your ability to create money.”

Not long after that, Tory tested his ability to create money for city priorities - despite Crombie’s advice, he announced a plan to toll the Gardiner and the Don Valley Parkway and to tax hotel rooms. And not long after that, in January, we saw the lovely lady at Queen’s Park nailing Toronto’s ass to the wall: after initially saying she’d grant Tory’s wish, she drove a spike through the toll plan. It seems her constituency in the 905 wasn’t too keen on Toronto’s plan to charge them for access to the city core, and her constituency beyond that wasn’t keen on any precedent for municipal tolling.

And so Tory is trying it the other way. Publicly putting pressure on the province to deliver funding for transit, roads and social housing, and demanding the hotel tax be passed. The mayor has made the effort to pressure Wynne a full-court press, mentioning the province’s moral obligation to pay up at every opportunity. Just this week, he held a press conference at Yonge-Bloor subway station to demand cash for the relief line, and issued a letter to the finance minister outlining the city’s demands.

Tory even got a little tough, threatening, “The Yonge line won’t move an inch closer to Richmond Hill until we have shovels in the ground digging out that much needed subway relief line.” The finance minister acknowledged those “pointed words,” but mostly brushed aside the mayor’s comments, as other provincial cabinet ministers have.

That response - blowing off the mayor as if he’s a demanding child in the midst of a tantrum - is the traditional Queen’s Park response to Toronto’s demands. Which is the problem with trying to take Crombie’s advice. You can try to “build a constituency” and use it to make demands of Queen’s Park all you want, but the city has very little leverage to make such demands.

Crombie will know that: he’ll remember that he was swept into office as mayor on the wings of a reform movement that used the power of Queen’s Park to stomp the plans of the elected officials of the city. The Metro and Toronto governments of the day were determined to build the Spadina Expressway, but at the behest of organized activists, Premier Bill Davis torpedoed the plan by proclamation.

I’m reminded by an article on TVO’s website that this month marks the 20th anniversary of the most vivid illustration of all of what little clout the city government can wield against the province if a premier is determined to thwart it: in April 1997, the government led by premier Mike Harris dissolved the six municipalities that made up Metropolitan Toronto and created the megacity. The mayors and councils of each municipality involved opposed the move, and a referendum held by the cities showed massive popular opposition. There was no constituency here for amalgamation, and people like Mel Lastman and Barbara Hall (and activists John Sewell and Kathleen Wynne) demonstrated the considerable constituency against it.

And yet Harris demonstrated the premier’s prerogative. A majority government can, at any time it likes, through a simple act of parliament, eliminate the entire city government, if it so chooses. That can make it a hard entity to bargain against.

Which doesn’t mean the city doesn’t sometimes get what it wants from the province. Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals did pony up cash for David Miller’s Transit City projects, before skimping and delaying most of it. Either way, the city-spanning Eglinton Crosstown will be finished and 100 per cent paid for by the province.

Rob Ford appeared to have the province willing to do his bidding on transit matters for a while, when he first arrived in office and seemed capable of directing his Ford Nation constituency to alter the course of provincial elections. But that acquiescence faded as Ford’s mayoralty flew into disarray - leaving a legacy, though, of a subway for Scarborough and much-delayed LRT lines.

At every turn, the province is reacting to its own perceived electoral prospects, not the city’s demands (and not, ha ha ha, a sense of right and wrong). If a politician can demonstrate that the balance of an election - or sometimes even a byelection - will be swung by a city priority, then Queen’s Park will fall into line. But they step right back out of the queue as soon as the electoral math appears to change.

Wynne’s government faces troubling polls. Even in Toronto they are unpopular, as that TVO piece I mentioned points out. It’s hard to see them having any path to victory that doesn’t include their traditional 416 romping grounds.

The question, as Tory makes the case for provincial dollars for Toronto, is whether delivering on his requests will deliver them Toronto’s provincial seats. Has a “constituency” been “built” here for what Tory is demanding? Is that constituency likely to deliver more seats than catering to it will lose them elsewhere?

We’ll know what Wynne thinks the answer to that question is on budget day.