CHARTER CITY TORONTO

BENEFITS
AND
RATIONALE

BENEFITS OF A CITY CHARTER

An Empowered, Democratic City

• Key city decisions will be placed in the hands of people who live in the city, not people from across the province. Decision-makers will be directly accountable to city voters, not voters from across the province.

• The city will be free to innovate and find creative solutions to city issues, including congestion, density, affordability, livability and sustainability--without unnecessary provincial permissions or fear of a provincial veto.

• The city will be free to consider new and innovative forms of government that can bolster public participation and decisions that reflect the diversity of the city, local values and urban aspirations.

• Stable, predictable, city-controlled, multi-year revenues will provide sufficient funds to pay for necessary programs and services and ensure that growth pays for growth.

• A constitutionally protected City Charter outlining the city’s authority, governance and taxation powers, amendable only with city consent, will give the city status, stability and protection.

• Establishing clear jurisdictions and roles for both the city and the province in municipal affairs will streamline decision-making and reduce duplication, unnecessary oversight and friction between governments.

• A City Charter will clear the decks for co-operation with the province on matters of truly mutual interest.

IT'S EASIER THAN YOU THINK

City Charters Are Not
a New Idea

City Charters which give cities strong inherent powers are common in Europe and the US, with over a hundred in California alone.

These charters set out city authority, including taxation powers.

Some Canadian cities have what are commonly referred to as City Charters, including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saint John and others.

These Canadian "charters" are
provincial legislation which can be unilaterally amended or revoked
by the province.

We propose a constitutionally-protected City Charter that can only be amended with the consent of the city.

Single Province Amendments
are Common

There have been eight Section 43 amendments since the Constitution was repatriated from England in 1982.

Quebec and Newfoundland used them to establish secular school systems. New Brunswick, to establish equality between its French and English-speaking populations. Prince Edward Island, to build the Confederation Bridge.

Under Section 43 of the Constitution, such amendments need only the approval of the provincial legislature and the federal parliament in order to come into effect.

This makes them easier to achieve than amendments covering the country as a whole, which require the consent of at least seven provinces that have 50 per cent of Canada's population.

How a Charter
Protects the City

Once the basic rules of governing a city are laid out and adopted in a City Charter, constitutional protection means those rules can only be changed if the city consents.

If Toronto had a City Charter in 2018, the Ford government would not
have been able to unilaterally
reduce city council and revoke Toronto's powers of governance against the will of the city.

Nor could the province unilaterally change the rules for amending the Charter. That would require the agreement of the federal parliament.

No rules are fireproof but the ones we propose would afford solid protection for the city.

RATIONALE FOR A CITY CHARTER

There's a growing movement in Canada to unlock the potential of cities, to empower them to determine their own futures and protect them from capricious interference by senior levels of government.

Those are precisely the goals of Charter City Toronto's proposal to adopt constitutionally-protected City Charters for Toronto and other large cities.

Cities make some of the most important decisions a government can make. Decisions on land use and housing determine the built form of the city and its livability. Decisions about streets and transit determine how we interact with the city around us. Cities provide policing, parks, recreation programs, child care, and a host of other services that directly touch the daily lives of city residents..

But Toronto--and all Canadian cities--have no inherent power to make decisions in any of those areas. Any authority they exercise is loaned to them by their provincial government. In most cases, these powers
are too narrow and constrained to allow cities to fully address the issues they face.

Additionally, provinces retain for themselves the power to unilaterally overrule any city decision they don't like. So they erect procedures that force cities to get provincial permission to do mundane things like hiring crossing guards or even enforcing their own bylaws. Provinces impose decisions cities don't want, on transit, land development, housing, policing--even the way cities choose their own governments. The next provincial government that comes along can revoke those decisions and impose new ones.

This means large cities like Toronto can't freely experiment with innovative ideas or even enact common sense solutions in a nimble way. They can't know that any decision they make will stick. They can't act like a government.

"Cities are the constitutional orphans of Canada."
--Michael Mendelson
Senior Scholar, Caledon Institute of Social Policy, 2000

Similarly, cities lack access to guaranteed revenue sources sufficient to meet the responsibilities they have been given. Because their ability to raise their own money is tightly constrained, they rely too much on conditional funding from the province, which ties the city's hands on how the money is spent. They can't impose taxes that guide peoples' behaviour toward common goals. City funding often reflects provincial priorities rather than those of the city. And those priorities change whenever the provincial government does.

Such funding can also be withdrawn or reduced by the province at any time, so cities lack the financial predictability, security and control they need to plan their long-term future. The result is chronic under-funding; massive infrastructure and good repair deficits; the inability to plan and execute transit and other services; inadequate housing to meet the needs of city residents.

All of these rules for cities are baked into the Canadian constitution, created in 1867, when 80 per cent of Canadians lived on farms. Today, 80 per cent live in urban areas. But the rules remain the same. Our 21st century cities are held captive in 19th century handcuffs. Cities are so-called "creatures of the province", unable to assert self-government and unable to determine their own futures.

Changing this requires re-imagining the relationship between the city and the province. Cities need to be recognized as legitimate governments in their own right. The need to be empowered with clear and exclusive authority to act on purely municipal issues. They need control of the resources to do it. A constitutionally-protected City Charter will give them both.