Ottawa won’t start constitutional fight over Toronto council cuts

Thestar.com
July 30, 2018
Alex Ballingall

The Liberal government’s point person on urban affairs is ruling out a constitutional fight over Doug Ford’s decision to slash the size of Toronto’s city council, as experts agree the contentious move falls squarely within provincial jurisdiction.

Adam Vaughan, a two-term Toronto councillor who is now the Liberal MP for Spadina--Fort York, said Ford’s legislation to eliminate almost half of Toronto council seats less than three months before a municipal election will plunge the city into “administrative chaos,” but that Ottawa has no intention of trying to change the law to stop him.

Adam Vaughan, the Liberal MP for Fort York-Spadina, says the federal government will not “try to rewrite the constitution because of one bad decision at Queen’s Park” to cut the size of Toronto’s city council.

Ford has said the move will save $25 million and make Toronto government more efficient, while critics--including Mayor John Tory--have charged the decision was undemocratic and will degrade the quality of local representation in Canada’s largest city.

“We are not going to try to rewrite the constitution because of one bad decision at Queen’s Park,” said Vaughan, who is parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development for housing and urban affairs.

Instead, Vaughan said the Liberal government is prepared to bypass the province and deliver funds for housing and other programs directly to Toronto.

“We are going to work very closely with the citizens of Toronto and the democratic institutions that are left standing,” he said. “We will not shy away from working around provinces that are quite clearly doing damage to cities.”

That “work around” solution fits with a longstanding push from some advocates and city leaders for Toronto--as the country’s largest city and sixth largest government--to have more resources as a “significant order of government,” said Myer Siemiatycki, a politics professor at Ryerson University. In areas of federal jurisdiction, such as immigration, Ottawa could easily go around the province to deal directly with Toronto, a city that receives tens of thousands of newcomers every year, Siemiatycki said.

“In the Ontario context, where the provincial government seems to be putting itself in an adversarial position with the City of Toronto, it’s not surprising that the federal government wants to position itself as the friend and ally of Toronto,” he said.

But that willingness to cooperate doesn’t mean Ottawa can stop Ford’s cuts to council. Joseph Magnet, a constitutional lawyer and professor at the University of Ottawa, said Canada’s Constitution Act of 1867 clearly spells out how the provinces have “complete and exclusive power over municipalities.” This includes the “power to create, amalgamate or destroy them,” he said. “A constitutional change would be necessary to change this.”

Richard Tindal, a retired professor at St. Lawrence College and co-author of the textbook Local Government in Canada, agreed that the federal government has “no jurisdiction whatsoever” over municipalities, which were created in the constitution as “creatures of the provinces.”

Section 92 of the Constitution Act says provincial legislatures “may exclusively make laws” that relate to “Municipal Institutions in the Province.”

But despite being under the ultimate control of provincial legislatures, cities like Toronto are emerging as major centres of culture and economic activity. Tindal pointed out how, in 2006, Queen’s Park passed the City of Toronto Act to reflect this reality in the province’s biggest city. The law gave Toronto special powers to tax things like alcohol, land transfers and vehicle registrations.

It also provides a few potential avenues for legal challenges to Ford’s cuts to council, such as sections that call for consultation on decisions that affect the city and recognize the city’s responsibility to govern its affairs as it considers appropriate, Siemiatycki said.

Meanwhile, former city planner Jennifer Keesmaat has entered the mayoral race, and revived discussion that it’s time for Toronto’s status to be upgraded even further--perhaps to the level of a province, which Siemiatycki said would be a “tall order,” not least because such a change would require approval from Queen’s Park.

Cities outside of Toronto, which make up the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, argued during the provincial election that cities “should have a greater say” in how services are delivered, and also receive a greater share of tax revenue, organization president Lynn Dollin said in a statement Monday.

Michael Behiels, a political and constitutional historian and professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, said the rise of global cities such as Toronto demands deeper local representation, rather than the thinner municipal government Ford envisions. Much is at stake, he said, arguing that there will be less room for entry-level politicians on city council to learn the craft of governing in Canada’s biggest city, and that citizens may feel disengaged when tens of thousands of people are represented by a single person.

“If you’re going to rejig the city, let’s think about it from top to bottom, and get it right, because the 50-year future of that city is at stake,” Behiels said.

Siemiatycki said these discussions are likely to continue as Tory pushes for a referendum on Ford’s changes and others call for legal challenges to prevent them from happening. And with the federal government opening the door to a more direct relationship with municipalities, more avenues of cooperation could open up soon, he said.

“Around the world there’s a recognition that cities are increasingly critical,” he said. “Those are the next fronts in this skirmish.”