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Cities’ deal: One size won’t fit all. by Alan Broadbent September 5, 2004 Bashing Toronto won’t change the fact that all cities have unique needs. Toronto Mayor David Miller doesn’t want the Association of Municipalities of Ontario speaking for Toronto. His objection to this, supported by various Toronto city councillors, has raised hackles. Miller argues that only the duly elected government of Toronto, not some intermediate group, should be talking about the city with the government of Ontario on an official basis. He argues that proper governmental accountability can only be served by having duly elected city representatives speaking and acting on behalf of the city. He has a point. What might be surprising is that more Ontario mayors have not voiced the same objection to the Ontario government-AMO deal. The province has found a shortcut to make dealing with cities easier. Instead of talking to 400 cities, it can deal with one association. But how does that serve those cities? How does such an agreement meet the very particular and real needs of those unique places? It doesn’t take a long trip through the province to realize each community has its own character and needs. This is what urban commentators call “particularity”. Hornepayne, for example, doesn’t have issues related to subways, and Toronto doesn’t have issues related to bears at the waste management site. But both issues present real citizen concerns and need effective local government response. Having Queen’s Park attempt to come up with one response for cities that cover both issues isn’t going to make much sense in either place. But we have a problem in Canada that provincial governments have total authority over cities, and must be concerned about every issue that might come up, whether that city has 3 million people or several thousand. We live with a system of government that might have made sense in 1867, at the time of Confederation, but makes less sense today. Back then, cities and towns were sandwiched between taverns and asylums, as objects of provincial jurisdiction. Then, sidewalks and curbs were the big issues. Now it is electric power distribution, transit grids and public education provision. These issues are more complex and require informed and sensitive solutions that are best obtained locally. However, little power to design and implement solutions resides locally; it remains the responsibility of the province. Urban strategist, Joe Berridge, has noted that Canada pays a high price for having a system of government so comprehensively irrelevant to its future challenges. Modern economies are based on information and design and these industries are found at scale in large cities. We know that pour large cities generate the bulk of the wealth created in Canada, a far cry from 1867 when the hinterland produced wealth from furs, lumber, fish, mines, and farm produce. Now such extractive industries account for fewer than 3 per cent of Canada’s economic production. Instead, it is the urban-based wealth creation that exports capital to the rest of the country via the provincial and federal governments. The Toronto region alone sends approximately $15 billion a year more than it receives. It is time Canada’s major cities were given the powers they need to control their destinies. They need secure sources of revenues and they need a seat at the table when other levels of government are making decisions that affect them. It is also time for Canadians to stop reverting to failed behaviour when dealing with these issues. When Miller is pleading Toronto’s case for direct relationship with the Ontario government, it is childish for an Ottawa newspaper to call it “whining.” It is against their own self-interest for other mayors to bash Miller and Toronto, instead of advocating for more “particularity” in the way Queen’s Park and Ottawa deal with them, too. They say when the water dries up, the animals get meaner. When money available to cities dries up, the mayors get meaner, too. But snarling at each other will not make any of their cities richer. That will only come when they band together to demand a change in our Constitution that allows them more control of their destinies, a change the provinces can initiate. Miller is not making a point that Toronto is better than other places. He is arguing that it has different needs. Any mayor in Ontario should be making the same point about his or her city. It is that difference that requires particularity, and it is the recognition of particularity that will lead to more effective relations between the province and its cities. That is the point that Miller is making in opposing the AMO agreement. Alan Broadbent is chairman and chief executive of Avana Capital Corp. He is an advocate for a new deal for Canada’s cities and a member of the Toronto City Summit Alliance. Reprinted with permission from the Toronto Star and Alan Broadbent.
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