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The bulletin is prepared by John Sewell, the site manager, with the assistance and under the guidance of the advisory committee. It is published monthly, and is being sent to a wide range of people across Canada. Past copies of the bulletin will be archived in this section of the site.

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Bulletin No. 66, June 2006
Local Government Bulletin No. 66, June 2006

The purpose of this bulletin is to focus debate on the need to increase local self-government in Canada and to help local communities achieve more autonomy. The local self-government website is: http://www.localgovernment.ca .
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In this issue:
1. City legislation for the 21st century
2. Funding suburban election campaigns
3. Subscribe to the Bulletin
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1. City legislation for the 21st century.

The Ontario Government seems ready to give third and final reading to Bill 53, the New City of Toronto Act. As noted in Bulletin No. 63, this Bill promises great change but in the end imposes a considerable halter on Toronto. It does not serve the city’s interests well.

A far better approach would be to revert to the practice used three decades ago. In the 1970s the City would annually apply to the Legislature for new legislation to meet its needs. Its request were considered by the Private Members Committee which held hearings, debated the requests, then make a recommendation to the Legislature. Some of the legislative requests were minor, involving technical matters, but some were of considerable substance, dealing with issues that only arose in a big city.

This was how the city brought forward its request for legislation to create the city’s Parking Authority – which was granted. It was how the city asked for the power to refuse demolition permits for residential buildings so it could prevent block-busting – a power that was granted. It was how the city asked for the power to institute rent controls within the city - and the province responded by enacting rent controls throughout Ontario. That kind of back-and-forth system worked, and it is what is needed once again.

There is a hint of this kind of process in Section 25 of Bill 53, which allows the province to revoke any city action which it thinks would be contrary to the provincial interest, but the city is severely constrained by Section 11 of Bill 53, which states that the city may take no action which conflicts with any provincial law or regulation. Section 11 prevents the city, for instance, from devising better landlord /tenant regulations; from establishing programs of social welfare that actually help reduce poverty; from requiring trucks to install devices used in Europe which prevent cyclists from falling under wheels; and so forth. Preventing Toronto from enacting appropriate laws because of province-wide legislation which doesn’t work in the big city disempowers the city.

Early sections of Bill 53 outline the kinds of broad powers many had envisaged for any large city, particularly the Preamble, and Sections 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8. Any new legislation should begin with these sections and build on them.

As for the many sections of Bill 53 which simply repeat sections of the Municipal Act (see the Concordance in our Library at http://www.localgovernment.ca which show the Municipal Act origin of ninety per cent of Bill 53,) it is inappropriate to repeat these sections of the Municipal Act in the Bill. It would be better to simply say that all sections of the Municipal Act continue to apply to the City of Toronto unless Toronto specifically exempts itself from those sections. Giving Toronto the power to determine its own powers to replace sections in the Municipal Act with its own actions is congruent with the broad powers in the Bill.

In summary, the city should be given the authority to replace any section of the Municipal Act it deems appropriate; and any section of any other Ontario statute. The province should possess the opportunity of over-riding these city actions by passing a regulation revoking the city initiative - or it could do nothing and allow the city law to become effective.

Bill 53 attempts to impose a new kind of governing structure on Toronto. (See Bulletin No. 61.) There is no question that the current governing structure doesn’t work. The creation of the megacity in 1999 has been a disaster in governance for Toronto and has created a behemoth which does not function in any reasonable way. But to think that the problem will be solved by putting more power in fewer hands is badly misguided. After all, for 50 years Toronto had the most admired form of local government in North America. The two-tiered metropolitan system served both local and regional interests well.

The people of Toronto and its many representatives should be trusted to find the kind of governing structures appropriate for Toronto, and the city should have the power to determine its governance structure. For instance, if the city determines that governance will be improved if a two-tiered system were established, the city should have the ability to do so. However, City Council should not have the ability to act in an arbitrary manner on important changes, since councillors have a vested interest in the outcome. Before changes in governance are put in place there should be an opportunity for an independent hearing about the wisdom of those changes. In the past this kind of oversight has been provided by the Ontario Municipal Board, indeed that is the process followed for most municipalities in Ontario. This process should be restored for Toronto after the city is granted powers over its own structures and governance. Decisions of council to make important changes to governance structures should automatically be referred to the Board for a public review; changes requested by a group of citizens that are not accepted by council should be referred to the Board which could decide whether a hearing is warranted.

