'Too Toronto'

By Joe Fantauzzi
ninetytwopointeight@gmail.com 

Toronto is clearly a divisive subject.

In their 2007 documentary Let's All Hate Toronto, Albert Nerenberg and Rob Spence are told by Canadians that Toronto is "a buzzkill", "elitist", "unfriendly" and a "city without a soul."

Former New Democratic Party Leader and Toronto Councillor Jack Layton opines to the filmmakers that "someone once said it is a national past time to give Toronto in the eye."

Is this just a cultural foible? Is it also systemic?  

If you get the sense Toronto, with its demands for more power and money, is kind of like a teenager pushing the boundaries of parental authority, you're not far off.

Canadian municipalities, including Toronto, have limited recognition in the Constitution and function essentially as arms of provincial policy.

Section 92.8 of the Constitution Act, 1867 gives the provinces exclusive power over municipalities. Hence the name of this blog.

So, in practical terms, what does this mean? A few recent examples:

• A lack of guaranteed, stable funding for Toronto's transit system, the largest in Canada, aside from the fare-box and cash the city can set aside, contributes to gridlock. It also keeps Toronto embarrassingly behind the pack of world cities on the transit file;

• Cultural funding has also been slashed in recent years by a provincial government looking to cut costs at all cost;

   

• As the Gardiner Expressway crumbles, leading engineers to believe part of its driving deck will be unusable in about six years, how much easier would it be for the city to find money to repair it if the province had not downloaded the section between Hwy. 427 and the Humber River in 1997 and washed its hands of the expense?
• And, provincial money earmarked for municipal affairs, which  can be used to invest in affordable housing by municipal landlords is falling, critics charge.

Meanwhile, Toronto is also being used as a wedge issue in the ongoing Liberal Party of Ontario leadership race. Candidate Sandra Pupatello took aim at several of her rivals during a debate on December 6, telling them they are "too Toronto" to lead the province. 

Those comments generated backlash.

Indeed, Pupatello's comments may be identity politics, designed to set her apart from the other candidates but they show it is still politically viable to slam Ontario's capital, 18 provincial seats inside which are held by the Liberals Pupatello wants to lead.

Toronto exists at the pleasure of the provincial government. That became painfully clear in 1998 when, despite much opposition, the province amalgamated six former cities into one megacity.

The fight over amalgamation is over but a feeling of lack of municipal agency remains. The city's 2.6 million people deserve better than to be used as identity wedges or for the future of their city to rise and fall on the tides of provincial budgets.

The province isn't to blame for Toronto's problems. It is part of Toronto's problems.  

That's where this conversation picks up.