The province of Toronto?

[M II A II R II K]

Hume: Getting past the punchlines about Toronto the province


Mar 20 2010

David Rider

Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/782382--toronto-s-food-vendors-set-up-for-failure

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It's not so much that Toronto should become a province, but it must be a region.

Despite what rural MPP Bill Murdoch had to say recently about liberating the rest of Ontario from the clutches of Toronto, the fact is, the city has long since spilled over its boundaries to encompass a vast swath of land stretching from Burlington to Lake Simcoe to Bowmanville. Some would argue that the real region goes even further, all the way to Niagara Falls to Georgian Bay and Kingston.

But as Alan Broadbent, financier, philanthropist and author of Urban Nation, points out, "Talking about making Toronto a province is a way to talk about other issues."

That, of course, means the powerlessness that many Canadian cities feel operating within a legislative armature that leaves them unable to control their own destinies.

The appeal of being a province isn't hard to understand; after all, until the City of Toronto Act was passed just three years ago, the city had to go to Queen's Park for permission for something as minor as a speed bump.

This is no way to run Canada's largest city and most important economic engine. No matter how despised Toronto may be, the irony of Murdoch's declaration is that without big city taxes, much of the Ontario hinterland would exist in third-world conditions.

 

[Mystic Point]

" A 2005 report by the Conference Board of Canada [PDF] noted that every year other levels of government suck eleven billion dollars more out of the city than they deliver in services (to put that number into perspective, the 2010 operating budget for Toronto is about $9.2 billion ). " - PATRICK METZGER

 

[fanoftoronto]

What you're saying is that if Toronto was a province we'll have $20 billion dollars to work with instead of $9.2 billion??
That sounds really good!!

 

[MetroMan]

Yep, we're talking about building an Eglinton and Downtown Relief Line every year (in cost).

 

[Mystic Point]

Shit. An annual city budget of $20 Billion? That rocks. We should do this. $20 Billion a year times 5 is a trillion. If we can't fix up our decaying lack luster city with funding like that, we deserve everything we get.

We need to look at this business of Toronto as a Province or City State way more seriously.

 

[waterloowarrior]

Shit. An annual city budget of $20 Billion? That rocks. We should do this. $20 Billion a year times 5 is a trillion. If we can't fix up our decaying lack luster city with funding like that, we deserve everything we get..

Hopefully you won't be working in the new Toronto Ministry of Revenue office

 

[Junction416]

Shit. An annual city budget of $20 Billion? That rocks. We should do this. $20 Billion a year times 5 is a trillion. If we can't fix up our decaying lack luster city with funding like that, we deserve everything we get.

We need to look at this business of Toronto as a Province or City State way more seriously.

Of course then we would have to pay for things the province does. Almost half would go to health and education, as well as all those other wonderful services that the Province of Ontario provides. So in then your not actually looking at that much more money for fixing lack luster infrastructure. For that we need new revenue streams like taxes and tolls.

Sorry no magic fixes for a generation of underfunding infrastructure.

 

[Dan416]

Of course then we would have to pay for things the province does. Almost half would go to health and education, as well as all those other wonderful services that the Province of Ontario provides. So in then your not actually looking at that much more money for fixing lack luster infrastructure. For that we need new revenue streams like taxes and tolls.

Sorry no magic fixes for a generation of underfunding infrastructure.

Plus Toronto would have to take on a portion of Ontario's debt.

 

[Cranky Old Fart]

Plus Toronto would have to take on a portion of Ontario's debt.

Not much of an issue.

 

[M II A II R II K]

The Province of Toronto?


Mar 23, 2010

Alan Broadbent

Read More: http://www.themarknews.com/articles/1151-the-province-of-toronto

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Excerpt:

In my book Urban Nation (2008), I wrote that Canada's cities were the orphans of Confederation, creatures of the provinces locked in constitutional arrangements that are almost a century and a half out of date. Our large urban regions are now the economic, social, and cultural engines of the country. They compete with other large urban regions around the world to create prosperity and well-being.

In Canada, these regions create the wealth that gets shared with the rest of the country through our redistribution and transfer arrangements. It is in our cities that the capital pools are assembled to take the oil, gas, and minerals out of the ground, where the factories and laboratories are built, and where much of our modern industries of information and design are based.

But our cities are not in control of their own destiny. Like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, they are very much reliant on the kindness of strangers. They have few residual powers and limited revenue tools, being overly reliant on property taxes and barred from levying income or sales taxes, the big revenue generators. They are closely controlled by provincial governments and generally ignored by Ottawa. Their role in Confederation is to send money and keep quiet.

And they are under-represented in our federal and provincial parliaments. At the federal level, the average rural riding has 75,000 residents, the average urban riding 120,000. Rural topics tend to get more floor time in Parliament – much more talk about hoof and mouth disease than HIV-Aids, about grain rail rates than urban transit.

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[ssiguy2]

If Toronto became a province or even a territory that would mean Ontario would also have to divide up with the sentiment of the North not getting any attention.
Kingston would be the unchallenged capitol of Eastern Ontario. Not sure which major city of the north...............TB, Sud or maybe SSM due to its central location. Southern Ontario would depend on how far out the Toronto boundary would be but there is still no denying that only 2 would battle it out.......Hamilton & London.

 

[kkgg7]

The idea of Toronto being its own province surfaced again last year, and it seems both Toronto and the rest of Ontario (who hates Toronto) should like and benefit from the Toronto's succession from Ontario. Think about this, the new 11th Province will still have a larger population than all four Atlantic Canada provinces combined, or Manitoba and Saskatchewan combined. It will be even bigger if the urban part of GTA not just the city goes alone (5 million?)

I think it will help Toronto with its finances and infrastructure funding, and help the new Ontario formulate policies not so Toronto-centric so that interests of secondary cities such as London, Hamilton and Ottawa can be better protected.

PEI has 140,000 residents and it is a province. Let's keep in mind that Canada's provincial borders are somewhat arbitrary. Northern Ontario has a lot in common with Manitoba than with Southern Ontario.

 

[js97]

Interesting idea, but will 'downtown' Toronto want to separate from the rest of the city also? Perhaps South-of-Bloor ridings can be their own 'Province' also?

A lot of things to consider including additional layers of bureacracyfor what is currently provincial matters (Transportation, Health Care, Education, etc etc) Provincial transfer payments, income and sales tax rates,etc

Nice idea, but logistically, it would not work.. It would also put a HUGE hole in Ontario's coffers.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

If the PC wins the next election I think I'll be supportive of the idea. Political games, particularly from the Conservative party, have held Toronto back for the past few decades. But if Toronto does become its own province I think that it would be wise to include all GTA municipalities in the province.

We also need to remember that if we do become our own province we will start having to pay for things like education, health care etc... The new province would almost certainly go into debt because of this.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Interesting idea, but will 'downtown' Toronto want to separate from the rest of the city also?

Can Toronto trade Scarborough for Vaughan? For whatever reason Scarborough can't seem to play nice with the rest of Toronto.