Lastman proposes influential teams to push city's case 

By Paul Moloney  Toronto Star City Hall Bureau 

Mayor Mel Lastman has another idea for getting Ottawa and Queen's Park to pay attention. 

City council deferred action yesterday on whether to place a separation question on next November's ballot, pending more study. 

But Lastman offered an alternative suggestion: Set up two teams of influential citizens to lobby the federal and provincial governments for cash to redevelop the waterfront and solve city budget problems. 

Pleas for financial help have fallen on deaf ears, Lastman said, and it's time to try a new approach. 

Well-connected citizens, he said, could press the city's case with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Premier Mike Harris. 

``This is something that I think we've got to go to, because we cannot do it ourselves. They won't listen. They can ignore us,'' Lastman told council. 

Ongoing arguments with Harris over Toronto's complaint that the province has saddled city taxpayers with an annual $251.7 million in extra costs are becoming unproductive, he said. 

``We can keep yelling back and forth, back and forth - the downloading is $251.7 million, and he says it's nothing. I would want a powerful group on our side. They would fight for what's right.'' 

Lastman said he would personally name members of the ``Luv-Toronto teams'' - one to lobby Ottawa and the other to focus on Queen's Park. 

The mayor said he failed in a bid for federal money for refugee shelter and health care. 

A high-powered citizens group might have more success on that issue and in winning money for waterfront redevelopment and other infrastructure projects, he suggested. 

``The federal government has not been contributing,'' he said. ``They've not been doing the same as every other country in the world, making money available to municipalities.'' 

Lastman said he's thinking of people ``who can pick up the phone and say, `Look, Mr. Prime Minister, we want to meet with you tomorrow, and make time.' And he will make time.'' 

He said a separation referendum would only be ignored by Queen's Park. 

But referendum advocate Michael Walker (North Toronto) argued that ``It is time for us to create the debate. . . . We need to expose the plights of cities to the plundering actions of a provincial government that is out of control.''

 Are city leaders nuts? No, just fed up

THEY ARE NOT wild and crazy - Torontonians so disgruntled with the senior levels of government they would consider separating from the province of Ontario.

They are not raging radicals - people like former mayors David Crombie and Barbara Hall, who say Toronto needs a new funding partnership that recognizes its real needs. 

Mayor Mel Lastman is not even serious when he muses about the Province of Toronto or city-state status. 

They are just fed up. And they have good reason to be. Consider that: 

 Greater Toronto residents pay out $3.8 billion more in taxes than they received from the federal and provincial governments. 

 The Mike Harris government dismissed advice from several groups, experts and citizens and downloaded millions of dollars on Toronto right after amalgamation. Toronto puts the amount at $251.7 million a year. The Premier's office claimed yesterday the city is actually $27.5 million ahead. 

 Toronto has huge needs for housing and transit that can't be funded directly by the federal government. Any money must flow through Queen's Park. But when savings flowed from lower mortgage payments recently, Ontario scooped the money. 

 Queen's Park unloaded all the costs for public transit on Toronto, but refused to give the city any new revenue sources to fund it. 

 Toronto council wants to impose a hotel tax and use the money to fund tourism, but can't do it without provincial legislation. Consequently, tourism falters. 

 In addition, the city has no constitutional protection against arbitrary action from the province. Queen's Park could decide tomorrow to abolish city council and the city would have no legal recourse. An example of this was the recent decision to reduce the size of city council. 

The concerns cross partisan political lines. It matters not who is the government at Queen's Park or in Ottawa, the response is the same. 

``We are treated like little bugs,'' says Councillor Gloria Lindsay-Luby. ``They regularly step on us.'' 

The federal government dumps costs on to the province, and the province does the same to municipalities. The cities, with no legal status, accept the burden and are forced to squeeze services or jack up property taxes. 

Toronto, as a magnet for the country's poor, homeless and social outcasts, suffers the most. But other cities also feel the sting of neglect from senior levels of government. 

Yesterday, Councillor Michael Walker, who has an uncanny ability to up the ante in any debate, proposed that Toronto city council approve a referendum asking its citizens if they want to secede from Ontario. The motion was deferred, pending more studies, but it sure got juices flowing at Queen's Park and city hall. 

``The motion is brilliant and stupid at the same time,'' said Councillor Brian Ashton. 

It's brilliant because it forced Harris to jump into the downloading debate and gave Lastman a chance to state Toronto's grievances once again. 

