Former Toronto mayor David Miller has been asked by Marit Stiles, the leader of the provincial New Democratic Party, to do a consultation and provide advice on empowering cities.

We are all aware of how little control cities have over their own decisions. Premier Ford has treated Toronto as his plaything, most recently deciding that he will rip out city bike lanes. He has taken away city powers over basic city laws regarding construction at what was once Ontario Place, granted strong mayor powers to upset municipal decision making and arbitrarily chopped the number of city councillors in half.

Previous provincial leaders have shown the same contempt. Mike Harris forcibly amalgamated the six municipalities in Metro Toronto into one single-tier government, an idea opposed by 76 per cent of Toronto voters. He then downloaded to the city transit costs, affordable housing costs and so forth. 

Toronto and other cities in Canada need protection from provincial governments. But the 1867 constitution says municipalities are under the control of provinces, and courts have interpreted that to mean that municipalities are creatures of the province. That may have made sense when 20 per cent of residents lived in cities and 80 per cent lived in rural areas, but today the situation is entirely reversed. Cities are now the economic engines of the country.

What should former mayor David Miller propose? Here’s one thought.

First, it makes no sense to ask the province to legislate more powers to cities. Cities must be given powers that cannot be unilaterally revoked. And that requires a constitutional amendment to the 1967 British North America Act, but a complicated and lengthy process of engaging all provinces and Indigenous Nations to debate the proposal is not needed. Section 43 of the Constitution Act allows a province to make a ‘single province amendment’ requiring simple majority approval by the House of Commons and the Senate. It has been used by provinces on half a dozen or more occasions.

To be without contention, an amendment should ask for proposals that do not cost the province any money, while giving municipalities unimpeachable powers and more access to revenue. The first ask should entrench the status quo: no financial transfers by the provincial government to municipal governments shall be reduced without mutual agreement.

The second ask should be about municipal powers: the province shall not download any responsibilities to municipalities, nor shall it remove any municipal powers or authorities without mutual agreement. Municipalities would like more powers, but for a start, just guarantee those powers now in place. In future years these provisions can be changed to give municipalities more power.

Cities need more revenues for transit, affordable housing and arts and culture. The province should give them a chance to raise that money through taxes, particularly the GST. That provision should probably only apply to larger municipal governments, say with a population of 50,000 or more. Cities can then make the decision whether they want to proceed. This will start to wind down intergovernmental transfers that blur responsibilities.  

These provisions do not add any extra expenses to the province, and they give municipalities security and much extra revenue if they decide to take advantage of the new GST provisions. 

It would be a start, and something the province, at least if the NDP were in power, might be willing to agree to.