Just a few short months after amalgamation in Jan. 1998, EYE WEEKLY columnist William Burrill suggested that it would be in Toronto’s best interest to take its 2.5 million inhabitants and simply separate from the province of Ontario — and from the country of Canada, too. Rather than continue being subjected to crippling social-service downloads, “taxation without representation” and anti-democratic policies, Toronto could start its own kingdom and be free of the Harris government forever.
Sure, it was a half-baked idea, but the rationale behind it wasn’t entirely crazy. “Just think of it,” Burrill wrote, “a sovereign Toronto, with no GST, no provincial sales tax, no yearly tax returns to Ottawa, no Harris cutbacks and no federal clawbacks. We will only pay (all too gladly) our Toronto taxes and keep the rest of our hard-earned cash. The kingdom of Toronto will be such a stinking rich city state that we might even be able to afford a real NHL hockey team.”
Money was No. 1 on the list of problems with amalgamation back then.
Not surprisingly, it’s still the only thing keeping Toronto from
functioning as the world-class city it’s supposed to be. Despite its
massive taxpaying population and its international corporate hubbery,
this city is like a child actor whose parents are mismanaging the
contracts so horribly that chemical dependence and career-ending
catastrophe loom closer than college. Instead of investing in a future,
it often seems like council spends an inordinate amount of time
averting disaster.
While amalgamation itself didn’t necessarily create the ongoing financial woes that Toronto has had to deal with for the past few years, it certainly didn’t make them any easier. According to professor Andrew Sancton, the director of the University of Western Ontario’s local government program, “ad hoc bailing-out mechanisms and the postponement of maintenance” were where amalgamation cost the city the most. And, of course, there was the ill-fated promise of a municipal tax freeze. “Without the tax freeze,” says Sancton, “no doubt that we wouldn’t have gone through that nonsense. Costs were going up and everyone was trying to hide the fact.”
Presently, the fact that essential services like the TTC still rely primarily on user fees or that Toronto receives only a pittance of the taxes collected from its residents means that things aren’t going to get any better. And yet with its amalgamated population totalling nearly 20 per cent of Ontario, there’s no reason why Toronto shouldn’t be able to throw its size back in the face of the government that created it.
Although amalgamation created equality among the former municipalities that actually benefited places like York and Scarborough, Sancton says the overriding legacy is that the new council is essentially too big to do things that municipalities do. And yet it should be big enough to do what a kingdom does.
In a pro-amalgamation editorial in the final weeks of the former cities, the Toronto Star argued: “This is a city with so little clout in Ottawa and Queen’s Park that its citizens should embrace any effort that raises its profile and the power of its civic leader. One mayor speaking for a unified city will command the respect and credibility that’s due to this great metropolis.” But, somewhere between this chest-thumping hopefulness and Burrill’s satirical “Kingdom of Toronto,” the potential for Strength and Action evaporated.
Consequently, Sancton thinks part of the solution is through more power. He feels the mayor’s role needs to be stronger, and not just by adapting a browbeating, no-BS style of leadership, but through institutional strength. While council’s executive committee hasn’t quite shown its usefulness, as this summer’s tax debacle proved, Sancton says that failing to improve this apparatus will pose even more problems for council. But he is hopeful, indicating that they are taking steps towards a “strong” mayor’s office like in American cities.
After all, if New York City can make its five boroughs and eight million residents into a functioning metropolis, Toronto should have no problem. Then again, New York does have a whole century of amalgamation on us. We might just have to be patient.
MORE ON THE MEGACITY:
Megacity ever after: a brief history of amalgamation
Still Mike's Megacity: how the Harris Tories still haunt us
Where are they now: an update on amalgamation's key players