The province of Toronto?

[howl]

Here's an idea. Canada has roughly 35 million people and ten provinces. What if each province was required to have approximately 10% of the population and the boundaries continually shifted to accommodate this? Each province would have about 3.5 million people.

 

[JGHali]

What would be the advantage of such an unstable and unworkable arrangement?

 

[BurlOak]

Toronto/Hamilton has 3.3M. Ottawa has 0.9M. The total is only 4.2M, still leaves 9M in the rest of Ontario.
If you are taking about metro area, then it is 6.6+1.3 = 7.9M, leaving 5M in the rest of Ontario.

Even with both metro Toronto/Hamilton/Ottawa gone, Ontario will still be larger than any provinces except Quebec and Toronto. With 5M people, it will still be larger than BC and AB, and as populous as 5 smaller provinces (MB, SK, NS, NB, PEI) combined.

When I heard "Toronto/Hamilton", I assumed it was GTHA, and not a single discontinuous "province"

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Toronto CMA - 5,583,064
Hamilton CMA - 721,053
Kitchener-Waterloo CMA - 477,160
St. Catherines-Niagara CMA - 392,184
Oshawa CMA - 356,177
Guelph CMA - 141,097
Brantford CMA - 135,501

Total - 7,800,000

Rest of Ontario - 5,200,000

 

[SunriseChampion]

Here's an idea. Canada has roughly 35 million people and ten provinces. What if each province was required to have approximately 10% of the population and the boundaries continually shifted to accommodate this? Each province would have about 3.5 million people.

That would be severely unstable. Not quite Afghanistan, yeah, but too much in that direction for my liking.

 

[calimehtar]

Reviving this thread about Toronto independence.

I am not sure Toronto needs to be a separate province, but I want to propose something similar: make the GTA a special economic area. It would require probably both the province and federal government to cooperate to change the status of the city, but me you wouldn't need to alter the Constitution. Plus I don't think the GTA needs to run its own education system and health plan.

Create a new, lean elected government for the entire GTA region, and reduce local influence at this level. Maintain regional councils as well.

Reduce the amount of consultation and red tape required to do transit construction and other development.

Consolidate transit planning and operation throughout the GTA region and reduce political influence on the planning process.

Consolidate urban planning throughout the GTA and reduce political influence in approving development.

Allow the city total leeway to raise money through HST, income tax, tolls etc.

 

[Johnny Au]

I can see Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, and Montreal being province-level cities. Ottawa-Gatineau can be a separate National Capital Region akin to that of the District of Columbia or the Australian Capital Territory.

The needs of Toronto are very different from that of Kenora District.

 

[rbt]

This discussion is kinda silly.

Toronto already is a province, it just happens to go by the name of Ontario.

Last 4 Premiers:
Etobicoke North <- 416
Don Valley West <- 416
Ottawa South <- Not GTA but very urban minded
Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey <- GTA

Party Leaders for the last election:
Etobicoke North <- 416
Don Valley West <- 416
Hamilton West: <- Effectively GTA (splitting Hamilton into a separate tax/legal bucket would hurt)

Making Toronto a province changes very little as the existing leadership we deal with every day goes with it.

Even Harper was elected primarily as a result of GTA voting and put a huge amount of time/effort into GTA issues; being the focus of attention isn't always pleasant.


"Province of Toronto" supporters really want gerrymandering for a specific party because even PC party policy has been GTA oriented for decades. Rural Ontario lost it's power a very long time ago.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

^ I disagree.

We will not have a Province of Toronto until the taxes reaped from Torontonians are returned as investments in Toronto.

The Scarborough Subway could be built and plated in gold if we kept our money within the city.

 

[TrickyRicky]

Canadian cultural is practically defined by equity over efficiency so I don't see an argument for this change happening if the argument is unshackling Toronto to enhance development or economic potential.

I do however suspect that there is scale effect to human geo-political groupings. Basically my idea is that human societies have a kind of population sweet spot below which they lack the scale to work well, above which they become unwieldly and inefficient. I still think Ontario is within the sweet spot zone although as it grows the argument for breaking it up might grow stronger.

