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Description:
Local Self-Government Bulletin No. 5, March 2000
The purpose of this bulletin service 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 web site is http://www.localselfgovt.org

This newsletter prints out to three pages, and includes the following articles:

1. First, the bad news
2. A draft Charter for Toronto
3. Merger Mania, the book


1. First, the bad news.

High hopes for improved local government status were dashed on March 22 when the Supreme Court of Canada indicated it was not interested in hearing arguments on the reasonable autonomy of local institutions.
The case had been brought by the Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta, and others, arguing that 1994 legislation passed by the Ralph Klein government to remove taxing and decision-making powers from local school boards is contrary to constitutional law and convention in Canada as it relates to local institutions. This case was described in Bulletin One, and the factums filed with the Supreme Court are found in the library on this web site.
The court indicated to lawyers it would hear arguments about the equality of public and separate school boards, but not on the larger question of whether local institutions have a reasonable degree of autonomy rather than being creatures of provincial governments.
Dale Gibson, one of the lawyers for the School Boards’ Association, says he expects written reasons to be released by the Court in the early Fall. It is unclear whether the court will include in its decision comments on the autonomy issue.
So at this time the courts have no intention of providing protection to municipal institutions, which throughout the country are under attack. It’s not encouraging news.
2. A draft charter for Toronto.

A group of people in Toronto, under the leadership of Alan Broadbent, have been meeting for the past few months to create a Charter for Toronto that would see a broad range of powers and taxing authorities devolved to the Toronto region. A Declaration has now been published, and meetings are being arranged in April to seek endorsements for it. These documents can be found in the web site’s Library, at http://www.localselfgovt.org . The Charter section itself, which is proposed for approval, reads as follows:
The Toronto Charter
Article One
That the Toronto Region form an order of government that is a full partner of the Federal and
Provincial Governments of Canada, entitled to participate in discussions of an inter-governmental nature and in Canada’s system of inter-regional transfer payments.
Article Two
That the Toronto Region, and its municipalities, be empowered to govern and exercise
responsibility over a broad range of issues, including:
child and family services; cultural institutions; economic development and marketing;
education; environmental protection; health care; housing; immigrant and refugee settlement;
land-use planning; law enforcement and other emergency services; recreation; revenue
generation, taxation and assessment; transportation; sewage treatment; social assistance;
waste and natural resource management; and water supply and quality management,
with the exception of those matters as are mutually agreed upon with other levels of
government that are best assigned to another level.
Article Three
That the Toronto Region have the fiscal authority to raise revenues and allocate expenditures with respect to those responsibilities outlined in Article Two.
Article Four
That the Toronto Region be governed by accessible, democratic governments, created by
their citizens and accountable to them for the exercise of the governments’ full duties
and responsibilities.
Article Five
That the Toronto Region continue to fulfill its obligation to share its wealth, innovation,
and other assets with the rest of Canada, through appropriate mechanisms developed
in concert with other levels of government.
3. Merger Mania, the book

Andrew Sanction, a political science professor at the University of Western Ontario, is the author of ‘Mergia Mania, the assault on local government’, published by Price-Patterson Limited, in Montreal. The book was commissioned by the City of Westmount which has been concerned about changing municipal boundaries in the Montreal area.
The book deals with municipal amalgamations in the United States until the 1950s, the era of big governments during the 1960’s and 70’s in Britain, Canada and Europe, amalgamations in the 1990’s in New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain, Nova Scotia and Ontario, and the forced amalgamations of Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton and Sudbury. The conclusion is entitled “What problems in Montreal are municipal amalgamations supposed to solve?”
The book is critical of recent amalgamations, not because of citizen opposition (Sancton doesn’t deal with citizen opposition to the megacity in Toronto or the referendum where 76% of voters said NO, or the citizen-based referendums in Hamilton Wentworth which overwhelmingly opposed amalgamation) but because the mergers don’t deliver what they promised – greater efficiencies and lower costs.
The publisher can be reached at ppltdmp@aol.com .
4. Subscribe to the bulletin

The bulletin is been sent to about 900 individuals involved directly and indirectly in local government in Canada. We invite you to subscribe by going to the ‘Bulletin’ tab of the web site http://www.localselfgovt.org and following the instructions.
More information about the sponsors of the bulletin, members of the advisory committee, and our discussion space, can be found on our web site. We appreciate your comments, your feedback, and items of interest that you wish to share with us and others who visit the web site.