Revenues are also a serious problem for Toronto. The important way to address current problems is by provincial action to reduce the enormous financial burdens downloaded by the province a decade ago. The province must assume the costs of affordable housing subsidies. It must re-establish the operating and funding mechanisms for public transit (sharing in half the operating deficit and three quarters of capital costs). The province must pay all costs of welfare income support.

Bill 53 binds Toronto to a property tax system that doesn’t work. The city should be given the opportunity to rethink property taxes and create a property tax system which does work, probably by moving away from market value assessment to a different kind of assessment that shares common costs in a reasonable way and that encourages intensification. To accomplish this the city should be given powers over property tax comparable to the general powers outlined above – allowing the city to opt out of existing laws when it replaces those with laws of its own.

The city also needs new sources of revenues. The powers to impose new taxes found in Sections 262 to 267 of Bill 53 do not devolve any significant revenue sources. The easiest way to enlarge significant revenue sources is to allow the city to decide to impose direct taxes. For instance, the city should be empowered to levy a sales tax equal in amount to that the federal government is about to vacate.

A Bill which sets these ideas out is a concise 11 sections. It can be found in the Library at http://www.localgovernment.ca, titled `New improved city legislation.’ It would be appropriate for any large city in Canada.
A proposal very similar to the above was presented by John Sewell to the Legislative Committee considering Bill 53. The Committee showed little interest in the proposal.
2. Funding suburban election campaigns

Are politicians in the Toronto suburban municipalities different than their colleagues in other Canadian suburbs?

A recent study of nine Toronto suburban municipalities reveals that in the last local election, two-thirds of the election contributions to local candidates came from corporations, most of which were involved with the development industry. Only 15 per cent of donations came from individuals. In some cases the amount from corporations is much higher. The Mayor of the City of Vaughan raised 93.5% of his election funding from the corporate sector; the comparable figure for Mayor of Markham was 83.2%, and for the Mayor of Brampton, 79.2%. Various other candidates for those councils also raised overwhelming amounts of funds from corporations.

The study was done by Robert MacDermid of York University, and was presented in May at the meeting of the Canadian Political science Association in Toronto. MacDermid was able to determine levels of contributions and where they come from because the Municipal Elections Act in Ontario requires that this information be revealed. MacDermid looked at the corporations involved; he found that 54% of corporate contributions came from developers and 14% from building services and contractors. MacDermid notes “figures for the contributions from the development industry are certainly underestimates since they do not include contributions from individuals who themselves are developers or work for developers; nor do they include a number of contributors who could not be identified but are likely connected to the development industry; nor do they include contributions from individuals and some firms, such as lawyers and law firms, that do significant work for the development industry.”

The conclusions for Toronto suburbs are forcibly clear: the development industry and those most closely interested in the decisions of Council are those most likely to fund successful candidates for office. It gives them a stranglehold on what suburban councils do, and that’s apparent to anyone who reviews the decisions of Toronto suburban councils. If you are a developer, it’s a good investment to make sure your candidates are well funded at election time.

Is this situation reflected in the suburbs of other large Canadian cities? Unfortunately, the data is not available on that point because other provinces do not have municipal election financing legislation which requires this information be made public.

A copy of Professor MacDermid’s paper can be found in the Library at http://www.localgovernment.ca , titled `Financing Municipal Elections in Toronto.’

3. Subscribe to this bulletin
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More information about the sponsors of the bulletin, a library of relevant and useful documents, and an archive of past Bulletins, can be found on our web site. We appreciate your comments, your feedback (to j.sewell@on.aibn.com ), and items of interest that you wish to share with us and others who visit the web site.
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