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Voters want Toronto to have more power. Is that possible?

Thestar.com
September 10, 2018
Samantha Beattie

Even if a judge rules Monday that the province acted improperly by slashing the number of Toronto’s council seats in the middle of a municipal election campaign, the city will not be immune to future meddling, experts say.

A ruling on Toronto’s legal challenge of the province’s decision to cut the size of city council from 47 to 25 members is expected on Monday morning.

The legal challenge has stirred hope that it will create an inroad for Toronto to gain more independence from the province and set a precedent that Canadian cities are protected from disruptive actions by upper levels of government.

But the “best-case scenario” of Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba siding with the city would still have a limited impact, said Craig Scott, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and former Toronto NDP MP. After this election, the province would still have the power to change how Toronto governs itself and could reword the City of Toronto Act to avoid future legal challenges.

That’s a disappointment to Scott, who says Toronto needs to have protections from “slash-and-burn” policies like Bill 5, which cut the number of city council seats to 25 from 47.

City of Toronto argues province ‘meddled’ in election with unprecedented cut to council

“You can’t have proper governance in a city of this importance and size with top-down management from the province,” Scott said. “I think proper respect for the autonomy of the city is due.”

The majority of Toronto voters appear to agree. A recent Forum Research survey found that:

Toronto needs more power to not only prevent the province from interfering in its elections, but also to quickly address pressing issues like transit, infrastructure, gun violence, homelessness and addiction, said Michael Mendelson, a fellow at Maytree, a non-profit organization working to address poverty and build civic engagement.

“The provincial government doesn’t have the capacity to pay attention to (urban issues) that is required now,” Mendelson said.

If Toronto can “control its destiny,” it can prioritize investments in transit, amenities and safety, and compete with the world’s largest cities, said Alan Broadbent, chair and founder of Maytree.

“The kinds of workers in the modern economy are people who have a choice of where they want to live -- in cities that are attractive, safe, affordable,” he said. “If Toronto doesn’t have control over its ability to provide those things and has to constantly go to another level of government, it’s very uncertain it will be able to produce some of those public goods.”

The most formal way for Toronto to gain more power would be through changes to the Constitution, which currently mandates power only to the federal and provincial governments. It’s up to the provinces to decide how much independence cities have and which decisions they can make without approval, and -- as Bill 5 demonstrates -- they can change those parameters at any time.

“Urban areas are entirely the creatures of the provinces. Everything about the city per se is at the behest of the province,” wrote Mendelson, a former deputy minister, in a 1999 essay entitled “The Emancipation of Cities.” “Should a province decide that cities will no longer have elected councils, no longer have mayors, or pay a special tax for the pleasures of urban living -- so be it.”

Toronto could receive formal constitutional status, but that would require the approval of the provinces and the federal government. That is unlikely to happen, however, because “governments don’t get elected to give up power,” said Mendelson.

The province could also vote to better safeguard the rules Toronto is governed by under the City of Toronto Act, said Scott. It could, for example, make a requirement that any changes to the act require a two-thirds majority vote from both ruling and opposition parties.

There are less permanent but more feasible ways for Toronto to gain a greater measure of independence, such as allowing the city to collect more revenue through taxes or tolls, said Broadbent. Toronto is currently allowed to collect billboard, land-transfer and property taxes (and to set the property-tax rate), but not income or sales taxes.

Otherwise, it largely relies on other levels of government for funding commitments -- not all of which are followed through on.

Take Toronto’s waterfront light-rail line. For years, the city has said it is needed to serve the east downtown waterfront and now a proposed high-tech district in the Port Lands. The LRT, called “critical” by prospective developer Sidewalk Labs, is supported by Tory and the federal government, and former premier Kathleen Wynne promised to help fund it before the election that swept her from power. So far, Premier Doug Ford has not pledged any money and the project has stalled.

Earlier in her premiership, Wynne blocked the city from imposing road tolls on the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway to raise more money for transit.

New York City, by comparison, collects property, sales, income and 10 other types of taxes, and has more autonomy from its state government than Toronto and other major Canadian cities do from their provinces, according to a 2017 University of Toronto study.

“A mix of taxes would give large Canadian cities more fiscal autonomy and the flexibility to be internationally competitive, and the ability to respond to changing economic and political conditions,” wrote the study’s author, Enid Slack.

Now seeking re-election, Tory insists that working within the current confines of city power, he’s been able to get projects done and secure money for transit, housing and safety, but also points to areas where the city should have more control.

“I have always advocated for more powers, for example, to act without approval from the province to implement programs like traffic wardens or photo radar to tackle congestion and safety on our streets,” Tory said in an email.

While Tory is seeking “strong mayor powers,” they would only give him more power within city council -- and, like most changes to city governance, he’d need the province’s permission to get them.

Before his principal challenger, Jennifer Keesmaat, registered to run for mayor, she floated the idea of Toronto seceding from the province when Ford’s 25-ward plan was unveiled. The former city planner subsequently walked it back, saying the suggestion wasn’t a policy announcement but an expression of her “profound frustration” at the province’s meddling.

Now, she says, she’s not “going to draw the local governance structure on the back of a napkin” but recognizes cities, provinces and the federal government need to develop solid long-term fiscal planning strategies to keep up with population growth.

Poll results: