‘You can’t rule anything out’: Toronto’s mayor says he’s open to a review of the minority-rule powers he’s ‘highly unlikely’ to use

‘You can’t rule anything out’: Toronto’s mayor says he’s open to a review of the minority-rule powers he’s ‘highly unlikely’ to use (Thetsar.com)

Thetsar.com
Dec. 22, 2022
David Rider
Alysha Hasham

Mayor John Tory says the Ford government should consider setting an expiry date for his extraordinary new powers, with a review before 2026 to decide if the next mayor should also be able to wield minority rule.

“To me the best way to judge this thing, and see whether it represents something that people should be concerned about, is to actually have a kind of objective review done by some person informed enough to do it,” Tory said Tuesday in an interview with the Star, marking the close of a year that saw Toronto move into pandemic recovery mode, his re-election to a third term with a new council and the dramatic expansion of his powers.

Before the Oct. 24 election, Premier Doug Ford gave the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa “strong mayor” powers including a veto over council decisions in matters of “provincial priority” including housing and transit expansion.

In November, Ford announced that, at Tory’s request, those mayors will be able to pass bylaws with just over one-third support of city council — something Tory says might be necessary to force housing density into parts of suburban Toronto.

Tory, who has asked voters to trust him not to abuse the power during his final four-year term in office, was asked how he can guarantee the next mayor won’t abuse them.

The mayor pointed to his vote last week in favour of asking the province to add a “sunset clause” on the powers, triggering a review before the next election to see if they should continue. Tory did not speak to that item, or to a separate vote by a majority of his council colleagues urging Ford to repeal minority rule now.

“I think that it would be a very wise idea for the province to even say right now ‘We got that message from the city council,’” Tory said on Tuesday, adding if the new law was “sunsetted at the end of this term, and that it had to be renewed, and that they would follow a careful, independent examination, I would say that I’d have no trouble with any of that.”

Asked how likely it is he will use the power to pass a bylaw with the support of only eight of 25 councillors, the mayor said: ​ “Highly unlikely I will use them — but you can’t rule anything out.”

The province, however, says it has no plans to review minority rule.

“We intend to leave these changes in place, and are encouraged to see the mayor move quickly on implementing a plan to get more homes built faster in Toronto,” said Victoria Podbielski, a spokesperson for Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark.

Tory enters 2023 leading a city that many residents feel is failing on basic upkeep and services. as it expands transit and housing options while facing a massive budget gap and concerns over crime and mental health supports.

While he recently called on the provincial and federal governments to bail out Toronto’s pandemic-ravaged finances, Tory now says he’s going to campaign in 2023, possibly on a national stage, for structural changes to city financing.

The mayor said he will push for federal officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada’s premiers and big-city mayors to gather to hammer out a new deal for cities that would permanently give them a slice of either income or sales taxes, while also discussing how to expand mental health supports.

Property taxes don’t grow with the economy and are insufficient to support cities, especially Toronto which has a bigger government and more residents than many provinces, Tory said during the 45-minute interview in his city hall office.

Officials from all levels of government need to sit down and end the days of cities going “cap in hand” to their respective provinces,” Tory said.

“The Prime Minister and the Premier — they both understand and they say to me in a very sincere way, privately, where they don’t have to answer to what you might say about them, that they understand the importance of Toronto, they understand the importance of cities,” Tory said.

He waved away past arguments from federal and provincial officials about the logistical difficulties of giving a slice of income tax, or the GST, to municipalities. “Anything they want to do, they can find a way to do it,” Tory said.

Asked about recent violence in Toronto, including on transit and city streets, Tory said: “It’s certainly a significant problem,” singling out an increase this year in school violence.

“If it is a trend we want to make sure it stops,” he said, adding that we need to understand why a group of teen girls would allegedly swarm and murder a homeless man “because there is something going on there that is not normal behaviour by any stretch of the imagination.”

This past week he met with the school boards, police and city staff to discuss new initiatives and the expansion of some current ones — no specifics provided yet — which will hopefully be funded through federal grants.

With transit, the series of alarming incidents this year including the random fatal stabbing of a woman at High Park subway station and a woman being set on fire on a bus, is “very disconcerting, very troubling,” he said, though he noted overall homicides are down.

The common thread in many of these incidents, he believes, are the mental health crisis and the linked opioid crisis. Street outreach workers spent weeks convincing a drug user to go into a treatment program but when they finally agreed, there were no spaces to be found, he said. Meanwhile there were 595 drug overdose deaths in Toronto last year.

“The city has its role to play,” he said because it can often provide the best front-line services. “But the lack of a real system when it comes to treating people experiencing mental health issues is scandalous in a wealthy and compassionate country like this,” he said.

“We just have to do better because we are not.”

Asked to look forward to the legacy he’ll leave Toronto, Tory cited hopes for continued housing construction, including supportive units for people escaping homelessness, ongoing transit expansion, improved mental health supports for Torontonians, investment in the arts and public spaces, and for the city’s finances to finally become sustainable.

If that is achieved, he said, “I will leave entirely satisfied, put my head down on the pillow after my last day and say ‘I tried my best and the city’s the better for it.’ That’s all I want.”​