Ontario and Toronto are likely too large within Confederation from a National perspective; however, growth in Western Canada has mitigated the problem for now. Without out-performing Western growth you could have trended to the point where Ontario would be pushing 50% of the population which is way too much. I would support breaking it up if that was a factor.

 

[JGHali]

It may yet get there. Looking at the US, California has no more than 1/10th to 1/9th the US population (i.e. more than all of Canada), but that's a far different proportion.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Ontario and Toronto are likely too large within Confederation from a National perspective; however, growth in Western Canada has mitigated the problem for now. Without out-performing Western growth you could have trended to the point where Ontario would be pushing 50% of the population which is way too much. I would support breaking it up if that was a factor.

Given pop and job growth projections, we are going to be reaching a point in time where Hamilton, the Niagara Region, and Kitchener-Waterloo are all sizeable population centres in their own right within the national context. To say nothing of Mississauga and York Region.

The Greater Golden Horseshoe needs to reconciled with. The greater we delay, the less competitive we become in the global economy and the more likely we are to end up killing our golden goose. There is a reason why many countries have designated their Toronto equivalents with special administrative statuses.

 

[BurlOak]

I can see Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, and Montreal being province-level cities. Ottawa-Gatineau can be a separate National Capital Region akin to that of the District of Columbia or the Australian Capital Territory.

The needs of Toronto are very different from that of Kenora District.

If the boundaries are based on mentality of the citizens, then basically it would be Toronto becoming it's own province, the rest of Southern Ontario another province, and Northern Ontario being the third Province.

 

[calimehtar]

And actually there's a network effect where the bigger a place is the more influential it is and the greater its economic potential. Obviously I think the GTA/Golden horseshoe region deserves special status. I feel it needs to be protected as much from nimbyism as from the meddling of the province.

As an example I think the left vs rightwing subways vs LRTs debate is nuts. Not the debate the happens in forums like this, the debate between the Fords and Millers of city politics. Subway supporters tend to focus on the distant suburbs and have no sense of the urgency of developing the downtown lines. Where I think the LRT advocates often seen hopelessly modest in their ambitions.

At the provincial level, both conservative and liberals are guilty of sabotaging Toronto's efforts to giveng itself.

An organized, funded, region wide growth plan is needed, and a coherent government with a clear mandate to do it . The province should and does focus on provincial issues. And the existing municipalities don't have the needs of the region in mind.

 

[lenaitch]

If the boundaries are based on mentality of the citizens, then basically it would be Toronto becoming it's own province, the rest of Southern Ontario another province, and Northern Ontario being the third Province.

Interesting statement. I wonder if the hierarchy would be Toronto at the top and Northern Ontario at the bottom or the other way 'round. Either way, it seems, the Rest of Southern Ontario is in the middle of the mentality scale.

Always an interesting concept for discussion. It seems that the boundaries of any such theoretical new province is pretty elastic, depending on the perspective of the poster (nobody seems to have discussed whether The Suburbs should be in or out, because it seems that some city core folks figure that their counterparts in Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke are of a different world).

There is probably no doubt that Toronto/GTA/GTHA/GGHA needs a new relationship with the Rest of Ontario, perhaps some sort of city charter or something similar. But a new province or even something that looks-like-a-province-but-not-called-a-province is likely a non-starter without a Constitutional amendment, and we all know how much luck we have had with those.

The division of powers between the provinces and the federal governments to do stuff and the authority to raise money to do them is laid out in constitutional law. How much of what is ascribed to the provinces, either expressed or implied, and how much could be further devolved to a municipality would keep legal nerds up for many nights. The argument of any division of Ontario's debt and assets is an interesting one.

Some suggest that this new province could perhaps assume some roles and leave others with the remaining Ontario, such as health care or education. That type of cherry picking would, in those areas, seem to leave the new Province of Megalopolis still in the 'child of the province' situation that it wants out of, with little or no policy or financial control over those areas since they would be little more than a contracted client. I'm reminded of the Brexit negotiations, where the UK seems to want to be out of the club yet retain many of the benefits of being in, while the other side is taking the position that out is out.