My friend John Michael McGrath already wrote the obligatory column about Doug Ford’s reported intention to abandon the previously announced dissolution of Peel Region. That idea had long been a favourite cause of the late Hazel McCallion, and Ford apparently promised her on her deathbed that he would see it through. The problem, as TVO Today readers are well aware, is that while the dissolution of Peel would be of direct benefit to the Mississauga taxpayers, it would come at an obvious cost to those other residents of the region whose local services have been, until now, subsidized by the compulsory generosity of Mississaugans. This is a pretty simple zero-sum game here. If we eliminate the top-up being paid by Mississauga, everyone being topped up will have to make up the difference locally by doing more in taxes and/or fees.
John noted that the government really had no excuse for being surprised by this, both because of the simplicity of this particular equation and because the math had already been done in previous studies and reports.
Indeed. They have no excuse. They never do. That never seems to matter, though, does it?
John covers the rest of the major Peel problems with his usual attention to detail. He notes the obvious political awkwardness here: there’s Ford’s affection for and reported promise to McCallion, and then there’s the fact that the dissolution of Peel Region is already a matter of law. The act passed months ago. So this can’t simply be another run-of-the-mill Ford flip-flop. He can’t just aww-shucks his way through yet another cringey press conference. If he indeed decides to backtrack here, he’ll have to repeal an act that has already been passed.
Very efficient use of everyone’s time and money, that. So much conservatism in this Progressive Conservative government, am I right?
I don’t think I have the emotional strength to write another column noting Ford’s long history of spine-twisting backflips and reversals, because, really, what’s the point? And John basically covered all the important stuff about Peel Region’s possible last-minute reprieve. To the extent that I have the ability or fortitude to add anything else, it’s simply that the government’s announcement of its plans regarding Peel had set off a flurry of other conversations all over the Greater Toronto area. Should York Region also be dismantled? What about Durham? As soon as the mayors of some of the larger municipalities in those regions — those suckers! — began to believe that Ford was amenable to making Mississauga’s wish come true, we began to hear from others about what they’d like to see.
Because of course we did.
I wrote about this at some length a few months ago. Frank Scarpitti, the mayor of Markham, had been quick to suggest that York Region should also be dissolved. Other politicians in York immediately objected to the plan, and the premier himself seemed cool to it. The government wouldn’t go any further than saying it would continue to look into how Ontario municipalities are organized. As I noted in June, this completely predictable response was somehow not predicted by Ford and his government, the same government that somehow missed the cost implications of something it’d already passed a law compelling itself to do. They’re not really details people, these Ford folks.
Hearing about the expected reversal of the Peel Region dissolution brought that column back to the front of my mind. The stuff about York Region, specifically, but also about what Ford had said in response: that the province would continue to review how Ontario’s municipalities were organized, a process that was already underway.
Should we just assume all those proposals are dead in the water? Is there any point continuing the review work — or is it now just another government effort to produce more doomed-to-instant-obscurity reports?
As I noted in June, there actually probably is some kind of a case for rejigging York Region, where I grew up. The southern three cities — Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and Markham — make up the overwhelming majority of the population of the entire region, which is otherwise largely sparsely populated. Merging the three cities into one new entity would immediately create one of Canada’s largest cities, with a population approaching a million people, along Toronto’s northern border. If Newmarket and Aurora, which make up the bulk of York Region’s remaining population, also figured out some new arrangement, we would quickly find that what was left of York Region was actually quite rural.
As I noted in June, I’m not making any kind of proposal here. I moved out years ago, and beyond fond memories and a sliver of residual political interest, don’t really have much invested in the future of York Region, under any kind of structure. That’s up for the locals to decide for themselves — or to have decided for them by a premier who will probably abruptly change his mind a few months later. But I at least saw a theoretical case for revising York Region, if we were, indeed, heading down the path of substantially revising how our large municipalities were organized in this province.
So, like ... are we? Is that still a thing? Is it worth talking about? Or is it just a dead idea because someone in the government finally got around to wondering if anyone had actually bothered crunching the numbers already?
We have bigger issues, and more important problems, in this province. All this stuff will probably end up being some kind of trivia question among the truest nerds of all before too long. But as a broader view into how this government governs, it’s not encouraging. We spent months talking about it, passed legislation, had a series of public conversations, and even had a bunch of review processes initiated all so that, as the year draws near to a close, Ford can reportedly call the whole thing off because he’s only now bothered asking the question he should have started with. It’s not great, guys. Maybe the reason we have these bigger problems is because of all the time and energy we waste creating new ones like this for ourselves.
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