Toronto Mayor David Miller, along with 21 others mayors from Big City Mayors Caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, speaks to the media.Fernando Morales/The Globe and Mail
It's time for a clearer picture of who does what for cities, a group of Canada's big-city mayors said Thursday.
More than 40 per cent of Canadians live in the country's largest 22 cities, and overlap and ambiguity among the federal, provincial and municipal governments over who pays for what is harmful to urbanites, 15 mayors from Canada's largest cities said at a Big City Mayors Caucus press conference. The group, which met before the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Toronto, asked for a long-term commitment from Ottawa for municipalities, and for a more clearly-defined role for cities.
"Right now, we have an ad hocery - a little bit of this, and a little bit of that," Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion said. "We need an agreement right now to determine the responsibilities of the three levels of government and how they will be financed." Ms. McCallion gave the example of welfare in Ontario, where she said all three levels of government have responsibilities, creating confusion. "It's what you call a piecemeal approach to a major issue," she said.
The mayors called on the federal government to enter into a long-term partnership with cities before the two-year Economic Action Plan, which poured stimulus spending into municipalities, ends next year. The mayors are concerned about addressing challenges of affordable housing, public transit and job creation without federal help.
What the partnership would look like hasn't yet been determined, Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson said after the conference, although several mayors made reference to the 8 per cent tax share that cities currently receive, indicating that they believe it should be higher.
"We have to make sure the new relationship is not there for the next 10 months or the next year, but a long-term, fundamental shift in the relationship," Kitchener mayor and BCMC chair Carl Zehr said.
Harvey Schwartz, a retired economics professor at York University, said that cities should look inwards to solve their own problems. "In the case of the City of Toronto, they have to show more discipline in what they're spending. Every year, they go through the process of putting a budget together, and every year they overspend."
Although Mr. Schwartz said he believes the BCMC approach won't hurt, he's not optimistic about their chances of success with Ottawa. "Right now, they've got their own problems," he said.
Editor's Note: This online article has been changed to include a clarification to some information that was published in the original online version.