[...]
“We are not going to try to rewrite the constitution because of one bad decision at Queen’s Park,” said Vaughan, who is parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development for housing and urban affairs.
Instead, Vaughan said the Liberal government is prepared to bypass the province and deliver funds for housing and other programs directly to Toronto.
“We are going to work very closely with the citizens of Toronto and the democratic institutions that are left standing,” he said. “We will not shy away from working around provinces that are quite clearly doing damage to cities.”
That “work around” solution fits with a longstanding push from some advocates and city leaders for Toronto — as the country’s largest city and sixth largest government — to have more resources as a “significant 'order of government,” said Myer Siemiatycki, a politics professor at Ryerson University. In areas of federal jurisdiction, such as immigration, Ottawa could easily go around the province to deal directly with Toronto, a city that receives tens of thousands of newcomers every year, Siemiatycki said.
“In the Ontario context, where the provincial government seems to be putting itself in an adversarial position with the City of Toronto, it’s not surprising that the federal government wants to position itself as the friend and ally of Toronto,” he said.
[...]