But the secession debate also raised eyebrows, with people asking: ``What's with these guys? Are they stupid? After all, everyone knows the city wouldn't be allowed a divorce.'' 

This is more than a silly catfight or a political spat between two egotistical political leaders battling for the minds of Toronto taxpayers. 

That's exactly how the provincial government wants it viewed, of course. Harris would have us believe that Toronto's grievances are frivolous, the mere delusions of a mad and mouthy mayor. 

But Toronto's grouses are significant, lengthy and long-standing. 

Has Harris ever heard of Puppets on a Shoestring, a report from 25 years ago that warned that municipalities lacked adequate funding tools? The Metro government report, Crumbling Financial Partnership, that had the same message? 

Rethinking the Fundamentals, a 1996 GTA report based on 1992 data, put the net outflow of tax dollars from Greater Toronto at $3.78 billion, or $2,400 per household.

Yesterday, as the Association of Municipalities bristled at the claims in the Premier's letter, Lastman said he would welcome an independent auditor to see who is telling the truth, and former mayor Crombie said he would be willing to assemble a team of experts to see who is right. 

Setting aside that disagreement, one thing is irrefutable. 

The province has wrongly dumped the costs of social services, including all of housing, on property taxpayers. The action runs counter to every expert's advice it received and threatens to destabilize cities when the economy turns sour. 

And while it might be philosophically sound to let municipalities like Toronto pay for all of their transit costs, funding tools other than property taxes are needed. 

Montreal gets $43 million annually from car registration and $47 million in gas tax revenues. British Columbia shares its retail sales tax with municipalities and gives Greater Vancouver $79 million a year in gas tax revenues. 

Toronto, meanwhile, pays $200 million to TTC and GO Transit, plus $230 million a year for equipment and new service - with no help from Ontario. 

When Toronto looks at other jurisdictions, it sees the senior governments in close funding alliances to address urban problems. But, at home, there is rampant neglect. 

Little wonder normally reasonable citizens are contemplating a divorce

Download debate heats up 

Lastman puts cost to city at $251.7 million; Harris puts it at zero 

By Bruce DeMara and Rick Brennan  Toronto Star Staff Reporters 

A day after Premier Mike Harris fired off an angry letter to the City of Toronto, Mayor Mel Lastman said an auditor will be hired to prove provincial downloading is costing the city $251.7 million annually. 

``I know what I'm talking about, and my figures are right to the penny,'' Lastman said an interview yesterday. 

``Definitely, he (Harris) is not getting the right information. I think he's being misled by being given the wrong figures,'' Lastman said. 

``We're going to get an auditor and we're going to get all the figures audited and let him (Harris) fight with the auditor - and let him say the world is wrong and he's right.'' 

Lastman said finance department figures show the rearrangement of services that were covered by the city and the province before amalgamation costs the city $251.7 million. 

Big-ticket items include provincially owned social housing and 50 per cent of GO Transit funding. 

In addition, the federal government has forced the city to pay about $35 million annually of the cost of settling refugees, including health services such as tuberculosis prevention. That brings the total to almost $300 million a year, Lastman said. 

In a letter to Lastman earlier this week, Harris scolded the mayor for complaining about the lack of provincial funding for public transit and continued complaints about the burden the province has placed on the city. 

``I have often heard you use the term downloading, a term that is neither accurate nor fair,'' Harris wrote. 

Yesterday, Harris said the city should be thanking the province instead of complaining. 

``Toronto was dying when we took office (in 1995); it's now booming, it's now leading Canada and indeed the province,'' Harris said yesterday. 

``Some pre-electioneering of some politicians in Toronto seem to be indicating it was hard done by under our government, and the facts are, Toronto is doing very well,'' he said. 

He said no independent audit is going to prove otherwise. 

Harris also wrote that municipalities, through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, asked the province to give them total funding responsibility for public transit.

But Pat Moyle, the group's executive director, stated flatly to city council that Harris was wrong. Moyle said president Michael Power was ``extremely disappointed and very distressed'' by the letter. 

In a response letter yesterday, Lastman said he supports ``a new partnership with our great province and our great country to alleviate some of the horrendous funding pressures on Canada's largest city.'' 

While stating he doesn't back secession, Lastman said he doesn't want the city to stay a ``municipal marionette.'' 

He said he would support putting the concept of a city state as a referendum question on the November ballot. 

After debating the issue of a referendum question on secession or a city state yesterday, councillors deferred the debate for a future meeting. 

But Harris made it clear the province would not permit such a question. 

`No, I'm not going to have a referendum on busting up Canada.''